January was busy, and then it wasn’t. It was more mellow. Or so.
With great sorrow the Portland Raccoons informed the press on January 9 that owner Carlos Valdés had been found dead at the swimming pool at his home in Mexico, having passed away from a heart attack. His oldest son Carlos jr. inherited the most significant portions of his estate, including that puny baseball team his father had tampered with for the last 20 or so years.
Good news: Little Carlos doesn’t give much of a damn about the Raccoons, instead focusing on … certain business … in Mexico. Nobody exactly knows what said business is all about, but *I* heard it was about some kind of waste management and removal.
Well. We can pretty much do whatever we please without drawing anger. Bad news: Little Carlos always had arguments with his farther about the buckets full of money he was wasting with the Raccoons. We will probably not get a bigger budget anytime soon…
This is the third time the Raccoons’ ownership changes hands and the first time they weren’t sold for cheaper than cheap.
January 1 – Ex-IND LF/RF Jim Thompson (.256, 70 HR, 440 RBI) signs a contract with the Miners. The 33-year old will earn $3.22M over 4 years.
January 2 – Journeyman closer Javier Navarro (38-46, 237 SV, 2.53 ERA) signs a deal with the Scorpions and will make $1.22M in his age 30 season.
January 5 – The Titans add ex-CHA SP Sergio Gonzalez (59-79, 4.32 ERA) for 3-yr, $2.27M.
January 20 – Ex-BOS SP Henry Selph (70-46, 3.83 ERA) joins the Bayhawks for 4-yr, $5.3M.
January 30 – The Bayhawks also add 30-yr old INF Jose Martinez (.250, 17 HR, 232 RBI), who last played for the Indians, for 1-yr, $540k.
February 1 – The Raccoons announce the addition of 32-yr old MR Juan Martinez (44-23, 26 SV, 2.94 ERA) for 1-yr, $230k. Martinez, who pitched for the Raccoons from 1987 to 1996 already, and spent 1997 on the Loggers’ staff, did not pitch in 1998.
February 10 – The Loggers add 28-yr old CL John Hatt, who had 44 saves for the Crusaders last year. For career numbers of 27-22, 61 SV, and a 3.55 ERA he is going to make $1.3M this year.
February 13 – Former CIN 1B Jose Nava (.340, 37 HR, 340 RBI) at age 26 signs a 7-yr, $7.37M deal with the Miners.
February 13 – 31-yr old ex-SFB SS/3B Mike Powys (.253, 105 HR, 682 RBI) signs with the Titans for 1-yr, $386k.
Martinez, the fat chick, is back! He looks huge. With our Mexican owner dead, it was nice to get at least the other Mexican mainstay back. (To be fair, Donis is Mexican, too, and also obese, but I don’t even know that guy…) Yeah, Martinez.
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Excuse me, getting sentimental here…
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What else? Last time I didn’t go much into the draft picks we received for the losses of Werner Turner (to Capitals) and Manuel Movonda (to Wolves). The Capitals handed us their first round pick, which comes at #16 in the 1999 draft, while we got the fifth pick in the second round from the Wolves. However, that’s not a Wolves pick, the Wolves will pick 10th in each round. How come? The Wolves received that pick as compensation when the Falcons (who had the fifth picks in each round) signed SP Terry Murphy. When the Wolves then added Movonda, that pick was their highest that was not protected and we got it. By the way, we will pick 11th in every round, so we have #11, #16, and currently #31, #39 (supplemental round), as well as #45 and #51. That would be insanely sweet (although you can expect the supplemental round to get inflated further down the road, lots of free agents still unsigned), and I would readily give up that (now) #45 pick for a big free agent – if only we could pay one.
Odd note: David Brewer signed a 6-yr, $9M contract with the Raccoons prior to the 1995 season. He was the ABL’s top earner for four years, but has been dethroned this year by Hjalmar Flygt, who will make $1.7M this season, topping Brewer’s $1.6M. We still wait, however, for a contract topping $10M in the ABL.
Sad note: ex-Coon Matt Higgins retired this winter at age 34. He was not signed all of 1998, and wasn’t too eager to hold out any longer. Higgins was a 9-year Coon and spent ’97 with the Rebels. He was never much of a batter (.662 career OPS anyone?), but a defensive beast and speed threat (79% SB success rate) and mostly manned second base for us for a number of years in the early 90s. Higgins was a piece of the firesale Raccoons when that awful 1988 team was broken up. In another way this symbolizes that that dynasty is long gone. As are the firesale kids. The only guy still with us that came in back then is Neil Reece. A few others (Ben O’Morrissey, Jackie Lagarde, Qi-zhen Geng) are still kicking elsewhere.
Btw, here’s the 1988 firesale overview again, quoted from an earlier post (1994-95 offseason) I just spent 20 minutes digging out by filtering this thread for posts containing “Cunningham” and “Reece”. There were plenty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Westheim
I don’t want to trade Ben O’Morrissey. He’s one of those Firesale Kids! If you have forgotten that season, or if you are new to this dynasty and haven’t caught up with the past (which I could understand, walls of text everywhere), in 1988 the Raccoons had a team that was supposed to get us back to the postseason for the first time in five years after missing out by a game in ’87. We were below .500 early on, and never got over the hump. The team was disassembled in July and then a bit more in the offseason. Back then I brought in tons of youngsters, some of which didn’t pan out (mostly on the pitching side), but the others fill almost half our current lineup. In order these trades were made:
With Capitals: SP Roberto Gonzalez (for INF Jose Sanchez), who didn’t work out and is already retired
With Stars: INF Matt Higgins (for MR Richard Cunningham)
With Buffaloes: CF/LF Neil Reece (for MR David Jones and minor leaguers), also getting OF Jose Pacheco for budget reasons, and then:
With Stars: SP Toru Fujita (for OF Jose Pacheco), who was later traded on to the Buffaloes and is now with the Stars again as a reliever!
With Cyclones: MR Ken Burnett and 1B/3B Ben O’Morrissey (for MR Ed King and 2B Dani Perez)
With Condors: MR Jackie Lagarde and SP/MR Qi-zhen Geng (for OF Yoshinobu Ishizaki), with Geng of course being one of three pieces sent over to Las Vegas in the Royce Green deal!
With Miners: INF Elmer Hawley and 1B Orlando Alvarado (for INF Juan Ramirez); Alvarado never clicked, and Hawley was a fringe infielder
With Pacifics: OF Jeff Martin (for SP Alejandro Venegas and MR Emerson MacDonald), and while Martin never came together here, he just won a ring with Oklahoma…
There were more trades that didn’t follow the veteran for prospects pattern, and we let Armando Sanchez, a sterling outfielder walk for the draft pick compensation. The Miners picked him up, and whom did we get with that supplemental round pick in 1989, 33rd pick overall?
MR (CL?) Gabriel De La Rosa
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Money remains unavailable. We currently have about $200k available. I could probably free up another $400k with slight cuts to scouting and development (we are a total of about $550k over the league averages in these departments). But $600k won’t buy a prime slugger, and there aren’t that many of those around anymore. Also, most are defensive liabilities. The position on the roster up for debate is Chris Parker’s. Newton was more horrible, but he’s a great defensive backup for all three positions. Parker would have to go. His replacement would have to bat left-handed, be able to play right field competently, and when I have Vince Guerra compile a list of available free agents that fit the mold I am looking for (let’s say 12 contact, 10 power, 10 defense, and ages 28-33), the number of results is: 2
These two are 33-year olds ex-SAL Will Jackson (demanding a million) and ex-VAN Roland Moore, who demands less than a million, but he’s an ex-Canadien. Ugh.
Players under contract that were highly interesting included CIN Dan Morris, who was on a 1-year contract with team-friendly conditions, but the Cyclones were not going to trade his. Why, they must have reasons!