[Westheim]

Ever seen a, not necessarily financially, but rather spiritually, mentally, broken man? Late October of 2006, in Portland, a certain office at a certain ballpark would give you a pretty good visual description. Stuck with a team that couldn’t generate any offense, and would have four-fifths inept starting pitching next season, one certain GM had received a notice from the hideous team owner with next season’s budget, with an increase in available money that would best be described as spare change, and was laid down on the heavy brown sofa, tightly embracing Honeypaws and a box of donuts, moaning loudly in semi-regular intervals, while Chad, the mindless mascot man, was making the rounds, bobbling 800-some leftover Daniel Hall Appreciation & Bobblehead Day bobbleheads that were strewn all over all tables, cupboards, and the floor.

A mildly disturbing scene, to say the least.

The Mexican Prick in his enormous grace had decided to leave the Raccoons with $18.8M for their 31st ABL season, which was $400k more than in 2006, but was still the smallest budget in the league. The only other team with less than $20M were the Rebels. The average budget in the league is $25.2M, the median is $24.2M.

A change from years prior will be that the Raccoons CAN play on the free agent market this year thanks to some of the Avatars of Losing leaving the team, freeing up almost $3M. Only $250k of that was going into guaranteed salary increases (80% of that to Brownie, the rest to Blunt – err, Sharp). We won’t have all of the money available, however, firstly to hire a largely new coaching staff with many departures, the retirement of bench coach Dave Dukes, and at least one notable case of our major league hitting coach released and being fed to wild beavers upriver on the Columbia, and secondly that brings us swiftly to the salary arbitration overview, which is a quick affair this year:

Arbitration eligible players (with 2006 numbers, service time, 2006 salary, 2007 estimate):
SP Felipe Garcia (3-4, 5.47 ERA) – 3.119 - $240k - $283.5k
C Craig Bowen (.252, 10 HR, 30 RBI) – 4.052 - $258k - $420k
C Antonio Ramirez (.249, 7 HR, 44 RBI) – 5.032 - $540k - $600k
INF Victor Flores (.283, 6 HR, 53 RBI) – 5.075 - $352k - $390k
OF Edgardo Fernandez (.242, 4 HR, 37 RBI) – 4.166 - $360k - $400k

Free agency eligible players (with 2006 numbers, 2006 salary, compensation):
SP Ralph Ford (15-11, 3.44 ERA) - $1.1M – type-A
LF/RF Clyde Brady (.279, 12 HR, 75 RBI) - $1.2M – type-B
LF/RF Jose Lugo (.198, 0 HR, 10 RBI) - $218k – no compensation
MR Domingo Moreno (3-2, 3.18 ERA, 1 SV) - $455k – no compensation

None of the free agents will be back. Remember, they’re the Avatars of Losing. We will make offers to the five salary arbitration cases, even though Garcia is completely useless and will be expensively parked at AAA. We might use Craig Bowen as primary catcher next season, however well that will go. Ramirez is too expensive for a backup and can be used as trade chip. We desperately need starting pitching, and Ramirez might yield somebody better than Tim Dumpster.

We avoided arbitration with Craig Bowen by signing him to a 2-yr, $820k contract on October 27. A similar deal was refused by Eddie Fernandez, and Felipe Garcia was also unwilling to resign to last year’s conditions.

We offered $600k for Ramirez, $400k each for Flores and Fernandez, and $284k for Garcia, and went 4-0 in arbitration.

October 28 – The Crusaders acquire 26-yr old SP Jim Baker (4-8, 5.70 ERA) from the Condors, parting with a rather dubious prospect.
November 7 – The Cyclones lock up 2006 Player of the Year Will Bailey (.314, 184 HR, 833 RBI). The 29-year old will earn $23.8M over the next seven years.
November 11 – The Stars trade for the Pacifics’ LF/RF Yohan Bonneau (.290, 149 HR, 668 RBI) in exchange for SP Alfredo Rios (76-103, 4.48 ERA) and prospect OF Jaime Marino, who has been traded three times since July 15.

2006 AWARDS
Player of the Year: CIN RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (.344, 25 HR, 106 RBI) and ATL LF/CF Jose Morales (.309, 25 HR, 94 RBI)
Pitcher of the Year: DEN SP Antonio Donis (17-6, 2.29 ERA) and IND Curtis Tobitt (23-4, 1.94 ERA)
Rookie of the Year: DAL 1B/2B Alberto Rodriguez (.264, 15 HR, 71 RBI) and CHA 1B Mun-wah Tsung (.282, 15 HR, 69 RBI)
Reliever of the Year: PIT Paco Barrera (6-2, 0.92 ERA, 44 SV) and SFB Johnny Smith (2-1, 0.38 ERA, 43 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P SAL Raúl Chavez, C DAL Rafael Garza, 1B CIN Ray Gilbert, 2B DAL Hector Garcia, 3B NAS Antonio Esquivel, SS WAS Adriano Lulli, LF CIN Dan Morris, CF SFW Earl Clark, RF CIN Will Bailey
Platinum Sticks (CL): P CHA Larry Cutts, C IND Jose Paraz, 1B ATL Jorge Garcia, 2B TIJ Juan Diaz, 3B IND David Lopez, SS TIJ Bruce Boyle, LF OCT Victorino Sanchez, CF ATL Jose Morales, RF MIL Bakile Hiwalani
Gold Gloves (FL): P SFW Santiago Chavez, C PIT Bartholomeu Pino, 1B CIN Ray Gilbert, 2B DEN Jose Correa, 3B SAC Sonny Reece, SS DAL Armando Rodriguez, LF SAL Fernando Guerra, CF NAS Alex Samuels, RF PIT Luke Black
Gold Gloves (CL): P VAN Rod Taylor, C LVA Eduardo Durango, 1B POR Adrian Quebell, 2B MIL Bartolo Hernandez, 3B BOS Mark Austin, SS CHA Leslie Starks, LF BOS Tom Walls, CF NYC Roberto Pena, RF NYC Stanton Martin

Among our almost completely renovated staff is Carlos Asquabal as manager in Aumsville. His 18-year pitching career for the Knights and 245 major league wins with 2,995 strikeouts had him at 71.2% in the 2006 HOF voting.

There’s a pair of interesting Japanese players coming over as international free agents. One is a 30-year old right-handed pitcher, “Dodo” Iwase, with an outright devastating changeup – but sadly no third pitch. Scott Wade had rousing success with two pitches, but can there be another Scott Wade? If it worked out, “Dodo” could be an incredibly cheap gain for us, looking for an $800k deal. If it didn’t work, we had an incredibly expensive right-handed reliever on our hands.

The other guy was a 29-year old, cube-shaped, power-stick-wielding catcher of dubious mobility and agility from the Kisho Saito School of Smiling named Hideaki “Quasimodo” Suda. Regarding the nickname, he REALLY looked the part! He was looking for big money, but at some point a godforsaken franchise must answer to the following question: how much should we pretend to try to win games, or would it really be better to field the most ridiculous product to at least get soiled relentlessly on Saturday Evening Live, then sue them for damages?

Is that a plan? Go all in on the two Jap chubs, and trade Antonio Ramirez for anybody better than Dumpster Boy?

In other news, Neil Reece retired, but is still waiting alongside an unpaved road somewhere in Wyoming for a twice-weekly bus to take him to the nearest populated place on his long journey home to Massapequa.