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Westheim · 01-08-2016, 07:06 AM

What’s new in Portland? Nick Brown grew a silly, slightly gay beard to overcome his five-month struggle that followed his April Pitcher of the Month award. Mid-life crisis alert!

Wow, get that thing shaved, it’s looking at me!

Anyways. We got ourselves a catcher!

January 8 – 30-year old ex-SFB SP Harry Wentz (70-103, 4.37 ERA) signs a 3-yr, $3.72M contract with the Condors.
January 10 – The Raccoons sign 34-yr old ex-ATL C Antonio De La Parra (.289, 74 HR, 671 RBI) to a 3-yr, $2.5M contract.
January 10 – The Raccoons send 23-yr old AA SP Eric Thrift to the Crusaders for 23-yr old AAA 3B/SS Walt Canning.

De La Parra’s contract is almost even, $830k this and next year, $840k in 2011. No options involved, only a few incentives. This is our new primary. He is batting for mid-.700 OPS numbers quite consistently, except for a rotten 2004 season, with an average somewhere between .292 and .317, but he hasn’t hit double digit dingers since 2001, when he was with the Aces. He doesn’t walk much, and he has no speed. He is mostly a singles hitter, not having hit even 20 doubles since 2005, either. What he does bring, however, is dramatically improved defense and a strong arm behind the plate (career CS%: 37.3) when compared to Craig Bowen and even more so when compared with Sergio Esquivel, who looks like he will remain the backup. Ximenes Lopes gets dumped to AAA, but that was the plan all along.

The Thrift/Canning deal mostly just flips failed prospects. Thrift, our 2004 sixth-rounder, is a true mess, who put up a 5.10 ERA in 20 starts in Ham Lake in 2008, while Canning is an excellent defender, who batted in a very humiliating manner in AA and AAA last season. I don’t think either team gains a significant advantage here. Canning will be our third base starter in St. Petersburg to start the season, and we’ll see what he puts up. In the Bigs, we would use him at short rather than at third, but I don’t think you could call him a backup plan in case Rob Howell falls into a hole.

At that point I still tried to somehow convert one of our bigger deals into an upgrade among our middle infielders. Another option was to bring back Concie, although I need to routinely state that 35-year old shortstops are a source of chronic depression, normally. Barrón certainly wasn’t, even though his 2008 season was nothing to write home about, but he got stuff done. Concie still has the glove…

Ah, it wasn’t satisfying at all. Eventually I changed my approach. Rather than a top-notch glove, I began to look for a top-notch bat at shortstop with a palatable glove. I came across the Elks’ Gary Rice, a career .278/.369/.414 batter, but trending upwards except for a horrible 2006 season with the Crusaders, his last with them. His OPS in ’07 with the Elks had been .903 (in 94 games), and .849 in a full season in ’08.

I talked to their GM and I was working on a dangerous deal. Right now it goes like that: the Raccoons send Kelvin Yates to the Elks in exchange for Rice, the completely dead contract of Cal Holbrook, and a swath of cash, but the Elks aren’t happy with that and demand at least some semi-useful second player in the deal.

There are multiple angles by which this can break our neck:
• Gary Rice is owed $1.54M in 2009, and $1.64M a year from 2010 through 2012
• Gary Rice is made out of glass (think Jeremiah Carrell; I still have the dust of his bobblehead in a box somewhere)
• Cal Holbrook, who spent the entire 2008 season as a reliever in AAA, is owed $1.22M in both 2009 and 2010
• The Elks will cover most of Holbrook’s 2009 salary with cash, but none of his 2010 salary

On the plus side, we get rid of Kelvin Yates’ $1.8M player option for 2010. While he had a good September when admitted back into the rotation, he spent a month in the bullpen last season, and $1.8M in the bullpen is just as bad as $1.22M in the bullpen in AAA. Our bullpen is as luxurious as it gets for a small market team ($2.7M or more in there, depending on whether we make another signing).

Uuuh, my head is hurting quite badly.

Just so you get an impression, we’re talking about THAT:

01-08-2016, 07:06 AM	#1669
Westheim Hall Of Famer Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Germany Posts: 13,716	What’s new in Portland? Nick Brown grew a silly, slightly gay beard to overcome his five-month struggle that followed his April Pitcher of the Month award. Mid-life crisis alert! Wow, get that thing shaved, it’s looking at me! Anyways. We got ourselves a catcher! January 8 – 30-year old ex-SFB SP Harry Wentz (70-103, 4.37 ERA) signs a 3-yr, $3.72M contract with the Condors. January 10 – The Raccoons sign 34-yr old ex-ATL C Antonio De La Parra (.289, 74 HR, 671 RBI) to a 3-yr, $2.5M contract. January 10 – The Raccoons send 23-yr old AA SP Eric Thrift to the Crusaders for 23-yr old AAA 3B/SS Walt Canning. De La Parra’s contract is almost even, $830k this and next year, $840k in 2011. No options involved, only a few incentives. This is our new primary. He is batting for mid-.700 OPS numbers quite consistently, except for a rotten 2004 season, with an average somewhere between .292 and .317, but he hasn’t hit double digit dingers since 2001, when he was with the Aces. He doesn’t walk much, and he has no speed. He is mostly a singles hitter, not having hit even 20 doubles since 2005, either. What he does bring, however, is dramatically improved defense and a strong arm behind the plate (career CS%: 37.3) when compared to Craig Bowen and even more so when compared with Sergio Esquivel, who looks like he will remain the backup. Ximenes Lopes gets dumped to AAA, but that was the plan all along. The Thrift/Canning deal mostly just flips failed prospects. Thrift, our 2004 sixth-rounder, is a true mess, who put up a 5.10 ERA in 20 starts in Ham Lake in 2008, while Canning is an excellent defender, who batted in a very humiliating manner in AA and AAA last season. I don’t think either team gains a significant advantage here. Canning will be our third base starter in St. Petersburg to start the season, and we’ll see what he puts up. In the Bigs, we would use him at short rather than at third, but I don’t think you could call him a backup plan in case Rob Howell falls into a hole. At that point I still tried to somehow convert one of our bigger deals into an upgrade among our middle infielders. Another option was to bring back Concie, although I need to routinely state that 35-year old shortstops are a source of chronic depression, normally. Barrón certainly wasn’t, even though his 2008 season was nothing to write home about, but he got stuff done. Concie still has the glove… Ah, it wasn’t satisfying at all. Eventually I changed my approach. Rather than a top-notch glove, I began to look for a top-notch bat at shortstop with a palatable glove. I came across the Elks’ Gary Rice, a career .278/.369/.414 batter, but trending upwards except for a horrible 2006 season with the Crusaders, his last with them. His OPS in ’07 with the Elks had been .903 (in 94 games), and .849 in a full season in ’08. I talked to their GM and I was working on a dangerous deal. Right now it goes like that: the Raccoons send Kelvin Yates to the Elks in exchange for Rice, the completely dead contract of Cal Holbrook, and a swath of cash, but the Elks aren’t happy with that and demand at least some semi-useful second player in the deal. There are multiple angles by which this can break our neck: • Gary Rice is owed $1.54M in 2009, and $1.64M a year from 2010 through 2012 • Gary Rice is made out of glass (think Jeremiah Carrell; I still have the dust of his bobblehead in a box somewhere) • Cal Holbrook, who spent the entire 2008 season as a reliever in AAA, is owed $1.22M in both 2009 and 2010 • The Elks will cover most of Holbrook’s 2009 salary with cash, but none of his 2010 salary On the plus side, we get rid of Kelvin Yates’ $1.8M player option for 2010. While he had a good September when admitted back into the rotation, he spent a month in the bullpen last season, and $1.8M in the bullpen is just as bad as $1.22M in the bullpen in AAA. Our bullpen is as luxurious as it gets for a small market team ($2.7M or more in there, depending on whether we make another signing). Uuuh, my head is hurting quite badly. Just so you get an impression, we’re talking about THAT: Attached Images __________________ Portland Raccoons, 92 years of excell-.... of baseball: Furballs here! 1983 * 1989 * 1991 * 1992 * 1993 * 1995 * 1996 * 2010 * 2017 * 2018 * 2019 * 2026 * 2028 * 2035 * 2037 * 2044 * 2045 * 2046 * 2047 * 2048 * 2051 * 2054 * 2055 * 2061 1 OSANAI : 2 POWELL : 7 NOMURA \| RAMOS : 8 REECE : 10 BROWN : 15 HALL : 27 FERNANDEZ : 28 CASAS : 31 CARMONA : 32 WEST : 39 TONER : 46 SAITO Resident Mets Cynic - The Mets from 1962 onwards, here.