[Westheim]

A few days before players without a contract for 2013 could file for free agency, the Raccoons took the last player they had an interest in retaining off the salary arbitration list. Switch-hitting Sandy Sambrano agreed to a contract that not only bought out his remaining arbitration years at $625k in 2013 and $875k in 2014, but also signed on for three additional years at $1M each, carrying that contract through the 2017 season, the longest guaranteed contract the Raccoons have on the books now.

There are a lot of things to like about Sandy Sambrano, a quirky player that plays the outfield corners and first base very well, centerfield and second base pretty damn good, and can fill in at short and third base, combines this with a high average, high OBP bat, and the ability to steal a significant amount of bases; 40 sacks in a full season don’t seem impossible.

So Sandy Sambrano was not the outfielder that we are going to drop from the team this winter. Hum, who could it then be?

Free agents filed on November 12 and three days later the arbitration hearings took place. Scott Spears was our only candidate, and he filed for free agency, making the Raccoons eligible for a supplemental round pick if he signed on elsewhere.

Coming into the offseason proper, the Raccoons were definitely looking for a high-level, established, right-handed starting pitcher, a pair of competent shutdown relievers, including at least one right-hander, and we could also really use a slugging right-handed outfielder (onto the pile of outfielder we already had, and of which almost nobody did any meaningful slugging).

That brings us the outfield glut that had to be resolved one way or another. Let’s see, what is there to like, or rather not:

Matt Pruitt – not much defense, not much power (51 HR in five season’s worth of at-bats), not much speed; at some point in the past he looked like there was much more to come, but it hasn’t; signed for $550k in ’13
Sandy Sambrano – just locked up, versatile in the field, with a constant on-base presence and blistering speed, signed through 2017 for $4.5M
Ricardo Carmona – has all the tools except for home run power (which is entirely absent) and he might well have a breakout season if given the chance to play every day at age 21
John Alexander – did not become the second coming of Luke Black; hit for some of everything, plays all three outfield spots more or less well, and for $500k he’s incredibly cheap
Keith Ayers – what’s he even doing here? The fact that all our personnel is batting left-handed has been a BIG factor, but he’s a career .677 OPS batter, and at some point you just have to concede defeat. Signed for $300k in ’13.

There’s some Brett Gentry, some Jimmy Fucito, even the ghostly shadow of Jason Seeley dangling off the fringes of the roster, but whom are we even kidding. In AAA, there’s Mike Cook, 22, but he only played in a handful of games there in September after batting for a .800 OPS in Ham Lake for almost the entire minor league season. He’s another season away, I guess. He’s also a right-handed batter, and definitely confined to a corner.

The needs in the bullpen are also obvious. Angel Casas is Angel Casas (and a free agent 12 months from now), but between the sixth or seventh inning and him was a persistent nightmare in 2012. There were a few good things happening. Manobu Sugano was a good grab (picked from the same international free agent class that spew forth Shunyo Yano), and there was some solid low-key relief from Josh Gibson. When Ron Thrasher doesn’t have his tail on fire, he can also be a beast, but said tail is on fire all the time since he mindlessly sways it into the fireplace in the clubhouse during his pre-game feast ALL THE TIME. We need to restructure a lot of things around these three and Angel.

The oft-beaten horse of Pat Slayton and his uselessness is not properly expressed in the stats. He will happily pitch a clean inning or even two in a meaningless effort. But bring him in with runners on base, possibly the tying runners, and mayhem breaks lose.

By the way, has it become apparent already that I am intending to shaft Matt Pruitt?

Did I also mention that the Raccoons have the staggering sum of FIVE MILLION DOLLAR available to blow this winter?

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November 16 – The Loggers trade LF/RF Pedro Estrada (.285, 54 HR, 453 RBI) to the Thunder in exchange for 1B David Clarke (.274, 16 HR, 105 RBI) and #91 prospect C Orlando Castillo.

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Another pointless trade by the Loggers. Clarke has no position, he can’t even play first base. Estrada was one of their few good players. The yield for them in this trade is downright abominable.

Meanwhile, the free agent class for starting pitchers is not overwhelming. There’s Daniel Dickerson, who’s still good, but who’s also a wreck. There’s William Raven, and there’s Toshiro Uenohara of the Blue Sox. But if Ralph Ford shows up in the top 5 of free agent starting pitchers, you know that it’s a thin class.

So I’m back looking at trades, and that brings us back to our most barren farm and how there’s nothing on there that could entice a team to part with a stud. Of course I was after “Midnight” Martin again. Of course the Condors won’t trade him. He’s more or less all they have, but the good news for “Midnight” is that he will only have to waste another year to that rotten team. He’s a free agent after the 2013 season. How many millions will the Raccoons have then?

Then there’s Jaquan Wagoner of the Aces. Definitely a late bloomer, this soon-to-be-29-year-old went to arbitration for the first time this fall, receiving $690k. He flustered the Raccoons in all three of his starts against them in ’12, and really had a breakout year. Interesting little fact: Wagoner and Nick Brown were taken with the same pick, #293, in the amateur draft, eleven years apart, but while Brownie was an 11th-rounder, Wagoner came out of the LAST round.

But again… the paucity of even a handful of glitter prospects in our system makes it outright impossible to acquire a top notch starter from any of the teams that cough blood right now.

The Raccoons are limited to what the free agent market can give them, and the worst case scenario is probably actually shelling out $3M (which is the low estimate) for many years for a guy that’s on the covers of a medical book about arm injuries AND the cover of a medical book about back injuries. Before Daniel Dickerson, the poster boy for the latter tome was another Daniel we know quite well.