[Westheim]

Winter was coming, and with it the offseason. While my heart was frozen by the Crusaders’ World Series title, the wagon had to keep rolling here.

The Raccoons had a record budget to play with in 2015, getting an increase from $26.8M to $28.6M, besting the previous high of $27.6M in 2013. Looks like someone in Mexico has gotten a clue as to how you need to run a franchise. The league average budget is $25.95M, the median budget is $25.6M. The Raccoons are t-7th with the Stars in terms of money available. The Crusaders meanwhile continue to get richer, increasing their budget to $43M, far ahead of the Cyclones ($34.5M), Thunder ($33.5M), and Warriors ($33M). In the CL North, we are third behind the Elks ($29.6M), but now ahead of the Titans ($28.2M), Indians ($19.4M), and Loggers ($16.4M). The Loggers bring up the rear of all teams. Also along with them and the Indians in the bottom five are the Knights, Wolves, and Falcons.

But before we will all get excited for all the coins that can be thrown around, there are a few points to make.

As we are on money well spent (or rather not), both Daniel Dickerson and Ron Sakellaris executed their player options for 2015, which was not a surprise, and was going to cost us the princely sum of $3.94M, mainly for the former, who was clearly on his last paw.

The financial implications will be as such that we can probably spend $2M to $3M this offseason, but we already know that we can’t find the thing the team would benefit most from, an offensively effective shortstop. Impact players at short are rare, and the Tom McWhorter types are popping up once, maybe twice in a generation.

Our arbitration and free agent group is quickly explained. The latter has Rob Howell, Jon Merritt, and Angel Casas. Angel gets no love, and no compensation. He will still be looking for a huge payday and I have my doubts whether he’s still worth a huge payday. Then again, we don’t really have closers on stock. Do you sign one (for a huge payday…) or do you go with Ron Thrasher, eat the walks, and find a left-handed reliever somewhere else? You don’t want walks from your ninth inning guy!

Merritt will be 39, and he hasn’t been overwhelming. That $6.25M contract netted us a borderline-great first year, two good ones after that, then one in which he missed over 120 games with injuries, and finally this last season, where he took a backseat to Matt Nunley and didn’t figure in the mix much in the second half at all. Overall, I think, it was a good signing.

Howell can go where the pepper grows, and the arbitration class consists of Santos, Richards, Bednarski, and a whole host of relievers. Obviously you hold on to everybody in that class except Vega. It’s been a ridiculous side story for the last decade-plus, but I think it’s time to end it. His control was also atrocious in AAA, and we’re done here.