[Westheim]

As usual, the Raccoons were left looking for a shortstop. Rob Howell had not been it in 2014, Walt Canning had not been it before that, Palmer Taylor was not much of anything. Problem here: there weren’t many shortstops that were worthwhile batters. Finding a slick-fielding shortstop was not that much of a trouble, but I would prefer someone to bat more than .210/.260/.300 …

Well, we could try to shake things up in some way. Maybe we could get a top notch shortstop for an expensive corner outfielder and a starting pitcher (probably not Dickerson). Just how many top notch shortstops were there?

Well, there was Tom McWhorter, once taken a spot ahead of Jimmy Oatmeal in the draft, the best shortstop in the game, who had signed a long-term deal with the Miners and was their career toy, so that was that. The Thunder probably had two top shortstops to pick between, Emilio Farias and Erik Janes. Farias was the older one, but had the more impressive batting profile. Basically Cookie Carmona with a tad more power and a notch less speed, but basically he was Cookie Carmona with an even better glove at a premium defensive position. Janes was 24, three years younger, and was the best defensive shortstop among the group here. He was more of an OBP guy with a bit of power, but unfortunately no speed.

Brent Burke in Las Vegas and Devin Hibbard in Atlanta had had their best offensive seasons in 2014, but both were already in their latter 20s, so it was not a 100% certain thing that they were going to be elite offensive players rather than having just a one-off premium season. Neither was an attractive trade target.

So, will it be Walt Canning as starting shortstop? That would be awful. There was one more player, on the Wolves, D.J. Ruggeri. D.J. is for “Dylan Jagger”, I have heard, but he refuses to confirm that. He was going to be 28 on Opening Day, and had only played two full seasons in the majors so far, and his 2013 season had been much better than the 2014 campaign. He was a good defender around the infield.

But I’m always skeptical of players that only make the major leagues at age 26. That is why I didn’t go after Gil Rockwell earlier this year. Rockwell didn’t make the majors until he was 25, but didn’t stick until he was 27. He only hit 18 home runs that year, then suddenly hit 41 and 44 in the last two seasons.

The Wolves weren’t too keen to deal Ruggeri anyway. The Thunder were not too averse to talk about Erik Janes, but they had a problem – they were overbudget, and Janes made only $632k. It was not easy to construct a deal they liked. Well, they liked a deal for Cookie Carmona…

So, the Raccoons had just over two million bucks available as the hot phase of the offseason started – and just couldn’t get a shortstop for that money or any fraction of it.

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November 28 – The Miners sign CL Tommy Wooldridge (69-50, 2.40 ERA, 246 SV) to a 3-yr, $4.66M contract. The 35-year old right-hander appeared for the Titans and Bayhawks in 2014.
November 28 – The Loggers trade RF/CF Nick Gilmor (.258, 11 HR, 90 RBI) to the Indians for SP Chester Graham (77-86, 4.47 ERA) and cash.

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The only players not on the 40-man roster that we protected leading up to the rule 5 draft were utility player Ricky Moya in AA and SP Chris Brown in AAA. Moya is 24 and should probably do better to merit protection, and Brown has RIDICULOUS walk issues, offering 115 free passes in AAA last year, and he’s even 25, but you can bet on Dickerson moving to the DL at some point during the year, and between Wasserman and Dupes there’s not much fun to be had.

Nothing happened to the Raccoons in the draft. We didn’t take anybody, nobody was taken from us, and only 11 players overall were drafted. Our 2010 supplemental rounder Dan Moon, who was a part in the trade for Richards and Entwistle with the Aces, was drafted from them by the Stars, and that was as close as this draft came to us.