[Westheim]

Some things keep changing, some stay the same. Catchers come and catchers go, and the Titans win the World Series every year. The offseason began by Tony Delgado officially retiring. The 38-year-old, who had spent the last three seasons as brave and reliable backup to Elias Tovias without moaning even once, batted just .164 this season and knew that time was up for him. Most prominently a Wolf in his career, but playing for four CL North teams as well (all but the successful ones), Delgado ended up a .257 batter with 89 HR and 527 RBI.

I saw this coming, which was one reason I was content with adding Brett O'Dell in the Wasserman deal late in the season because he could fit the same mold that Delgado filled for us the last few seasons.

But for now, let's not get too deep into individual players. Maud will send flowers and a nice card to Delgado, and then we can look at our budget.

The Raccoons ranked 15th in budget last season with a $28.6M allowance. It seemed the Mexican Prick smelled that there was a chance at actually contending and freed up a few more of his drug lo- … business earnings to laund- … invest them in his baseball franchise. For 2026, the Coons had a $30.5M budget, which tied them for 11th among all teams with the Knights.

As far as the big bucks were concerned, the two richest teams were division rivals for us, with the Titans ($42M) just outdoing the Crusaders ($41M) in terms of disposable riches. The top 5 were completed by the Scorpions ($39.5M), Gold Sox ($37.5M), and Aces ($35.5M). At the bottom of the league, the five poorest teams were the Wolves ($22.8M), Indians, Falcons ($22.6M each), Warriors, and Stars ($22.2M each). The only missing CL North teams ranked 14th (Elks, $27.4M) and 19th (Loggers, $24.4M).

The average budget was $30.2M, the median budget was $29.95M.

Before we would go deep into accounting, we had to bring up the arbitration and free agency table. (full table at the bottom of the post) – In fact it was hard to really get into accounting at the moment, because the Raccoons had an absolute smothering of arbitration eligible players, many of them first-timers, and a few of them actually important. The main arbitration cases included Rico Gutierrez, Jesus Chavez, Billy Brotman, Vince D, Jonathan Snyder, Elias Tovias, Jon Gonzalez, Omar Alfaro… I mean, I am leaving guys out here, and the list is STILL endless!

By contrast, we had only three free agents, and none of them figured to come back. Matt Otis had been surprisingly productive, but he was 36 and a middle infielder. There was also the sudden emergence of Alberto Ramos, who was pushing Tim Stalker out at shortstop. Stalker would make a decent backup, I reasoned, and coupled with Bullock (unless we could find an upgrade to him that was also capable of covering third base) we were pretty much set around the diamond.

Our outfield situation and much about the pitching staff would be in a state of flux. Regardless, neither Justin Hess nor Jimmy Lee had much of a hunch to return. Hess had a 4.27 ERA and that was no fluke. His WHIP had been over 1.50, and that is not a pleasant WHIP for any sort of pitcher. Similar things were true for Jimmy Lee, who at 33 could hardly break glass, let alone get a swinging strike three. He had pitched 60-odd innings in both of his Portland seasons. He had struck out 48 last year, but only 23 this year. We paid $965k to Lee for either season. I don't think we got our money's worth in '25.

For now, let us only get into the pitching staff; right now, the Raccoons know their Opening Day starter, which is a given when your guy takes home the triple crown. Mark Roberts had done so with a 21-7 season, 2.29 ERA, and 238 K. The latter marked his third strikeout crown, and also his highest career total, beating his 2022 mark by one. He also led the league in WHIP with a Toneresque 0.91 mark. Before Toner started to suck the stitches out of the baseballs – his WHIP this year had been 1.52. During his hey day, Jonny spun a sub-1 WHIP six consecutive times, with a best of *0.81*.

Behind Roberts? Well, we certainly had five applicants on staff right now, although besides Rico Gutierrez I had written grumpy things regularly about all of them, although Dan Delgadillo was probably due some discount for having been out an entire year. Chavez had already made $1M a year as part of his deal straight out of Cuba, and arbitration estimates usually only build on that. Jack Sander and Lance Legleiter were scratch pitchers that other teams had dealt to us for nothing or had waived outright. Both had enjoyed their moments. Sander had an awesome first two months before being nothing but crummy the rest of the way, while Legleiter had been extremely solid in the chances to start he had gotten. Who was going to be the odd man out? We probably had some trade bait on our paws here.

The bullpen might see a shake-up, with Ricky Ohl applying for the closer's job. He had whiffed 80 in 61.1 innings this year, while Snyder had only gotten 52 batters in 58.1 innings and had sputtered mightily down the stretch. Behind that we will still have Vince D, Surginer, and Brotman, with the rest of the pitchers on the 40-man roster falling more in the "not if you're trying to win" category.

There were but two interesting pitchers in AAA besides the perennial replacements of Damani Knight shape and size, and neither had arrived there before September. Josh Boles, a scrap heap signing two winters ago, had arrived in St. Pete after starting the season in Aumsville, where he had still made a few starts, but he had shifted to the closer role in Ham Lake in the middle of the season. He was a 21-year-old left-hander with a disgusting knuckle curve, and those sort of pitchers could make it into prominent roles, but control was a major issue for him still. He walked 6.5/9 in AA, although he also struck out 12.3/9 there.

The other interesting pitcher was George James, our 2024 first-rounder. He had pitched to a 3.19 ERA in 27 starts for Ham Lake before making two starts at the end of the season for St. Pete, where he didn't do too badly. James had just turned 22 in October, so was still young even for the AAA level (said the GM who was ready to throw a 19-year-old shortstop into the Opening Day lineup), and it was probably a year early for him.

At the end of the day, we're in the market for a few more used relievers.

With the catcher situation somewhat settled at this point with Tovias ahead of O'Dell, that left the outfield mess to sort out, and it was quite the mess indeed, and it began with the number 9, which was the number of outfielders the Raccoons carried on the expanded roster after the end of the playoffs (Mora and Borg having rejoined from the DL). No important prospect was in the wings in that area of the field, so, yay, lucky us?

The Raccoons' outfielders included Cookie Carmona, Abel Mora, Terry Kopp, Omar Alfaro, Justin Gerace, Greg Borg, Devin Mansfield, Juan Magallanes, and the irritating Dwayne Metts. Now, narrowing these down to six is probably not a big issue, because three of those four M's had been injury replacements or in Metts' case should never have been added to the roster again in the first place.

The issue here is – really – Cookie Carmona. He had not managed to reach even a .640 OPS in three straight years. He had been worth zero wins over the last three years combined. We don't have to talk about how to get him into the Hall of Fame anymore – we have to talk about how to get him off the roster while hurting the fewest feelings, and I have to talk about this very silently, because Cristiano Carmona has extremely pointy ears, which must be one of those cases where one part of the body was taking over for another part that didn't work, e.g. his legs. Or, you know, like a blind guy has a bigger nose.

Somebody has to bat eighth, true, but I think that's gonna be Nunley. Consider this: between Abel Mora, Omar Alfaro, and Terry Kopp, the starting outfield for this team if Cookie wasn't around, would bat .276/.346/.433, which was pretty decent a slash line; not overpowering, but pretty decent. Cookie's slash was .260/.314/.296 and due to injuries, which felled all four of those at any one point in the season, and up to three at one time, and held Terry Kopp to 54 games overall, got more at-bats than any of the others, excluding Mora. The team slash line had been .262/.320/.372 … more reason to try to get Mora, Alfaro, and Kopp into the lineup at the same time as often as possible.

However, there is Cookie's contract; we have five big earners with guaranteed contracts on the roster right now, and three of them are outfielders. Kopp, Mora, and Cookie are all in the $2M range for their 2026 salary. Kopp will be in a contract year; the other two contracts are up after '27. (The other two big earners are starting pitchers; Roberts ($2M) and (gnashes teeth) Delgadillo ($1.8M))

Given his (lack of) production, you still can't shift Cookie without retaining his salary. And I would rather have a player I am paying for than paying him to play on some other team where he would immediately bat .327 again and steal 40 bases, because that is how things work around here.

Oh, this will be a tough offseason…