[Westheim]

The rest of the preseason was spent hunting down a few more players for the AAA team and watching old bums getting lowly-paid gigs here and there, including former Raccoons. Lance Legleiter signed with the Indians for $348k; Fernando Garcia was back with the dumb Elks for $570k; Adrian Reichardt signed with the Blue Sox with one week left in the spring and for $710k;

The Stars found a new closer in the rubble they rummaged through in March, inking ex-DEN CL Adrian McQuinn (41-41, 3.04 ERA, 246 SV) to a 3-yr, $4.38M deal that wasn’t often doled out with the season right around the corner.

The Critters baked smaller buns, spending $315k on SP Seth Green, a 25-year-old righty from Nantucket that had seen six games in relief’s worth of action with the Falcons at some point and had allowed 11 runs in 11 innings. That had been in 2032 and 2033 though, so he had an additional season of ripening under his belt. He also had an option left which we would use to park him in AAA right away, especially given some concern that Darren Brown, who a) had no spot on the roster, and b) no options either, would be lost on waivers in early April. Not that we were concerned about the loss of “talent” on his part… but we had to make the numbers tally up with the Alley Cats at some point. They, too, needed 12 pitchers.

Minor league deals were also given out to infielders Gavin Reece, who had hit .256 with 2 HR and 66 RBI in parts of four seasons with the Aces, and who signed a minor league deal with a $340k major league option. He was the early-Berto-injury backup. He was capable in the D, quick on the base paths, and maybe he’d stumble on base entirely by accident…; and another minor league deal with Matt Triolo, who for the second time signed such a deal with the Critters. The last time had been prior to the 2028 season, but he had been traded for Jon Correa and ultimately a set of rings before long. Triolo had never made the majors.

Those were all players added with at least some name recognition and/or basic value.

By March we also returned 3B Fidel Nunez to the Scorpions after having taken him in the rule 5 draft three months earlier. On the infield it was really down to him and Justin Marsingill for the sixth spot, and Marsingill was a more versatile defender and we didn’t expect Nunez to hit any better than the paltry output we had gotten in part-time duty from Marsingill for - … has it really already been three years?

More importantly, it’s been six years ringless. And that’s enough!