[Westheim]

The Winter Meetings came …

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December 9 – The Capitals send SP Alfredo Vargas (111-88, 4.12 ERA) and $1.65M in cash to the Wolves for outfielder Tony Romero (.221, 23 HR, 105 RBI) and #32 prospect 3B/2B Quadir Randle.
December 9 – Infrequent closer for the Knights, Roland Warner (55-47, 3.11 ERA, 118 SV) joins the Capitals for 3-yr, $7.08M.
December 9 – Former Knights CL Robbie Peel (43-38, 3.62 ERA, 134 SV) inks a 3-yr, $4.86M deal with the Miners.
December 9 – The Wolves grab ex-SFW CL Chris Henry (47-60, 3.41 ERA, 259 SV) for 2-yr, $4.72M.
December 9 – RF/LF Lorenzo Celaya (.313, 50 HR, 354 RBI), 28, who aimlessly meandered through the Thunder and Aces rosters in 2038, is traded with $1.36M in cash to the Knights for two prospects.
December 10 – The Wolves add 34-yr old 3B/SS Bob Zeltser (.292, 96 HR, 599 RBI) on a 1-yr, $810k deal.
December 10 – Salem also grabs LF/RF Jimmy Wallace (.287, 101 HR, 556 RBI) from the Titans, who get 1B Jose Garcia (.264, 14 HR, 100 RBI) and a prospect.
December 11 – The Condors get 26-year-old SP Edward Flinn (30-30, 4.02 ERA) from the Scorpions for #59 prospect SP Andy Mejia.
December 11 – Milwaukee acquires SP Joe Feltman (38-48, 4.47 ERA) from the Crusaders, along with cash, for two prospects.
December 12 – The Condors pick up 28-year-old C/1B Mike Sawyer (.274, 23 HR, 112 RBI) from the Falcons, parting with 39-year-old SP Jose Lerma (244-217, 3.44 ERA).
December 13 – The Miners deal LF/CF/2B Chris Russell (.278, 68 HR, 401 RBI), who is 29, to the Crusaders for SP/MR Tony Fuentes (56-94, 4.53 ERA, 25 SV) and #96 prospect CL Scott Holton.
December 14 – New York deals again, this time 2B Tony Lira (.195, 8 HR, 45 RBI) and a prospect for the Blue Sox’ LF/RF/1B Tom Rudd (.276, 9 HR, 57 RBI, who was a 26-year-old rookie in ’38.
December 20 – Former Loggers CL Alex Banderas (26-43, 4.02 ERA, 192 SV) takes a 3-yr, $3.96M contract offered by the Indians.

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…and went without the Raccoons making progress of any sort. The Capitals let me know that I knew the conditions that would get us Banda. The Titans and Rich Willett? Pretty much the same (Moreno, preferably). The Bayhawks for one lousy year of Josh Lous- Long? Still the same.

Thus, the offseason unraveled and this latest edition of a perpetually short Raccoons team did, too. Without more starting pitching we would not be able to overcome the damn Elks. We needed to find eight games’ worth of overcoming, and it couldn’t all come just from putting a capable defender at short.

With no top-echelon free agent starting pitchers out there, and no improvement over Bernie Chavez and Raffaello Sabre – the sort of pitcher the Raccoons keyed on only to get burned – available without selling the last two piglets on the farm, it was all over. All there was left to do was come second or third to the damn Elks another time or two, then have it all tumbled into the usual early-decade ditch to rebuild from there, slowly and painfully.

At least we’d still have Gene Tennis and Jared Ottinger around to carry the heavy workload then…