[Westheim]

December 10 – The Raccoons trade for the Gold Sox’ OF Nelson Mercado (.263, 47 HR, 242 RBI), sending AA SP Denis DeCenta into Denver’s farm system.
December 12 – Cincinnati adds a new closer type in Josh Livingston (64-53, 3.06 ERA, 214 SV). The 35-year-old ex-Knight signs for 3 years and $9.48M.
December 22 – The Gold Sox grab ex-PIT SP Israel Mendoza (94-108, 3.96 ERA) for two years and $4.6M.
December 25 – Richmond adds former Scorpions starter Josh Vercher (115-131, 4.14 ERA) for two years. The 34-year-old righty will take home $4.64M.
January 4 – Right-hander Danny Tirado (13-15, 2.95 ERA, 52 SV) is sent from Boston to Atlanta for a prospect.

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Scout Pat Degenhardt doesn’t like Mercado at all, proclaiming him a mess at the plate with a flaily swing, but Cristiano showed me his stats and he is a perfectly league-average hitter with adequate defense and great speed, twice taking 41 bags in a season. Hitting lefty, he totally replaces Van Anderson as backup outfielder on the current depth chart (Gene Pellicano being the right-handed counterpart to him). Plus, he is signed for a rather modest $950k for each of the next two seasons.

DiCenta meanwhile had cost $19k in a July IFA period a while back and had pitched to rather limited success in the minor leagues for the last four years. With plenty of young starting pitching ahead of him on the depth chart, we basically get Mercado for free.

When we weren’t looking, former Raccoon (twice!) Tony Hunter signed with the Capitals for $386k;

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2046 HALL OF FAME VOTING

Nobody was elected into the Hall of Fame this year – and nobody came even remotely close either. In fact, the majority of the players on the already small ballot failed to even reach the 5% threshold, and only five will be back next year. Full results:

LAP CF Justin Fowler – 1st – 27.6
TIJ SP Jeff Little – 4th – 19.0
MIL SP Chris Sinkhorn – 8th – 14.3
PIT C J.J. Henley – 6th – 6.8
??? C Mike Burgess – 3rd – 6.5
SFW CF Pedro Cisneros – 3rd – 4.8 – DROPPED
VAN LF Alex Torres – 1st – 4.4 – DROPPED
SFB SP Matt Huf – 2nd – 3.7 – DROPPED
SFW SP Pat Okrasinski – 1st – 2.7 – DROPPED
TIJ 1B Kevin McGrath – 2nd – 1.7 – DROPPED
TIJ SP George Griffin – 2nd – 1.4 – DROPPED
BOS SP Lorenzo Viamontes – 1st – 1.4 – DROPPED
DEN 2B Wayne Morris – 1st – 1.0 – DROPPED
LVA SP Abramo Archibugi – 1st – 0.3 – DROPPED