[luckymann]

The band has officially broken up, and in a far bigger way than I had imagined.

I have spoken repeatedly about Bill Foster and, as expected, he voids his final contract year with us.

What I did not see coming was both Willie Wells and Wes Ferrell following him out the door.

Wes, I can kind of understand. He signed with us on a pretty cheap deal and has been a vital contributor to these past three Championship seasons, increasing his value substantially.

El Diablo, however, makes little sense to me. At 32 and already the league's highest-paid player, he is taking an awful risk.

For us, it means a lot of things. Most immediate of all is a large chunk of freed-up salary to be deployed elsewhere - $71k all told for next year alone. Add all of the other departures and that figure actually approaches $100k. But there's no doubt - especially with the house rules I have in place - it will leave us worse off as a playing group.

With Dandridge and Frey, we are OK for infielders in Wells's absence, though clearly we'll be taking a step down in quality. Dihigo gives us another option, if we want to move him back in from the outfield.

Chet Brewer looks the likeliest candidate to replace Ferrell, and we have a few decent prospects in the wings as well, although most of these are borderline starters at best and far more suitably deployed from the BP.

There's no such thing as "replacing" Bill Foster. Duke will become our spearhead, and we'll be making a new SP2 our #1 priority in the FA / trade market over the next month or so.

Reliever Jumbo Brown is our only arb-eligible player, and we offer him $6k vs his $5500 this season. We also offer Andy Reese a 2-year deal for $10500. His defensive versatility is worth every penny, even if he offers little with bat in hand.


Just a couple managerial casualties, as the Dodgers fire both GM Whitey Witt and Manager Burley Bayer, and the Cards also cut GM Jason Milz.

Fairly quiet on the retirement front as well, with the list including Earl Whitehill, Russ Youngs, Charlie "Postalita" Smith, Juanelo Mirabal, and Jimmy O'Connell.