[Westheim]

In a wicked way, I was emotionally at rest. The Raccoons, that had held first place in the North for most of the year, without getting noticeably over the 0 mark for their run differential until well into August, had turned in the worst World Series performance *ever* - somehow it all added up again in the end.

The Gold Sox had just beaten us to death. They never stopped hitting. We never hit. We got beaten by a crisp 35 runs.

Order in the universe was restored. Pick the bat shards out of your fur, bandage up the flesh wounds, splint the mangled joints, and climb the old hill again next year.

The work started with the offseason, and the offseason started with getting yelled at by Nick Valdes – in person! – that our performance had been horrendous and he was getting laughed at by the other haughty moneysacks at the country club. Nevertheless, the Coons had flushed dosh into his pockets by getting people back in the seats in the second half, and I had stayed well under budget last year, leaving over $5M out of the $45.5M budget unspent, and with the increased ticket revenue and the playoff revenue on top of that, the Coons had turned enough of a profit for Valdes to cash out some $26M in earnings for himself. For my troubles, I got the budget increased to $49.5M again ($50M would have been too hard, Nick? …too round?)

In any case, we would be able to add a big contract of three during the offseason.

The Coons only climbed from 14th to 12th with this budget increase, but there were also only five teams with at least 10% more to their budget, so this was something we could work with. The rough overview?

Top 5: Gold Sox ($69M), Thunder ($69M), Miners ($67M), Canadiens ($60M), Stars ($58M) – these are the same five teams as last year, although only the Thunder have MORE dosh to blow than last season

The bottom of the league was brought up by the Falcons ($40.5M), Indians ($35.5M), Wolves ($34M), Aces ($32M), and Loggers ($29.8M) – also the same five teams as last year, but only the Aces have less money available.

Missing from the CL North at this point were only the Titans (t-6th, $53M) and Crusaders (t-10th, $50M).

The average budget for a team in the league rose to $48.7M, up $1.09M from last season. The median team budget was $48.5M, up $2.25M from last season.

+++

Basic first-day accounting included Jesus Maldonado picking up his option for the final year of his 7-year, $38.5M contract, which shocked absolutely nobody.

By rule, we also had to empty our DL, and that included Maldo and Sean Suggs from the 60-day DL, with the 40-man roster chocked full. Bryan Lenderink and Roberto Medina ended up on waivers to begin the offseason thus.

There was very little going on with salary arbitration, though. The Raccoons had only three arbitration-eligible players, and would keep them all, obviously: Salcido, Wolinsky, and Hitchcock were all essential to proceedings here. There were even fewer free agents: Brian Kaufman and Willie Maldonado, who were markedly less significant. Kaufman especially had not done a whole lot; the Coons had used three different third basemen, and none of them had very much made himself impossible to dispose of – the others being Crispin and Sivertson of course.

There were multiple options for third base especially. One involved moving Nick DeMarco there on a more permanent basis. The other was going after a free agent. Sacramento’s Mike Crenshaw and Elktown’s Jesus Burgos were just two options that were probably be hitting the market in November.