[Westheim]

New winter, new opportunities. We’d try with a new hitting coach and perhaps some new hitters, and not a whole lot of additional funds to work with. Nick Valdes, allegedly gray-coated and sort of frail these days, did not bother to show up in person for the entire season, and also didn’t care to give me more millions to get anywhere. This was carefully worded, because we’d have *one* additional million with a budget increase from $54M to $55M. This kept the Raccoons in 14th place among all teams as far as the budget size was concerned, with a distinct advantage against the Crusaders that just finished seven games ahead.

Top 5: Crusaders ($82M), Knights ($82M), Buffaloes ($75M), Thunder ($74M), Pacifics ($74M)
Bottom 5: Condors ($43.5M), Loggers ($43M), Cyclones ($41.5M), Indians ($41.5M), Aces ($34.5M)

Thing was that a million more was all nice and well, but some other teams really went for it. The Knights f.e. jacked up their budget by $11M and few teams went backwards. The average budget for the teams in the league was up to $58.10M, an increase of about $1.93M from the previous season. The median budget was up to $56M, an increase of $1M compared to last year.

The remaining CL North teams were right around us. The Titans remained 11th with a $57M budget, while the damn Elks slipped to 17th with $53M.

+++

Many roster decisions had already been made during the year. Juan Ojeda showed a reliable paw at third base, but hit next to nothing and barely outperformed replacement level kits, which was not a great return for $2.35M, but I had also never seen him as more than a 1-year rental. Manny Cooke was rightfully atrocious after coming over from Salem, batting 4-for-32 while mostly being hidden at the far end of the bench. Eric Monaghan hit a shocking .182 with four homers and was immediately replaced with Angel Perez upon the latter’s arrival. Monaghan had a contract for $3.24M for 2060, but with the asterisk of a team option on a 10% payout, and sure as hell I was gonna tear up that option. He was sent on the road as well. For some wicked reason, Monaghan ended up as a type B free agent then, but the Raccoons would not offer arbitration, because this was absolutely not a risk worth taking. He wouldn’t get $3M again on the open market, but he might sure get it from some brainless arbitrator.

The only upcoming free agent that actually gave me thoughts was Ivan Ornelas, who was such a good long man. Now, being efficient at garbage relief isn’t something that makes your momma proud, but the Raccoons were in a weird position in that they finished the year with ten relievers on the roster, and only four of those were right-handers, including Ornelas. Included in the tally of four was perpetual master of disaster Colby Bowen, so in actuality we had only three right-handed relievers. Whether that made Ornelas worth a million bucks, his 2059 salary, was up for discussion.

That left five players that were up for salary arbitration. Two were position players, and in both cases you could argue that we’d do fine without them: Arturo Bribiesca and Kelly Konecny. Bribiesca, after two full seasons as backup infielder on the Raccoons, was banished to AAA straight from the DL in July and never returned, while Konecny came over from the Loggers, never hit anything, and made the occasional mess on the rug. Like Ojeda, both barely cleared the .600 OPS bar, but at least they each did it for the minimum salary. While neither of them had been worth the attention, they were probably still reasonable to keep around in AAA, especially if they could be signed for around $500k each.

On the pitching side, we had two no-doubt relievers that were essential to keeping that silly bullpen glued together in Ricky Herrera (11-4!) and Reynaldo Bravo, even though the latter had his blackouts. They were not going anywhere. Duarte Damasceno had come back from the Bayhawks last winter, had done somewhat decent as starter in AAA, then was brought up after the season-ending injury to Zach Stewart in late May. While he posted a 3.90 ERA, he barely out-whiffed the contingent of batters that he walked and wasn’t exactly a thrill to watch. He was a piece resembling half of horse eye in a giant pitching staff jigsaw puzzle when the box said the finished puzzle would resemble a city scene at dusk.

Probably still worth half a million, though. He was a right-hander!

Speaking of right-handed starting pitchers at least in name, J.J. Sensabaugh was named Pitcher of the Year in the Alley Cats’ AAA league, going 15-7 with a 2.48 ERA. In the Bigs he went 3-1 with a 4.67 ERA in just 11 games (5 starts). He was 27 years old, had a 4.86 career ERA with the Raccoons, and normally we wouldn’t bother. There had been a noticeable trend though in that he walked fewer batters and struck out more (at both levels), so maybe he wasn’t ready for the shredder quite yet.

And the Raccoons needed at least one starter. Zach Stewart had missed most of the season but was under contract for 2060 and would be back in the rotation. Bobby Herrera wasn’t going anywhere, and while Chance Fox and Justin DeRose were prone to rough results and raucous ridicule, they also had both managed to stay under the league average for ERA, and Fox had led the team in wins. The team needed somebody that would slot into the #2 or #3 slot here, at the very least. It also needed a strong righty reliever, because we couldn’t run around with four southpaws in the pen and a desire to be taken seriously. That made somebody like Eloy Sencion available to other teams, if anybody wanted him after that horrendous second half. He posted easily his worst year outside of that awful 2052 season when he was a third-year player, put up an 8+ ERA, and sucked his way all the way down to Ham Lake before coming back the other way the following season.

Fun Fact: Eloy Sencion was the second-longest-tenured Raccoon on the roster, having made appearances in every year of the decade. He was only narrowly beaten out by Lonzo Lavorano, who made his debut in late 2049, and who missed almost all of the season with a torn labrum. (puts the handkerchief away)

On offense we had our core of Cas, Brass, and Starr in the 3-4-5 slots. Angel Perez had hit .306 after arriving from L.A. in July, and next year he could try and do that for a full season. Joey Christopher had slumped to a .367 OBP by season’s end and was under 50% success rate for stolen bases in his career, but still beat out all the other candidates for the leadoff spot. Lonzo was coming back to play short and I wasn’t taking no for an answer. He’d also bat second at least until I could somehow out-scream Cristiano Carmona about that. Perhaps he needed more rest days going forwards. Then Perez could bat second.

What the Raccoons needed was a new third baseman (obviously) and also an upgrade at second base, because Paul Labonte’s second full season at the position had somehow been even worse than the previous one and that 120 OPS+ he had put together in the second half of ’57 looked like a rather distant memory now. We needed offense, offense, offense. I already had my big black googly eyes on somebody, an established star on a faltering team that had a big, but reasonable contract for a few more years, who had played short most of his career, but should be at second anyway because the throwing arm wasn’t that great. Did we have the prospects, though? More on that later.

All the other roster bloat on the infield was not going to get us any further. Bernie Ortega and Jon Bean had both started like a fire engine after promotion and then had gone silent. David Gonzales had survived as a Rule 5 pick, but surely not excelled. Tony Benitez remained a disappointment whenever he was plonked into the lineup. Vernon Hudalla had been so useless he was placed on waivers to make room to empty to 60-day DL. Players mentioned by name in this paragraph and the previous one with an OPS+ better than 100 this season OR for their career? Zilch.

In fact, the only position players that got triple digit at-bats for the Raccoons last year *and* a triple-digit OPS+ were Angel Perez (113), Noah Caswell (127), Trent Brassfield (129), and perhaps the surprise winner because he still somehow looked the most unassuming: Joel Starr (149!); Lonzo hit for a 128 OPS+ in just 21 games and 82 at-bats. He had such a hot start that smoke started billowing forth from his right shoulder…

Everybody else was cruddy. Labonte with a 94 OPS+ might still get a passing grade, but we needed better. Christopher wasn’t up for discussion right now because of his leadoff qualities, but sometimes even I change my mind about a player after another 600 unproductive plate appearances. How about 1,200?

When it came to backup infielder spots we would of course prefer to have somebody with many quality positions, so David Gonzales and Jon Bean had perhaps a paw up in that regard. Gonzales was even a switch-hitter, although his marmalade side was against left-handers, so he wasn’t a great combo with Lonzo if the goal was to not run out Lonzo for more than seven games in a row.

(three sets of whiskers and sniffing wet noses pop up behind the couch) What? – Yes, I said marmalade. – No, it was about… oh whatever. Maaauuud! We need a bucket of marmalade in here! – (bickering) – Make it strawberry!

So. Second base, third base, starting pitcher, righty reliever. Sounds like the same shopping list we had last year. And the year before?