[Westheim]

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

Thank you so much for the career leaderboards! Season 100 is almost here, nuts. Few questions I’m curious about….

What would you consider your favorite Raccoon team of all time?

It’s probably still the 1989-1996 dynasty, which was usually pounding out the runs and had a very fierce rotation to match; how else do you win the division six outta eight years? The 2040s dynasty had five pennants in a row, but had a pitching staff that outside of Wheats and Sadaharu Okuda was usually held together with duct tape. Remember that one World Series we won with basically no starters?

Other peaks in franchise history, like the late 2010s and late 2020s were usually from the mold of strong pitching, just enough offense; overall, while I adore ace starting pitchers, I find teams that score a lot more fun to be around overall. It prevents you from being down 3-0 in Game 5 and thinking, well, now we’re ******. An 800-run team is never out of it. Four of the five highest-scoring Raccoons teams of all time were from the 1989-1996 era, with just 2044 sneaking in there in fourth place. Last season clocks in at sixth.

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

Who had what you consider the best single season Raccoon batting and pitching year ever?

Jonny Toner, 2017, going 18-9 with a 1.94 ERA and 293 strikeouts, a career high he matched again in 2018. The team had no offense, though, so he didn’t win the triple crown that year, missing out on wins. He *did* win two triple crowns in 2018 and 2020, but with higher ERA’s (2.21, 2.32).

On the batting side, Tetsu Osanai batted .355 with 35 homers and 140 RBI, slugging .600, in 1989. It’s the only time a Raccoon slugged .600, the only time a Raccoon had an OPS over 1 (1.004), but he didn’t win the triple crown that year either, falling short in homers. He had won a triple crown in 1986, though, his first full year with the Raccoons.

Originally Posted by UltimateAverageGuy

What would be your all time Raccoon lineup?

That’s tough. I’m not gonna make a lineup per se, because ultimately you’d end up with somebody batting eighth that would never bat eighth for reals. Let me try to put a roster together, roughly, doesn’t have to be *25* guys:

SP: Kisho Saito, Nick Brown, Jonny Toner, Tadasu Abe, Hector Santos (the last four of which were briefly teammates in 2016-18 while Brownie was on his way out and while the last three were establishing themselves as a murderous 1-2-3 punch in the rotation … whenever health permitted)

RP: Grant West, Angel Casas (both in the HOF), Richard Cunningham (who was always stuck behind West on the 1980s Coons), Josh Rella, Matt Walters; after that they’re all washing together a bit. I think one awesome reliever that always got **** on for no reason because I was mad at the team overall in those early 2000s would be Dan Nordahl. Another great reliever that was terminally stuck (behind Casas in this case) would be Raw Lock- … Law Rockburn.

C: a notoriously hard to fill hole for this team, always. The best long-term catcher (outside of 1- or 2-year rentals) the Raccoons had was probably the long-forgotten Sam Dadswell, who was let go when his contract expired in ’89 because, hey, we have this David Vinson kid… and… ya. Vinson and Elias Matías Tovias Diaz are the longest-tenured Raccoons backstops, but both of them posted more sub-100 OPS+ seasons than above-100 OPS+ seasons. Probably one of them for the second C slot anyway.

1B: Tetsu Osanai, before he became too fat. Note that Joel Starr’s 6-year tenure at 1B is the longest since Adrian Quebell left in *50 years*, so this position has also been rather painful

2B/SS: The young “Berto” Ramos, Matt Waters, and Yoshi Nomura can hold this area down perfectly well. Yes, I screamed by head off about Lonzo for 15 years, but the young Berto was just so much of a better hitter, he just had a more frightful decline.

3B: Matt Nunley. Another one of those hard-to-fill positions, and outside of Maldo passing through there in his 30s the Raccoons haven’t had a great third baseman since. And Nunley wasn’t a *great* hitter, but he showed up to work every day for 19 years (minus two injury-wrecked seasons), and was a ROTY and won Gold Gloves and Platinum Sticks and rings in 2026 and 2028, although he never led the CL in *anything*. Also, those BBQ grills are AWESOME.

OF: I’ll run out of spots here. Daniel Hall was the first strong hitter the Raccoons brought up (and the first player drafted by the Coons paws down), to the degree that I turned him into my Steam alias. Vern Kinner and Neil Reece were a big part of why that 1989-96 team slapped so hard. Kinnear left after the 1997 collapse, but endured in history with a World Series-winning knock (for the Titans, in case I haven’t mentioned it for more than ten minutes). Cookie Carmona, Manny Fernandez, Jesus Maldonado, and even Armando Herrera came later and I can’t pick two of those four, so the team just has to have seven outfielders.

Honorable mentions: Mark Dawson, David Brewer (also a victim of ’97), Al Martin, Adrian Quebell (grumble grumble), Kevin Harenberg, Rich Hereford, Troy Greenway, Rafael Gomez, Bryce Toohey, Chris Gowin, and Pucks for hitters, and there’s probably a lot more. For more pitchers: “Old Chris” Powell, Scott Wade, (the first) Jason Turner, Raimundo “Pooky” Beato, Jung-hoo Umberger, Bernie Chavez, Ignacio del Rio, Raffaello Sabre, Victor Merino, Seisaku Taki, and of course Wheats.