Business is about to Pick Up
and It’s Not Good News for Chicago
The news coming in on February 16th was not good news. We had been scooped and I was furious at the agent of SS Carlos Montano. Not only had this guy just the other day recommended a contract structure for his client, he did this after he relayed some news to Montano that made the player “upset” with our most recent offer of $1.6 per year for 3 years. Somehow the agent spun this around like it was our fault we gave such a terrible offer and Montano had sent me a message that infuriated me to no end. After calming down we made the mistake of giving the player a new offer, that was only slightly higher than what the agent suggested. Now was it a mistake that I made the offer, or that I made it when I was still angry and didn’t think it through clearly? The day after we made that offer we got a message that Montano had signed with Toledo…….NO!!!!! (Throwing my cell into the wall). After members of the office came in to make sure I was okay, I got online and ordered a new phone.
The agent for Montano had suggested we offer 6 years for $14.8 million, which was still in my mind a cheap contract for this guy, even though I was still pissed off at Montano and his idiot agent. I quickly just sent an offer for 6 years and $15 million figuring this would be an ongoing bidding process. I was wrong and found out that Toledo had narrowly beat our off by $400,000 and Montano was off to the Neptunes. I immediately made a note to myself that when we see Montano he is going to get a fastball drilled into him. Maybe Joe Johnson and his 99 mph heater.
Needless to say, the day didn’t get any better from there. While we were looking for LHSP there was another pitcher LHP who was available and a hell of a lot cheaper and younger. Donald Hubbard had pitched for Milwaukee and while he wasn’t great, he wasn’t terrible. He was coming off a middling season going 7-15 with a 5.14 ERA so I kind of ignored him. Probably was a mistake because I knew there were several teams looking for LHP’s. Well it wasn’t Toledo this time, instead it was Duluth who signed Hubbard for 3 years and less than $5 total.
We did make a signing on this day, giving a 24-year-old RHSP by the name of Kieron Alpin a major league contract for $525,000 (league minimum is $508,000). He had been just looking for a minor league deal initially but then several teams jumped in and in a rare moment of thinking it threw when he came back asking for a minor league deal with a 30-day option I just said give him a big league contract slightly above the minimum and see how it goes. Well it went and we got him. Fortunately he has options as he is a bit of a project, but who knows he could surprise me like Stan Storey who will be in the mix for a starting spot at least until Yale Hulburt gets back sometime in May. Alpin has 4 pitches of which 2 are average (Fastball and Splitter) along with a decent Sinker and Cutter with potential to become average. He is a control pitcher (4 out of 5 rating wise) who is from Aruba. He will likely start out at AAA this season so we can see what he can do. It’s not a terrible signing, just not the big splash I was looking for, but Mr. Bocquet Jr. was happy he was cheap.
The next day the news just continued to come in and it still wasn’t going our way. I did not up our offer to SP Cliff Simpson so he decided to take….you guess it Toledo’s offer of 4 years and $44 million. The deal is just how Simpson outlined it with the first 3 years guaranteed and the 4th season at his option. While I am somewhat disappointed in this, I kind of figured this is where he was going. I just didn’t want to be locked into a 4 year deal. We offered him 4 years but the first 2 seasons were less than the $11 million he wanted at around $9 million each. Then he had a $10 million dollar player option for year 3, which I figured if he was pitching great he would probably trigger the out. The 4th year was either a vesting option which we could control or a team option with a $2.2 million dollar buyout. So while I hate that he went back to Toledo, I wasn’t too disheartened by his decision. But that meant we had better get SP Castro. Part of me hopes that Simpson’s sometimes “complex” attitude could cause issues in the clubhouse. He is not a bad guy, but he can be a less than motivated guy.
Duluth also made another signing, when they grabbed our former 2B Walker Dunse (35) for 2 years and $9 million per season. A significant decrease from what he wanted prior to free agency when he “requested” 4 years and $56 million. I like Dunse, he is a very solid 2B but I did notice a bit of decline this last season. Maybe it was just a slightly off-year because he was playing SS for us and he just wasn’t as comfortable there as he was at 2nd. Or maybe it's because he has lost a step in the field and on the basepaths. He will probably make me regret not resigning him, but there were 9 other teams in this league besides Toledo and Duluth. Can’t anyone sign somewhere else?
Someone finally did as RHP Matsusuke Yoshida who pitched for us last season signed with Windsor for 2 years for a total of $9.6 million. The fans loved Yoshida and he pitched solidly last season on his $2.5 million dollar contract. He asked for 3 years and $12 million total and I just couldn’t pull the trigger on that because while he pitched well I felt we could get a younger less expensive guy in that spot.
I had heard back from Julio Castro finally after a long 2 weeks of “he’s mulling it over” to hear he appreciated the offer and while it wasn’t quite what he wanted his agent let us know we were in the lead. I called his agent and said look, I’m willing to up the offer to $7 million (up from $6.5) if he signs in the next week. I could tell from the agent’s voice I had just bid against myself, but I needed a LHSP and Castro fit that bill nicely and it was just a 1 year commitment which fit what I was trying to do.
Early in the day on February 20th, we had gotten the news that we had 2 agreements. One was for a lefty hitting C by the name of Guo-quiang Lee who signed a 1 year and $1 million dollar deal. Lee is 33 and his defense is not great, but again I liked his lefty bat. He hits for a decent average as with 7 seasons spent at Owen Sound he is a career 282 hitter. He will battle the “other” Lee (Chi-yong Lee) for the backup spot to starting C Juan Duran. The bigger news was we got our LHSP as Julio Castro signed on the dotted line for that 1 year $7 million dollar deal. He will slot in probably between Jose Cedeno and Joe Johnson to start the season. Things were looking up……Until
We had been in lots of discussions with 1B Eric Molina’s agent and I was trying to shoehorn in both Simpson and Castro in my dealings at that time (I didn’t really want both but I needed to be in on both). So my offer to Molina was a bit less than what he was asking (6 years $122 million). They came back with a 5 year deal and while he was only 29, I figured yeah 5 years sounds good. So we offered 5 years and $103 million. On February 20th I got more bad news, Molina had agreed to a contract of 6 years and $132 million. Yep you guessed it, Toledo.
This was really beginning to be a problem. I feel like Duluth and especially Toledo had significantly beaten me out on multiple players and upgraded their teams tremendously. So far we had signed a backup C (Lee), a AAA SP (Alpin) and Castro. I was starting to feel desperate and when you do that sometimes you make a panic decision…..I made a phone call to the top hitting free agent on the market. LF Robert “Rodeo” LeRoy who just won the MVP in the North of the Border last year and he was out to make bank on it.
Next - Do we make a rash decision and grab a big time bat?