[Westheim]

January 8 – The Canadiens trade OF Tyler Chenette (.290, 28 HR, 192 RBI) to the Capitals for OF/1B Jose Alvarez (.273, 36 HR, 287 RBI).
January 10 – The Crusaders sign up former Loggers INF Kyle Reber (.281, 35 HR, 505 RBI) for three years and $11.76M.
January 10 – The Warriors trade 28-year-old 1B Jerry Morejon (.277, 81 HR, 358 RBI) to the Raccoons for 25-yr old SP/MR Cameron Bridges (1-1, 4.66 ERA) and 26-yr old INF Gary Gates (.240, 0 HR, 28 RBI).
January 28 – Pittsburgh signs ex-SAC SP Jay Williams (78-88, 4.14 ERA) to a 2-year deal that will pay $14.6M to the 31-year-old right-hander.
January 31 – The Raccoons trade AAA SP/MR Randy Rautenstrauch (18-16, 4.72 ERA) to the Rebels for right-hander Javy Carpio (17-13, 3.89 ERA, 5 SV).
February 1 – Former NAS SP Tomas Restrepo (55-40, 3.67 ERA) inks with Denver for $7.76M over two years.
February 1 – Veteran left-hander Elijah LaBat (45-53, 3.55 ERA, 128 SV), most recently with the Knights, lands a 2-yr, $6.08M deal with the Canadiens.
February 3 – The Indians sign ex-POR SP Girolamo Pizzichini (57-68, 4.37 ERA, 1 SV) to an $810k contract for 2070, which means the Raccoons receive a supplemental round pick as compensation.
February 8 – Dallas announces that a 5-year, $15.44M contract has been signed with former Canadiens catcher Steve Varner (.267, 64 HR, 373 RBI).
February 9 – The Thunder sign former Miners SP Chris Hale (69-68, 3.89 ERA) to a $19.5M contract over three years.

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The Warriors came up with the Morejon offer and wanted Bridges and Noah Newhard, and I told them no. For some reason they really wanted to get rid of Morejon, though. Bridges has been weighed and found too light by us, and I was out of patience with Gates (81 AB for zero RBI last year). The person most unhappy about this deal was probably Dan Gomez, because his roster spot just disappeared. Morejon was cheap, in a contract year, and didn’t look like trouble from the get-go.

Getting rid of Rated-R was still on the bucket list for this winter and with Carpio we got another one of those “oh maybe he can start in a pinch” pitchers that can’t start. His dead straight lazy 91mph fastball is gonna play GREAT in Portland. Tony Gaytan better hustle to keep giving up more homers per inning than this guy.

We were already $1M overbudget at this point, so further additions were categorically out of the question unless somebody was made enough to take on J.P. Gallo’s contract. The offseason was over for the Coons and now it was time to hammer whatever we had accumulated into a roster that wouldn’t fall apart the second they touched down in Elk City, where the 2070 season would begin for this team.

All type-A free agents have signed by this stage, and the Raccoons’ compensation for Joel Starr remains the lowest forfeited pick of the winter. Whee!

Critters of the past with new futures included Jaden Wilson signing an odd 4-yr, $4.4M contract with the Buffos; Ramon Carreno got $620k from the Loggers; the Thunder gave $780k to Jim White;

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2070 HALL OF FAME VOTING

The Hall of Fame would welcome two new members in 2070, these having emerged from the recently completed voting process.

With the Alex Vasquez, one of the foremost examples of a get-on-base, steal your way around players of the last decades was elected. Vasquez played 17 seasons for the Miners and a couple more years with the Knights at the end, leading the FL in stolen bases in each of his first seven seasons. His 669 career stolen bases still have him seventh on the all-time leaderboard. Apart from that he led the league in OBP twice and collected three Gold Gloves and four Platinum Sticks in middle infield positions through his career. Power was never the Dominican left-hander’s game – he never hit more than five homers in a season and more than 30 doubles just once. But his constant on-base presence and ten seasons with 100+ walks had him on the bags constantly to harass the opposition. For his career he batted .292/.404/.360 with 2,605 hits, 1,640 walks, 37 homers, and 779 RBI.

While Indy’s Bill Quinteros was more of a slugger and had 17 consecutive seasons with double digit home runs for the Indians before a few more journeyman stops at the end, the corner outfielder actually never led the league in home runs – but in his second season in 2044 hit 17 triples to lead the league in that category. He also topped the CL in OBP twice. Not much of a defender, he made his value with the stick, getting up to 58 extra-base hits in a season, and racked up six Platinum Sticks along with nine All Star nominations. While he hit .300 or better four times in his career, towards the end he posted low averages, but the knack for a near-.400 OBP remained with him all the way til the end of his 20-year career. Quinteros retired a .268/.398/.437 hitter with 2,381 hits, 326 homers, and 1,261 RBI. He also stole 217 bases in his younger years and drew 1,739 walks.

Quinteros is also the first player with a surname starting with Q in the Hall. Someone make room between Gary Perrone and Andrés Ramirez!

Full voting results:

PIT 2B Alex Vasquez – 1st – 82.9 – INDUCTED
IND RF Bill Quinteros – 3rd – 76.2 – INDUCTED
??? LF Eddie Moreno – 7th – 71.4
POR SS Lorenzo Lavorano – 2nd – 63.1
CHA RF Danny Ceballos – 1st – 28.2
DEN 3B Ronnie Thompson – 9th – 22.2
NAS C Jose Cantu – 1st – 16.7
??? CL Jason Posey – 1st – 13.9
IND CL Tommy Gardner – 2nd – 13.5
??? CL Ben Lussier – 1st – 13.1
LAP RF Matt Diskin – 4th – 11.9
IND LF Danny Rivera – 7th – 11.9
DEN MR Kellen Lanning – 3rd – 9.5
ATL CF Jon Alade – 1st – 9.5
??? SP Matt Sealock – 10th – 9.5 – DROPPED
??? SS Julio Moriel – 2nd – 9.1
WAS LF Dan Martin – 1st – 7.9
??? SS Alex Adame – 6th – 6.3
??? CL Mike Lynn – 7th – 6.0
SAC SS Chris Navarro – 3rd – 5.6
PIT LF Josh Abercrombie – 1st – 5.2
??? SP Kyle Turay – 2nd – 4.4 – DROPPED
??? CL Kevin Hitchcock – 1st – 4.0 – DROPPED
DAL LF Omar Gonzalez – 4th – 4.0 – DROPPED
??? SS Rick Price – 3rd – 3.6 – DROPPED
SFB SP Milt Cantrell – 1st – 3.2 – DROPPED
??? SP David Concha – 1st – 2.0 – DROPPED
OCT 1B David Worthington – 2nd – 1.6 – DROPPED
??? CL Willie Cruz – 1st – 0.8 – DROPPED

Lonzo is still the career stolen base leader… but Omar Sanchez, age 40, tied him with five steals between the Stars and Scorpions last season. Whether another team will be bold enough to invest in Sanchez’ old and aching body, remains to be seen, but right now they are jointly atop the leaderboard with 752 steals each.