[Westheim]

You know what? I don’t WANT to trade Ben O’Morrissey! He had a bad year. So what. Most of our hitters slumped for extended periods of time to come in way below their career bests. Even Neil Reece… he was glowing red hot in April, then missed three months, and struggled at the plate after that. Yeah, he came out hitting .329 last season, but he ended up with only three home runs in the last ten weeks of the season.

I don’t want to trade Ben O’Morrissey. He’s one of those Firesale Kids! If you have forgotten that season, or if you are new to this dynasty and haven’t caught up with the past (which I could understand, walls of text everywhere), in 1988 the Raccoons had a team that was supposed to get us back to the postseason for the first time in five years after missing out by a game in ’87. We were below .500 early on, and never got over the hump. The team was disassembled in July and then a bit more in the offseason. Back then I brought in tons of youngsters, some of which didn’t pan out (mostly on the pitching side), but the others fill almost half our current lineup. In order these trades were made:

With Capitals: SP Roberto Gonzalez (for INF Jose Sanchez), who didn’t work out and is already retired
With Stars: INF Matt Higgins (for MR Richard Cunningham)
With Buffaloes: CF/LF Neil Reece (for MR David Jones and minor leaguers), also getting OF Jose Pacheco for budget reasons, and then:
With Stars: SP Toru Fujita (for OF Jose Pacheco), who was later traded on to the Buffaloes and is now with the Stars again as a reliever!
With Cyclones: MR Ken Burnett and 1B/3B Ben O’Morrissey (for MR Ed King and 2B Dani Perez)
With Condors: MR Jackie Lagarde and SP/MR Qi-zhen Geng (for OF Yoshinobu Ishizaki), with Geng of course being one of three pieces sent over to Las Vegas in the Royce Green deal!
With Miners: INF Elmer Hawley and 1B Orlando Alvarado (for INF Juan Ramirez); Alvarado never clicked, and Hawley was a fringe infielder
With Pacifics: OF Jeff Martin (for SP Alejandro Venegas and MR Emerson MacDonald), and while Martin never came together here, he just won a ring with Oklahoma…

There were more trades that didn’t follow the veteran for prospects pattern, and we let Armando Sanchez, a sterling outfielder walk for the draft pick compensation. The Miners picked him up, and whom did we get with that supplemental round pick in 1989, 33rd pick overall?

MR (CL?) Gabriel De La Rosa

Now we’re back at the closer discussion. I’m still not sure about Gabby. I had another idea. Trade Salazar for a proven closer! That solves several issues:

a) We get a closer
b) We shed some payroll
c) We can have De La Rosa as 7th/8th inning guy, or long man, or spot starter
d) We can spare more payroll by adding Matt Duncan as sixth infielder and have him and Higgins kinda share shortstop, and don’t forget Ingall either
e) We free up enough money to grab a starting pitcher off the market (possibly even Pooky)

Yeah, and in case it seems that my plan changes every day, that is because it does change every day. In fact, when I work on a trade with a team, and think it’s perfect, and then wander into the kitchen to get a coffee and a cookie or two, and come back five minutes later, I am shocked by the kind of sellout I put up and get mad. Five minutes later.

I did have a plan for the winter, which was to grab David Brewer. I got that right, but somehow the fact that Pooky elected free agency and tore a hole into the rotation threw me off balance. I don’t know what I’m doing. The budget cut didn’t help either.

Or should I just start the year with our top prospect Antonio Donis in the rotation? Would he? Could he? Should he? I have a hunch he could be impaled here, being a bit prone to home runs. The BABIP hints at defensive challenges in our minors, but his walks were high, too.

(moans) I am a very confused little furball.