[Westheim]

Many times an offseason begins with a dull period of the weeks leading up to the free agency date, because the team knows what it’s gonna do. These guys go; those guys are made go.

This was not one of those offseasons.

The Raccoons began the offseason in a right pickle money wise. My goal was to extend both Matt Nunley and Matt Jamieson to short-term deals. Last year’s arrangement from the start was them playing a disjointed platoon with Rich Hereford travelling back and forth between third base and leftfield, depending on the opposing pitcher; for various reasons, that arrangement only lasted about six to eight weeks total, most of those reasons relating to medial malaise. All three batters were actually great contributors, and when could we ever say that about any three Raccoons on the same team at the same time?

The thing was that we were left with little wiggle room for the 2030 roster *and* Matt Jamieson had been inspired by his strong 2029 outing to ask for a final shot in the arm in the vicinity of 3-yr, $6M, which was not something the Raccoons could spontaneously come up with. In the days after the World Series, we quickly signed a $570k extension with Nunley, once again probably his final one, but Jamieson wanted more. Much more.

And I wanted Jamieson, goddamnit!

While Jamieson was the right-handed batter and thus on the short end of the stick in a platoon between the two Matts, more things had developed during the season, such as the proverbial death of Rafael Gomez. He had batted for an .810 OPS in ’27, then .749 in ’28, then all of .602 last year. He was also a right-handed batter, and Rich Hereford was also able to cover that position, so we would actually see Rich more in rightfield, giving more breathing room to Matt Jamieson. But to make that happen, we had to sign Jamieson to an extension.

Well, Gomez was not going to go anywhere. He was in a contract year and making $1.72M, and as already brought up he had batted for a .602 OPS last year; he was all but immovable. The Coons had to make do with him this season, then part with him on the other side of the 2030 campaign.

To find $2M for Jamieson, the Coons had to find a different player making roughly as much that could be shifted elsewhere. Abel Mora with $1.3M was probably at the bottom end of the range here, but we appreciated what he was doing. He would also be in the contract year, part of the ongoing narrative that the 2030-31 offseason would be the death of this team, although we had significant ressources invested into 2031 and beyond. Tovias, Ohl, Hereford were all signed for ’31, and Ramos and Boles were under team control. Roberts, Gutierrez, Stalker, and Shumway were even signed for longer, and there was admittedly a fairly mean set of left-handed starters in that mix.

That said, however, Tim Stalker had underperformed in 2029 and was probably not movable at this point. Rico was coming off injury and seemed to hold no value in BNN rankings, either, despite him having won the ERA crown in ’28. Roberts was probably wishing himself back to San Francisco. Tom Shumway’s value was undeniable… except he’d also come back from injury.

INJURY. INJURY. INJURY.

No, the guy to be moved was clearly Dan Delgadillo. He had cashed $2.15M for a 4.61 ERA in 2029, and I could find a 4.61 ERA pitcher for much less. We probably had a bunch on the roster already, f.e. Kyle Anderson (who was also a free agent, but one after the other…). To my great surprise, Delgadillo drew quite a bit of interest, with almost half the league offering up their own versions of overpriced non-contributors. But not all the offers were phony; some teams, including in our division, were desperate for any straw to get their rotation rejuvenated. The question was just what the Coons could ask for in return; ideally we wanted a capable player, say, somewhere between Butch Gerster and Tim Stalker in terms of ability, and he’d make the minimum. Or, y’know, a prospect. Doesn’t harm to have prospects…

+++

October 27 – The Raccoons trade 26-yr old SP Dan Delgadillo (50-43, 3.93 ERA) and 25-yr old SP Jamie O’Leary (2-11, 4.32 ERA) to the Crusaders for 22-yr old #89 prospect AA CL Chris Wise.

+++

Wise might be the next Ricky Ohl – just give him another year or two; so there is definitely value in that return. And we managed to shed over $2.3M in commitments, which was really the main goal of the exercise. The Crusaders would not do the deal straight up, and it took another player to complete the deal. They would also have enjoyed to dig into whatever demi-prospects we had at the AA level (some pitching there, not so much offense…), but settled for O’Losey, who could not have had a much worse rookie experience. It takes special skill to go 2-11 in 16 starts. That is well south of Damani Knight territory!

Not that including O’Leary was the perfect solution, but it was the only one that I was comfortable with, and I enjoyed adding Chris Wise to the prospect pool very much. Also, now we had dough to go after Jamieson!

What I didn’t see coming (and didn’t inquire beforehand about) was however that Kyle Anderson also thought he was entitled to a 3-year deal worth several millions. Well, maybe he was, but he couldn’t get that from the Coons.