[Westheim]

At some point in early January, an intern from the Agitator called the front office. They wanted to know whether we were actually still around, given that the Raccoons had yet to make ANY move this offseason. Maud says that when she told the intern that we were working on all fronts to improve our performing group and were constantly looking for new angles of attack on the opposition, the intern said to a certain Jim he was with that yes, indeed, they (we) had no clue and were probably having buckets on our heads and constantly running into the walls, after which Maud explains she treated the Agitator to a “courtesy disconnect”.

After the Hall of Fame balloting reveal and the revelation that the induction ceremony in the summer would be cancelled this time around, we were indeed the only ABL team with only one player added this winter, which again was of course #89 prospect Chris Wise. The Condors and Titans had two each, which was the next-fewest. Those were also three teams with what I would call “decent success” in recent times. In other words: these three teams combined for the last EIGHT Continental League pennants and SEVEN championships in that time span; the 2027 Pacifics had been the only FL team to get anywhere near a set of rings recently. In fact, the Federal League had only won *four* of the last *seventeen* World Series.

None of this gave the Coons a player, though…

As I said before time and again, we had no prospects worthwhile that could sway another team to give us shiny toys, and the free agent market was expensive and the top pitchers were out of reach. There remained only the grab bag in the discount aisle.

But at least we could be assured that we still had a strong team as things were; a lineup with Harenberg, Hereford, Jamieson, Mora, Nunley, Stalker, and not least Ramos was certainly formidable, and regarding Elias Tovias, hey, somebody had to bat eighth, right? The bench remained suspect with Ivey, Magallanes, Gomez, and whatever we ended up fancying our backup infielders. Maybe there was also room for Wilson Rodriguez.

Pitching? Sure! Shumway, Roberts, Gutierrez, Boles, Ohl, Surginer – terrific top half of the staff. And then there were the more recent arrivals like Fleischer, whatever could be gotten from Dave Martinez, not to forget the left-handers Brotman and Garavito, the curious case of Matt Stonecipher, who had strong stuff and no control, but didn’t amount to a Ron Thrasher level of blast, and then again Ron Thrasher didn’t amount to a level of at least one Hall of Fame vote; and if you didn’t like Stonecipher around, or his name was too long to fit neatly on the uniform, some other chump for long relief, and it might just as well be Sean Rigg.

But that hole at #4 in the rotation; that one kept poking.

By the middle of January, somebody asked an uncomfortable question. It might have been me. But what about Vincent Alfaro? The 33-year-old righty was still unsigned. He was a type-A free agent, and he had lost 32 games between the last two seasons amidst the collapsed Scorpions’ sea of rubble and detritus. Defense around him had been pretty bad with BABIP’s as high as .345 in ’28. We might be able to help that, and money was tight, but we might be able to squeeze out an offer to him that he would at least mull over.

There were red flags, though, and not just a few. He had never been a strikeout pitcher, topping 6 K/9 only once in his career in ’22, then with the Pacifics, but he had enjoyed fairly good control in his earlier years. However, those K/9 and BB/9 values were starting to move towards each other. He was most or less a bank to allow 15 dingers (probably 30 once he got to Raccoons Ballpark…), but our scouting department pointed to something else entirely. Alfaro had been a 3-pitch guy throughout his career, but last year had barely thrown his slider, and when he had thrown it, the pitch had not seen any sort of bite. He was almost entirely relying on the 96 mph sinker (a very good pitch!) and a swooping curveball. Even if you got him for $2M (and the #16 pick), there was every possibility that within a but brief amount of time you might wind up with a very much battered back-end guy in the rotation, or a ridiculously middle innings reliever, neither of which merited $2M. Honestly, if we wanted to give a battered guy $2M, we could have kept Delgadillo…

+++

January 14 – The Canadiens announce the addition of 35-year-old utility player Matt Good (.285, 144 HR, 867 RBI) to a 2-yr, $3.24M contract.
February 4 – The Pacifics reunite with 33-yr old SP Vincent Alfaro (122-133, 3.97 ERA) for $7.68M and two years.

+++

Yes, yes, we are still here. No, we don’t have a player yet. We are in talks though. For example about redecorating some stuff here, and who will get a bobblehead this year, and whether we should add actual tails to the uniform pants.

Lots going on here!

One former Raccoon found a tree hole to shelter up in: Josh Stevenson signed for $790k with the Crusaders;