[Westheim]

January 2 – The Loggers sign journeyman 1B Dave Martel to a $336,000 contract for one season. Martel is a .282 hitter, but has only three home runs in his career.
January 3 – The Raccoons trade outfielder Jose Flores (.255 lifetime, but only .200 in 1979) to the Aces for pitching prospect Rich Hughes. This will be interesting. My scouts say he will become a star. OSA says he’s a bust.
January 6 – We claim C Angel Ramirez off waivers by the Las Vegas Aces and assign him to the AAA level. His AAA showings with the Aces were promising and he was a September callup, but the small sample size there doesn’t tell much. It’s highly likely that they waived him to make room for Jose Flores.
January 13 – Indians reliever Martin Hansen is out for the season after getting his hand stuck in a garage door. Hansen has a lifetime ERA of 2.43 and will surely be missed by the Indians in the 1980 season.
January 14 – The next big trade: we send defensive outfielder Johan Dolder and reliever Kevin Hatfield to the Crusaders in exchange for infielder Pedro Hermundo and two prospects. Hermundo is a career .248 hitter with a tendency to go deep, while Dolder is .203 for his three seasons with the Raccoons. Hatfield had an ERA over four the last two seasons, has proven he does not belong in the closer’s spot, and was out of control at season’s end. This gives us a very good backup infielder and in case Costa does not come around, he can start third and Simon at second. Hermundo is notable in that he had the first at bat against the Raccoons ever, hitting against Alex Miranda.
January 22 – Perhaps the biggest free agent this winter, CF Jorge Chavez formerly with the Scorpions, signs through ’86 with the Knights for $6.09M. Chavez is a .321 hitter with very good defense, but has been plagued by injuries before.
January 28 – The Raccoons claim utility infielder Bob Davis off waivers from the Atlanta Knights. He is assigned to AAA.
February 5 – RF Enrico Maldonado re-signs with the Aces, but many consider him overpaid at age 34 and a 2-year $1,084,000 contract for a powerless .301 hitter.

Preseason officially begins. A bunch of good free agents remain, but none is really fitting what I need. I would still take a starter if I found one. I need a seventh infielder, although we could use Cameron Green. We played with six infielders for most of 1979 and it was often challenging especially with Costa hitting below .200 …

Currently the majors roster has only 24 players including Roman Ocasio. I don’t think I want to keep him there once the season starts, though. He could be tried out as long man / spot starter, but I think AAA would suit him better. A backup outfield job also remains, but I’d also consider a star centerfielder if I could find one. We still have a million bucks to throw around, but in doubt could feed it into the development program and scouting department.

I messed up again with the schedule. I will play the original schedule this time (i.e. 1977 schedule), but renamed it according to the naming conventions from the online manual. For 1981 it should FINALLY rotate automatically!