[Westheim]

Nick Valdes called repeatedly and left increasingly panicked voicemails in early February for our complete lack of adding players since *October*. Nobody ever answered the phone, which was not for all of us having closed up shop and having gone home, but for a few days an increasingly hard-fought game of hide-and-seek was going on at the ballpark. Chad won it, despite hiding in plain sight, wearing the mascot costume and walking the halls. Nobody ever bothered to “find” him. My own hiding place, next to a secret liquor stash in the basement was found out within minutes by Slappy. We just agreed to both keep silent about it and turn to the liquor to get away from the madness for a moment. Turned out to be three days.

None of this got in players. At this point, the Raccoons were after two “proven veteran” free agent pitchers, none of them exciting. Between them they had zero All Star nominations. One of them had led the league in walks fairly recently. The other had once managed to post a losing season with a 2.57 ERA.

Talks with both had started around the holidays, and as of February were still going on. We really only needed one of them to sign, but good lord, they were both fighting for every dime and penny to boost their retirement fund.

Progress on this was excruciatingly slow, and with the Raccoons still not willing to part with any sort of demi-prospect (we might need them very soon…), no trade with another team for a valid, valuable piece could be arranged.

There were other areas for improvement that could still be tackled in February. For a while I was in talks with the Loggers to acquire Jim Young, which would have given Elias Tovias some honest competition, but that didn’t happen. It was hard to trade with the Loggers, who were already spending more money than they had, and then again, only prospects are free, and the Coons… well… eh…

There was also Mike Pizzo, the veteran catcher, still unemployed in February. He had hoped for a $20M deal in free agency, he was no closer to employment looking for a $2M deal, and the Coons weren’t even willing to offer that. The last two seasons had seen Pizzo lead the Federal League in strikeouts in ’28, batting all of .236, and then last year he had swatted 21 dingers and had posted an .848 OPS. It was like those two seasons were put up by entirely different players. In just roughy 10% fewer at-bats, he struck out almost 50% less, hit 50% more dingers, and earned almost 75% more WAR, which is a useless stat. We’d take the 2029 Bayhawks version, please?

Alas, money was tight, and Pizzo had some sheep out and dark clouds were forming, and he had to get those sheep in. And what is that, is it almost March already? When does the season start again?

We were at a point where random selections off the waiver wire started to make sense.

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February 5 – The Crusaders sign outfielder Danny Serrano (.318, 37 HR, 452 RBI) to a 2-yr, $2.8M. The 31-year-old outfielder played with the Aces and Capitals last year.

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Isn’t this exciting?

Former Critters alert: Wade Davis signed for $394k with the Warriors; and that was already it!