[Westheim]

Well, I tried, but the baseball gods said no, as did Jong-hoo Umberger. Despite being at a position in his career where you normally would want to secure as many dollars as possible, Umberger wasn’t going to sign the 4-year deal I had envisioned, ignoring all my best efforts and all the sugary incentives I had offered him. He really wanted only a 1-year deal for 2011 which I found rather meh.

But at least we were able to settle most arbitration cases well before the arbitration date and avoid the aggravating process altogether. A whole flock of players signed 1-year deals by the start of November, Colin Baldwin settling for $350k, Matt Pruitt for $400k, Keith Ayers for $230k, Rob Howell for $390k, and even Jong-hoo for $1.45M.

A bit later we also came to terms with Santiago Trevino ($252k), Manuel Gutierrez ($250k), and Kenichi Watanabe ($270k).

Adrian Quebell was not exactly alienated by signing a big deal for many millions, though. He was quite happy to explain to me why he should be making $14M total through 2018.

Fffff, this was a tough one.

While he had his upsides (Gold Glove defense, led the CL in doubles in 2010, quite insane OBP for a first baseman), he lacked in the one area I cherished most, home runs. Especially in this park! His career slash was .299/.381/.442 with 829 hits, of which 167 had been doubles, but only 69 home runs. I guess not everybody can hit 30 dingers (not even Alston could in 2010…), but $1.87M per year starting in 2012 sounded quite steep for what he brought to the table.

So the back-and-forth began. First, I wanted no 8-year deal. These are reserved for the Daniel Halls of my heart, and he wasn’t one. Then he started to bitch for a while and didn’t want to sign any long-term deal, and finally we settled at six years.

To be precise, Adrian Quebell signed a 6-yr, $8.88M contract, which pays him $830k in 2011, and then $1.61M every year from 2012 through 2016, the last year being a team option, with incentives on top of that.

While we will worry how to pay him down the road at a later date, this saves us about a hundred grand in 2010, and together with all the other players I skimmed for a few thousand bucks, squeezed out just a little bit more in budget space.

And for the first time EVER, the Raccoons didn’t take any players under team control to arbitration, all accounts settled beforehand.

This didn’t mean we weren’t going to offer salary arbitration to Ron Alston, Javier Cruz, and Ray Kelley, our compensation-eligible free agents. I even talked to Javier Cruz about an extension, albeit very briefly. He wanted a 4-year deal. To be clear, he’s almost 38, and he ran up a double-digit ERA in the playoffs, well contributing to our shortfall in the World Series. Um, no. But by now I was pretty darn sure that he would really take us to arbitration, and receive another raise.

That actually didn’t happen. Our three compensation-eligible players turned down the offer and became free agents.

With that, this is our shopping list for the offseason:
• Slugging rightfielder, first target being ex-LVA Ricardo Garcia
• #4 starting pitcher (preferably right-handed), assuming that we continue to use Gil McDonald as #5
• right-handed reliever for the 6th/7th inning
• upgrade at shortstop (if the opportunity would present itself)
• upgrade for backup infielder (should play all positions)

Why are we targeting Garcia (150 K per year) over Morales? I still prefer the daily strikeout over the annual leg in plaster cast. We already have a chronically injured and slightly expensive outfielder in Tomas Castro.

…

October 30 – The Cyclones deal 27-year old 1B/3B Marc Williams (.264, 18 HR, 91 RBI) and 24-year old OF/3B Dave Carter (.154, 0 HR, 0 RBI in 28 AB) to the Miners for 25-yr old C Jayden Jolley (.272, 13 HR, 71 RBI).
October 30 – The Miners also pick up SP Micah McIntyre (6-9, 4.27 ERA) from the Wolves for a pair of unranked prospects.

…

2010 AWARD OVERVIEW

Player of the Year: CIN Tony Hamlyn (23-5, 2.00 ERA) and OCT Antonio Donis (21-6, 2.38 ERA)
Hitter of the Year: CIN RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (.383, 20 HR, 94 RBI) and ATL OF Jose Morales (.375, 24 HR, 90 RBI)
Rookie of the Year: SFW LF/1B Gil Gross (.270, 15 HR, 57 RBI) and ATL OF Marty Reyes (.294, 7 HR, 34 RBI).
Reliever of the Year: WAS CL Tommy Wooldridge (6-4, 1.31 ERA, 40 SV) and CHA CL Luis Hernandez (5-1, 0.56 ERA, 38 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P DAL Jose Flores, C DEN Eugene Carter, 1B PIT Steve Butler, 2B DAL Hector Garcia, 3B LAP Jens Carroll, SS CIN Bob Hall, LF DEN Victorino Sanchez, CF DEN Lionnel Perri, RF CIN Will Bailey
Platinum Sticks (CL): P LVA Juan Valdevez, C IND Jose Paraz, 1B NYC B.J. Manfull, 2B OCT Marcos Garza, 3B VAN Mitsuhide Suzuki, SS CHA Jesus Amador, LF ATL Jose Morales, CF CHA Jimmy DeBoer, RF LVA Ricardo Garcia
Gold Gloves (FL): P NAS Toshiro Uenohara, C CIN Felix Hernandez, 1B SFW Raúl Bovane, 2B LAP Victor Flores, 3B NAS Antonio Esquivel, SS DAL Armando Rodriguez, LF LAP Manny Perez, CF RIC Victor Enriquez, RF RIC Winston Jones
Gold Gloves (CL): P VAN Rod Taylor, C VAN Julio Mata, 1B OCT Tomas Cardenas, 2B ATL Julio Hernandez, 3B TIJ Dan Jones, SS LVA Tom Dahlke, LF NYC Martin Ortíz, CF NYC Roberto Pena, RF NYC Stanton Martin

Looks like that Dave Fletcher homer cost Angel Casas, who wasn’t even in the top 3 of CL relievers. Actually, the only Raccoon to finish top 3 in the top 4 categories was out-of-nowhere SP Gil McDonald, who was third in the ROTY voting (after ANOTHER Knight in Devin Hibbard).

While the team’s award harvest was rather barren, some mook handed me the Manager of the Year award for the first time since … I can’t even remember.