Portland Raccoons (ABL)

[Lafayette53]

The two division no wild card era claims a victim. Like the 1993 Giants you can curse the divisional format.

Nothing to be ashamed of though, Portland played some amazing baseball. Hopefully your budget gets a bump after a good year and you can make a run for the title next year.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by pgjocki

Win the division or the kitten gets it...

What ever happened to Fluffy?

[pjh5165]

Tough end to the season, but this young core you've got is no joke.

[pgjocki]

Originally Posted by Westheim

What ever happened to Fluffy?

[Westheim]

2007 ABL PLAYOFFS

After some late season drama, the ABL had set their playoff field, with all four teams in the playoffs having already been champions at some point in league history, but for two of them this success had come more than a quarter century ago.

The FL East had been taken by the 91-71 Cyclones, who made the playoffs for the fifth time in team history, and made them back-to-back for the first time ever. They had been the ABL’s very first champions in 1977, but had not returned to the World Series since. Their 91 wins represented their best effort in 28 years. By contrast, their opponents in a rematch of the 2006 FLCS, the 101-61 Dallas Stars, had logged the first back-to-back triple-digit wins season since the 2000-01 Warriors, and it was only the fourth time a Federal League team had won 100 games in consecutive seasons (1990-91 Capitals, 1988-89 Blue Sox).

The outlook for the Cyclones to stop a streak of three consecutive FLCS defeats were dim however. They had lost two key bats in Dennis Berman (.290, 20 HR, 85 RBI) and Ray Gilbert (.288, 8 HR, 55 RBI) on the final weekend of the season, and while they could still rely on battle-scarred veteran Daniel Morris (.358, 28 HR, 110 RBI) and Will Bailey (.356, 27 HR, 109 RBI) the rest of the lineup looked a little thin now. Gilbert’s replacement at first base, Raúl Flores, had gobbled up all of 22 at-bats this season, batting .182. Their rotation was unremarkably decent, if all right-handed. Nathan O’Herlihy (16-7, 3.93 ERA) and Jack Berry (15-11, 3.37 ERA) led the staff. They carried only one left-hander in the bullpen, too.

At least the Stars had their own problems. A shoulder injury rendered CF Cesár Morán (.313, 12 HR, 63 RBI) unavailable for the FLCS (but not for the World Series), and CL Alfred Becerra (1-4, 1.78 ERA, 27 SV) was unavailable for the entire playoffs. Luckily for them, they had decent enough personnel to cover those holes, and as a team had led the Federal League in both runs scored and runs allowed. They had a rock solid rotation going, led by Elwood Spurrell (18-12, 3.22 ERA) and Paul Miller (18-8, 3.78 ERA), while the bullpen was stuffed with veterans who knew how to handle a lead. They were in the playoffs for the third consecutive year, the ninth time overall, and were the defending champions, with three titles in total (1983, 1988, 2006), looking eagerly at tying the Titans’ league-best four titles (1998, 2001-02, 2004).

In the CLCS, the 102-60 New York Crusaders emerged from a stocked CL North that featured three teams with 98+ wins to make their first playoff appearance since 1979! It was their fourth appearance overall, and they had won the title in 1979. Their opponents, the 95-67 Charlotte Falcons, made it to October for the sixth times, and the third year in a row. They had won their only title in 2005.

The Crusaders, who had clinched home field advantage throughout the playoffs on the final day of the season, had finished first in runs scored and runs allowed in the Continental League, pairing three 15+ game winners, led by 20-6 Angel Javier, with a lively middle of the order, where Martin Ortíz and Stanton Martin had both swatted 25 home runs, and both plus Francisco Caraballo had driven in 104 or more runs, with Theodore Mullins’ 96 RBI ranking pretty close to a fourth triple-digit ribbie guy. They were a bit weaker in setting the table, but their real problem might be an injury to CL Iemitsu Rin (1-0, 1.10 ERA, 16 SV), who was not quite adequately replaced by Scott Hood.

The Falcons created success with a good mix of young up-and-coming prospects, grizzled veterans, and players in their prime. They didn’t excel at anything in particular, but had still managed to score the second-most runs with a top-heavy lineup, where 2B Jose Lopez (.277, 32 HR, 134 RBI) batted cleanup quite successfully. While they had lost franchise hits leader Hubert Green to an injury and youngster Javy Rodriguez is day-to-day to start the series, neither of them had enjoyed spectacular seasons. Their real issue was their starting pitching, which ranked well in the bottom half of the league, and while they had Larry Cutts (15-6, 3.57 ERA) ready to go, but thanks to SP Steve Rogers (13-3, 2.79 ERA) biting the dirt with a torn flexor tendon, they would also give the ball to Alfredo Collazo (8-10, 5.55 ERA). The middle of their bullpen was no better, although they had a strong back end with closer Luis Hernandez, who saved 42 games with a 1.30 ERA.

Experts agree that the Crusaders are the hands-down favorites to win the championship. The Falcons’ pitching should get torn to shreds by the Crusaders’ offense, and they might also be a well better team than the defending champions, the Stars, who should have no big issues in dispatching the injury-wrecked Cyclones. 28 years after their last title, the Crusaders should win it again.

LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

Cyclones @ Stars … 1-4 … (Stars lead 1-0) … DAL Joe Cowan 3-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI; DAL Elwood Spurrel 8.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, W;

Cyclones @ Stars … 4-3 (10) … (series tied 1-1) … CIN David Rincón 2-2, 2 BB, 2 HR, 2 RBI;
Falcons @ Crusaders … 4-6 … (Crusaders lead 1-0) … NYC Francisco Caraballo 3-4;

Falcons @ Crusaders … 6-4 … (series tied 1-1) … CHA Jesus Flores 2-4, 2 HR, 4 RBI; NYC Jorge Lopez 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; the ball was flying well, with five home runs in total in this game

Stars @ Cyclones … 8-4 … (Stars lead 2-1) … DAL Armando Rodriguez 3-4, 2 BB, 2 RBI; DAL Rafael Garza 3-5, 3B; CIN Tony Vela 4.1 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K; Dallas jumps on Cincy’s Juan Garcia for eight runs 2 2/3 innings

Stars @ Cyclones … 8-2 … (Stars lead 3-1) … DAL Armando Rodriguez 3-5, BB, 2B, RBI; DAL Hector Garcia 2-5, HR, 3 RBI; DAL Rafael Garza 3-5, RBI; DAL Elwood Spurrell 8.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, W; the Stars churn out 18 hits in a rout
Crusaders @ Falcons … 7-5 … (Crusaders lead 2-1) … NYC Roberto Pena 4-4, BB, 2 RBI; CHA Javier Rodriguez 3-5, 2B; CHA Jose Lopez 2-5, HR, 2 RBI; CHA Forest Hartley (PH) 1-1, HR, 2 RBI;

Stars @ Cyclones … 5-6 (10) … (Stars lead 3-2) … CIN Kevin Bond 1-3, 3 BB; CIN Dan Morris 3-5; CIN B.J. Manfull 3-5, 2 RBI; Charlie Deacon does not retire anybody in the bottom 10th
Crusaders @ Falcons … 6-3 (14) … (Crusaders lead 3-1) … NYC Martin Ortíz 4-6; NYC Francisco Caraballo 3-7, RBI; NYC Robbie Wills 4.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K, W; CHA Javier Rodriguez 3-5, BB;

Crusaders @ Falcons … 8-5 … (Crusaders win 4-1) … NYC Francisco Caraballo 3-5, HR, 3 RBI; Falcons rally late from six runs down, but it was all too late

Cyclones @ Stars … 6-9 … (Stars win 4-2) … CIN Will Bailey 3-5, HR, 2 RBI; John Alexander’s bases-loaded single in the bottom 8th plates the winning run

…

WORLD SERIES

The Stars and Crusaders meet in the World Series for the first time. Both won over 100 games in the regular season and had little trouble with their league championship opponents. Neither team suffered injuries. Both teams led their league in runs scored and runs allowed, the Crusaders’ run differential of +241 being slightly outpaced by the Stars’ +255.

It is a tight matchup, but the Crusaders are still considered to have an edge!

Stars @ Crusaders … 4-1 … (Stars lead 1-0) … DAL John Alexander 1-4, HR, 3 RBI; DAL Elwood Spurrell 8.0 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W; NYC Martin Ortíz 2-3, BB, HR, RBI; Alexander’s 3-run homer off Robbie Wills wins game 1

Stars @ Crusaders … 2-3 … (series tied 1-1) … DAL César Morán 3-4; DAL Hector Garcia 2-3, HR, 2 RBI; NYC Francisco Caraballo 3-4, 2B; NYC Greg Connor 8.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 8 K, W;

Crusaders @ Stars … 9-5 … (Crusaders lead 2-1) … NYC Martin Ortíz 3-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; NYC Stanton Martin 4-5, 2B, 2 RBI; NYC Francisco Caraballo 2-5, 2B, 3 RBI; DAL César Morán 3-5, RBI;

Crusaders @ Stars … 8-5 … (Crusaders lead 3-1) … NYC Roberto Pena 4-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI; DAL César Morán 2-5, 2 HR, 4 RBI;

Crusaders @ Stars … 5-2 … (Crusaders win 4-1) … NYC Francisco Caraballo 1-3, 2 BB, 2B, 2 RBI; NYC Angel Javier 8.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 BB, 4 K;

2007 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS
NEW YORK CRUSADERS
(2nd title)

[TheMaus2]

Did Justin Westfield have any other life outside of baseball in the past 30 years?

[Westheim]

Odd notes about the surprise breakout of ’07:

• The Raccoons paid the least money for a win, $128k per victory
• Tomas Castro received a ridiculously low $30,612 for each point of WAR he accumulated
• Most WAR gained despite missing a third of the season: Vic Flores, who’s a free agent
• Whitebread warned me not to extend Daniel Sharp and to get rid of Luke Black due to their lowly .330 wOBA (woolly obese balls average?)
• Luke Black still led the team in most easily countable stats (HR, RBI, XBH, … and K)
• Daniel Sharp hid himself very well, but led the team with 38 doubles
• Ironically, Kel Yates ended a 4-year strikeout leadership the very year he led the league in wins and ERA
• Most shutouts by a Raccoon in 2007: Jose Dominguez (2)
• If Kel doesn’t become Pitcher of the Year with his 21-3, 2.37 ERA, 241 K, 5.6 K/BB, 6.20 H/9, 1.70 BB/9, 9.51 K/9 season, I will throw rocks at the league office
• Best fielding percentage: Matt Pruitt, of all people (.994), but let’s not talk about his zone rating
• Most errors: Daniel Sharp, who else (18)
• Another stat Duke Smack led the team in: zone rating! (+19.3)
• Adrian Quebell was part in turning 97 double plays, and hit into almost as many (okay, 13)

The Raccoons had put up their first winning season in 11 years, and in fact had posted their third-best season ever after 1996 (108-54) and 1992 (99-63). Nobody had quite seen it coming, everybody had had an ecstatic summer in Portland (only to get slapped in the head with a fall depression), yet the Mexican Prick was not impressed. He wrote that with the team barely making it above .500 (it LITERALLY says that! That giant ***hole!!), there was a lot of hard work to be done.

Carlosito let me know that not enough people had consumed hot dogs at the games, and he barely had been able to turn a profit (can’t live off $6M with the bread prices in Mexico, huh?), and as such couldn’t afford to give us much more money. As a sign of goodwill (I almost spit out my donut I was chewing on at that point), he would raise the budget to a flat $20M for 2008, up from $18.8M in 2007.

While this was not exactly good news, at least the Raccoons weren’t stricken with the smallest budget in the league anymore. The Rebels, Loggers, and Aces all had smaller budgets for 2008. The ancient Titans, who might be in for some hard years, have the biggest budget at $32.5M, while the Aces are last with $17.6M. The average budget is $25.0M, the median is $25.8M. In our division, the average budget is $25.6M, the median $26.3M. Those numbers are higher than the league average because while the division has two of the four paupers of the league, it also holds the Crusaders with the third-highest budget overall. The Canadiens and Indians are right in the middle of it all.

That’s a lot of talk about money, but money is a relevant topic for the Raccoons, as always. The offseason traditionally starts with free agency and salary arbitration, and well, we were right in the thick of it.

And, uh, yes, we’re supposed to make the playoffs (per Carlos Dumb**** jr.) this year. No excuses. Also, simultaneously I’m supposed to load the farm, increase on-base percentage with a team that almost as a whole takes ball four as an insult (that one comes definitely from that pale-faced college kid in the basement!), and to get people to the place we play at, we are supposed to acquire a hometown player.

Yeah, people always flocked in because of Grant West MAYBE closing a game…

(I checked after that dumb task first, because I don’t have anything else to do ‘round here, and there are at best three worthwhile players in the entire league from the Portland area, and that includes the Thunder’s future superstar centerfielder Tom Reese, whom we are certainly not going to get unless we play an abduction card – but hey, Carlosito’s got experience in that, I’m sure. The “best” candidate is New York’s mop-up guy Nathan Harrison, an extreme flyball pitcher in his 30s… Oh look, he’s a free agent! I’M SURE PEOPLE WILL DIE TO COME TO SEE HIM GIVE UP THREE HOMERS IN THE SIXTH OF A 9-1 BLOWOUT.)

Pfff.

Without further enragements, here comes our free agency and salary arbitration overview. Players are listed with 2007 production, 2007 salary, and where applicable compensation eligibility or 2008 salary estimate and service time.

Salary arbitration:
SP Raúl Fuentes, 31 – 10-13, 4.78 ERA - $326k - $370k – 5.018
MR Ed Bryan, 26 – 6-2, 2.73 ERA - $150k - $230k – 3.010
SP/MR Felipe Garcia, 30 – (minors) - $284k – (none) – 3.119
MR Ward Jackson, 30 – 0-0, 1.40 ERA - $355k - $400k – 3.171
MR Kazuhiko Kichida, 27 – 5-5, 3.86 ERA - $150k - $230k – 3.104
MR Lawrence Rockburn, 27 – 5-2, 2.18 ERA - $150k - $230k – 3.084
CL Angel Casas, 25 – 6-1, 1.04 ERA, 48 SV - $150k - $472k – 3.059
1B/2B Ieyoshi Nomura, 23 - .242/.317/.301, 1 HR, 37 RBI - $150k - $230k – 3.044
OF Jose Carlos Crespo, 27 - .256/.297/.411, 9 HR, 35 RBI - $150k - $230k – 3.036
LF/CF Tomas Castro, 23 - .321/.356/.482, 19 HR, 87 RBI - $150k - $630k – 3.008

Free agents:
1B/3B Daniel Sharp, 30 - .273/.342/.379, 4 HR, 60 RBI - $600k – type-B free agent
MR John Bennett, 35 – 4-1, 3.03 ERA - $1.28M – no comp.
MR Marcos Bruno, 31 – 7-1, 1.44 ERA - $340k – no comp.
INF Victor Flores, 28 - .350/.397/.497, 5 HR, 39 RBI - $400k – no comp.
SS/2B Kunimatsu Sato, 30 - .246/.317/.340, 1 HR, 23 RBI - $440k – no comp.

The crunch point on which many other things get tangled up is Vic Flores not being compensation eligible, assumedly because he did not qualify for the batting title too because of insufficient plate appearances? I have no clue. In any case, the whole latter half of the year, I was under the assumption that Flores would be a type-A free agent, and we would let him go to cash in on the draft picks (same with Sharp, but we’ll get to him in a sec).

Vic NOT being eligible for compensation changes this dramatically. How can you let him go!? On the flip side, he is probably going to demand a metric crap ton of money, and we have other holes to stuff (starting pitching, anyone?).

The infield as a whole has been quite the mess, although we regularly had the same configuration with Sharp, Flores, Yoshi, and Quebell from left to right. Well, Vic was injured for lengthy periods, during which Sato played quite well, and Ryan Miller, our hope for the future, not so much. Yoshi was so bad this year that he had to platoon by the end of the year with Gutierrez and whomever else we bothered sticking at second. After a steady 2006, Daniel Sharp committed almost 20 errors again, and the bat was not the same as pre-2006. Quebell might be the biggest disappointment of them all, playing the entire season and not getting a home run until the All Star break, and then hitting only five in total. We need to upgrade at first base, really hard, and by now it is blatantly obvious that we horrendously overpaid for his services when he exchanged him for Randy Farley and Dan Nordahl, two former first round picks who were established in the majors, who are now chugging along steadily in the Federal League, Dan even closing games with success for the Warriors. That was one of the worst trades I’ve done – ever. Add into the calculation that we essentially donated Al Martin into AAA slavery. Emotionally broken, Al has had three home runs in the majors since the trade, and 30 in the minors…

Daniel Sharp is a fickly issue. His third base defense over the years could be best described as “sub-par”. His total zone rating since debuting in 2000 is -34.5 at third base, and +3.0 at first base, but more than 90% of his chances have come at third, where he has a total of 107 errors, with a high of 23 in 2005, when he cost the team more than a full point of WAR with his glove. The bat had been steady from his sophomore year in 2001 through 2005, with more or less the same results every year, a slash around .290/.365/.390, with five to eight home runs, and 33+ doubles in three of those years, but in 2003 he missed 51 games due to injuries, so he gets a pass there.

In 2006, he batted .236/.325/.313 with three homers, while wickedly playing good defense. This year, the glove was gone, but he didn’t come close to his former slash line with a .273/.342/.379 mark and four homers. He had 38 doubles, though.

It’s tough to make something out of that. But I know that he’s the only compensation-eligible player we have, and I also know that we have two talents in AAA (Ryan Miller and Ricardo Martinez) that want to see him gone. Overall, all things considered, Daniel Sharp might be a net negative. You could switch him to first, but at first base you are looking at two players (Sharp and Quebell) with almost exactly the same skill set, except they are batting from opposite sides of the plate. No way we’re going to platoon those two guys.

Now Ryan Miller’s major league output has been mood-dampening at best, and dispiriting at worst, batting .227/.261/.301 in 229 AB between 2006 and 2007. We certainly hoped for more. He’s more of a glove guy, true. He never killed pitching in AAA, either, putting up .710-ish OPS numbers in both of the last two years there. Then there’s 3B Ricardo Martinez, 21, who missed some time with injuries in 2007, but batted .260/.320/.422 with 15 dingers and stole 11 bases in 117 games in AAA. Defensively, he’s basically as bad as Sharp. But he’d be much cheaper.

We haven’t even gone into our starting pitching and our bullpen yet. This will be a tense winter at the Willamette.

[Questdog]

I like Adrian and he had a pretty good year. The RBIs were ridiculously low mostly because you had him batting behind the Black Hole......

Quebell will never be a 30 home run man, probably, but he walked more than he struck out, hit .290 and will likely hit 15-20 home runs in the future with a truckload of doubles.

If you hit for a high average, then I can stand you swinging at everything (a la Flores and Castro), but guys like the Black Hole, though they will knock in some runs, suck the life out of an offense by never keeping the string going. They are always the end of the sequence and never the beginning or middle.....

[Westheim]

I checked with Vic Flores shortly after the end of the World Series. He wore a shirt with dollar signs on it, a gold chain with a huge golden dollar sign around his neck, and had painted dollar signs with eye black on his face. He was looking for $3M a year for a substantial amount of time, and the Raccoons were just flat out unable to pay for him. I would have tried to squeeze out a contract similar to Brownie and Kel ($1.5M to $1.8M), but that wasn’t going to happen. I made a final, completely desperate, slightly staggered proposal for a 6-yr, $12M deal (plus incentives), but he had none of it. He wasn’t going to go lower than $2.6M per year, and - … (shrugs)

And we ain’t gonna get compensation.

After that disaster, the next one rolled along with Marcos Bruno, who was dressed the same as Flores. He came in with a demand for a 5-yr, $4.5M deal. Mind that he’s 31 and won’t be undefeatable forever, I was good with offering three years for half a million each, but eeeh…

Well, here’s the thing. Bruno has won 28 games in his major league career, half of those in the last three years. He locks the other guys down, and waits for his team to score. His K/9 was 11.7 or better in three of the last four years. His ERA’s the last three years were 2.36, 1.71, and 1.44; On every team without an Angel, Bruno is the closer. And a damn good one!

I allowed him to strip me naked in the end. He was offered a 2-year deal, $700k in ’08, and an $830k player option in ’09. If he’s any good in 2008, he’ll void that and we have the same talk next year. I’m buying time here, basically. Buying time is key right now. With Brownie and Kel signed through 2009, our window is mighty short. Kel actually has a player option for 2010, but c’mon it’s just $1.8M, he can get twice that!

I also reached out to Fuentes, Yoshi, and Angel to avoid arbitration.

The real stroke of genius I had early in the fall was with Tomas Castro. He was going to make a lot of money in arbitration anyway, but I didn’t want to take him to arbitration – ever. I topped that $630k estimate and rounded up to $700k, and constructed a deal to buy out his arbitration years and two years of free agency through to 2012 for $4.4M and substantial incentives. You can offer a $250k bonus for the Hitter of the Year award to anybody, but Castro might well win it one day. And he is only 23, too.

Now we just gotta find a position for the kid.

We could go a long way towards stabilizing things by moving Castro out of center, where he did a bit of a butcher’s job this year, losing half a point of WAR, into left. Pruitt moves to first, and Quebell is sold to a dark mage looking for brains to experiment with. That costs a bit of D at first base, but it opens center for either Trevino, who is a wicked defender, or some import (that won’t be Tom Reese, though). That might well be the best plan of all!

What to do with Sharp? With Flores being lost (it hurts, by the way), do we keep him at third? He won’t sign a 1-year deal, though, and he’s our only compensation pick waiting to be awarded. With us looking for a starting pitcher (and you won’t get one better than Fuentes or Boda for Quebell…), we will probably lose our first round pick. If we could land a guy not quite on the level of Brownie and Kel, but a solid #3 with a 3.20-ish ERA and no escapades, and then Watanabe after that, and Boda and Fuentes and Teasdale can knock another out over the fifth spot… THAT would be great!

We have SOME money. Not a lot. With all the extensions offered at this point, there was budget room of about $2.4M available to add players. That’s a pretty daft starting pitcher, plus some change. We also need a left-hander in the bullpen, though. Luis Beltran would be a cheap, in-house option. He was very solid the last two years in AAA, and appeared in seven games for the Coons in 2007 without getting anybody killed. If we can’t find a good lefty on the market, we might turn to him. By the way, our bullpen plans for 2008 do not include Ward Jackson.

So, Flores gone, Sharp gone, Quebell hopefully gone, and what’s with Yoshi? Do I need an all-new infield? Nah, Yoshi stays. His 2007 was so poor, he’ll be a gift in arbitration. Going with the rookies at short (Miller, who’s technically not a rookie anymore) and third (Martinez) will be a major gamble. We could surely use a veteran presence somewhere on the infield, but where?

Uah, decisions, decisions!!

[Westheim]

Notable retirements after the 2007 season include outfielder Forest Hartley. The 43-year old debuted in 1984 with the Indians, and spent half his career in total in the CL North for Indy and the Canadiens. He had 2,611 career hits, batting .291 with 188 HR and 1,134 RBI. Another former Indian to retire is Ricardo Sanchez, who pitched in relief the last couple of years, but spent most of his career in the Bayhawks rotation. He retires with 205 wins, a 3.53 ERA, and 1,948 K.

By late October we had inked agreements with Marcos Bruno ($700k in ’08, $830k player option in ’09), Raúl Fuentes ($380k), Yoshi Nomura ($250k), and most notably Tomas Castro (5-yr, $4.4M).

It took a little more convincing and some more green paper to agree on a 2-yr deal with Angel Casas, who was offered $1M total, and managed to squeeze another $40k out of me. Ah, peanuts. We also avoided arbitration with a few other guys later, as Law Rockburn signed for $255k, and J.C. Crespo agreed to $250k, both for a year.

Ed Bryan and Kaz Kichida were sent to arbitration, where they received our offer of $240k apiece. Felipe Garcia, 31 and wrecked by injuries, and wild thing Ward Jackson were non-tendered. Similarly, Kunimatsu Sato and John Bennett became free agents outright. We offered arbitration to Vic Flores and Daniel Sharp. Neither accepted.

The Crusaders sought to trade outfielder Apasyu Britton to us for an unremarkable minor league catcher and Jimmy Eichelkraut. Um, no.

---

October 19 – In a stunning move, the Buffaloes trade their franchise player 1B/2B Georg Spinu (.289, 88 HR, 780 RBI) to the Blue Sox. The 34-year old veteran yields five prospects, including two ranked first basemen in #96 Erik Vanderburg and #100 B.J. Cunningham.
November 9 – The Blue Sox trade INF Bob Townsley (.281, 89 HR, 558 RBI) to the Wolves for C Mark Thomas (.251, 14 HR, 112 RBI).

---

2007 AWARDS

Hitters of the Year: CIN RF/LF/1B Will Bailey (.356, 27 HR, 109 RBI) and NYC LF/RF Martin Ortíz (.295, 25 HR, 104 RBI)
Pitchers of the Year: TOP SP Tony Hamlyn (11-12, 2.85 ERA) and IND SP Curtis Tobitt (18-8, 2.46 ERA)
Rookies of the Year: PIT OF Manny Perez (.324, 9 HR, 31 RBI) and BOS C Hideaki Suda (.245, 20 HR, 74 RBI)
Relievers of the Year: LAP CL Johnny Smith (7-3, 1.38 ERA, 36 SV) and POR CL Angel Casas (6-1, 1.04 ERA, 48 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P CIN Juan Garcia, C DEN Carlos Ramos, 1B LAP Stanley Murphy, 2B CIN Dennis Berman, 3B WAS César Gonzalez, SS NAS Bob Townsley, LF CIN Dan Morris, CF SFW Earl Clark, RF CIN Will Bailey
Platinum Sticks (CL): P MIL Fernando Cruz, C CHA Fernando Chavez, 1B CHA Mun-wah Tsung, 2B CHA Jose Lopez, 3B SFB David Lopez, SS BOS Dave Hutchinson, LF OCT Victorino Sanchez, CF MIL Tim Austin, RF NYC Stanton Martin
Gold Gloves (FL): P SFW Dave Crawford, C CIN Felix Hernandez, 1B SFW Raúl Bovane, 2B RIC Todd Moultrie, 3B DAL Ramón Garza, SS WAS Adriano Lulli, LF DAL Pedro Flores, CF NAS Alex Samuels, RF DAL John Alexander
Gold Gloves (CL): P IND Curtis Tobitt, C TIJ Antonio Ramirez, 1B OCT Tomas Cardenas, 2B MIL Bartolo Hernandez , 3B BOS Mark Austin, SS BOS Dave Hutchinson, LF VAN Jose Gonzalez, CF NYC Roberto Pena, RF POR Luke Black

Kinji Kan remains the Raccoons’ most recent Pitcher of the Year, 24 years ago. Three times, a Raccoon won Hitter of the Year honors. Tetsu Osanai did it in 1986 and 1988, and David Brewer won the award in his first year with the team, in 1995.

Now excuse me, I have to throw rocks at the league office. While I’m gone, you lot can muse about the only two players to win Rookie of the Year honors as Raccoons.

[TheMaus2]

The league officials have been in Beervana for too long

[Westheim]

This chapter shall be titles “Juicy free agents and market size limitations”.

As the hot part of the offseason commenced, the Raccoons were 15th in WAR gains (or, at this time, losses), with a value of -7.2; three quarters of that loss were contributed by the departure of Vic Flores, while Daniel Sharp contributed 1.6 WAR.

Unless we were going to promote Ricardo Martinez (.260/.320/.422 with 15 HR, 57 RBI, 11 SB in 117 G in AAA) to debut on Opening Day as a 22-year old, we were looking at nobody fighting for the third base job. Shortstop was basically Ryan Miller over Yoshi Yamada (who was still around) by miles and miles, and at second we had Yoshi Nomura trying to hold off both Gutierrezes. Yes, there’s Jose, but also remember the Manuel, the Salvadoran left-handed utility infielder, that was up for a brief time at the beginning of the season. Jose is the Mexican right-handed second baseman. I know it’s confusing.

First base holds Quebell, unless we dump him and put Pruitt there. Of course, if you put Pruitt there, and move Castro to left, you have either Crespo or Trevino in center. Crespo is no less of a black hole, defensively, than Castro, and Trevino isn’t hitting for much of anything.

So, the shopping list for this wannabe-contending team definitely includes a centerfielder with plus ability with stick AND glove, as well as a third baseman in general. If we could find another David Brewer to stick at second, we wouldn’t necessarily refuse, but chances were unlikely, our budget being small after all. The only positions we would definitely not tinker with right now were rightfield (Duke Smack) and catcher (Bowen), because we got bang for our buck there and they will also be – comparably – cheap in 2008. Yeah, the Duke makes a million, but he raised 3.8 WAR for us. Yes, he struck out 138 times, but he also drove in 107, and nobody had done that at the Willamette in YEARS.

Then there’s the rotation. We have a pretty daft 1-2 lined up for another two years, and we don’t need to talk a lot about these guys now. Kenichi Watanabe, despite being unremarkable from the outside, has produced a 3.53 ERA and a slightly better than 2 K/BB in 63 starts over four seasons (while being saddled with a 17-29 record…). He really doesn’t look like much, but he’s more or less efficient and can happily continue trotting away in the #4 spot. Besides, this year his services will cost merely $200k again, the point we originally signed him at. He will be arbitration eligible for the first time only next fall (at age 32 then). In the #5 hole there’s Boda, there’s Fuentes, there’s possibly Brandon Teasdale (although certainly not to start the year), and in AAA there’s still Tim “Dumpster Boy” Webster, César Lopez, and even that awful Rhett Carpenter guy. We’re flush with #5 pitchers.

But we need a #3 starter.

In the bullpen, most of the old personnel is still around. Angel Casas, Marcos Bruno, Law Rockburn, Ed Bryan, Adam Riddle, Kaz Kichida – there’s no reason to trade any of them. We just want to add a left-hander.

So, that gives us the following shopping list:
• #3 starting pitcher (preferably left-handed, but can be either way)
• Third baseman
• Left-handed reliever (decent, please)
• Centerfielder with above-average qualities in the field and at the plate

At this point, we had expected expenses amounting to $16.2M, which left $3.8M to play with, however, some of that money was reserved for staff expenses – we did not have a full complement of coaches in the minors at this junction.

Top free agent starting pitchers include 33-yr old Anibal Sandoval (186-150, 3.45 ERA), 35-yr old Jesus Bautista (169-176, 3.92 ERA), 28-yr old Pancho Trevino (99-69, 3.47 ERA), 34-yr old Javier Cruz (194-122, 3.73 ERA), and an international guy, 29-yr old, with a South Korean mother and a father hailing out of old Austrian nobility, Jong-hoo Umberger. Except for Cruz, these are all right-handed and demand more than $2M per year. Bautista and Trevino are type A free agents. Sandoval has had a lot of injuries in his career and might not be the best financial investment. Trevino is a wild thing who walked more than 100 batter several times in his Thunder career.

Cruz, who spent his entire career with the Blue Sox, throws 99mph heat, resulting in between 19 and 27 home runs allowed every year since 2001. He was hurt in 2000. Before that, he led the Federal League in home runs allowed three out of four years. He struck out 200+ five times in his career, but the last time he achieved that was in 2003. He pitched part of both of the last two seasons out of the bullpen (and still allowed 27 homers in 2006, over 152.2 innings).

Here is it again, the picture of a little boy playing with matches in a dynamite factory.

Good news is, he doesn’t walk too many. Let’s make a mental note and look at third basemen. We want at least average defense at the hot corner. Hell, Daniel Sharp had league-average defense and still botched routine plays routinely. Having Whitebread compile a list of the top free agent third basemen revealed that both Vic Flores and Sharp ranked near the top. There were a few more 30+ year olds to take a look at.

There was Bob Hall (.281, 136 HR, 861 RBI), who would be 35 on Opening Day, Sonny Reece (.313, 182 HR, 1,197 RBI), who was 35 already, but had a lot of silverware accumulated in his career, two Hitters of the Year, four Gold Gloves (including the third base glove in the FL three straight years from 2004 through 2006!), and timeless glory for walkoff home runs in two Game 7’s in the same postseason. Career Cyclone Dennis Berman (.274, 166 HR, 771 RBI) was 31, and Ramón Garza (.285, 54 HR, 858 RBI) almost 35 as well. Those four were ALL type A free agents, and all demanded north of $2M.

There was one less tear-jerking guy in the pool. Nelson Chavez had wandered around his career, had even played in A ball for 15 games in 2006, but at 31 he was a sound option, a career .259 batter with 48 HR and 304 RBI, but also with three Gold Gloves since 2002. He basically won the Gold Glove every year he played a full season, except in 2007. Compared to the others, he’s for sale, with a contract demand of $330k. I don’t really care about him being type B compensation eligible (although it begs the question why he is eligible for compensation and Vic Flores is not!). Chavez is certainly a defensive-heavy option. Whitebread warns that he hasn’t batted at even league-average level since 2003, and a is poor career batter at 90+ omelets per second (or something like that).

But here’s a thing. Chavez can also cover first and second base more or less well. If nothing else, he could be a defensive backup to Ricardo Martinez. That’s a thought worth harboring, and at $330k you can’t err so hard it will make you cry, right?

Good centerfielders were few and far between. The top free agent of the entire league was ex-SFW Earl Clark, who was perhaps slightly above average in the field, an unstoppable force at the plate, and who demanded a contract approaching $35M over eight years. Yeah, thanks, we’ll use our chumps.

Left-handed relievers with oomph in turn were scarce from the start. The list was headed by – hold onto something – Domingo Moreno! He had been raked with the Aces in 2007, allowing 36 walks in 66 innings, and had been charged with a 5.16 ERA, though. Maybe, at almost 34, he was going down?

Whitebread looked into that a bit more. While the 36 walks were worrisome, he had also been betrayed by a butcher’s defense, with a .361 BABIP against him, leading to a 1.75 WHIP. While part of that were the walks (merely doubled from his 2003-2006 average in Portland), he also allowed more than 1 H/9 for the first time in his career, and THAT was the calamitous defense behind him. His $405k demand was not unreasonable. There was a groundball pitcher available in Donald Sims, with consistent numbers indicating that you wouldn’t get much better than a 4.20 ERA out of him. He also demanded more money than Domingo.

Well, no matter which way you comb this one, obviously the Raccoons’ cash won’t be enough to sooth all sores. We could perhaps make it work by going for Cruz, Moreno, and Chavez. Our money should be sufficient for that.

Hey, bright sides! At least we are LOOKING at free agents! A few years ago we just shrugged and looked at other teams’ refuse piles.

---

You might have noticed, or perhaps not, but the offseason goes slow this year. This is despite me being at home the whole last week (my semi-traditional World Series vacation, with the World Series ending uncomfortably early). Well, on Tuesday I found a little game called Rimworld, a self-described sci-fi colony sim, which has since sucked all life out of me. Don’t buy it, your productivity will drop to zero. As usual when this happens, I am very sorry, but now excuse me, I have to get his mountain over there mined out, and there needs to be another storage to be erected, and, and, and …

[Honorable_Pawn]

How do you move along so quickly. It's taking me a week or two just to get one game started. What's your secret?

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Honorable_Pawn

How do you move along so quickly. It's taking me a week or two just to get one game started. What's your secret?

I try not to get too tangled up with every single stat, and sometimes I just flat out ignore things. I don't think I have ever even glanced at player personalities when evaluating their value.

And decision making isn't my strongest suit (in fact, eating lots of food is, fitting the picture here), and if I can't make up my mind over something, a trade or a contract offer, I have reverted to just not doing it and move on. That hurts at times.

---

Sad fact: prior to 2007, 98 wins have been good enough to win the North 20 out of 30 times. Meh.

Finding personnel has never been easy in this city. The first move in the offseason was to make an offer to SP Javier Cruz, certainly not the best option for the #3 spot in the rotation, but economically a good one.

I explored trade possibilities for the third base job. The Pacifics had a promising young third baseman in Raúl Valle, who was hitting for a bit of power and was a competent fielder, but had been used only off the bench in 2007. Somewhere, that name rang a bell, though. Valle? Raúl Valle?

Oh right, we traded him to the Wolves in the Carlos Sackett trade in 2004. Carlos Sackett! How did that work out for us? Badly. He arrived in L.A. six months later as part of a package for SP Raúl Chavez. Sackett didn’t last in Portland, as you might remember, and was back down in Salem six months later in the trade for Eddie Fernandez and a no-good minor-league pitcher who is still no good and in Ham Lake, but is 26 already. Eddie meanwhile became a free agent after getting only 48 major league at-bats with the Condors this year, where he ended up in the Kelvin Yates trade.

So maybe everything worked out for us after all? Turned a minor league third baseman into Kelvin Yates. Took a few years and a few unloved catchers as additional incentives along the way, but - … oh well.

As we are on the topic of Kelvin Yates…

The Raccoons’ window of opportunity is small, as the entire team has backpacked themselves onto Kel and Brownie. Those two horses are pulling the wagon. Yeah, we have an awesome back end to the bullpen, and yeah, we have a number or promising hotshots like Pruitt and Castro and Yoshi and Miller, who isn’t counted out yet, but after all, everything depends on our two co-aces.

Both of these co-aces are slated to leave the team after the 2009 season. Brownie’s deal ends there, and Kel’s has a cheap player option for 2010. Yeah, come on. They are both leaving after 2009. Given our market and our annoying owner, who can hardly make any profit with the team as it is (pocketing $6M in 2007…), the best we can hope for after that is to resign ONE of them, and at a hellish rate. We will never be able to resign both of them.

While they’re still around, there’s a cow that desperately needs to be milked. We need to load the roster for 2008 and 2009 and worry about later later. And with that, the goal of the postseason became to go all-in. For the right return, we will deal top prospects.

November 17 – The Titans deal C Freddy Rosa (.246, 33 HR, 159 RBI) to the Pacifics for INF Eugene Nelson (.216, 2 HR, 19 RBI) and a middling prospect.
November 20 – The Wolves sign ex-CHA SP Pancho Trevino (99-69, 3.47 ERA) to a 5-yr, $12.38M contract.
November 20 – 28-yr old ex-BOS SS Dave Hutchinson (.305, 84 HR, 613 RBI) is going to get paid in Denver, receiving a 4-yr, $11.52M contract from the Gold Sox.
November 21 – The Raccoons acquire 25-yr old SP Colin Baldwin (2-3, 3.75 ERA) from the Pacifics for 27-yr old C Bob Wood (.202, 5 HR, 51 RBI) and 20-yr old #18 prospect A SP Dave Self.
November 23 – The free-agency-rattled Stars reload themselves by signing ex-CIN 1B/3B Dennis Berman (.274, 166 HR, 771 RBI). The 31-yr old will make $15.6M as part of the 6-year deal.
November 24 – Legit superstar 3B Sonny Reece (.313, 182 HR, 1,197 RBI) hitches a ride with the Crusaders, signing a 2-yr, $4.88M deal for his age 35/36 seasons.
November 27 – The Crusaders keep adding, signing ex-DAL INF/RF/CF Ramón Garza (.285, 54 HR, 858 RBI), who has 2,161 career hits at age 34, to a 2-yr, $3.64M contract.
November 27 – Ex-BOS MR Risto Mäkelä (19-19, 2.52 ERA, 9 SV) might become the Buffaloes’ new closer at a 3-yr, $2.08M rate.
November 30 – The Capitals acquire 32-yr old 2B Jesus Palacios (.288, 113 HR, 636 RBI) from the Miners, leaving them with two prospects,
November 30 – The Pacifics sign ex-OCT C Antonio Ramirez (.246, 27 HR, 269 RBI) for 3-yr, $1.71M. The 29-yr old was already with the team until a mid-2006 trade sent him to the Portland Raccoons.
December 1 – Rule 5 draft. 12 players are selected over two rounds. The Raccoons are not affected.
December 2 – To start the Winter Meetings, the Raccoons trade 31-yr old SP Raúl Fuentes (58-58, 4.39 ERA) to the Pacifics for 25-yr old MR Dan Parker (1-0, 6.29 ERA) and 27-yr old AAA SP Carlos Vázquez.
December 3 – The Raccoons ink 35-yr old ex-NAS Javier Cruz (194-122, 3.73 ERA) to a 2-yr, $1.6M contract. Cruz was the FL’s Pitcher of the Year in 1997 and 1998.
December 3 – Former Raccoon SS/2B Kunimatsu Sato (.271, 21 HR, 393 RBI) inks a 1-yr, $502k contract with the Scorpions.
December 3 – The Blue Sox trade with the Titans to acquire 33-yr old OF Ramiro Cavazos (.267, 90 HR, 565 RBI) in exchange for 28-yr old MR Jason Long (6-7, 2.98 ERA, 3 SV) and a third-rate prospect.
December 4 – 34-yr old INF Bob Hall (.281, 136 HR, 881 RBI), who last played with the Pacifics, is signed to a 2-yr, $4.16M contract by the Cyclones.
December 5 – The Gold Sox pick up ex-MIL CL Gabriel Garcia (27-31, 2.96 ERA, 40 SV). The 32-yr old takes home $4.56M as part of a 3-year deal.
December 6 – The Canadiens trade 25-yr old OF Jose Gonzalez (.262, 35 HR, 277 RBI) to the Thunder for 27-yr old MR Cris Pena (17-12, 3.59 ERA, 3 SV) and #94 prospect INF Jaylin Lawrence.

Now BEFORE you freak out about the Baldwin trade: both these pitchers were former first round picks, Baldwin in 2004 and Self in 2006. Dave Self walked more than he struck out in both of his A level campaigns and that has given Whitebread serious doubts about him. OSA loves his stuff more than Whitebread, but also ranks his command potential as poor, which is a valid second opinion in this case. Of course the ceiling for Dave Self is hard to predict right now. Whitebread has his stuff as a potential 14, OSA gives him 19. That’s a world of difference, but if he’s a walk machine, he’ll never be an ace.

Baldwin’s ceiling is established already. This 25-year old left-hander won’t be an ace, either. He has four decent pitches, including a 94mph cutting fastball and a good splitter, complemented with a curve and a changeup, the latter still a work in progress. Whitebread rates him a straight 11/11/11. That does not make him that #3 starter we were longing for, but it sure as hell makes him the very best candidate for the #5 job over Boda, Webster, and Fuentes, and turns the latter into a trade chip for other moves, since Fuentes has no options, but does have 10/5 rights.

And who knows, maybe Cássio Boda has an awesome start to his AAA season and then we’ll reconsider. But right now we’re riding Baldwin, who debuted late in 2007 and made eight starts for the Pacifics, going 2-3 with that 3.75 ERA and struck out 25 in 50 1/3 innings. And we KNOW that Bobo Wood would not get us any further along our path to the playoffs…

Fuentes was chipped in quickly. The Pacifics originally came asking for 19-yr old Hector Santos, but that wasn’t going to happen. Parker, a left-hander who got lit up in his first cup of coffee in 2004 and is still gnawing on the double-digit ERA from then, but he has a vicious slider that could well make him the second left-hander in our pen in 2008. Or maybe something else will develop. Parker used up his last option in 2007.

Vázquez is a throw-in. He has four pitches, but the fastball comes dead straight. He was good in AAA, but he might not survive major league hitting. Truth be told, the Pacifics had no “middling” prospects they could throw into such a deal, and they surely weren’t going to give up top prospects for a bum like Fuentes. But since Fuentes had no further value to us, given his slimmer than slim chances to pass waivers, Vázquez as backup is better than no backup (besides he backs up pretty low down the pecking order to begin with and might even pitch out of the Alley Cats’ pen).

We signed our #3 guy in Javier Cruz the day after the Fuentes trade. A career Blue Sock, his best days obviously were behind him, but he had held up remarkably well despite being used as a swing man for two seasons, and the $800k per year are really a cheap investment.

The Crusaders tried to trade for Kenichi Watanabe, offering 35-yr old 3B Ian Burns in exchange. Burns only made his debut at age 31 after being signed by the Indians out of the independent FSL (Florida Swamp League). He has only had 333 AB since, with little success. We might still have a gaping hole at third base, but he’s not it. And not for Winless Watanabe anyway, who attracted quite some interest as an efficient, cost-controlled starting pitcher, but we weren’t going to send him away.

And that’s it through the winter meetings!

[Westheim]

And here's this year's Hall of Fame ballot.

[Westheim]

December 12 – The Pacifics win the lottery for 28-yr old ex-POR INF Victor Flores (.289, 21 HR, 307 RBI) with their bid of a 5-year deal paying out $11.72M.
December 12 – Topeka signs left-hander Aurelio Garcia (30-40, 3.43 ERA, 125 SV) as their new closer. The 28-yr old southpaw, who split 2007 between Salem and Denver, signs a 3-yr, $3.54M contract.
December 13 – The Condors load up on relievers, signing 31-yr old ex-DAL Charlie Deacon (60-69, 2.79 ERA, 292 SV) and 35-yr old Ricardo Huerta (36-29, 3.42 ERA, 41 SV) to deals in the $700k range. Deacon gets his $720k over one year, while Huerta will have to pitch two years to make $710k.
December 15 – The Raccoons trade 26-yr old MR Adam Riddle (6-2, 3.13 ERA, 1 SV) and 20-yr old A INF Danny Zigay to the Capitals for 35-yr old SS/2B Juan Barrón (.302, 32 HR, 853 RBI).
December 16 – The Stars sign up ex-NYC SP Jesus Bautista (169-176, 3.92 ERA) for 3-yr, $6.76M, who will thus be paid through to his age 38 season.
December 17 – 33-yr old SP Anibal Sandoval (186-150, 3.45 ERA), a former Ace, will haul in $4.36M over two years in his new contract with the Pacifics.
December 20 – The Miners fish themselves ex-POR 1B/3B Daniel Sharp (.281, 44 HR, 360 RBI). The 30-year old settles for a 1-yr, $344k contract.
December 21 – Ex-DEN C Carlos Ramos (.300, 124 HR, 781 RBI) signs a 2-yr, $4.16M contract with the Blue Sox.
December 27 – The Raccoons sign 31-yr old INF Nelson Chavez (.259, 48 HR, 304 RBI) to a 1-yr, $300k contract.
December 28 – The Raccoons come to terms with ex-SFW MR Donald Sims (32-38, 4.00 ERA, 36 SV). The 32-yr old will bag $300k for a 1-year deal.
December 29 – The Blue Sox have a new closer in ex-CHA Luis Hernandez (20-25, 1.99 ERA, 176 SV), who will make $5.92M over three years.

I am SHOCKED at for how little Daniel Sharp settled! Looks like he REALLY wanted out of Portland.

Ah, life sucks.

When Juan Barrón was acquired in trade, he instantly represented more almost 40% of career games played between all position players on the expanded roster with him having been sent to war 2,282 times in his career, 2,040 times as a starter. Barrón is an elite middle infielder – still – with a career .350 OBP, and an OBP of .349 or higher each of the last three seasons, and a .399 OBP in 2007, which he split between Dallas and Washington. He has no power and his former speed (he stole 20+ bags three times) is gone, but he still has a fantastic eye and knows how to get on. His bat generates mostly singles, but he strikes out in the 4-5% range, which is phenomenal. He is in the last year of an even 2-yr, $1.82M contract, so the Raccoons pick up $910k and a veteran presence™ at short at the expense of a 6th/7th inning right-hander and an 11th round pick that had little upsides.

We said that about Nick Brown before…

Adam Riddle hardly ever embarrassed himself, but he’s a small prize for Barrón, who was not a full-time starter with either of his teams in 2007, and thus might have been valued not as highly by the Capitals. And come on, it’s our fourth-best right-hander, we gotta keep the line moving. Lemme see, there’s Cody Bryant, who’s a walk machine, Sergio Vega, who’s at best good for mop-up on a losing team, Claudio Salazar, who also has command issues, and Ted Reese, whom we accepted now is not a starting pitcher, and who improved dramatically with his command when moved to the pen in Ham Lake in June. He is in any case not ready.

Then there’s the free agent market, where 7th inning right-handers are available on the cheap. I had Whitebread compile a list of durable, good-stamina, high-control free agent right-handed relievers.

When Whitebread came back with a short list topped by a certain Bob Joly, I first through the list out of the window, and then tried to grab Whitebread to do the same, but he evaded my tired hands and clambered over the table and out of the door.

Meanwhile we signed 3-times golden third baseman Nelson Chavez. Our infield takes shape now. We have top defensive options on the left side (two even at short), and Quebell is certainly a good defensive first baseman. Yoshi might now be the weakest link on the infield. His future depends on the bat since he won’t impress overwhelmingly with the glove. I’m not yet sold on Quebell staying around. But with a top centerfielder not going to materialize out of thin air, we might be forced to continue with Castro in center, who’s not a strong defensive options, but has to play there to get both him and Pruitt into the lineup.

The Chavez signing loaded the 40-man roster, and when Sims signed the next day, we put Sergio Vega on waivers, which he cleared on New Year’s Eve.

[Westheim]

Don't our trade acquisitions all look insanely happy? The foam with joy!

[pgjocki]

It's called the Kiss of Death...but there tide is turning.

[Westheim]

HALL OF FAME VOTING RESULTS

TIJ SP Woody Roberts – 1st – 94.9 – INDUCTED
ATL RF Michael Root – 3rd – 85.1 – INDUCTED
LAP SP Bastyao Caixinha – 1st – 73.7
OCT 2B Dave Browne – 3rd – 67.8
ATL SP Carlos Asquabal – 5th – 60.0
WAS C Gabriel Rivera – 5th – 58.8
PIT LF Diego Rodriguez – 3rd – 56.9
LAP RF Anibal Rodriguez – 1st – 51.0
DEN SS Paul Connolly – 4th – 37.6
BOS LF Jose Martinez – 1st – 36.5
WAS CL Domingo Rivera – 5th – 34.9
IND CL Jim Durden – 5th – 30.6
TOP SP Arnold McCray – 3rd – 27.5
DEN 3B Jesus Garcia – 1st – 11.8
LAP RF Yoshinobu Ishizaki – 5th – 11.0
MIL SP Neil Stewart – 1st – 10.6
TIJ C Andres Manuel – 1st – 4.7 – DROPPED
CIN CF Robert Harris – 1st – 3.5 – DROPPED
SAC SP David Castrillo – 1st – 3.1 – DROPPED
DAL RF Moromao Hino – 2nd – 2.7 – DROPPED
CHA SP Manuel Movonda – 2nd – 2.7 – DROPPED
OCT LF Will Jackson – 1st – 2.4 – DROPPED
RIC SP Chris O’Keefe – 1st – 1.6 – DROPPED
POR SP Scott Wade – 2nd – 1.6 – DROPPED

No player has been on the ballot for longer than five years. Before current Hall of Fame Voting procedures were introduced in 2003, players were elected to the Hall by the very elusive Secret Ninja Committee, which was totally invisible. All players not elected before were eligible for re-election in 2004, and so a few players that have been retired for longer than since 1998 are on the ballot still.

Scott Wade dropped from 32% to next to nothing. He was on my ballot last year, but not this year. Player votes have WAY too much leverage! I mean, he is NOT a Hall of Famer. 2% is what he should received in the first place! But… At this rate, nobody’s going to get inducted against my wishes.

Outlook: the next two newly-eligible crops of players look rather bleak. It won’t get interesting again until 2011, and not because of the two players that would be inducted as Raccoons that will be added to the ballot then, because they (Neil Reece, Royce Green) won’t make it anyway. It’s because of the player that would NOT be inducted as a Raccoon, but something repulsive (David Brewer), and of course there’s a first ballot guy on there in Dale Wales, the all-time hit king. John Hensley has to like his chances as well.

But will Dale Wales’ mark of 3,673 base knocks still be the all-time record when he becomes eligible? Cristo Ramirez, 38, sits only 95 hits out, but has yet to find a job for 2008. Currently, no active player north of 2,500 hits is younger than 35. You have to dig all the way down to #56 on the all-time list to find the next serious challenge to the record, where Oklahoma’s Victorino Sanchez has amassed 2,129 career hits at age 29. He made his debut at a tender 18 years old. My office would be too small to display all his silverware. For starters, he won the batting title in his league for six straight years.

[Westheim]

As January rolled around, the Raccoons had to wonder where they could most easily scratch out just a little bit more. There was still a bit of money in the coffers, mainly because the pitching help that had been brought in had come rather cheap. In fact, the biggest new contract on the team was Juan Barrón’s $910k commitment.

The amount of money left on the side amounted to roughly $1.5M. Where could you get an improvement with that?

Starting pitching: With Brownie, Kel, Cruz, and Watanabe lined up, Colin Baldwin would be the obvious man out. Would he be an improvement over Kaz as the long guy? Probably. Improving on Baldwin with $1.5M however would definitely be possible.
Relief pitching: Opposing rallies will go to die again Angel, Bruno, Law, Bryan, Sims, and whoever else we stick into the back end. Certainly another closer type could be brought in for a million or so, but it would be the baseball equivalent of feeding pearls to pigs.
Catcher: Craig Bowen’s OPS was .771 with palatable defense. In fact, his first full season as a primary was his worst defensive season, but he made up for that with 21 homers and a 30% CS rate. Whitebread has numbers that claim he performed well above average among catchers.
Middle infield: We just told Ryan Miller “Nope” when we brought in Barrón. Yoshi had a year from hell, but we might want to remind ourselves that he’s still only 23. He performed very well in 2005 and 2006. Everybody agrees he’s gonna be a fantastic player. Now, 35-year old shortstops like Juan Barrón are regularly a source for chronic depression, but unless he suddenly grows old over the winter, this will not be one of those cases. Besides, the market for shortstops is grazed completely at this point, an improvement would mean significant sacrifices would have to be made in a trade.
Corner infield: Now here it gets interesting! I am well known to not be a fan of Adrian Quebell, for whom we vastly overpaid without getting anything back. Yeah, he’s a good defender. Pff. He got on base at a .389 rate in 2007, but he can’t run the least bit. He his 12 homers in ’06, he hit merely five in ’07. He swatted 72 between AA and AAA between 2003 and 2005, so somewhere there must be that swing, but we for crying out loud can’t tickle it outta him. At third, we have the choice between a defensive solution in Nelson Chavez, imported cheaply, and Ricardo Martinez, who’s supposed to be everything Quebell isn’t on the other side of the diamond, a wonky glove with a high voltage stick.
Outfield: as a whole, you probably can’t do a whole lot better than Pruitt, Castro, and Black. Behind that we have an excellent defensive centerfielder in Trevino, and a jack of all trades in Crespo. It’s a mix that works.

So either we upgrade in the rotation, or we upgrade at an infield corner.

The infield is peculiar, because while we have all kinds of people under contract, we have to pick our reserves as carefully as our starters, because one way or another, we might be thin on the left side of the infield. Assume we take today’s (January 1) personnel, then it’s most likely Quebell, Nomura, and Barrón starting every day, at least against righties. Depending on current streaks, one of our four left-handed starters has to go against a southpaw pitcher, and it might well by Yoshi. That means we need a right-handed second baseman, and immediately we have to carry Jose Gutierrez on the roster. But Gutierrez has a weak arm and can’t play on the left side. Now you have to back up short and third with one player, and between all the guys left on the 40-man roster (Miller, Yamada, Martinez, Chavez, M. Gutierrez), only the latter, that Salvadoran utility guy, fits the mold. But he sucks with the bat, and he bats left-handed. So does Yamada. Both Chavez and Barrón are switch hitters, but Ricardo Martinez is a righty. But between Martinez, Miller, and Chavez in addition to the three everyday guys, you still can’t cover every position with a competent backup defender, unless your willing to shift Barrón to second base against lefties, which … meh.

Okay, we gotta sign Marvin Ingall for the fifth time. Oh, too bad, he retired last year. Bugger!

So a real solution to the problem would be a right-handed SS/2B with good D of course. Then you can bring up Martinez and make Chavez his defensive substitution, and no Gutierrez chump has to be carried on the roster! That right-handed SS/2B with D should of course be able to bat at least a little bit. As we are looking for a backup, he shouldn’t cost a ton of money to sign.

Which brings us back to the rotation. Baldwin makes the minimum and has three options left. Boda goes to AAA anyway, and Teasdale has never come up from there. With all three down there you could perhaps work out your best bet as future replacement of a co-ace. (Good bets in the pot: probably none)

There are rave reviews about that South Korean-Austrian guy’s stuff, Jong-hoo Umberger. But he’s 29, has never played in a respectable league and demands a lot for that. It’s a pretty ballsy roll of the dice. Apart from him, the free agent market has been picked thin by now. Say you don’t want to buy into a glossy picture of what could well be a South Korean male beauty pageant contestant with what is said to be good arm, your better options were Alonso Alonso, who not only had a wonky name, but also wonky control, and then Curt Powell, whom we saw a few times with the Condors, who was perhaps better than Baldwin, but who was a type A free agent, and for “perhaps better than our #5 guy” I wasn’t going to drop the #21 pick in the 2008 draft.

So, Umberger, huh? He throws 95mph, right-handed, with a groundball tendency. He adds a cutter to a more straight version of the fastball, and his real nasty stuff is a slider and a dancing changeup. He’ll be 30 by Opening Day. His beautiful eyes suck you in and –

Wait! Did I just offer him $25 million over ten years?

January 2 – The Titans add wandering 1B Paco Batlle (.273, 79 HR, 417 RBI). The 32-year old is going to pocket $3.9M over three years.
January 5 – The Warriors ink 27-yr old ex-SAC/ATL CL Francisco Rodriguez (35-47, 2.87 ERA, 131 SV) to a 2-yr, $972k deal.
January 10 – Another new Titan: 1B Roberto Vargas (.265, 74 HR, 464 RBI) agrees to a 1-yr, $530k deal.
January 16 – The Raccoons come to terms with ex-ATL MR Tom Watkins (14-34, 3.82 ERA, 58 SV). The 31-yr old righty receives a 1-yr, $295k contract.
January 21 – The Buffaloes acquire 25-yr old AAA MR Cody Bryant from the Raccoons for 20-yr old A SP J.P. Larsen.
January 22 – The Thunder give a 3-yr, $3.96M deal to ex-SAL C Pablo Ledesma (.256, 96 HR, 535 RBI).

It’s the start of the preseason! There are two absolute impact free agents left over in outfielders Earl Clark and Dan Morris, both of whom are looking for insane money. Morris is also 37 and you gotta wonder what he has left, maybe not this year, but in one or two years. There are few more good veterans left over, mostly relievers, and a whole lot of 40-year old don’t-wanna-go’s. And Umberger.

Larsen smells. But when Watson signed, the 40-man roster was still full and there wasn’t anybody on there where I thought we’d get him through waivers 100%. I mean, not that Bryant has any future. He throws his slider all over the place. It’s not pitching. It’s throwing. It’s hurling. He’s like one of those Scots with their colorful skirts that are hurling tree trunks. They’re barbaric. He’s barbaric. I’m glad he’s gone. Larsen smells, but not as much as Bryant.

I'm also told by Whitebread that Watson's name is actually Watkins. Watkins, Watson, Watanabe, Wat-ever.

And no, I didn’t offer that contract to Umberger. I talked to him, though, in early January. He wanted a 5-year deal really hard. And … well … nah. I could have entertained the thought of a 3- or 4-yr deal at a reasonable rate, something around $1M to $1.25M, but he wanted 5-yr, $9M.

Any money sunk into Umberger means less leverage to re-sign Brownie and/or Kel in 21 months. Yet, the Raccoons’ window is NOW.

Sinking coffers of money into his beautiful eyes, which sparkle clear and blue like a cool mountain lake… –

(sighs)

Why am I wiring money?