[Westheim]

February – Speedy slugger Tad Willis, 26, is signed by the Scorpions for a 2-yr, $818k contract. Willis was a key piece of the pennant-winning Miners in ’82.
February 5 – After month-long talks and considerations taken by all involved, 29-yr old RH SP Shayne Nealon signs for four years and $2,575,000 with the Portland Raccoons. Nealon has a 34-30 record and 3.72 ERA lifetime. The Canadian was with the Aces and Condors before becoming a free agent. This forfeits the Raccoons’ third round pick to the Condors.
February 13 – The Raccoons’ #1 starter from ’77 is back in the CL North, as Alex Miranda joins the Indians. Miranda (77-85, 3.66 ERA) comes off his age 27 season with 18 wins for Tijuana and Salem, but his command issues have never been resolved. He’ll make $3.7M over six years in Indy.
February 13 – The Wolves shell out a total of $3.5M to sign both righty reliever Willis Sims and CF Felipe Hernandez, both very productive players. Sims has a 1-yr, $404k deal, Hernandez is signed for six years.
February 16 – Keep ‘em comin’! The Raccoons sign current World Champion SP Kinji Kan (67-61, 4.14 ERA), who won 18 games with the Canadiens in ’82, to a 2-yr, $750k contract. Kan, 31, has had his best season last year, and whether he will hold up, will be of high interest. This forfeits the Raccoons’ fourth round draft pick to Vancouver.
February 23 – The Raccoons add Jason Short, 30, as outfield backup. Short has 815 career hits (.262), but struggled during his stint in New York. His best days were in 1977-78 in Sacramento. He gets $163k for one year.
February 23 – SP Jonathan Knapp (64-72, 3.70 ERA) is signed by the Warriors for 3-yr, $1M. He was injured for significant amounts of time in both of the last two seasons with the Buffaloes.
February 24 – CL Lance Parsons (197 SV) signs a 1-yr, $612k contract with the Gold Sox. He is #4 in all time saves.
February 25 – The Raccoons add former Miner MR Burton Taylor, 28, as lefty specialist. He has a career 3.83 ERA and fans just under nine over nine innings. Taylor signs a 1-yr, $125k contract.
February 27 – The Raccoons and Titans exchange AAA level players. MR Jorge Rodriguez goes to Boston, while INF Roy Rollins heads east. Both are in their mid-20s and neither has made the majors yet.
March 10 – Four minor league players are swapped between the Raccoons and Blue Sox: AAA MR/CL Gary Simmons and MR Tony Lopez head for Nashville, with A INF Victor Castillo and AAA 3B Brian House going the opposite way.
March 29 – Aces reliever Matt Sims will start the season on the DL with a torn rotator cuff and will possibly rejoin the team in May.

Nealon gives me the #3 starter that neither Romero (early in ’82) nor Ackerman (late in ’82) were. He is scouted with the “fragile” tag, and has had shoulder inflammation before, although the only significant injury in the last three years were some not too serious knee problems. With Charles Young penciled in as #4 starter, this gives me the freedom to decide between Yoelbi Maurinha and Jerry Ackerman for #5 duties, and the former clearly has the upper hand here. His first few starts of his major league debut were awful, but after that he got his ERA all the way down to 3, while Ackerman got worse as the season progressed. Ackerman is 23 and has three option years left. He can go to AAA for another season. It’s not that he was terrible, he made some very good games, but occasionally he was just blasted, like that one 5-run, 0-out game in September. A season in AAA would do him good.

The Nealon signing added another +4.9 WAR for the Raccoons, after already gaining +5.0 through Alex White. At that point, we were far ahead (once again…) in the offseason development table thingie…

Of course, I had another offer out there, for SP Kinji Kan, who won the World Series with the Canadiens. He came rather cheap compared to his ’82 season, but of course that was his only stellar season on record. It is kind of a gamble, but I’ll take it. I had now the ability to choose whom to send down to AAA.

With that February 16 trade, I was mostly set. I had two more offers out there, with one of them for Jason Short. The Crusaders used him as leadoff hitter or at #2 if I remember right, and that is not what he is. But he can contribute to the team once Borjón falls into a hole like last September where he dinked his low AVG by another 20 points. The other was for Burton Taylor, since I just had not the confidence that Neubauer would be good enough as lefty specialist with no other alternative in the pen. The Taylor signing completed the roster.

The trades after that were made to remove dead weight from the 40-man roster while getting something in return. There were a lot of relievers in AA and AAA, while I had lost a number of infielders to free agency.

I especially wanted to get rid of Tony Lopez, who was due to make $112k this year for contributing *nothing*. He was 34 and it was five years since we’ve signed him as international free agent. Five years of constant nightmare. It turned out I had to give up some potential to get him off my back, and Gary Simmons was what the Blue Sox wanted. They swallowed Lopez to get Simmons, who had had a fine season at AAA in relief and closing after losing 21 games as starter in the majors in 1981. Castillo is a prime shortstop prospect with batting abilities. House was bonus. The Blue Sox had also had a Korean 2B prospect at AA with an unpronounceable name, but would give up him *and* Castillo for Lopez and Simmons. The only downside was that Castillo was on the 40-man roster, where I still only had one open spot now.

By the way, Jorge Romero went unsigned and we did not receive a supplemental round pick.

If this team holds up, it has two years to achieve greatness. All the pieces are either under club control, arbitration eligible or signed through at least 1984, when Mark Dawson, Ramón Borjón, and Kinji Kan will be eligible for free agency again. That’s when everything will start to fall apart, which will happen after the 1985 season at the latest, when I will have to re-sign Daniel Hall and Logan Evans, who are employed at major bargain until then.

Two years to get going.

Let’s go.