[Westheim]

Something dawned on me when I was in the bathroom once in mid-January. Why not take Carlos Miranda as sixth infielder? He has exceptional defense on all infield positions. He’s cheap. True, he is not batting for a lot, and maybe not even for a little bit. He has a .244 singles bat. He has no home runs in 266 big league AB’s, and hardly draws any walks. But he would make for a great defensive backup at first base and to give our other three infielders (Dawson, Gonzalez, Higgins) regular rest. We really have a very good offensive team assembled. We can accommodate a #8 batter.

If nothing else comes together, Miranda is a valid option as backup. Let’s concentrate to complete the pitching staff.

Pedro Durán caught my eye. He is 30 years old, a dominating right-hander with about 3 K/BB and 7 K/9. While he was under control of the Aces, he was a middle reliever. Problem is: the last three years he was with the Falcons, Loggers, and Pacifics, all average-or-below teams, and was the closer on all three of them. He demands closer’s money. He’s not gonna close games for the Raccoons, neither will he get closer’s money, but he could be one of those expensive short-term additions we can afford to bring in this year. His rumored demand however is 3-yr, $1.65M, which would way overpay him.

Another option was Xiao-shuang Sa, also 30, and a team mate of Durán last year in L.A., whose demands were a little friendlier and who had a few more K/9 and had a 1.59 ERA last year, but who had the disadvantage of an impossible to type given name. Both where type B free agents.

January 5 – The Crusaders improve their pitching by adding 28-yr old ex-VAN Raimundo “Pooky” Beato for 6-yr, $4.02M. Beato is 77-64 with a 3.62 ERA for his career.
January 11 – Another former Canadien finds a new home, in this case Las Vegas for CL Rick Evans, costing the Aces $1.46M over two years. Evans, 30, has 362 career saves.
January 13 – The Raccoons ink SP Robert Sawyer, a 31-year old veteran, to a 2-yr, $880k deal. Sawyer is 65-64 with a 4.04 ERA over his career and spent the last season with Oklahoma City.
January 18 – 3B Cameron Green (.244, 90 HR, 542 RBI), a 33-yr old ex-Coon, joins the Bayhawks train for 3-yr, $2.1M.
January 22 – The Wolves improve their bullpen with MR Xiao-shuang Sa, who has a career ERA of 2.95 and 121 saves. Sa will earn $334k for one year.
January 28 – The Indians deal 1B Francisco Lopez (.311, 165 HR, 907 RBI) to the Warriors for RF Juan Carcamo (.293, 24 HR, 175 RBI). This is not an attempt at rejuvenation: Lopez is only one year older than Carcamo (30 to 29). The true reason for a low-scoring team to deal it’s prime slugger for … something like Carcamo … remains mysterious to me. (In WAR, the Indians lose 2.9) Maybe Lopez parked his Dodge square on the GM’s cat, I don’t know.
January 29 – The Indians trade INF Jorge Salazar, 28, to the Raccoons for MR Jason Bentley, AAA 1B Vincente Rodriguez, and A LF Luis Maldonado. Salazar is a .271 singles hitter with excellent defense, that can also draw a lot of walks. Bentley is 5-11 with a 4.01 ERA in 238 appearances.
February 1 – The Raccoons ink MR Roberto Carrillo, a career 3.42 ERA pitcher, who was last with the Canadiens. Carrillo will make $600k over two years.
February 1 – The Bayhawks add 1B Isto Grönholm, formerly with the Loggers, for 3-yr, $1.89M. Grönholm is .281, 113 HR, 518 RBI over his career, but struggled with injuries last year.

Sawyer held off on our offer for over a month before finally signing it. He had an ugly year with the Thunder, losing 16 games, but that team was challenged all over the roster, including on defense. He is a left-hander and will go into the #4 or #5 hole. It’s a really tough decision: I don’t want to skip any of my right-handers (Wade, Turner, Berry), but I also don’t want to start #5 Sawyer and #1 Saito back to back as left-handers, but maybe that’s the smaller blight to pick.

Sawyer had a really bad year last season, but the BABIP with the Thunder was extraordinarily high. The two years before that he was in the 3.50 range in ERA and I would happily take that.

Ultimately, the Miranda idea was a good one – if you don’t have money to spend. Salazar can take us so much further. He has EXCELLENT defense all over the infield but first base, where he’s only very good. His bat is above average, although he has no power to speak of. He is a big threat to Gonzalez at short, and may well replace him. They may platoon. Now, Gonzalez is a right-hander. Salazar bats left-handed. There, perfect platoon. Since the other three guys in the infield won’t go anywhere but to the restroom before and after the game, Gonzalez will platoon with him. Reade is a distant sixth.

What do we give up? Bentley has been disappointing in the last two years. Rodriguez is another 1B-only slugger in our system that won’t play for us unless something horrible happens to the Tono Tank Tetsu. If that happens, we still have options.

The only thing that at one point could hurt us, is Maldonado. Now he is only at the A level, batting .202 with little power. Add three years from now, he could become a huge slugger in the Bigs. Or maybe not. What do I know about the future? Sometimes I can’t remember what I did five minutes ago.

We are so stuffed with young talent (plus Daniel Hall, my man crush #1) in the outfield right now, I still have to demote one among the group of Reece, Dumont, Quinn, and Martin. Quinn’s having an advantage for being out of options (we got him on waivers after all).

Durán turned out to be insisting on a $479k contract. I was not going to offer more than $400k to anybody for the 7th/8th inning role I was envisioning, and even that was overpaying vastly. Carrillo should get the job done equally well. We’re now more or less set with our 25-man roster. There is room for an upgrade of the sixth infield spot and maybe for a bullpen spot, currently I plan with Yasushi Suto as long man.

The Wolves beat us to Sa. The Wolves keep beating us to lots of things recently. Gonna drive upstate now. (grabs spiked club) Will return in February if I can safely make it back across the county border.