[Westheim]

Looking for ways to free up some money before mid-November, when free agents will hit the open market and everybody’s gonna throw buckets full of cash at them. Let’s look at it this way. When you try to make the playoffs, you gotta have somewhere between 90-95 wins, and the number often thrown around is 50 WAR. We have less than $10M available to get to 50 WAR, and those $10M include the whole 40-man roster, so it’s more like less than $9M available.

This means you gotta press about 5.5 WAR out of every million bucks you spend on players. How effective is this roster? Well, we will start at the top and then casually go down the salary list as far as players not under team control are concerned. At the very top, the Raccoons had Neil Reece and Kisho Saito in 1998, who earned $1.05M and $1M in 1998, respectively. Did they bring in their hay?

Kind of. Reece had a dismal first half of the season with the bat, but rallied in the end to end up with 4.8 WAR for the year. That’s okay (because you will end up with minimum contract players doing more than .5 WAR, too). How about Saito? He had a dismal year, it seems, losing 14 games and winning just six. Well, turns out a replacement level player in his position would have ended up with a 1-19 season. That poor sod. Saito gobbled up 5.1 WAR, and had nothing to show for.

So check those.

Behind that we had a host of people who made roughly half a million dollars. Did they deliver 2.5 to 3 WAR?
SP Miguel Lopez - $550k - +2.5 WAR
INF Marvin Ingall - $500k - +3.2 WAR (while missing over 60 games)
1B Liam Wedemeyer - $500k - -1.4 WAR (also injured and hardly used in September)
SP Manuel Movonda - $425k - +6.5 WAR
C Werner Turner - $380k - +3.1 WAR

The bottom two can’t be extended due to insufficient funds. Movonda wants 4-yr, $6.4M, which is way out of the window and impossible. Turner was on the 5-yr, $5M train. Turner had the best year of his career, more or less, but 3 WAR for $1M would be way overpaying him, and Lance Branch is a much better option effectivity-wise, despite him making twice the money, because his career average is about 5 WAR.

Lopez and Ingall are locked up for a few more years, of course. That leaves Wedemeyer. He was horrible. He cost us games. He didn’t cost us the playoffs (too much stuff went wrong overall), but he certainly hurt us just by being on the roster. No way we’re blowing another $500k on him when this means risking another .200 season. He still hit 12 home runs, but that’s really pale compared to what he did before. It is a risk we can not take.

That leaves us with the .200 Fail Brigade, which can be summed up easily by saying that none of them procured even remotely enough WAR to merit his payout. The only guys from the (position player) supporting cast that did not actually harm our efforts WAR-wise were Conceicao Guerin (4 WAR), Stephen Buell (1.1 WAR in 73 games) and Mike Crowe (1.5 WAR), while even Clyde Brady managed to run up -0.4 WAR (which surprised me now that I saw it), with his batting costing 1.7 WAR, while he regained 1.3 WAR defensively.

Farley (3.9 WAR) and Rivera (2.4 WAR) pitched extremely well on minimum contracts. How about our relief corps on big contracts? This excludes Donis, who still cost us 1.2 WAR over the year by being awful.
Gabriel De La Rosa - $350k - +0.9 WAR
Scott Wade - $280k - +1.1 WAR
Brad Tamburrino - $240k - +0.7 WAR
Daniel Miller - $230k - +0.3 WAR

Maybe WAR is not the best way of rating relievers, but we are bleeding money here. These $1.1M came far short of the 5.5 to 6 WAR required, at 3.0 WAR. Still, can you take out any one of these, replace them with some AAA hunk and then live in constant fear of even more games blowing out in the seventh or eighth? Nah. I have recently toyed with the thought of trading Gabby De La Rosa for something cheaper, but it’s a risk.

Looking at it, our pitching staff ain’t that bad going into 1999. Sure, Movonda will be gone, but we still have Saito, Lopez, Farley, and Rivera; then Joly and Fairchild quibbling over the fifth starter spot and long relief; and then a pen with Wade, Tamburrino, Miller, De La Rosa, Donis (unless someone offers me a mint 1977 Juan Correa baseball card), and possibly Proctor. That should do to get over .500!

We need offense. Will replacing Wedemeyer with Michel be enough? Can’t hurt to TRY and get Corey Patel.

October 29 – The Raccoons announce an extension signed with MR Brad Tamburrino, who will stay a Furball for 3-yr, $1M.
October 30 – 37-year old LVA SP Rafael Espinoza (138-133, 3.89 ERA) announces his retirement after a radial nerve decompression surgery on his elbow has failed. Espinoza, a fifth round pick by the Knights in 1982, appeared in 399 games (370 starts) for the Bayhawks and Aces in a 14-year career.
October 30 – The Raccoons also extend with Luke Newton, avoiding arbitration with a 1-yr, $180k deal.
November 1 – Coon City breathes a sigh of relief, as the Raccoons and CL Scott Wade agree on a 2-yr, $600k contract extension.
November 2 – Gold Gloves are awarded. The Raccoons take home two mitts for C Werner Turner (1st Glove), and CF Neil Reece (2nd; 1997). Ex-Coons Nori Kondo, Joe Jackson, and Vern Kinnear also win Gloves.
November 3 – Rookies of the Year are WAS LF/CF Victorino Sanchez (.363, 4 HR, 26 RBI) and SFB C Gabriel Ortíz (.298, 7 HR, 63 RBI).
November 5 – Pitchers of the Year awards are handed to NAS SP Javier Cruz (24-5, 2.60 ERA) and MIL SP Martin Garcia (20-9, 2.62 ERA).
November 6 – Hitters of the Year are named: SAC RF/LF/1B Sam Green (.353, 23 HR, 115 RBI) and MIL RF/LF Cristo Ramirez (.350, 6 HR, 68 RBI) are the winners.

Farley!!!??? How can you pick that catcher from Santa Banana over Farley (12-6, 3.10 ERA for a crap team)!!!??? I AM INCENSED!!

I will now write a very angry letter to the ABL offices. (angrily waves with rolled up magazines) WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS???