PORTLAND AGITATOR
RACCOONS HAVE TO SHAVE OLD FUR TO RETURN TO WINNING
By P. Oysen
Sunday the perennially hopeless Raccoons limped into the All Star Break with a come-from-behind, 6-5 win over the red-lantern-wielding Milwaukee Loggers when their opponents basically gave up to try and let Gabriel Garcia take the brunt of what amounted to a destined-to-be-in-last-place team’s rally, a rally that basically amounted to two whole runs in the eighth inning.
You can only applaud the resilience that long-time squad member Marcos Bruno and sophomore closer Angel Casas have shown, spinning three shutout innings of 1-hit ball at the tail end of a game that started as all Raccoons games start these days. Tim Webster (0-0, 3.89 ERA) took the ball, realized he was a mere mortal, and instantly consigned himself to fate. It might sound like a gracious sacrifice like Sparta’s 300 offered in antiquity, but in fact it was not. It was pathetic. The fact that Webster has not taken a loss in five starts in the major leagues this year must wholly be attributed that somebody else repeatedly keeps throwing games away on the other side of the box score, because he can’t help to not lose by himself, or do anything worthwhile himself, except showing up, binding his shoes – we have to assume he can do that by himself – then get whacked.
You could replace Tim Webster with anybody else in the rotation. Everybody shows up, and everybody gets whacked. The only pitcher on the staff that doesn’t get whacked, unfortunate Nick Brown (7-3, 2.62 ERA), strained a shoulder so he could escape onto the disabled list.
Since then it was been a rotation of constant failure, five days of doom, and then rinse and repeat. In eight games in July, no Raccoon has spun a quality start. And just one start ago, Angel Romero surrendered half a dozen well-earned runs in not even two innings before being designated to retirement from the same rampantly clueless front office that shipped him in not even four weeks prior. Romero came with a hefty price tag, costing future star Edgar Amador and suddenly-revived Christian Greenman, who’s batting over .300 for the Dallas Stars once he was able to break out of the poisonous Portland clubhouse.
It is a clubhouse that reeks of failure and surrender. A decade of living at other people’s feet leaves marks and mental scars.
The most scarred of all must be Clyde Brady. He has been a Raccoon since 1998, when he was 22 years of age. He was a big prospect then, supposedly the main yield in the trade with the Condors the Raccoons struck in the winter post-1997, which sent over David Brewer but within reason can be called the worst American disaster since the sinking of the Teutonic in the Atlantic in ’12. Then, thousands lost their lives, and the 1997 Raccoons dropped 40 games from 1996 and right into baseball’s purgatory, where they have remained ever since. Clyde Brady has been part of this since May 3, 1998. He gets a pass for 1997, where long-term mismanagement by the inept, decrepit, and potentially corrupt front office came to a head in a combustion that could have levelled Texas City a second time. He does not get a pass for anything since that day in May, when the Raccoons beat a disjointed, last place Indians squad 7-2 on the road. Since then, the Raccoons have won 603 games and lost 752 for a crisp .445 winning percentage over the best part of a decade. And Clyde Brady has been at the front and center of baseball anemia in more games than anybody likes to voluntarily admit to outsiders in this timeframe.
Clyde Brady has been a starter on either outfield corner ever since he came to the big leagues. He ranks in the top 10 in most countable franchise categories, f.e. he has played the sixth-most games behind the franchise’s poster boys Daniel Hall and Neil Reece – neither of which even managed 2,000 hits –, Mark Dawson, Tetsu Osanai, and Marvin Ingall, and if allowed to keep running out unchecked for the remainder of the season would pass both Ingall and Osanai for fourth place – the latter only if he appears in all games left in this season. Is that a treatment a Hall of Famer, as unlikely as his surprise election by the since-rightfully-abolished Secret Ninja Committee was, like Osanai deserves? Being passed in any batting category, or his much loved breakfast buffet line, by a career .742 OPS hitter?
Clyde Brady has not done anything worthwhile in his major league career. He has never surpassed a .761 OPS in a full season. He had a .911 OPS in 2001, but missed 91 games to injuries, and those injuries more than likely voided his traditional second half meltdown. He has never won a memorable award. He has never been an All Star. He has never led the league in anything. He ranked in the top 5 in a meaningful category in the Continental League exactly once, when he drew 93 walks, second most, in 2002. Players that walk are nice to have, but Brady plays a power position. He finished in the top 10 in home runs exactly once, last season, when he hit 22. So, not only does he not produce, he is also miscast at his position, for which his skill set is not fitting at all. And to add insult to injury, he has cost the Raccoons a fortune, being in the last year of contract that will have paid him $4.8 million by the end of the season.
Clyde Brady is 30 years old, and he has never been anything else but a burden on a team that is burdened more than enough by its generally inept front office that pulls jaw-dropping moves – like that trade that brought in Angel Romero.
Romero was acquired by the Raccoons on June 19 along with Tomas Castro, with the Stars receiving Edgar Amador and Christian Greenman. The former, whom the management and coaching staff never understood to properly accustom, has spun a shutout since, and the latter has merely doubled his batting average in Dallas. Meanwhile in Portland, completely unheralded and unproven Tomas Castro is batting for 159 points of OPS less as he did with the Stars, clearly a bubble that has burst, while the contract attached to Angel Romero cost the Raccoons more than half a million dollars despite removing Greenman off the books. Half a million dollars should be a sizeable sum for a front office that constantly seeks to excuse himself by claiming that ownership does not leave them with enough money to field a competitive team, but then they go out and pull moves like this.
Remember that this is still the same GM that traded future Hall of Famer Dennis Fried for two and a half days of Raúl Castillo in 1991. This is the same GM that can not draft a worthwhile player in the first round of any amateur draft – and the Raccoons have had strong picks for way too long – and also the same GM that fraternizes with the janitor with hard liquor while his team is losing on the field, as we have shown our dear readers repeatedly. How Richard Westfield is still employed by beloved owner Carlos Valdés jr. has to remain a mystery. One can only hope that Valdés will clean up soon.
On draft picks; the Raccoons announced with much celebration, little short of an immoral and decadent Roman triumph, the signing of third overall pick Jimmy Eichelkraut after last month’s 2006 draft. Eichelkraut was advertised as a strong guy with raw power to all fields, and a future star in the big leagues. One month into his career, Eichelkraut is batting .206 in single-A ball, and has only three extra base hits, and no home runs. Congratulations, here is our next Chris Beairsto.
If the big step back towards success, purging the front office staff, can not be achieved, at least a small step should be made. That small step would be to just do nothing. Do not hand Clyde Brady a new contract. Not one for six years, which the greedy, self-involved underachiever will undoubtedly seek, not one for two years, not even one for one year. Clyde Brady is not worth of employment of any team that seeks to conclusively leave the wet cellar of the division, even more so if they’ve dwelling in those unpleasant confines for now ten, long years. There are children in sixth grade in Portland that have not had a winning home team in their lifetime. Step one back to winning: do not waste any more money on undeserving players. Players like Clyde Brady. The roster is full of them, but Brady is their secretly crowned king.