[Westheim]

I don’t want to go overboard or anything, but we might just have fixed a whole lot of problems on getting back to relevancy.

The Raccoons started the offseason not only with a bang, but with a slam. Trying to get rid of one of our flock of underwhelming catchers, we shopped Antonio Ramirez. The Condors, having their own issues behind the dish, were genuinely interested. The Condors were also rebuilding and trying to unload a few of their more expensive pieces. They had a lot of dead weight on the roster, and only two genuine stars, CF Ramón Perez and repeat-strikeout king Kelvin Yates. 1,440 strikeouts in 206 games (200 starts) had him keep pace with Nick Brown, who had 1,127 strikeouts in 164 games (161 starts). Their career K/9 numbers were both 9.6;

Where could we be going here?

November 14 – The Raccoons deal 28-yr old C Antonio Ramirez (.249, 23 HR, 222 RBI) and 27-yr old OF Edgardo Fernandez (.269, 15 HR, 183 RBI) to the Condors. In return the Raccoons receive 28-yr old SP Kelvin Yates (71-86, 3.61 ERA) and 29-yr old AAA MR Ward Jackson (6-3, 4.49 ERA, 1 SV), who did not pitch in the majors last year.
November 16 – The Crusaders pick up MR Rodrigo Garcia (4-4, 4.22 ERA, 6 SV) from the Bayhawks in exchange for two AAA players.
November 22 – The Bayhawks sign ex-IND 1B/LF/3B David Lopez (.248, 217 HR, 767 RBI) for a 5-yr, $12.2M, robbing the Indians of one of their Terrific Three after the 32-year old Lopez waived his player option for 2007.
November 22 – The Knights shell out $15.2M over six years for ex-TOP OF Javier Gusmán (.271, 88 HR, 480 RBI). The 27-year old should make a big impact with the Knights.
November 22 – The Condors sign RF/LF Christian Greenman (.249, 120 HR, 391 RBI), who hit for a .939 OPS for the Stars in the latter half of 2006, to a 2-yr, $1.52M deal.
November 23 – The Rebels sign SP Johnny Collins (104-83, 3.78 ERA), age 32, to a $10.1M contract over five years. Collins was with the Knights.
November 23 – 37-year old MR Javier Navarro (78-82, 2.54 ERA, 451 SV) signs up with the Indians for $1.2M over two years. Navarro also played for the team in 1997.

Now calm down, we still have three dorks in the rotation.

Yates will make $1.8M per year until 2009 (also Brownie’s last year under contract), but the last year is a player option. If he keeps going at the current rate, he can rake in $3M annually with ease. This gives us the best 1-2 punch in the majors, in my humble opinion. There are pitchers that are a notch over those two guys, but no team has a pair of them. One drawback on Yates is that he is a flyball pitcher, so his ERA might not be all that pretty in Portland.

But he gets Awesome Australian points! True, the only Aussie that didn't make us wince in the long run was Vern Kinnear, but we had a few of them in the mid-to-late 90s. You know, before and while everything came crushing down.

Ward Jackson is potentially in the trash with severe walk issues in 2005 and 2006. He is due $355k next year. We are looking for a second left-hander to accompany Ed Bryan, but he’s probably not it. Even Rémy Lucas is less horrible than Jackson. Jackson is out of options and would have to be waived to get him to St. Pete.

Ramirez is one of four pitchers on the roster, neither of them particularly useful, while Fernandez has been hurt all the time in his two seasons in Portland. In Crespo and Trevino we can cover for him either offensively or defensively.

Should the Critters make a run for Quasimodo Suda? At first glance, he could be a big power hitter with cringeworthy defense. But his ratings are the same as Craig Bowen when it comes to offense, who has better defense than Suda. He also has that wild 70s moustache going for him.

Problem is… we have no stats whatsoever for Suda, and Bowen’s career stats imply that the ratings are flawed. He batted .252/.345/.415 with 10 HR and 30 RBI in 270 AB for the Raccoons in 2006. That .760 OPS is BY FAR his best season result. In four years as a hardly used backup for the Indians (they DO have Jose Paraz), he never had more than 188 AB, or an OPS better .661, and for what it is worth, his career OPS is .669 as well. He’s 26. Players hardly get better at 26. Can he repeat a .760 OPS over a full season?

And .760 OPS from a catcher over a full season would be quite big for the Raccoons, who have not had any production whatsoever from behind the dish after David Vinson’s sophomore campaign in 1990, when he hit .279/.387/.525 with 21 dingers. Since then? I wish you hadn’t asked. Players with less than 25 AB per season are omitted from the following list.

1991: David Vinson (461 AB, .734 OPS), Gustavo Flores (130 AB, .665 OPS)
1992: David Vinson (352 AB, .692 OPS), Jose Rodriguez (189 AB, .789 OPS), Shimpei Iwamoto (27 AB, .462 OPS)
1993: David Vinson (397 AB, .762 OPS), Jose Rodriguez (144 AB, .676 OPS)
1994: David Vinson (391 AB, .753 OPS), Jose Rodriguez (168 AB, .655 OPS)
1995: David Vinson (463 AB, .683 OPS), Ron McDonald (71 AB, .737 OPS), Jose Rodriguez (70 AB, .364 OPS)
1996: David Vinson (438 AB, .811 OPS), Nori Kondo (134 AB, .682 OPS)
1997: David Vinson (279 AB, .661 OPS), Sidney Aycock (183 AB, .632 OPS), Nori Kondo (70 AB, .525 OPS), Ron McDonald (50 AB, .486 OPS)
1998: Werner Turner (527 AB, .760 OPS), Ricardo Castillo (59 AB, .677 OPS), Ron McDonald (51 AB, .373 OPS), Mario Guerrero (29 AB, .232 OPS)
1999: Lance Branch (240 AB, .688 OPS), Julio Mata (206 AB, .830 OPS), Ricardo Castillo (107 AB, .663 OPS), Gary Fifield (65 AB, .764 OPS)
2000: Julio Mata (476 AB, .642 OPS), Freddy Jackson (116 AB, .701 OPS), Gary Fifield (40 AB, .359 OPS)
2001: Mark Thomas (324 AB, .704 OPS), Julio Mata (162 AB, .437 OPS), Gary Fifield (60 AB, .469 OPS), Jorge Defrese (53 AB, .711 OPS)
2002: Gary Fifield (340 AB, .708 OPS), Mark Thomas (163 AB, .634 OPS), Pablo Fernandez (58 AB, .552 OPS)
2003: Pablo Ledesma (366 AB, .705 OPS), Gary Fifield (124 AB, .500 OPS), Mark Thomas (102 AB, .762 OPS)
2004: Mark Thomas (232 AB, .560 OPS), Pablo Ledesma (201 AB, .704 OPS), Freddy Rosa (125 AB, .637 OPS), Gary Fifield (27 AB, .475 OPS)
2005: Bob Wood (370 AB, .557 OPS), Leon Ramirez (154 AB, .788 OPS), Curt Cooks (39 AB, .394 OPS)
2006: Craig Bowen (270 AB, .760 OPS), Bob Wood (186 AB, .505 OPS), Antonio Ramirez (96 AB, .590 OPS), Sergio Esquivel (54 AB, .558 OPS)

Rated R, for cruelty to animals and children, and excessive gore. Other than a resurgence by Vinson in ’96 when the Coons collectively stomped everybody for 108 wins in the regular season (and none in the World Series), a decent season from Werner Turner before letting him go again, and Julio Mata’s false-alarm blazing debut, the last 16 years have been truly gruesome. Half of the time was spent wondering whether Vinson could be resuscitated, the other half was spent trying to keep track of the personnel currently at hand, and we ran out a different Opening Day catcher seemingly every year, at several junctions secretly wishing Vinson back into the fold.

And now Bowen? Really?

But … Suda? Really?

SOMEWHERE offense has to come from. What’s our lineup next year? Right now, we are quite sure about our infield. Quebell, Nomura, Flores, Sharp around the diamond are pretty much set, although their 2006 contributions were largely unspectacular, with a nod given to Yoshi-N, who did a very good job with a .378 OBP and also 35 doubles for a reasonable .745 OPS. It may look unspectacular, but together with solid defense he racked up over 4 WAR. Vic Flores was good, but not overwhelming (but Ryan Miller clearly showed he’s undercooked so far), Quebell was a disappointment, and Sharp had his worst ever season by a HUGE margin. There is reason to believe that he had simply contracted the plague and will be better this year, because he was hugely consistent for his first five full seasons in the Bigs.

In the outfield we probably employ a combo of Trevino and Crespo in center, which will hurt either way, and then have to decide whether we want to stick with Pruitt or the hugely hollow Bobo Mays. There’s also Tomas Castro. None of those three is older than 23. In fact, none of those five outfielders is older than 26 (Crespo), with Trevino at 24 also ranking as ancient in comparison. One issue here is the fact that Mays has the only powerful arm in the group. So it’s not really Castro AND Pruitt, it’s OR, unless Pruitt plays first base, but he bats from the same side as Quebell, so nothing is gained there. The Raccoons could really use a right-handed outfield bat with a strong throwing arm…

At the same time, the rotation gets lightweight once you go past Brown and Yates. We have Dominguez under contract (the biggest on the team, actually), while you probably shed the least tears over the tough trooper Watanabe. But still, Kenichi as #3 starter? Wow, that’s as bad as Yates being the #2 is awesome.

And then we’re pretty much down to Dumpster Boy and the unbelievably bad Rhett Carpenter (career ERA of 8.19, and he’s gonna be 30!) for the fifth spot. I keep looking at “Dodo” Iwase, and he’s not going to be Wade-esque. Scotty had a better moving fastball and a better breaking ball. Iwase won’t survive as a starter. His numbers will be horrible.

Though, lemme see Carpenter’s numbers again.

Oy.

Our best hopes in the minors are still not good hopes. Cássio Boda and Brandon Teasdale appeared in AAA late in 2006, but only made seven starts between them, and it really was not pretty. The only other genuine prospect starting pitcher is 18 years old and all the way down in Aumsville, where Dominican right-hander Hector Santos pitched to a 9-8 record, 3.10 ERA, and struck out 144 in 136 2/3 innings. He was one of the last international discoveries by good old Vince Guerra.

Well, we started the offseason with an exclamation mark. Merely another dozen question marks remaining to be dispelled…