[Westheim]

In early December I was feeling out the shortstop market. A few years back, we had acquired Craig Bowen as an afterthought and not as the splendid solution for our gaping hole at catcher, and the task now was largely the same: find a player on the fringes that has room to grow. Preferably young, and definitely cheap.

That player had to play very good defense, but the bat shouldn’t be composed entirely of holes, either. A good runner was also something I had in mind, to complement the existing threats of Castro and Martinez.

The first player I came across plate upstate for the Wolves. Rob Howell had just turned 24. The Titans had debuted him at 19, but had only given him four at-bats. He next surfaced with the Wolves in ’06, but hadn’t gotten a sizeable amount of playing time until 2008, batting .359/.401/.470 in 196 AB. That was *probably* a bit over his long-term ceiling, and he readily struck out in that sample size, raising that BABIP even further. He had impressive range, but had problems with accurate throws, producing a few errors, but nothing that couldn’t be covered up with other nice qualities. He had no power whatsoever, but had stolen six bases in his limited exposure this year. Unfortunately, the Wolves had all their money invested into contract offers, and could only accept other minimum salary players at this point, making a trade impossible.

Tom Dahlke, 25, of the Aces was also on my list. He was also still making the minimum. He was a bit like Craig Bowen, hitting for power (15 HR in 2008) while not batting for a high average, and he had struck out 141 times in 2008. He wasn’t much of a runner, going 11/18 this season. The problem here was money, and it was fatal. The Aces were completely broken and laden with bad deals, they were almost $2M overbudget. To get Dahlke from their hands, we could a) trade them Hector Santos (6-11, 4.05 ERA, 142 K in 175.2 IP in AA at age 20), or b) try to work out a deal where we would trade them someone of value and instead take on one of their bad deals.

Then there was 28-year old Adriano Lulli on the always-rebuilding Pacifics. They had picked him up on an insane waiver from the Capitals early in the 2008 season, but weren’t positive on what to do with him while the rest of their roster stunk. He was signed to a team-friendly $720k in 2009, with $1.22M per year from 2010 through 2013 – still a team-friendly deal although his career batting stats didn’t look too friendly at .264/.333/.362 with 49 HR, 388 RBI, and 104 SB. But like the Wolves, the Pacifics had all their money in mango farms in Oxnard at this point and couldn’t make a sane deal.

Then there was 30-year old Jaime Mateo, who was a free agent. Two years ago he had been the pretty complete package at shortstop, but since then he had only appeared in 56 total games after tearing an achilles tendon in 2007 and rupturing a medial collateral ligament in 2008. He was still laboring on the latter injury and wouldn’t start “baseball activities” until the new year. On the other hand he wasn’t looking for much of a contract, probably realizing that nobody would splurge $15M on a potential corpse.

Let me see Dahlke again. The Aces payroll was pretty messed up. They had a million bucks in outfielder Forest Messinger, who had batted .219 in limited exposure in 2008, exactly the kind of contract that kills small market teams. We’ll steer clear of that. They had $720k in SP Jim Pennington, who had turned a 3-9, 4.95 ERA year while spending part of the season in AAA, and over two months on the DL with a small tear in his labrum. They were paying $386k to 33-yr old C Brian Abrams, while having him rot in AAA. They also had Eduardo Durango, that GOOD catcher I was salivating for.

But I think a deal that would net us Dahlke AND Durango would demand a pretty insane return. Like, Quebell, Martinez, and half the farm?

Nah, no matter how you twisted or turned it, that was not a deal that was possible to turn given their financial situation and the fact that there were certain players I didn’t want to give up. Although they were really hot on Santos. We were closing in on at least not total disagreement in a deal of Durango, Francisco Soto (a merely decent defensive shortstop without power), and the dead contract of Abrams in exchange for Santos and a mystery player from our pile, whom I can’t mention right now since he’s nervous and paranoid anyway, but that still wasn’t *enough* for them, but at the same time we couldn’t offer anything else for money reasons.

Man, finding a shortstop is hard work these days!

December 3 – The Blue Sox sign ex-POR C Craig Bowen (.233, 66 HR, 236 RBI) to a 7-yr, $13.16M contract.
December 4 – The Cyclones announce a pair of free agent signings for $10M total. 35-yr old 1B/2B Georg Spinu remains in the FL East after playing with the Buffaloes and Blue Sox. The career .292, 97 HR, 835 RBI player gets a 2-yr, $4.72M deal. The Cyclones also add ex-WAS 1B/3B César Gonzalez (.268, 236 HR, 1,004 RBI) for 2-yr, $5.28M.
December 5 – The Raccoons flip 26-yr old LF/RF Jose Cruz (.412, 0 HR, 1 RBI in 17 AB) to the Blue Sox for 26-yr old 1B Ralph Myers (.356, 1 HR, 16 RBI in 90 AB).
December 5 – 32-yr old ex-BOS OF Rudy Garrison (.283, 63 HR, 599 RBI) will get paid by the Wolves, signing a 4-yr, $6.08M deal.
December 5 – The Titans console themselves with ex-RIC SP Jesus Cabrera (64-67, 4.33 ERA). The 26-year old signs a 3-yr, $1.84M contract.
December 10 – The Titans sign ex-TIJ CL Charlie Deacon (68-74, 2.69 ERA, 333 SV) to a 3-yr, $4.5M contract.
December 10 – Another closer lands a new job, as ex-IND Tommy Wooldridge (33-31, 2.70 ERA, 82 SV) signs a 3-yr, $4.76M contract with the Capitals.
December 10 – The Pacifics trade C Antonio Ramirez (.243, 31 HR, 311 RBI) to the Buffaloes for MR Juan Carlos Bojorquez (18-10, 3.99 ERA, 2 SV) and a third-rate prospect.

Compensation for the loss of Craig Bowen entails not only a supplemental round pick, but also the Blue Sox’ first round pick in the 2009 draft. It’s almost the best possible place for Bowen to fall into: the Blue Sox would have had the #14 pick, the second unprotected pick. It’s now ours. (The Scorpions have the first unprotected pick, but hey, the last time we lost a type A free agent we got a ****ty third round pick out of that).

The Myers deal was just the flipping of quad-A players. We will send him to AAA, he’s not big league roster material. Why the deal? He’s from Hillsboro, OR, right next to Portland, and since I couldn’t make Carlosito shut up over his hometown player crap by pressing a pillow onto his face, I had to make the most pointless trade ever. He is satisfied now, which only shows what kind of idiot he is.

Cruz has no room in my plans. He’s not any good in the first place, and then he plays grisly defense. We will have to look into procuring a good defensive CF/RF with options to keep in AAA in case anything bad happens to Castro (who’s still in a brace with that broken elbow of his) and Black. We have a young backup for leftfield with Jerry Saenz, who came over in a minor trade from the Warriors two years ago (it was the trade where we ridded ourselves of Steve Searcy).

The Rebels signed Jaime Mateo on December 10 for cheap, so he’s off the table in terms of shortstops. But you know who else is a free agent? Conceicao Guerin. He’s 35 by now, but his glove is still sensational. The problem is that he hasn’t hit for more than a .661 OPS in the last five seasons, and that was 2004, his last year in Portland.