[Westheim]

Well, the thick part of the offseason was really over.

Concie Guerin signed a 1-year deal with the Capitals on February 25, netting $256k to keep the fridge stocked. I always liked Concie, and Sharpie, and Brady, and Farley, and Beanie, despite them being chronic losers. That generation of players will soon be phased out of major league baseball; they’re all in their mid-to-late 30s now.

Chris Roberson also picked up a 1-yr, $212k gig with the Condors in early March, so we might see him rob the Duke of some doubles this year.

There was one roster spot where I would have liked an improvement, which is Matt Cash’s bullpen spot. But we were out of money and couldn’t even bid for the ancient scraps left over in March. I wasn’t going to trade any prospects, not even third-rate ones, to upgrade the seventh pen slot, so in the end we stuck with Cash, who doesn’t have much stamina, so isn’t even a good long relief option. We will watch Pedro Delgado in AAA closely early in the year, maybe he can be the upgrade to Cash.

Does anybody remember Esteban Flores? He made 23 starts for the Raccoons between 1997 and 1999, playing a big part in the horrendous records then. His career numbers are 72-121 with a 5.30 ERA and 674 walks against 884 strikeouts in 257 starts. Yet he keeps getting paid and has appeared in 24 or more games (mostly starts) in all but season since 2000, with ERA’s as high as 6.53 (2003), and he has gotten a new 1-year deal from the Warriors at age 35, worth $232k, on the eve of the new season.

Our outfield depth had been eaten up by minor league free agency (except for Jerry Saenz, basically we started the winter with two AAA outfielders). Guess whom we signed to a minor league deal! A 30-year old Chris Beairsto. I am not ****ting you. But that was in early March, and most players that aren’t completely worthless to the sport still held out hope for a major league contract then.

We also signed a 23-year old named Josh Hare, who will be assigned to AA, whom Whitebread liked. Also we gave a minor league deal with a major league option worth $200k to 28-year old Armando Chavez, who batted .215 with the Wolves over multiple seasons with some 800 total at-bats. Late in March we also picked up an abandoned prospect in SP Ian Cumins, 21, a fifth-rounder in 2006, whom the Rebels had dumped in the summer. His walk numbers were horrendous, but Whitebread liked the rest of the guy. He was assigned to Aumsville.

No greatness to be found in those late signings for sure.