[Westheim]

The week through to the rule 5 draft passed silently. I was trying to pull some strings behind the scenes, but failed to achieve anything tangible.

It was hard to trade players since the Raccoons were so top heavy and had a tough time filling their numerous holes. A dazzling 45% of our budget was tied up in just seven players: DeWeese, Tiger, Santos, Abe, Cookie, Ramirez, and Jonny Toner. At the same time we had no bullpen to speak of and were forced to move Alex Ramirez back into the closer role since a different closer would just not fall from heaven in time for Opening Day, and Mathis and Thrasher had failed just as badly in the role.

Who’s after Mathis and Thrasher – the setup guys for sure now – in the bullpen? Well, Seung-mo Chun is still here and he was pretty decent for us, and then it’s into the Will Wests of the world. Nielson, Lester, Kaiser, Cummings. The odd candidate in AAA; and never mind that we still had an open spot in the rotation, no money to fill it, and that is assuming that either Kaiser or Brownie occupy the #5 hole.

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November 27 – The Condors sign ex-DEN 1B Mun-wah Tsung (.276, 241 HR, 989 RBI) to a 3-year deal. The 35-year old veteran will receive $7.12M as part of the deal.
November 27 – The Crusaders acquire OF Sean Young (.294, 42 HR, 238 RBI) from the Thunder in exchange for INF Eric Paull (.245, 31 HR, 183 RBI) and an unexciting prospect.
November 28 – 32-year old ex-BOS/NAS 2B Jose Gutierrez (.301, 13 HR, 348 RBI) finds a new home; the Canadiens sign him to a 4-yr, $6.8M contract.
November 30 – The Crusaders add pitching in 33-yr old ex-PIT SP Tom Weise (139-126, 3.57 ERA). The right-hander’s contract is worth $4.98M over three years.
November 30 – Free agent pitcher Shunyo Yano (72-64, 3.72 ERA) makes it onto his third FL East team in 2017, signing a 2-yr, $6M contract with the Rebels after spending time with the Cyclones and Capitals previously.
December 1 – Rule 5 draft: 15 players are selected in two rounds. The Raccoons are not affected.
December 1 – Former Warrior CL Angel Casas (30-30, 1.88 ERA, 526 SV) signs a 3-yr, $4.86M contract with the Pacifics.
December 1 – The Indians pick up 1B/3B/RF Ruben Landeros (.227, 6 HR, 41 RBI) from the Loggers. The price for the 25-year old right-handed batter are two fairly longshot prospects.
December 2 – The Canadiens also sign former Titans rightfielder Ezra Branch (.265, 101 HR, 420 RBI) to a 4-yr, $6.48M contract.

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There were no even remotely interesting players in the rule 5 draft.

Next up are the winter meetings, where I will not be able to do a whole lot. There were no medium-tier players on this team that you could flip somewhere else to patch a hole. If you want, the medium-tier players, you know, the guys that are pretty decent to quite good and who don’t make millions and can easily be accommodated into most team’s budgets, were limited to at best a handful of guys. Pretty decent to quite good I’d call these:

Nunley, McKnight, Walter, Thrasher, Mathis, Chun. That’s it. That list is sorted down, from quite good to pretty decent, and it includes only six players. Three of those were relievers, and we needed relievers bitterly. The other three were middle infielders, and if we traded any one of them, we’d tear a new hole that needed patching.

This completely raided farm system is finally catching up with us. Ignore for a moment the fact that outside of Nunley, McKnight, and Walter we have no first baseman unless Mendoza sticks there. The following five players are to be considered our bench and depth on the infield:

INF/OF Brian Petracek
INF Ricky Moya
1B/3B Tyler Scott
2B Bryan Bingham
INF/LF Brock Hudman

Hudman is 27 and batted .256 with no home runs for the Alley Cats last season and is clearly the eighth-best infielder on the depth chart. (AA 1B Michael Wilkerson, a 2015 supplemental rounder, is the only prospect that Gabriel Martinez has any faith in right now) Some pitchers (Danny Arguello, Mike Rehbock, Adam Cowen) and outfielder Andy Bareford – an excellent defensive centerfielder – aside, the Coons’ system completely lacks appeal. Which is a mild description for a burnt-out orphanage in Transylvania with some of the abandoned kids still stumbling through the ruins in search of something edible.

… and Bareford batted .273/.348/.385 as a 22-year old in St. Petersburg last season, so it’s not like Neil Reece reborn is gonna chip in any time soon. Besides, where to play him? We’re kinda booked in the outfield.

Nope, we have to buy all the missing pitching, a first baseman, and a restuffed bench with what little money we have, which right now amounts to roughly $2M. Given that we gotta get about six players for the money, this might turn out to be an interesting challenge.

And already we regret letting Jason Bergquist go… Don’t get me wrong, the Raccoons’ lineup might be one of the best in the league, even if we put a standing lamp at first base, but if anybody gets hurt – Cookie, put down the knife; we’re not letting you cut your bagel yourself! – at any point, things will unravel in a hurry. – Cookie, I warn you, put the knife away or I must slap it out of your paw!

We’re so ****ing doomed.

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Elsewhere, there was just one more ex-Coon that signed with a new team this week, Manobu Sugano inking with the Gold Sox for $230k. Pretty damn cheap but he comes off major surgery.

By the way, did you know that this Jose Gutierrez guy that is now on the damn Elks is a former Coon as well? Originally discovered by the Condors in their own backyard in 2002, he was well-travelled as a demi-prospect, and wound up in Portland in a pretty irrelevant trade in March of 2006. The price for him was Curt Cooks. Who? The catcher Cooks had 39 AB for the Raccoons and batted .179 over those, while Gutierrez was used to patch holes on the infield in 2007 and 2008, getting 172 AB for which he batted .218. He ended up traded to the Wolves after the season as one of two negligible pieces required for a Rob Howell Reunion – a sad notion in itself – and even on the perpetually lousy Wolves he didn’t break out until he was 28 in 2013. And breaking out is a bit of a hysterical description. He translated a few years of batting modestly as a starter for a bottom-dwelling team and two campaigns of roughly an .800 OPS in his early 30s with the Titans into a deal that will allow him to live comfortably for the rest of his life, and we oughta be a happy for him. When you get your first shot in the majors after being traded for a ****ing Raccoons third-string catcher, every dime you make is a like a big-time lottery win.