[Westheim]

Every season, no matter how long and depressing, has an end. That’s the good thing. The bad thing is, that every season will be followed by another one, and that new season will probably be longer and more depressing all along.

The Raccoons played amazing baseball for two months in 2020, then stopped that and toiled around at .500 the rest of the way, and for a considerable amount of the last four months even below that. It took a rousing 6-1 final week to get into a tie-breaker scenario they probably never deserved to be in, and how that ended is already entered indelibly into the history books … and has been scorched into that part of my brain that runs my personal nightmare theater at two in the morning, day after day after day. Nick Lester effortlessly joined Juan Diaz, Glenn Johnston, and others in the Raccoons’ Hall of Infamy, and everything could have gone so well at that point. And yet, it’s not Nick Lester’s fault.

Simplified, the Raccoons lost the division because they held on to Nick Lester with the season on the line, and hadn’t Nick Lester just very recently been the worst pitcher by ERA in franchise history with 30+ innings? We’re getting back to that, by the way. Sometimes pitchers blossom late, and sometimes they blossom never at all. Sometimes they throw three wild pitches in an at-bat, and sometimes they balk in the run that ends the entire team’s season. And sometimes that **** happens while the sterling silver star reliever is waiting in the pen, can’t quite believe it, and never enters the game at all. The Raccoons never entered Ron Thrasher on October 7, and the Loggers ended their season, 9-7 in the second tie-breaker. But hey, never change lefty for lefty, huh? The bottom line is, the Coons played 6-1 in the final week to even get into the second CL North tie-breaker (and we will get to “Tragic” Garrett eventually…), and then they lost that game of games because the guy that called the shots was the same stubborn, inflexible old cuck who still thought baseball was being played for something other than money, and still believed in the fastest guy batting first, keeps playing a powerless outfielder in a prime power position, while signing power batters that never develop any while on the roster.

Yeah, that cuck.

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The offseason was upon us, and with that came the most recent love letter from the Mexican Prick, who also had taken a few weeks to show any kind of reaction to the seventh on the seventh. When Ray Gilbert’s two home runs on the final day in 2012 ended the Raccoons’ season short of the playoffs in a sad 2-0 loss, I had a raging Spanish phone call at my house that same night. I understood precious little, but he said ‘bastardo’ quite a lot. Maybe he meant Gilbert?

But there are also good news, f.e. the cocaine trafficking industry in Mexico kept blossoming and in 2020 grew at a higher rate than what most analysts would have expected, leaving the Prick awash with cash and granting the Raccoons a budget increase from $32.5M to $34M. Somebody finally wants to see a championship, I guess?

While the Raccoons retained their third place rank in terms of the teams with the biggest budgets, years of successlessness saw the Crusaders slashing expenses and dropping to a $37M budget. This was still the biggest in the league, though. Federal league teams mostly completed the top 5, with the Cyclones second with $34.5M, the Scorpions fourth at $33M, and the Rebels, Gold Sox, and Bayhawks all knotted for fifth with $30.5M.

The poorest teams were the Indians ($25M), Warriors ($24.6M), Thunder ($24.2M), Falcons ($23.2M), and Wolves ($17.6M). The remaining CL North teams ranked 10th (VAN, $27.2M), 13th (MIL, $26.8M), and 14th (BOS, $26.6M). The median budget was $26.9M. The average budget for all teams was $27.7M. 9th and 22nd places in the rankings were merely one R.J. DeWeese contract apart.

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This brings us already to salary arbitration and free agents. The Raccoons have four players in each category, with a few problem cases, because you just can’t go without those, huh?

Arbitration cases were a wild mix between Asian imports that had five full years of service time and were at a critical junction thus; Tadasu Abe had experienced his worst ABL season, while Seung-mo Chun had been same old Mr. Bland-but-Consistent. The other two were backup infielders Tim Prince and Brian Petracek, both already 30 years old. I am not married to any of those two. Prince was a colossal implosion after his trade from the Miners, but in limited exposure in 2020 (213 AB) batted an interesting .272/.414/.380. Petracek was a terrible batter, would never get any better at batting, but was the super utility player I loved to have on the roster.

Free agents included Ronnie McKnight as well as most of the remaining back end of the bullpen in Ron Thrasher, Chris Mathis, and Jeff Boynton. Oddly, Mathis was type B compensation eligible, but Thrasher wasn’t. They are all drunk, all the time in that league office, I SWEAR TO GOD!! (throws empty bottle of booze against the wall, where it shatters and leaves a stain) McKnight is also a type B free agent.

I love Ronnie McKnight, but when I tried to dismantle the thing (briefly) in July, I couldn’t even turn him into a prospect. The Riddler seems to agree, with a scorching scouting report that leaves no good hair on McKnight from snout to tail:

Towns ablaze and bodies strewn –
The Wehrmacht was rolling through Poland.
McKnight’s swing is full of holes,
And burnt out like the Cathedrals in Warsaw.

That’s some hot stuff there. I guess other teams have similar poems on his hitting abilities, which I just don’t understand. (Full scouting report for McKnight below, the most impossibly underscouted player I have ever come across; also the full arbitration page)

McKnight and Thrasher are probably the biggest names and would be the more serious losses. Boyntons grow on trees, but the Thrashers of the world are special. However, both are expected to demand a heavy sack of coin for extensions, and I am uncertain whether I can even afford one of them, given that the Critters as usual have most of their budget raise eaten up by the escalating contracts I so happily and foolishly sign all the time. I must keep doing that. What do I care about the budget pinch of 2024? I need players NOW.

Of course, there would be a way to free up money, but I don’t think that other teams are yet stupid enough to buy into R.J. DeWeese and the remaining 2-yr, $6.6M on his contract. I would love to hang him on the Elks. That would be great. And then he would hit seven homers and bat .429 against the Raccoons in 2021. The other big earners on the team are impossible to trade without packing up and moving shop to Idaho altogether. Mendoza, who was the home run king in 2020, and Toner, who won another triple crown, are both signed for $2.6M this year. Cookie is on for $2.3M, and Yoshi for $2.2M. Those four are under contract through 2023, although three of them (all but Toner) have an option in the final year, a team option for Cookie, and player options for Mendoza and Yoshi Nomura.

Then you don’t know yet how many millions Abe will make, and Hector Santos will be in a contract year for $1.8M. Santos, 32, missed any kind of time for the first time since 2010 and 2011, being held to under 20 starts in both of those seasons, just as he tried to come up to the majors. From 2012 through 2019, he had made 32+ starts every year.

Matt Nunley is the only other player currently signed to seven figures at $1.1M. That contract runs through 2022. There are only two other players with guaranteed contracts past 2021, both relievers, with Joel Davis making $900k annually through 2023 (but will miss most or all of 2021 with Tommy John surgery and the following cleanup), and Jason Kaiser aboard for $400k per year through ’22.

Where do the Raccoons need help?

Well, the rotation is a no-brainer. We may have the best pitcher in the league in Jonny Toner, but behind him it’s grim. Tadasu Abe had a terrible second half with a 4.46 ERA after the All Star Break, and Hector Santos missed half a season (and might have ruined Jonny’s triple crown if he hadn’t, but the Coons might have won a championship after all…). The Coons dumped Cole Pierson on waivers in June (and his ERA with the Buffaloes was actually 1.63 runs *worse* than with the Critters, for a combined 2020 ERA for him of 6.02), and the best you can say about Bobby Guerrero is that he’s cheap. Numerous replacement for open spots failed completely and universally, foremost “Tragic” Garrett, who pitched to a 3-11 record and 5.15 ERA. This included the start in the Tuesday game of the final week, the 10-9 loss to the Indians that made the three-way tie possible in the first place. Somehow, the Raccoons lucked into six decent starts from Ryan Nielson (2-0, 3.29 ERA in 8 games total), but buried somewhere deep beneath the detritus were also nine starts handed over to Damani Knight in a resigning motion in July and August, resulting in a 2-4 record and 5.91 ERA for Knight.

To burst a bubble right away, the Coons can not afford to sign a quality starting pitcher *and* retain McKnight *or* Thrasher. This is a deal where you have to pick one of the three.

And to burst another bubble, although it would be foolish to even dream about it, but no, we have no other hidden prospects that could help in the foreseeable future. “Tragic” Garrett is as good as it gets, tragically.

The most prospect-like things we own are AAA SP Dave Dyer (3-6, 3.91 ERA in 15 AAA GS), who is only 22 and walked as many as he struck out, and then you already have to go to AA to find 2019 first-rounder Reese Kenny, promoted from Aumsville during the year. He went 6-5 with a 3.00 ERA in Ham Lake, with 66 walks and 90 strikeouts in 96 innings. He will be 21 just before the next season begins, so he’s a far way off. In single-A, Jason Butler, 19, struck out 133 in 125 innings, but managed to wind up with a 4.18 ERA anyway. Make of that whatever you want. Butler was a supplemental round pick in this year’s draft.

Bullpen reconstruction is also a topic, while unless we get rid of DeWeese [insert your mad laughter here] we don’t have any real openings in the lineup except for the gaping hole at shortstop. DeWeese isn’t going anywhere, and we pretty much are committed to the set of him, Cookie, Mendoza, and Nunley on the corners, as well as Yoshi at second base. Margolis was the most positive surprise of 2020 and is signed for cheap for another year, so no worries at backstop. Olivares can also stay.

Centerfield is a mess, where we rotated three quality defenders through this year to save Cookie’s legs, arms, and spine for the time being. The resulting slash line was grim, with Andy Bareford, Kevin DeWald, and Dwayne Metts combining for a slash line of .233/.290/.322 – and how many of those walks were intentional. Don’t look it up. DON’T … look it up.

Lots of work ahead.

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Normally, I’d tangle with free agent compensation now, but the big picture looks very much sane this season. So I will not make Thrasher type B eligible when he really should be at least that (and probably remove it from Mathis?), because in all fairness, then I would have to evaluate a whole lot more players that are currently not eligible for compensation. F.e., how do you evaluate Angel Casas – rock-hard, first-ballot, future Hall of Famer – who is now 38, but will be out of action until perhaps June, and had a so-so year between two teams before getting hurt? I will spare myself that and 15 other dilemmas.