November 30 – The Thunder pick up ex-LAP SP Luis Flores (174-118, 3.38 ERA). The 37-year-old righty, who has 2,223 career strikeouts, signs for 2-yr, $6.24M.
December 1 – Rule 5 Draft: 19 players are selected across three rounds. The Raccoons draft three players out of other organizations, in order: 23-yr old AAA CL/C (sic!) Mike Hugh from the Crusaders, 35-yr old C Armando Leal from the Stars, and 23-yr old AAA MR John Hennessy from the Blue Sox.
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There is a bit to unpack here regarding our rule 5 transactions. First off, we protected a few more players that needed it, for example Bernie Chavez, about #4 in the pipeline of young starting pitchers that would at some day lead this team back into the postseason, maybe. We also had to make room on the 40-man at the same time, removing Juan Barzaga (he’s fine, he’s used to it) and exposing Billy Ramm and Wilson Rodriguez to waivers. That was just enough to get those three on board.
Now, let me explain, and let me start with the easiest one, and that is actually Leal. You should remember that he won a ring with these Critters in 2028, then immediately fell on hard times and spent most of the last two years in the minors. We think he can still bring it – at least as much as Pizzo did and Tovias does – and since our internal selections (Shane Ivey? Daniel Rocha?) are entirely unpleasant we had to get a catcher from *somewhere*. The free agent market is not that rosy, especially if you value your draft picks (ruling out David Lessman). Armando Leal is going to be a perfectly nice stop-gap solution until we can realign ourselves (read: get rid of Tovias, too) at the end of ’31. Again, we have a very, very nice catching prospect (though more in terms of actual catching than striking fear in opposing pitchers) in Elliott Thompson, but the boy is only 21 and has only started to tackle the AA level. More stop-gap solutions will be needed at some point.
Then there is Hennessy, a southpaw with a devastating slider. Not much of a changeup; might be an emergency starter, but surely not a regular in the rotation. He had command issues last year in AAA, which is as much a blanket statement to describe 22-year-old southpaws in AAA as to point out that they had two arms, two legs, and two eyes. This one should be easy to work out given that so far we had only one left-handed reliever (Garavito) that was not penciled in as closer (Boles). The other left-handers on the roster were all starting pitchers.
The first selection, Hugh, is the most puzzling one. You read that one right, he is a pitcher AND a catcher. Some might argue that he’s not any good at either of his two chosen professions. Well, he put up a 1.62 ERA in 63 innings between AA and AAA last year and struck out about eight per nine innings consistently at both levels. Righty with fastball/slider, groundball tendency, a bit of the run-of-the-mill variety as sixth/seventh inning relievers go… weren’t it for the fact that he also carries catcher’s gear and likes to aim for the fences. Now, the latter might be a bit of a problem. Our head scout, whose name I totally didn’t forget again, rates him a 6/11/10 potential bat, so making contact is not his strong suit. If he meets one – good. Most of the time he won’t.
Having him on the roster however removes one of the pains of managing a 25-man roster with two catchers. If one of them has a minor ill, you would not have to scuffle for a third-catcher to bring on for three days, during which he’d never get into a game, while somebody else loses an option for being sent to St. Pete. You got Hugh. Catching will be fine. Now, I am not claiming that he could be the *backup* catcher as in second guy on staff. But he is a totally fine emergency solution for narrow applications.
If all or any of those three make it to Opening Day, we don’t know yet. Currently there are 32 players on the still-extended roster. Chris Baldwin was the last rule 5 pick we took, and he’s still around somewhere. Looking up and down the roster, Chris Baldwin might even play centerfield a bit again in ’31, given that Vanatti is a left-handed batter and Baldwin is decidedly not, so there’s that… ah, I like my super utility players…
The 32 players on the extended roster? There are no *really* obvious axes in there, except probably Nick Bates, who has options, and also Sabre, who we have stated won’t be on the Opening Day roster (and did not make a convincing case in his lone appearance at the end of the season, either). The rest still needs sorting out. These are the other 31 (minus Sabre) players still around:
SP: Jason Gurney, Rico Gutierrez, Eddie Krumm, Dave Martinez, Mark Roberts, Tom Shumway
RP: Nick Bates, Josh Boles, Nick Derks, Jonathan Fleischer, Mauricio Garavito, John Hennessy (Rule 5), Mike Hugh (Rule 5), Ricky Ohl, Bryan Rabbitt, Chris Wise
C: Armando Leal (Rule 5), Elias Tovias
IF: Jarod Howden, Edwin Alvarez, Chris Baldwin, Tim Stalker, Rich Hereford (injured), Matt Nunley, Alberto Ramos
OF: Matt Jamieson, Ryan Allan, Sean Catella, Juan Magallanes, Joe Vanatti, Jimmy Wallace
And yes, we do have offers out there to free agents. Daddy needs more pitchers …!!
