[Westheim]

By February we became acutely aware that Travis Giordano wanted out of Pittsburgh. We new him of course as the Crusaders setup man / closer a while back. He had 239 career saves in 12-year career, was 35 years old… and made $1.9M in 2034, the last year of his contract.

Putting him over Prieto was a real option, but we couldn’t do it unless the Miners either picked up salary from us, or would send a truck full (or two) of cash. While they would literally accept any player (like Jason Gurney), they were very much against leaving us with more than $500k and were not into any paid player we would readily get rid of. They were into some of our prospects, like Tony Morales or Jesus Maldonado, 19-year-olds currently considered blue chips, or less highly revered Cory Cronk, a 20-year-old outfielder. They would also begrudgingly accept any of del Rio, Sabre, and Manny Fernandez.

That was too tall a price. Travis Giordano did not become a Raccoon. Nobody else really did, either.

Two weeks from the start of the new season they would even offer a reasonable pitching prospect on top of Giordano for nothing more than Justin Marsingill. Yes, scrambling to find a suitable backup infielder in late March would be an inconvenience, but we’d manage. However, they still refused to offer more than $500k in cash, and we couldn’t swallow $1.2M (after accounting for Marsingill’s minimum contract of $206k).

+++

February 5 – The Crusaders sign ex-RIC SP Joe Hicks (49-74, 4.32 ERA) for 3-yr, $6.56M.
February 11 – Richmond comes up with a closer instead, inking 34-yr old ex-OCT CL Jared Stone (18-23, 3.28 ERA, 53 SV) to a 3-yr, $2.2M deal.
February 19 – The Indians send 3B/1B Josh Conner (.228, 9 HR, 38 RBI) to the Loggers in exchange for MR Chris Tompkins (0-0, 1.98 ERA) and #87 prospect C Sean Ebner, traded for the second time this winter.
March 6 – The Warriors pick up 29-yr old ex-NYC SP Jeremy Truett (60-59, 4.48 ERA, 1 SV) for 4-yr, $16.88M.
March 22 – The Cyclones trade for Vancouver’s OF Brian Wojnarowski (.271, 133 HR, 482 RBI). The 31-year old outfielder nets his former team the services of 1B Tomas Caraballo (.290, 138 HR, 595 RBI) and a prospect.
March 31 – The Crusaders deal SP Ramiro Benavides (110-82, 3.50 ERA) to the Stars in exchange for 1B/C Danny Monge (.324, 13 HR, 93 RBI) and a meager prospect.
April 2 – The Raccoons sign 24-year-old Japanese free agent 1B Chiyosaku Maruyama to a $235k contract.

+++

Maruyama, who signed on Opening Day’s Eve, will be assigned to St. Pete to provide depth there. We didn’t really have a first baseman with the Alley Cats anymore. He has some power potential, so we’ll look into that. Adding Maruyama also filled up the 40-man roster for the time being.

In lesser, hairy news, the Loggers signed Dan McLin to a $310k deal;

And that was the offseason!