[Westheim]

The offseason starts.

First up, whom to chase away and whom to keep? Three players were bound for free agency: OF Eduardo Guerrero, 2B/3B Angel Costa, and SP Jorge Romero. The first two were easy decisions: no deal. Both had batted below .200, and Costa had done it for years. Romero went a poor 8-17, but with a good 3.27 ERA. The problem was his demands. He wanted a contract for three years. He’d be 38 then. I offered one year for less than his current $392k, but he didn’t bite. He was a type B free agent.

C Spencer Dicks and OF Ben Cox were super-2 arbitration cases. We would not make an offer to Cox, who batted .127 and like Costa had done this for some years now. Dicks got an offer, but we’d try to strike a new contract before the arbitration hearings.

The biggest problem was Ralph Nixon. He had another year on his contract, but it was a team option. Did I really want to pay $950k to a guy who has never lived up to expectations and is injured all the time? The buyout is $250k.

Wyatt Johnston, 40, retired. His last season was a bargain only for him. But he finished his career with a .254 average, 659 H, 56 HR, 309 RBI. Our hitting coach also retired at age 61.

We have made offers to the former Thunder hitting coach and the Bayhawks scouting director. Interim head scout Angel Vega was released. We made our moves quickly here. Our new head scout was Nathan Bruce, 56, with good ratings across the board. He was tasked with re-rating all the mess our old scout had left us.

Our budget has been set to $9.266M, up about half a million.

The Nixon and Romero questions were the main point of interest in those late October days. We could just not reach an agreement with Romero, who demanded 4-yr, $1.7M and that was not an offer I was going to meet. I’m sorry, Jorge, it was nice with you, but you have to go someplace else.

Nixon, another potential type B free agent. He appeared in 300 games for the Raccoons in three seasons. The rest: injuries. Would it be better to cut the losses now and pay the quarter million bucks to get rid of him. He batted way over .300 in New York. He never batted .300 in Portland. I won’t pay you $950k, Ralph. It was nice with you, but you have to go someplace else.

October 22 – The Titans deal infielder Joe Helms, 31, and a prospect for the Miners’ SP Bob Hillier and a minor league reliever. Helms is a career .259 hitter, but hit at a .299 pace in ’82. He’s with his fifth team now since the start of the 1980 season.
October 25 – The Aces deal SP Kevin MacGruder, 28, 1-9 with a 4.92 ERA in 12 starts in ’82, to the Knights for catching prospect Alberto Durán.
October 29 – The Knights acquire reliever Jose Sanchez from Milwaukee for two prospects. Sanchez was 2-1 with a 2.17 ERA in 53 games in ’82.
November 1 – The Miners acquire 25-yr old SP Tom Harden (8-15, 4.76 ERA) from Cincinnati for a pitching prospect.
November 3 – PIT Leland Lewis (19-8, 2.44 ERA) and CHA Juan Correa (29-4, 1.64 ERA) are Pitchers of the Year.
November 4 – LAP OF Yoshinobu Ishizaki (.353, 3 HR, 78 RBI) and VAN SS Eddy Bailes (.348, 8 HR, 42 RBI) are MVP’s.
November 8 – The Raccoons deal RF Pedro Sánz, 32, Raccoon since ’77, to the Buffaloes for SP/MR Charles Young, 24. Sánz is a career .277 hitter, but went .195 in ’82, going from cornerstone to burden. Young made his big league debut in ’82, appearing in 8 games (4 starts), going 1-1 with a 3.49 ERA.

The Raccoons did not get any trophies. Matt Workman was beaten by VAN SP Kisho Saito to Rookie of the Year honors.

The Sánz trade was necessary, although it was another knife rammed into my heart. He was the last position player from the original team to go away after Johnston retired. Wally Gaston is the last original Raccoon now, while Logan Evans and Paul Cooper were in the minor league system of the Raccoons when the ABL started play.

The Sánz deal also cut his salary, saving us $296k. This would be put to good news when rebuilding our rotation. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I wanted to put Young in there, and I probably had to find a replacement for Ackerman, whose performance was nothing I’d brag about publicly.

The arbitration hearings went according to plan. Spencer Dicks received $99,000 (as offered by me). Romero and Nixon declined arbitration and became free agents along with Cox, Guerrero, and Costa.

Sad story of the week: the Pittsburgh Miners broke apart with seven players, including a number of core players, becoming free agents.

Now, on to the hard offseason work. Currently, the Raccoons roster has 24 players, 14 pitchers and 10 position players. We need to find the following in somewhat descending priority:

- A stud righty starter
- A stud lefty reliever
- Versatile infielder with a good eye that can pinch hit, or a defensively strong second baseman with high AVG/OBP
- Two backup outfielders, preferably also hitting for some power

None of those needs can be filled from our AAA roster, at least not satisfyingly. Maybe I have to trade one of my ace righty relievers to get something done.