[Westheim]

I appreciate your awareness of the Duke’s position on the age curve, and as we all know I tend to hold on so dearly to my toys, usually until I’m cuddling a corpse. Anybody remember Neil Reece’s last two years? Right.

Last year, I need to remark, the Duke ranked second on the team in $/WAR among players not on a minimum deal, ranking behind Bowen, who was signed to a team-friendly $410k allowance. The most cost efficient guy was suddenly-slugging Adrian Quebell, by far. As a team, the Raccoons ranked 2nd in $/WAR. You can’t squeeze a lemon much harder.

At the moment, we sit in a terrible hole in terms of money. We *have* to move a big contract to do *anything* this off season, so we need a trade partner for a seven-figure deal. Well, tough choices for sure. We have Ron Alston ($1.94M), Nick Brown ($1.8M), Kel Yates ($1.8M), the Duke of Smack ($1M), and Jong-hoo Umberger ($1M) in that category. That’s it. Pick your poison. And even if you move a $1M contract, that still only gives the team a $700k-some budget space, and we need a quality player in return.

2009 was supposed to be the last year of our “window”, but as the offseason towards it begins, we find out that we have our fat, hairy butts stuck in that window. The Raccoons began the season with a monetary shortfall of almost $300k, and two, maybe three obvious holes in the lineup.

Maybe the way to go is to try to trade for a catcher (I like the Aces’ Eduardo Durango with a killer arm and 61 XBH last year, but he makes $1.22M in 2009 and it only goes up from there), and use a defensive wizard at short at minimum cost. For the moment we will ignore that we don’t have a defensive wizard at short in the organization with whom there would be reasonable hope to even hit .200 in the Bigs. This could be a job for someone like Manuel Gutierrez, but shortstop is his weakest position, perhaps best described as “a bit above average”. Regardless, this is an emergency plan that could well become reality.

Our 2006 third-rounder, SS Pat Whitehouse, moved up to AAA late last year, but only played ten games there. Defensively he would perhaps be worthwhile, but he hit for a .627 OPS in 553 PA … in DOUBLE-A. And wouldn’t you know that Yoshi Yamada’s charred bones are still around with the Alley Cats? He batted .187 for them in 2008.

Next biggest contracts: Bruno ($830k), Cruz ($800k), Castro ($700k), Quebell (assumedly somewhere over $550k), Casas ($520k), and Sims ($500k).

This figures to be a gruesome offseason.

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By the way, management takes requests about specific numbers, stats, metrics and what-not-else, if you inquire politely and leave a bag with one of the following: (1) a bottle of Capt'n Coma (2) a box of chocolate cookies (3) a million dollars