[Westheim]

In good news, all our four compensation-eligible free agents elected to hit the market, and nobody clung on to the roster.

That already moves us swiftly ahead to the international free agent, with the pleasant surprise of the arrival of 24-year old Japanese right-hander named Tadasu “Barraduca” Abe. He throws six pitches, all of good quality, keeping hitters guessing eternally. There was a good chance any given batter would not see the same pitch and location twice from him the entire game. Calderón can’t stop drooling. His price should be steep, but beyond Jonny Toner, Hector Santos, and Nick Brown we have a huge void in the rotation longing to be filled.

Besides – … we’ve got the bucks! … Isn’t that an odd sentence to hear from the Raccoons GM at the start of the offseason? According to Steve from Accounting, I had over $8M to splurge around!

Well… for this year at least. Due to the escalating deals for Santos, Alexander, and Cookie, as well as the fact that Jonny Toner will be arbitration-eligible next year, we actually have more money committed to the 2017 roster right now than to the 2016 roster. This would still be true (although just marginally) if Nick Brown would miss the criteria for his $1.8M vesting option for 2017. He needs to pitch 190 innings, and he only made it to 205 this year thanks to a lot of nagging injuries, including three starts he aborted due to hamstring issues alone. Young people don’t appreciate enough that they can jump about without pulling a muscle. Poor Brownie…

The roster had a bit of a cleansed look to it on November 17, the day all eligible players officially departed into free agency. We had only eight pitchers left on the active roster (16 position players, though), and there were numerous gaps waiting to be filled.

But enough of the pointless babble. There were sleeves to pull up and scouting reports and career stat sheets to dive into. Of course I have already given a very rough outline of what I was looking for in general. A certain Cyclones slugger was really high up on my list, despite his obvious shortcomings.

Explained in as few words as possible, he was a free swinger that would hack at everything coming roughly his way. You were advised to not throw him a fastball anywhere in the lower half of the zone, because that ball would break the plane of the outfield wall in lots of tiny bits. He was ridiculously vulnerable to breaking stuff, if well executed. He had led the FL in strikeouts in 2013 and 2014, but at the same time had drawn over 80 walks in both years. The numbers were only slightly down in 2015. And he had only been issued 11 intentional walks in these three years combined!

So his batting average was not the greatest, only .233 in 2015 f.e., but where he really made it up was his power production. He had hit for 70 extra base hits in 2014, and 68 this year. These 138 XBH included 68 homers, a category he had led the FL in twice now. His sophomore season aside, he had always hit for more than an .800 OPS, sometimes significantly more, approaching .900 in 2012-13.

I had to have him. He was obviously a type A free agent, but we had a protected first round pick (the joys of losing!!), and with four type B’s out there we could probably live with blowing picks in the following rounds (not that I expected Watanabe to get picked up, although you never know what the Loggers are forced to do…).

I jumped into that bidding right away!

Then there was that Japanese pitcher that had entered the free agent market, 24-year old Tadasu Abe. 95mph cutter, paired with a curve, a slider, a change, a splitter, and a forkball. Granted, much of his breaking stuff did roughly the same thing. The splitter was something to marvel about especially. He sometimes hung the curve or the changeup would do much, but overall he had great control. Head scout Juan Calderón was rallying up and down the hallway outside of my office, holding up a sign that read “SIGN!!”, which seemed very logical to Chad, who on the second day of the offseason joined him in full mascot costume, holding up a Raccoons shirt. Well, it had “Raccoons” on the front. In his little, permanently sniffing-damaged brain it probably made sense…

Given that our starting pitching depth right now went like this:

Jonny Toner
Nick Brown
Hector Santos
Jeff Magnotta
Gary Dupes
The End

… it probably made sense to talk to Abe’s agent.

I also tried to move some unloved personnel. Currently, the 40-man roster held more players huddling on the edges of the infield than actual pitchers, and we also had a glut of outfielders that were somewhere between so-so and meh. While there was probably room on the roster for a Brandon Johnson type of player that was not an amazing batter by any definition of both “amazing” and “batter”, but could play all three outfield positions well, we had no room for the bushel of major league fringe corner outfielders like Keith Chisholm, Danny Ochoa, and Jason Seeley (though he also played center). I almost whoopsed here and included Ron Richards, but I always got to remind myself that we just committed to $8.5M to him.

I would love to nail down DeWeese, then find a Luis Reya-comparable player as competent bench piece in addition to Johnson. On the infield, we had the two most recent Continental League Rookies of the Year on the left side of the infield, but the right side was bare except for the wild card that was Sandy Sambrano. Plus the flock of below-average infielders of whatever hue of preferred position – Bergquist, Canning, Hudman, somehow even friggin’ Palmer Taylor, who had somehow made it to 35 plate appearances in the last two weeks of the season. We had only 28 players on the 40-man overall as the offseason proper began.

There was probably ample room to do some flopping, starting with the fringe corner outfielders and the surplus of mildly able infielders, although I would also enjoy moving Dylan Alexander and his contract and try to get a new start with a new catcher.

I had already elaborated on Pat Walston a bit, who was probably the top free agent catcher out there, with a career OPS of .763, and his annual production was remarkably consistent, but there was the issue that I didn’t dig his defense the least bit. His name also reminded me of the traitor “Monte” Alston, and so I was not exactly sympathetic to his bid to get butter on his bread next season. There were other, credible options however, traversing most of the spectrum of an entirely defensive backstop and an offensive-minded slugger with O-shaped legs (which was pretty much what Walston was close to).

Raúl Hernandez was probably somewhere in the middle. He had been our backup catcher heading into the 2014 season, before he was included in the deal with the Aces that brought in Ron Richards and Zack Entwistle. He had spent last year with the Elks (but also their AAA club in Drummondville). He knew how to handle the bat, although he had produced an OPS over .700 only once in a full season. He lacked power, but in the time he had been the primary catcher for the sad-sack Loggers (2011-13), he had hit almost 30 doubles on average. He was mostly flawless defensively. There was a defensive expert on the market in 3-time Gold Glover Foster Leach. He was a singles hitter through and through, breaking 20 doubles occasionally and 10 homers never. He had posted OPS values wildly below .700 (and sometimes .600) consistently throughout his long career – he was already 35, going to be 36 in April. He had also been on the Loggers, the successor to Hernandez as their primary catcher. Then there was Pat Eaton, 33, who was largely unknown in the CL since his entire body of work had been compiled in the FL West. He had been the primary catcher for the Warriors in 2011 and 2013, with somewhat decent results. Actually, his last five years (age 28-32) had been far better than his early years with the Scorpions, which kept down his career .OPS at .691. Defensively, he was a bit of a nightmare, however, and we’d be better advised going after Walston.

Walston however pretended to be worth $3M annually, so there was that. My primary objective was to land R.J. DeWeese to play leftfield, and that was probably going to come us in that order. Even if you have $8M at hand, you shouldn’t blow it all on two players… ESPECIALLY with only eight pitchers on the roster!

There was also Freddy Rosa avail- ha-HAH!! Never!

But I did stumble across an interesting trade opportunity by chance, and one that I would have never inquired about on my own, because the notion seemed ridiculous. The Cyclones had signed ex-Ace Howard Jones to a 4-yr, $7.8M deal before the 2015 season, but their team had just disintegrated over the course of the season and they had finished last in the FL East with 95 losses (then again, they were loaded with every bad Raccoons starting pitcher of the last five years: Rich Hood, Graham Wasserman, and Shunyo Yano, so at least WE knew where this was coming from). They had failed to retain the services of DeWeese and now they knew that they had to officially rebuild. Jones had not had a good season, not at all, merely batting .255 with a .314 OBP. While he had hit a career-high 11 home runs, it had been his worst season by OPS since 2011. He was probably never going to hit .300, but he sure could do better than this. The Cyclones jumped at the first opportunity for a marginally useful player on a tiny contract, and were ready to part with Jones in a heartbeat.

… or perhaps GM Doug Sauerwine had nipped a bit too much on his Merlot. We were not to ask questions however, and so the Coons figured in the first big deal of the offseason.

I was also looking at left-handed relief pitching. Gee, why would I look at left-handed relief pitching? We’ve got Sugano and Thrasher after all, and they seem to be doing okay. Well… there’s this thing. Closers are goddamn expensive. Angel Casas is looking for a $2M annual salary, and he’s really no alone. I had the wicked idea (again…) of promoting Ron Thrasher to closer. I would really prefer to put the available money into some ****ing bats, since we didn’t need a closer for way too long stretches at times last season. There was an additional caveat, however, and that was that I was really keen on signing a left-handed pitcher to a 1-year deal. However, all the good setup-capable guys had none of that. I specifically pissed off Kevin Beaver and Patrick Mercier (both mostly FL veterans) with my cheapskate offers, although Beaver eventually did take home a proposal for a 1-year deal with a vesting option for 2017, probably to use it as coaster.

Beaver would complement Sugano really well from the left side. A 31-year old groundball pitcher, Beaver had almost even splits for his career (though not 2015, when funnily left-handed batting wrecked him, though there’s also a .320 BABIP in play…), while we have established that you can’t consciously let Sugano face a right-handed batter of any name in a critical situation, since they are hitting almost .350 against him.

Plus, a beaver is a furry animal that likes to play in the water, so could there be a better fit!?

+++

October 17 – The Portland Raccoons acquire 30-yr INF Howard Jones (.264, 32 HR, 377 RBI) from the Cyclones, parting with 29-year old OF Jason Seeley (.238, 18 HR, 114 RBI).
October 25 – More turnover in Portland, as the Raccoons acquire 1B Adam Young (.310, 86 HR, 374 RBI) and SP/MR John Korb (17-14, 6.03 ERA, 2 SV) from the Bayhawks in exchange for C Dylan Alexander (.261, 93 HR, 350 RBI) and two low-key prospects in AA SP Edwin Silva and AA INF Dan Riley.
October 25 – The Crusaders don’t want to stand back in the CL North arms race and sign ex-OCT SP Curtis Tobitt (179-84, 2.76 ERA). The 35-year old right-hander receives a 2-yr, $6.08M deal.
October 25 – The Titans pick up 25-yr old RF/LF/1B Jonathan Blake (.258, 9 HR, 74 RBI) from the Blue Sox, sending them 31-year old C Randy Porter (.284, 7 HR, 107 RBI) and cash.
October 26 – Former Ace LF/RF John Kelsey (.267, 51 HR, 323 RBI) inks a 7-yr, $11.48M contract with the Cyclones.

+++

Jones is foremost a second baseman. He also has considerable experience at third base, but that one is nunleyfied. In a pinch, he can play all infield positions.

Adam Young is a bit pale around the nose, so he’ll love it in the northern climate. He has hit 25+ homers and 110+ RBI in each of the last three seasons, while missing only six games in ’13 and none since. He does not strike out too often and gets the odd scared walk. He is slow and will hit into a few double plays just like our previous first basemen, but 110+ RBI for three straight years!

Even better – compared to Jones, who’s probably soundly overpaid, Young makes only $820k this year, and his contract will top out at $1.44M for both the 2018 and 2019 seasons. He is mobile enough to do a decent job at first base, and I am giddy like a little girl whenever some new My Little Horse **** comes out.

To be fair, Calderón is not as excited as me about Young. He literally wrote under his scouting report “I don’t know how he does it”.

John Korb was in the deal solely for financial reasons. The Bayhawks were also bidding on free agents and could not afford Alexander’s contract. Korb, a pretty mediocre pitching pretender, was the closest thing they had to an overpaid veteran on a small scale. He will make $406k this year and will be arbitration eligible at least once more. He has no options, but it’s not like anybody would pick him up. While he was 14-3 with a 2.59 ERA in AAA last year – which easily tops all of our AAA starters – his major league track record suggests that he’s somewhere between Tom Constantino and two rotten bananas in terms of pitching ability.

Ex-Coons who have signed minor deals so far: Josh Gibson inked with the Condors for 2-yr, $424k; Dan Nordahl (who killed the Warriors’ playoff ambitions single-handedly) joined the Rebels for $308k;

+++

We’re not even at the rule 5 draft yet, but it’s been an intense ten days since the roster was washed clean. And good ten days! Very good!

I swear I do not have the trade AI on “******ed”. They’ve never been this eager to deal me players…

Before the offseason began I had the depressing plan of dealing Hector Santos for impact bats. Thankfully that didn’t happen …!