[Westheim]

While we picked up both A.J. Bartels and Kevin Beaver (who was obviously despaired and signed despite being offended) during the winter meetings in some lovely kitsch hotel in Los Angeles, there were also some really, really disturbing news.

The Crusaders were after R.J. DeWeese!

After silence for weeks, DeWeese called me to say that the Crusaders had made him a really nice offer and that he was tempted to pick it up, especially since it came from a winning team. That one stung a bit. I gulped down my first response and instead scratched another million together to impress him. That night, I couldn’t sleep one bit and the next morning I was wrecked. Maaaaybe alcohol was in play. I won’t say. It was bad enough, however, that I almost made a 6-year offer to Kaz Kichida for some 12 million.

The DeWeese drama aside, we also still lacked a catcher (unless the combo of Danny Margolis and Tom McNeela looked promising of anything else than a combined .217, 5 HR, 41 RBI output), a right-handed setup reliever, and we also were not entirely clear on our backup infielders.

Poor Sandy Sambrano! His name probably hasn’t come up once this offseason. With Howard Jones and Adam Young aboard, Sandy’s two primary infield positions are occupied, and with the Raccoons in hot pursuit with flying tails of R.J. DeWeese, the outfield would be full soon as well. It looked a hell of a lot like Sandy would be one of the bench pieces.

We also still had Jason Bergquist, Brock Hudman, and Walt Canning. Bergquist might be a damn fine batter, or he might be not, but if he actually is, he knows how to ****ing hide it. He is batting .233/.305/.327 for his career in over 700 at-bats. He is a pretty good defensive second baseman, but he doesn’t play anything else. He’s not exactly a manager’s dream.

Canning plays on the left side of the infield, Hudman plays everywhere a little bit, and neither has a career OPS exceeding .660 … They all bat right-handed. Assuming we manage to uncover a decent catcher somewhere to supplant Margolis, we also get Margolis as right-handed bat off the bench. Sandy is a switch-hitter. Between the five outfielders that were still on the roster (Cookie, Richards, Ochoa, Chisholm, and Johnson) and DeWeese we had only left-handed batters. Looks like it will be hard to build a lineup against left-handed pitching, but right-handed pitching will only face one right-handed batter (Howard Jones), plus whatever will be the primary catcher.

But before we could blow money on a catcher, we had to pool all available resources to get our main goal R.J. DeWeese, because the ****ing Crusaders were after him as well!

Damn the Crusaders!

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December 8 – The 33-yr old ex-Titan 1B Tony Ramos (.297, 98 HR, 744 RBI) signs a 2-yr, $3.74M contract with the Scorpions.
December 9 – The Raccoons come to terms with 31-yr old ex-PIT MR Kevin Beaver (41-47, 3.84 ERA, 51 SV), who agrees to a 2-yr, $1.4M contract.
December 9 – Also jumping onto the Raccoons train is ex-NYC SP A.J. Bartels (63-69, 4.48 ERA), who signs a 1-yr, $440k deal.
December 9 – The Blue Sox deal 30-yr old OF Joey Kretz (.253, 17 HR, 114 RBI) to the Gold Sox for two prospects, including #124 SP Brian Leser.
December 11 – The Loggers deal SP Adam Euteneuer (23-43, 5.07 ERA) to the Aces for #55 prospect C Josh Wool.

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The Aces picked up Tom Constantino for 2-yr, $458k; the Falcons have signed Adrian Quebell to a $416k contract; Freddy Rosa will get $462k from the Warriors;