[Westheim]

By February, Yasuhiro Kuramoto still had not signed anywhere, and it had become really quite quiet around him. Had he played a bit of a gamble to coax the Coons out of additional coins? If so, that had failed when we picked up Jamieson from the Wolves…

Apart from that, January was a quiet experience for us. There was no obvious way to improve on 23 spots on the 25-man roster, I declared. Well, you could always do better than say Nick Derks or Sean Rigg in a long relief role, but at least they were making the minimum (Derks) or not much more than that (Rigg). The Ramm/Moesker situation was something that had only to last us six to eight weeks until we could get Rin Nomura back from bone chips in his elbow.

No, the obvious spots were on the bench; Daniel Rocha was a sturdy defensive catcher, but a paltry batter; and Chris Baldwin was the rule 5 super utility that had many applications, none of those in an offensive sense … although he also fit out speed crew and was a good pinch-running option, too.

To be honest, the rest of the bench, except for whoever was sitting between Nunley and Jamieson was not very impressive. Butch Gerster had hit for a .885 OPS last year, but that had come in 122 at-bats (with four homers, though). I saw him more as the go-to guy with three on and one out, because he did have a keen eye and could draw walks (21 in 144 PA), but also because he was not an obvious double play candidate. Then there was Magallanes, who had been half-dead for four months, but had warmed up in the last four to six weeks of the 2028 season, eventually closing with a not-completely-****ty .262/.367/.312 line. It was not the BEST bench for sure…

But there was also the problem that we had a hard time trading for anything given our lack of a) depth in general and b) prospects as a whole. I tried to nip a backup catcher improvement from a few teams in January, but invariably they wanted to talk about Albie Ramos, The Excitement. And I didn’t have that.

So January passed us by completely, more or less; and the first half of February has been consigned to chase after some cheap and free depth for the AAA level…

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January 5 – Former SAL INF Dan Cobb (.289, 31 HR, 280 RBI) signs a 1-yr, $1.68M contract with the Bayhawks.
January 6 – 44-year-old ex-DEN 1B Jose Gutierrez (.292, 43 HR, 789 RBI) finds a $360k gig with the Thunder.
January 17 – The Gold Sox add ex-WAS OF Jorge Lopez (.267, 20 HR, 313 RBI) on a 3-yr, $4.8M contract.
January 27 – The Pacifics reinforce with 30-year-old former Miners SP Bobby Morris (63-62, 4.36 ERA), who is added on a 4-yr, $13.68M deal.
January 30 – Former Condors CL Pat Selby (60-50, 3.44 ERA, 185 SV) falls to the Titans. The 34-year-old righty signs a 3-yr, $8.24M contract.
February 2 – The Titans keep adding with ex-LAP SP Bryan Hanson (130-97, 3.52 ERA) and will pay $1.34M on a 1-year deal for the 35-year-old southpaw.
February 4 – Former Scorpions SP Jordan Caldwell (102-100, 4.19 ERA) jumps to the division rival Gold Sox, signing a 2-yr, $4.32M contract.
February 7 – Ex-LAP SP Shane Baker (74-91, 3.78 ERA) joins the Crusaders on a 3-yr, $7.32M contract.

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Gutierrez was born in 1984. For comparison – that was the year the Raccoons traded for Kisho Saito. And yet, he keeps playing (on his last leg, but he keeps playing, and keeps getting paid).

And the Raccoons of old? Steve Hollingsworth got $366k from the Wolves; and that was it for the moment.