[Westheim]

Throughout the first week of November I failed to get rid of any other player, including Josh Boles. Since I didn’t want to take him to arbitration I had to sign him to an extension after all. He ended up with $1.1M for 2032, his final year of team control. But all that means is that we can probably toss his contract on the refuse pile over there… (points at the grotesquely stacked bodies of Shumway, Stalker, Gutierrez, and one or two more in the corners, surrounded by a horde of flies and beetles)

Nobody wanted a piece of Shumway, that one I found out with assurances in choice words by several GMs. He was just as untradeable as Gutierrez. Stalker was roughly the same category, and it was not easy finding a taker for final-year veterans like Ed Hague and Joe Vanatti, either. Same for Matt Jamieson’s $1.5M.

Then everything died down as the free agency deadline approached and nobody was keen on making a move anyway (the Coons included). We first had to arrive on the other side without Rich Hereford suddenly wrapping a $3M arbitration award around our neck. He didn’t – Rich elected free agency, and thus the Raccoons were finally officially without a third baseman. Also gone were Tovias, Ohl (proper free agents), and Magallanes who was non-tendered. Skimming further around the edges of the 40-man roster, combined with the earlier Roberts/Zitzner trade, created $2.3M of budget space for the Critters.

No, I don’t know how Steve from Accounting did it, either… but that should buy a third baseman the hard way if nothing else materialized out of thin air.

At this point I was still more than willing to trade a starting pitcher for a third baseman or catcher, or maybe Vanatti, too. It tends to be easier to find a centerfielder than a good catcher… also at this junction in the second half of November the tentative rotation for Opening Day read Shumway, Hague, Gurney, Sabre, and Chavez. Please note how I will not waste a single sentence on how to proceed with the dead carrion (Rico Gutierrez) at this point. Dave Martinez has options. Rico Gutierrez has us by the little furry ba- …neck.

So there were the three big contracts that were unmovable, but there was wiggling room in the second rank …

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November 14 – The Stars trade OF Adam Shapiro (.282, 13 HR, 125 RBI) to the Capitals for 2B Rafael Padilla (.220, 2 HR, 13 RBI).
November 25 – The Raccoons and Buffaloes conclude a 6-player deal that sends 32-year-old C Giovanni James (.264, 45 HR, 272 RBI) and 25-yr old INF Justin Marsingill (.000, 0 HR, 0 RBI) to the Raccoons, while the Buffaloes receive 35-yr old SP Ed Hague (113-110, 4.14 ERA, 2 SV), 27-yr old MR Josh Boles (19-13, 2.47 ERA, 132 SV), 24-yr old 1B Craig Hollenbeck (.136, 0 HR, 5 RBI), and 22-yr old AA MR Jose Salinas.

+++

Well, that’s quite the deal. First, we saved another $760k, got a pretty fine bridge to the future (Elliott Thompson) in James, who was with the Titans for three years when the Titans didn’t win rings for once, we got *a* third baseman, pretty good defense, that hit at least a little bit in AAA in Marsingill, and we divested ourselves of two pitchers in walk years, the dastardly awful Hollenbeck, and another throw-in, a nondescript right-hander that had put up an 8+ ERA in Ham Lake this year. Somebody had dug him out in Venezuela in ’26 and he never caught my attention since.

I like that deal a lot! Marsingill is probably not going to tear out any trees, and James is likely a 1-year rental, but it’s not like the other players were the franchise’s future. One could say that we gave away Josh Boles rather cheaply, but then again he had a season-long meltdown in ’31, and that was after missing half of 2030 on the DL. He never came back the same, and we have other left-handers crowding the roster.

That opens a spot in the rotation for Rico Gutierrez, too? The horror.

Most importantly we now have some actual dough for a free agent signing. We could use a solid right-handed reliever because right now we’d have to fill our pen with somebody out of the Dave Martinez, Bryan Rabbitt, Nick Bates, various scums in AAA group. We can of course still use an actual third baseman. We now have possibilities!