The good times keep a-rollin’ as Mark Shapiro gives us another $2m to make our budget now $81m, equal top in the Skylobby with the Cards.
There are two distinct schools of thought on how best to treat rookie free-agents, revolving respectively around the money spent on them and their relative inexperience at the major-league level. I’m firmly of the belief that the retrospective assessment of such acquisitions needs to be made over their entirety, not in Year 1. If you rush a guy because he’s on big freight and ruin him, the whole stake is lost, whereas if you delay their entry into the top flight and they turn out to have been ready for it from the get-go, you only lose a bit of opportunity cost. So, I almost invariably deploy them accordingly. In this case, Kingery, Parker and Clear go straight to the top; the rest start at Buffalo.
Aside from that, it is all about getting the mix right.
I also want Burton and Romasco at Toronto, which means four spots need to be cleared in our staff. Bill Robertson refuses to be demoted, as is his right. We trade him away, as is ours, to the Brewers for a super catching prospect by the name of Mitchell Ashmore.
In tidying up the rest of our organisation to fit it within the various strictures, we also manage to acquire a fine-looking OF prospect, Tony Venzon, even though we are full to bursting there. He also plays 3B, so I’ve asked the Manager at Buffalo to play him there for the majority and we’ll just see what happens.
We go 8-4 in Spring Training, with just a slight injury to Mike Witt coming out of it early on. He'll be back in a couple days.
As this unfolds, we make the final decisions on the makeup of our squad. They are as follows:
The immediate observation is how the step up in grade has resulted in some of our guys' ratings taking a serious hit, most notably Michael Kmet. Certainly bears watching as to how they handle facing better pitchers with better defences behind them.
That said, I still feel this is a really strong squad that will for the most part hold its own in the Skylobby.
BALLS
A bit more class and heft to it than at the corresponding point a year ago, and hopefully a host of blue sky from here. Witt, as I said, to return. I let JG make the deployment decisions for the most part, although as you can see I'm making him use Neck Stanley from the BP. From what I can gather, Ger Thomas will move into the pen when Witt is activated, and I'll almost certainly send Ern Gause or maybe Charlie Smith to AAA. Despite Rawly Eastwick's superb performance as Closer last year, we're going with Romasco in that role.
GLOVES
Good coverage around the diamond again. JG wants to stick with Carl Armstrong at 3B and Al DeGoti at SS, relegating Kingery to the pine. I think it's a good way to start - let the heat come out a bit and reassess a couple months in. Juan Silverio is probably the one in most danger of losing his starting spot, should his form with the bat not be where we need it.
A little window into my fairly analog way of keeping track of things all in the one spot.
Our official payroll as at OD is $35.4m, 9th in the Penthouse. I doubt it will be that low by the time of the 81 report, but will be overjoyed if it is because that means things are going swimmingly.
WINGS
All looking solid enough here. Nice to see the two most recent gets - Venzon and Ashmore - creeping into the Top 100, although I'm surprised Castillo is as low as he is.
HEARTS & MINDS
A year on and with less turnover as time progressed, the group seems to have formed into a pretty tight unit. Our new PC is a bit of a moody and broody type, so we'll need to keep an eye on how the staff cohesion goes over the course of the season.
The pundits are picking us to give the Nats a run for their money at the promotion end of the table, with Vic Ramirez and Dave Fleming the players they are expecting most from among our lads.
The boss and I are on the same page with our expectations: a winning record and noticeable improvement among the playing group.
Really eager to see how our boys acquit themselves - Go Jays!