[Westheim]

By the middle of January, the Raccoons had 30 players on the extended roster in some capacity or other, which included Adkins and Raffy, who were both still on the mend, and of whom only the latter was expected back for Opening Day. All in all the total included 18 pitchers and just 12 position players – and even then there was a bullpen spot behind Walters, Lillis, Lane, Tanizaki, Sencion, and perhaps Reynaldo Bravo that we had not decided on. This was while expecting Raffy to be in the rotation, and the last man in the pen would have to be a right-hander, of which after the departures of Hyun-soo Bak and Phil Baker were only three left: Harmer, Bowen, and new arrival Fernando Salazar. The latter’s role would largely be determined by what became of Raffy. If Raffy was not in the rotation, Salazar was the likely fifth starter behind Shui, Taki, Sweeton, and Brobeck. If not, he might be the long man in the pen.

Cameron Argenziano and Craig Kniep both figured to return to AAA with that arrangement. Argenziano had long been out of options, but Kniep had one more option left for the 2056 season. The last guy on the fringes of the roster was Geoff Sather, who had no hope as a left-hander and was assigned back to AAA at this point.

Unless a new right-handed catcher fell out of the sky yet, the Coons’ backstops were set, and the starting personnel in fair ground were pretty obvious. Rams, Waters, Lonzo, and Venegas on the infield, and Pucks, Royer, and Brass in the outfield. The leftovers were Daniel Espinoza, new signing-on-the-cheap Adriano Chavez, and lefty outfielder Carlos Solorzano, who had batted for a 65 OPS+ in spotty service in his rookie season. So the Coons had some breathing room in the outfield for sure.

There were four outfielders in AAA that were on the 40-man roster, and that didn’t even include well-travelled Prospero Tenazes, who was a career .260/.299/.331 batter and an expert at clearing waivers, and would also turn 30 in ’56.

The others were lefty corner outfielder Humberto Hernandez, who was going to be 28 in early April and had made seven appearances for the Raccoons in a spot of bother this year, but was not much of a consideration. The trio of 23- and 24-year-olds, however… OF Todd Oley had come over with Kniep from the Caps in July, and had hit .298/.356/.396 in 56 games for the Alley Cats, his first exposure at the AAA level, while also turning 23 years old within a month of his arrival in the organization. Center was the left-handed batters’ best position, although with more training to get used to the position he’d also be a frightening defensive rightfielder, possessing a killer arm to scare runners with. He also had great speed, stealing 30 bags between AA Lincoln and AAA St. Pete in ’55. It was more about *when* he’d come up this year, not *if*.

LF/RF Elijah Johnson had hit .278 with 9 homers in his first full AAA season (just 14 games in ’54), and LF/RF David Flores had missed most of the year with a broken kneecap, batting .262 with 2 homers in just 42 games. Johnson batted lefty with mediocre defense, while Flores was a switch-hitter with better defense, and also a keen eye, good enough for a .401 OBP in his short season, although he was not the fastest kid on the block and had stolen zero bases in zero attempts.

So one possible move was to bring up Oley, although he wasn’t pairing well with Royer, who was a switch-hitter with almost perfectly even splits. Oley’s splits were negligible in fact; it was hard to gain anything from platooning those two. The most pronounced splits among our current outfielders were actually on Pucks, who could really struggle against left-handed pitching. So, Oley spelling Pucks against southpaws and otherwise splitting time with Royer…? Don’t forget that Ramsay had similar splits to Pucks and Pucks could move to first base, too.

All this was well and fine, but maybe the Raccoons could use another guy actually hitting left-handers better than right-handers…

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January 14 – NAS 2B/SS/RF Jake Groff (.274, 10 HR, 117 RBI) retires from baseball at age 27 after two failed surgeries to properly glue his broken kneecap back together.
January 15 – Indianapolis acquires SP Bill Lawrence (16-21, 4.93 ERA) from the Aces for two prospects.
January 24 – SP Adam Middleton (82-61, 3.98 ERA), age 32 and most recently with the Canadiens, signs up with the Gold Sox for five years and $22M.
January 29 – Another starting pitcher signs with Denver, as the Sox sign up ex-WAS Tony Llorens (80-86, 3.51 ERA) on a 3-yr, $11.84M contract.
January 30 – The Raccoons sign up ex-NYC OF Oscar Caballero (.268, 59 HR, 526 RBI) to a $750k contract for the 2056 season.
February 1 – The Canadiens add ex-CIN SP Martino Barbiusa (51-54, 4.01 ERA, 2 SV) with a $1.38M offer for 2056.
February 11 – Vancouver also grabs former Crusaders starter Edwin Sopena (86-71, 3.70 ERA) with a hefty 5-yr, $29.7M contract.
February 15 – Erstwhile Cyclones outfielder Chad Williams (.294, 77 HR, 468 RBI), 31 years old, signs a 3-yr, $5.1M deal with the Crusaders.
February 16 – The Cyclones acquire RF/LF Rick Colwill (.290, 10 HR, 114 RBI) from the Scorpions for MR Taylor Stabile (55-43, 3.78 ERA, 23 SV) and a prospect.

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Caballero is a veteran switch-hitter, playing for his pension this year, who at age 32 was still a very good defender and had extra-base power, having led the CL in triples three times in a row from 2051 through 2053. He was also better at hitting left-handers, adding to the mix the Raccoons had going on in the outfield. The downside was that he had a real knack of getting hurt and had missed 33+ games each of his three seasons in New York.

To get Caballero onto the 40-man roster, which was choke-full, Humberto Hernandez was passed through waivers and DFA’ed, but there were shockingly no takers on a 27-year-old casual corner outfielder with less than two pawsful of ABL games.

Raffy started throwing in the second week of February. He was now 25, off the third straight injury-addled season, and I was not at all comforted by his first bullpen in earnest resulting in Matt Fiore spending most of his team retrieving balls from the backstop.

Past Dumpster Divers with new contracts: Shuta Yamamoto was back to the Caps for $950k; the Loggers got themselves Vic Scott for $470k; Eric Reese joined the Scorpions for $400k; the Knights added Ricky Jimenez for $520k;