[Westheim]

After a trying season that somehow ended with an even 81-81 record, but three straight non-winning seasons, the first such instance since the 2030-32 seasons, the Raccoons continued to tread water by having their budget stay the same as it was in 2058 for the upcoming 2059 season. Nick Valdes sent no love from the top of his newly built ebony tower in upstate Oregon, from which he had a splendid look of the surrounding landscape, and where everybody else couldn’t escape seeing that bloody tower, and did not send no additional dollars either, just make do with $54M again. Thing was, though, that in 2058 that budget was still good enough to rank 12th among all teams in the league, and now we slipped down to 14th.

Top 5: Crusaders ($83M), Knights ($77M), Pacifics ($74M), Miners ($74M), Thunder ($69M)
Bottom 5: Rebels ($43.5M), Cyclones ($42M), Condors ($41.5M), Indians ($38M), Aces ($32.5M)

Top 5: Crusaders ($82M), Knights ($71M), Thunder ($70M), Scorpions ($68M), Pacifics and Miners ($66M each)
Bottom 5: Cyclones ($44.5M), Blue Sox ($43M), Condors ($41.5M), Indians ($37M), Aces ($30.5M)

The CL North was entirely dwarfed by the Crusaders’ strategy of buying rings. The Titans (11th, $56M) and Elks (t-12th, $55M) ranked right around the middle of the league with the Critters, while the Loggers (t-18th, $49M) were juuust staying out of the pauper zone.

The average budget for a team in the league rose to $56.17M, up almost $1.2M from last season, while the median team budget was $55M, up, as we noticed a hefty $2.5M from last year.

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There were ten personnel files to go through for salary arbitration and free agency this time around. Arbitration concerned singularly the bullpen, were Matt Walters, Takenori Tanizaki, Ivan Ornelas, and Reynaldo Bravo were all up for it, and I didn’t see a reason to pour out any one of them with the bathwater.

The free agency list included a few players that we’d been aware of them just sitting out their contracts for a while. Neal Hamann, who arrived to make the deal for Morgan Lathers work, and ironically kept on the roster while Lathers was banished in the summer, pitched below replacement level (-0.2 WAR) for the not exactly cheap going rate of $2.68M. Steve Royer was doing some good work in the field and had that hot start to the season, but in three seasons in Portland he had never managed to bat for league average, but had chased almost $10M, and the Raccoons needed offense in the worst way.

Then there was Kyle Brobeck, who had been some thing or other on the roster for the entire decade, but by now was a losing bet on the hill, and in the field, and in the box, pitching woefully, batting below-average, and fielding like he had hooks for paws. It was time to let go of this peculiar experiment, and third base was at the very top of our wishlist for the offseason. Besides, y’know, pitchers that can actually pitch. Brobeck would leave behind batting .292 with 31 HR and 206 RBI in nine seasons (though only two as a full-time hitter), and a 48-48 record with 4.52 ERA and a sole save when pitching across 873.2 innings.

The other two cases were interesting. Eloy Sencion was sturdy in the pen, though sometimes erratic. No major complaints, but one wondered whether we could save money by letting him go, since younger left-handers were in theory available. And then there was Pucks, who had batted for OPS+ values of 132, 130, and 146 in his age 23 through 25 seasons. He was now 30, and had dragged his bum to roundabout league average for three straight seasons.

His case was tricky, since there was to consider what else we had. Caswell and Starr from the left side, and Brass from the right; and, well, there was no way of getting rid of Martinez, or improving substantially on our middle infielders, who were likely to be at the top of the lineup again. Building an all-alternating right-left-right-left lineup was possible with or without Pucks, but we also had to figure out backstop and third base. Whether Pucks hung around was probably depending on how much he thought he was worth. So far he played league average ball for $2M annually…

The tenth personnel question on the table was Lonzo, who had arrived at the final, team option year of his 6-year, $7.64M contract signed before the 2054 season. To be honest, he was still doing the exact same thing as back then, maybe with a tad less extra-base power, and some 20 points less batting average. He had never been a slugger (more career homers than Brobeck, though), but he was well nestled in the #2 spot and creating disturbances around the basepaths. His defense was still alright – he had even cut down on the errors that had crept into his game in the last few seasons; 19 errors in ’57, just six this year in the big-picture-same number of innings. Why am I even waffling around? (slams [EXTENDED] stamp on the option form)

We’re probably not signing Lonzo to a 7-year deal, but wouldn’t it be nice to have him storm all the way to the top of the stolen base mountain as a Critter? It was a huge stretch to make it in two years, but to get there in *three* he’d only need to steal 50.33 bags on average, and the worst season tally of his career in a healthy season so far was 55.

Apart from these the team faces the same known issues; a rotation in disarray, where the situation was tumultuous enough that we seriously considered having Cameron Argenziano on the Opening Day roster, when in his last nine starts of the year he went just 5.7 innings on average, but still posted a 2-0 record with a 3.16 ERA. Didn’t allow an earned run in four of those nine … (scratches head with hindpaw) I don’t get it. With the Alley Cats he lost SEVEN games in a 9-start stretch just before he was called up in June out of desperation. I plainly don’t get that guy…

The pen was probably gonna be fine, but catching was a bloody mess, third base was completely open and there was some mystery around what would become of Pucks, Sencion, the Chavezes, and perhaps more.