[Westheim]

The Raccoons’ offseason plans hit a little speed bump in November when the free agency filing date passed and they actually went after Xavier Reyes’ agent to inquire into what a reasonable framework for a contract would be. At that point I was emotionally prepared and braced for something like a 6-year, $36M contract. I was not emotionally prepared or braced for what they actually sought to extort from a willing team, which was 8 years and $75M, including several years of $10M per season.

There had not been a player in league history making eight figures a year, and the two richest contracts on an annual basis currently were those of Armando Montoya with the Baybirds and Danny Ceballos’ deal with the Falcons, both for $8.5M as of 2063. (Never mind that Ceballos had fallen off a cliff with his production, had rode the bench at the end of the 2062 season, and was owed another $25.5M for a 77 OPS+, and yes, he was on the trading block, with which I wished the Falcons only the best of luck). Five more players made $7M and up: Omar Sanchez, Ben Seiter, Willie Acosta, Milt Cantrell, and Grant Anker; the richest contract on the Coons was currently the $4M Tyler Riddle got for spending half a year on the DL nowadays.

I had a talk with Adam Valdes, who shared my opinion that $75M was a tough ask for a clubhouse cancer, and we would respectfully decline to partake at those rates.

So, who was that next ho-hum, holdover third baseman gonna be? Just a kind reminder that 14 seasons had passed since Jesus Maldonado’s trip around the field on his way to defensive decrepitation saw him last lead the team in starts at third base in 2048. Since then, the Raccoons had run out NINE different players that ended up leading any season in starts at the hot corner, and you’d be hard pressed to name at least a couple of them:

Eddy Luna (who?) in 2049
Ed Crispin from 2050-2052 and in 2055 (which encompasses most of his major league career)
Travis Malkus (!) in 2053
Anton Venegas in 2054 and 2056
Daniel Espinoza in 2057 (he has appeared in 14 ABL games since)
Tyrese Sheilds in 2058 (he has appeared in zero ABL games since)
Juan Ojeda in 2059
Nick Fowler in 2060
Nick Fox in 2061-2062

Qualifying seasons with an OPS+ over 100 listed here? Zero. Ed Crispin has the best non-qualifying season with a 120, and there were a couple of 100s (like Fowler in ’60) or just a scratch above, but mostly it was variations of the expression “rats!”.

And now we needed another one because Victor Morales was not major league ready and we already had a 21-year-old on the roster that wasn’t major league ready (.223/.289/.322 in 211 AB) and that was enough.

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November 16 – The Wolves acquire 1B/2B/OF Jimmy Hartgrove (.274, 11 HR, 138 RBI) from the Rebels for 1B Dylan Cofield (.258, 14 HR, 89 RBI) and a prospect.
November 20 – Now the Wolves send SP Jose Ortega (10-13, 4.86 ERA) and cash to the Stars for four prospects. The package includes #50 prospect OF Raul Moreno.
November 23 – The Miners sign up ex-POR/OCT INF Nick Nye (.315, 175 HR, 780 RBI) to a 2-yr, $6.48M contract.
November 26 – Washington signs former division rival, ex-PIT CL Justin Round (50-33, 2.69 ERA, 217 SV) to a $3.44M contract for 2063.
November 27 – The Aces acquire SP Matthew May (14-15, 4.75 ERA) from the Cyclones for C Kevin Feldbusch (.286, 1 HR, 4 RBI) and #78 prospect 1B Rico Cordero.
December 1 – Rule 5 Draft: 19 players are taken in the proceedings. The Wolves draft AA 1B Alex Vargas from the Raccoons. The Raccoons draft left-handed AAA CL Ricky Baca from the Thunder, as well as AA/AAA C Scott Lawson from the Stars.
December 1 – The Raccoons sign a pair of right-handed veteran relievers, ex-IND MR Juan Carrillo (42-17, 3.60 ERA, 13 SV) and former Boston MR Josh Carlisle (23-25, 2.95 ERA, 68 SV). Each of the pair receives a 3-year, $6M contract.
December 1 – The Rebels sign ex-SFB SP Jeff Crowley (89-86, 4.05 ERA) for two years and $4.48M.

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The 29-year-old Carlisle was the CL’s Reliever of the Year in 2060, while Carrillo, age 31, won rings with the 2060 Crusaders and 2062 Indians. Look at that, some excellence on the roster!

Carlisle was high-strikeouts, high-walks, while Carrillo was a controlled groundballer, so the former was probably our pick for the closer’s job going forwards, which provisionally had been given to James Murdock in pencil, but we could now re-arrange that pen a bit. What we still needed direly was a left-hander, because the available options were now the busted remains of Matt Walters, various sub-par starters (Castillo, Padgitt), the giant failure that was Adam Harris, and remember Brad Loveless? Yeah, we needed a lefty reliever. Maybe that was Ricky Baca, maybe not. Probably not.

Ex-Coons with new teams: Mike Siwik got $560k from the Elks; Wade Gardner got $630k from the Crusaders; Juan Ojeda got the same amount from the damn Elks;