[Westheim]

The lamest Winter Meetings in a while took place in early December. One single free agent signed with a team for a seven-figure contract. One! Sweeton below signed the day *before* the Winter Meetings started. And it wasn’t like December livened up afterwards, either…!

The Raccoons got away with a new pitcher that would soon annoy us, and all it cost us was the husk of an ex-prospect that had just run up an ERA near eight in a pawful of awful starts in ’62.

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December 3 – The Buffaloes sign up former Miners SP Sean Sweeton (171-133, 3.61 ERA) to a 3-year, $8.72M contract.
December 6 – The Raccoons trade for the Knights’ left-handed MR Isaac McDaniel (2-2, 2.20 ERA, 1 SV), parting with AAA SP Jose Rosa (0-4, 6.57 ERA).
December 6 – The Thunder sign up ex-VAN OF Danny Garcia (.250, 31 HR, 251 RBI), a free agent at age 27 after debuting at 20, for four years and $7.4M.
December 6 – The Warriors acquire 2B/SS Juan Mena (.242, 2 HR, 13 RBI) from the Titans for MR Roberto Navarro (35-27, 4.21 ERA, 35 SV) and a prospect.
December 29 – Former Loggers SP Bob Ruggiero (85-112, 4.14 ERA) signs a 2-yr, $4.08M deal with the Buffaloes.

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The trade with the Knights is not exactly a major one. We exchanged two late-20s pitchers with less than two years of service time each. But at least McDaniel is a functioning left-handed reliever when we just ran out of those.

A few words on former Critters with new paychecks: Justin Rocco went to Denver for $1.14M; Carlos Mata joins the Miners for $640k; the Condors boldy spent $840k on Ricky H.; Zach Stewart got $630k from the Crusaders; the Miners got Kelly Konecny for $1.28M;

There is also a Hall of Fame ballot out, and it contains good old Wheats! Wheats was totally a Hall of Famer in his 20s … but he turned South hard in his 30s and made his last start at age 34. He finished his career as a 38-year-old closer in Chula Vista. I’m a hopeless homer, but I just can’t quite reasonably promote him to make it into the Hall. Which doesn’t mean I’m not gonna vote for him at least once.

Two surefire Hall of Famers on that ballot in Tony Aparicio and Felix Marquez, though.