[Westheim]

The new year began with the Raccoons still sitting on a huge pile of dosh – about $17M in budget space as Steve from Accounting pointed out – and not really knowing what to do with it. Xavier Reyes was still available, but his asking price wasn’t really coming down much, and he was still a ****.

For a while we also pondered to return free agent Nick Robinson to the flock after he had made nine starts for the Caps, going 3-3 with a 2.77 ERA before tearing a ligament, after we had traded him, Bobby H., and Angel Perez, for a package of prospects that had not arrived in Portland so far, including Jeff Applegate. Robinson would miss a few months to begin the new season, though, and then was looking for a 4-year deal worth $27M to secure his retirement in peace and tranquility, and we already had the odd dead contract with a left-handed pitcher on the books and that was not a risk worth blundering into.

The Coons then sniffed around free agent starter Mike Chartrand a bit, then tried to get 3B/SS Josh McNeal, a chronically underused 31-year-old infielder hitting very decently whenever someone let him, from the Thunder, but they were just entirely unreasonable about it.

The Cyclones then came up with a trade proposal involving six players, and while they were looking for – besides two unheralded prospects – Joel Starr and #38 prospect Roberto Soto, which just about made me cry out all my safewords, but then they offered Rich Monck, a 26-year-old slugger that we had casually looked at just weeks earlier, sighing, and wishing upon a star to have a player like that. Monck had just finished a season in which he had batted .306 while cranking 37 homers, which would have won him the home run title in the CL, but in the FL still left him six short of Nick Ding(er)man. Admittedly, I was salivating – but the deal as-is was no good (the second Cincy player on offer was a rather nondescript righty MR Mike “Fly By Night” Dean which they might just as well keep) and it wasn’t even for Soto, but for Starr, who was about the last anchor in that bloody lineup of ours.

Trying to trade with the Cyclones was not the easiest thing in the world given their shoestring budget, which they had already overspent by more than a million bucks, and as their GM Chris Abernathy admitted amounted to $15k of available money. Monck, a lefty hitter still in his arbitration years, was making $1.6M in 2063, and that was completely breaking their bank. Their only other seven-figure contract was $3.56M annually to outfielder John MacDonnell. So there wasn’t even a way to absorb a big contract of theirs to try and get them off the Joel Starr hype train – they didn’t *have* any dead contracts for the Raccoons to take on and then set on fire…!

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January 4 – The Loggers trade 3B/2B Ralph Lange (.246, 23 HR, 123 RBI), a prospect, and cash to the Blue Sox for #119 prospect C Tommy Guitreau.
January 4 – The Thunder sign up LF/RF Bill Ramires (.271, 134 HR, 658 RBI) to a 3-yr, $8.52M contract. Ramires, age 34, comes off two seasons with the Titans.
January 13 – The Stars ink star 3B/SS/LF Xavier Reyes (.307, 31 HR, 450 RBI) to a 6-year, $42.6M contract.
January 15 – The Raccoons bring back INF Nick Fowler (.276, 35 HR, 316 RBI) on a new $1.1M deal for 2063.
January 19 – The Gold Sox give a 3-yr, $11.88M contract to ex-OCT RF/LF Eric Whitlow (.251, 134 HR, 656 RBI).
January 23 – Former Knights SP Brian Fuqua (60-74, 4.13 ERA) joins the Warriors for a deal worth $5.92M over two years.

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We still ain’t got no starting third baseman. I hesitate to see Fowler as that guy. But he is an upgrade over Bean and Suriel, who before his signing were the bottom two in the pecking order among just four infielders west of first base that were actually on the roster.

Rich Monck by the way would play all three positions left of Joel Starr rather well. We’d put him at third base obviously, although he played mostly second base for Cincy so far. He was also fine to play short.

Meanwhile we got fooled by a high-$$$ free agent again, because I would have paid those $42M to Reyes rather readily. He just wanted more dosh from us, figuring that we had it, which we did. I just didn’t want to throw it all on him.

So it was now late January, the preseason was dawning, the Raccoons still had no functioning infield, and the new season was definitely a write-off already. With $16M still in the bank.

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2063 HALL OF FAME VOTING

The Hall of Fame welcomes two new members in 2063.

A capable defensive shortstop with power, Tony Aparicio had a 23-year career in the ABL, debuting with the Falcons at 21. Overall he spend half his career with the team before stops with five others. While hitting .289/.393/.437 with 3,010 hits, 295 homers, 1,571 RBI, and 157 stolen bases for his career, he took home four Platinum Sticks, a Gold Glove, and 14 All Star nominations, most of this before having an absolute career year at age 39 with the Canadiens, and winning the CL Player of the Year award and the home run and RBI crowns with a .317, 28 HR, 123 RBI season. He moved to second base and eventually the bench in the last quarter of his career, but posted positive WARs right up to his age 42 season with 92.3 WAR for his career.

While Aparicio spent most of his career in the CL, infielder Felix Marquez would only venture outside the FL for one of his 22 seasons in the ABL. He debuted at age 23 with the Buffaloes, with whom he had three different stints for 12 seasons in total. A versatile infielder, he never led the league in any major category, but twice topped the FL in WAR early in his career, piling up a total of 102.5 WAR while batting .269/.388/.394 with 2,791 hits, 221 homers, 1,188 RBI, and 371 stolen bases. He won four Platinum Sticks, five Gold Gloves, was an All Star eight times, but like Aparicio he never won a championship, and the Buffos made the playoffs only twice while he was an on-and-off member of the team.

Marquez’ WAR ties Jeffery Brown for the fourth-highest among position players in the Hall of Fame (behind Martin Ortíz, Pablo Sanchez, and Victorino Sanchez), while Aparicio narrowly misses the top 10. Among pitchers, only Tony Hamlyn, Martin Garcia, Juan Correa, and Aaron Anderson have higher career WAR’s.

Full voting results:

CHA SS Tony Aparicio – 1st – 94.8 – INDUCTED
TOP 3B Felix Marquez – 1st – 81.8 – INDUCTED
DEN 3B Ronnie Thompson – 2nd – 58.7
POR SP Jason Wheatley – 1st – 52.0
OCT SS Ryan Cox – 2nd – 15.8
??? 3B Jose Rivas – 1st – 14.3
DAL SP Dave Hils – 1st – 14.0
??? SP Matt Sealock – 3rd – 13.4
CIN 3B Jesus Burgos – 2nd – 9.1
TIJ CL Kevin Daley – 1st – 8.5
??? RF Juan Benavides – 4th – 8.5
BOS SP David Barel – 1st – 7.0
PIT SP Roberto Pruneda – 10th – 6.4 – DROPPED
??? C Julio Diaz – 2nd – 5.5
ATL SP Brian Buttress – 4th – 5.2
CHA CL Josh Livingston – 5th – 4.9 – DROPPED
NYC C Fernando Alba – 4th – 4.6 – DROPPED
ATL SS Anton Venegas – 1st – 4.3 – DROPPED
SFB 2B Sergio Quiroz – 1st – 4.0 – DROPPED
??? 2B Mario Briones – 4th – 3.6 – DROPPED
??? SP Mike LeMasters – 3rd – 3.0 – DROPPED
DAL SP Arthur Pickett – 1st – 2.7 – DROPPED
DAL SS Leo Villacorta – 1st – 2.7 – DROPPED
NYC SP Jeff Johnson – 2nd – 1.8 – DROPPED
DAL SP Orlando Leos – 2nd – 0.9 – DROPPED