[Westheim]

The Raccoons ultimately went and non-tendered Jon Bean, who was even worse a hitter than at first glance you’d suspect. I mean, I don’t know how he kept hugging the bench for so long, but even without seeing a left-handed pitcher more than twice in his life, he still managed to run up (or down?) a .580 career OPS in over 1,000 plate appearances. The Raccoons needed excellence, not just attendance. He was gonna be gone.

And then it was about extending 1-year offers to the remaining arbitration candidates and reaching out the old grabby paws for some infield and relief solutions (primarily, not saying an All Star catcher wouldn’t help). The infield was especially “interesting” in all the wrong ways. Once the free agents-to-be would depart, we would be left with Joel Starr (and his backup, Kozak) at first base, Rich Monck at wherever we cared to stuff him, and maybe Vic Morales at third base, but please consider that Morales had posted a 71 OPS+, hitting .237 with two homers in half a season’s worth of at-bats, and that he had been constant clownshoes in the field. Not sure what more seasoning in AAA was gonna do to that, but it was *very* likely that he’d start the 2064 season with the Alley Cats.

So in theory the Raccoons needed four infielders. There were also no in-house solutions to the problem, since our AAA team right now really wasn’t pushing forward major talent. But hey, Armando Suriel was still hanging around there, and he only just turned 29…

By the end of October, all remaining arbitration cases had signed; Jack Kozak got $560k, Marcos Arellano got $525k, and Ben Morris signed for $1.4M and a $100k bonus for making 500 plate appearances, so in short he signed for $1.4M. Apart from that, the scratching and clawing started early.

On the side, pitching coach Jeff Fike retired and the Raccoons were snubbed by their preferred choice, Jessie Bell, the Blue Sox’ pitching coach for a while, who instead became manager for the AA Arlington Rattlers. We eventually went in and promoted AAA pitching coach Antonio Valentin to the position, after he had coached in our minor league system for a decade. He was already 68, so hardly a long-term solution.

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October 25 – The Raccoons acquire 29-year-old SP/MR Mike Hall (37-38, 4.19 ERA) from the Blue Sox for OF Felix Ayala (.221, 3 HR, 26 RBI).
October 28 – The Raccoons go out and acquire 33-year-old C Bruce Burkart (.254, 70 HR, 370 RBI) in a trade for OF/1B Tony Gonzalez (.272, 4 HR, 19 RBI).
October 29 – The Titans acquire OF/1B Bobby Ellwood (.272, 10 HR, 211 RBI) from the Rebels in exchange for #194 prospect SP Jay Perrin.
November 3 – 35-year-old RF/LF Eric Whitlow (.249, 143 HR, 689 RBI) becomes a Thunder for the third time after being acquired from the Gold Sox in a trade for 31-yr old OF Bobby Fish (.270, 38 HR, 246 RBI) and the #11 prospect 1B John Myers, who was in double-A this past season.

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Ayala, who was gonna be 27 in May, was nothing special on defense and had never hit in his appearances in the majors, which included over 200 PA two years ago. He was still enough to win ourselves another reclamation project in the left-handed Hall from Coos Bay in coastal Oregon. A former #161 pick by the Thunder, Hall had done the merry-go-round with the Thunder, Condors, and Blue Sox before going back to the Thunder and then back to the Sox in various minor deals. This past season he had posted a 5.13 ERA in long relief, but with a .353 BABIP occurring behind him. The year before had been the dramatic opposite, a 1.91 ERA with a .222 BABIP. If we could give him some sort of normalcy, he might actually function like a major leaguer.

The Burkart acquisition was the bigger one and actually brought in a new primary catcher, with Arellano sliding into the backup role. Hey, I said, give the guy some respect – not 450 at-bats a year. We would have liked to keep Tony Gonzalez around, despite his no-show in 27 games this season, but if his vague promise (at soon-to-be 26) was enough to get Burkart in, then so be it! Burkart, who had another $11.8M over three years on his contract (although that included a $4M team option for ’66, which would be his age 35 season), was always scouted badly, and then somehow went out and hit anyway. Yes, he was gonna find double plays, and no, he wasn’t gonna pepper 20 home runs, but he was giving you an honest at-bat every time, and he had a penchant to walk more often than he struck out. Given his lack of speed, he’d do that behind the meat of the order, but at least he could offer somebody some protection in the #5/#6 are of the lineup.

None of our six free agents received an offer (in some cases relating to their impression that their performance merited 5-year deals), and in addition to that Jon Bean attained free agency in mid-November. A couple of minor leaguers also elected free agency, the only one of note being Brad Loveless, the former Nick Brown memorial pick that had put together a 3.34 ERA in 71 games as lefty reliever for the Critters, despite walking 6.5/9 in those 64.2 innings.

In a perhaps unpopular move, the Raccoons also released some previously retired-but-not numbers back into circulation, including #4 (Maldo), #6 (Matt Waters), and #22 (Wheats). However, #9 was now on the shelf for Lonzo, and we had not given out #42 (Matt Nunley) for many decades and should maybe just ******* go ahead and make it official.

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2063 ABL AWARD WINNERS

Players of the Year: PIT C Nick Dingman (.324, 44 HR, 116 RBI) and BOS LF/CF Eddie Marcotte (.277, 43 HR, 110 RBI)
Pitchers of the Year: DAL SP Alex Quevedo (20-4, 2.17 ERA) and BOS SP Jason Brenize (20-6, 1.98 ERA)
Rookies of the Year: PIT 3B/SS Brian Robinson (.311, 6 HR, 44 RBI) and ATL UT Carlos Fumero (.324, 1 HR, 50 RBI)
Relievers of the Year: WAS CL Justin Round (10-3, 2.57 ERA, 42 SV) and BOS CL Tyler Gleason (4-1, 1.58 ERA, 17 SV)
Platinum Sticks (FL): P LAP Scott Evans – C PIT Nick Dingman – 1B TOP Mario Delgadillo – 2B RIC Robby Cox – 3B DAL Xavier Reyes – SS SAL Jeff Buss – LF LAP Jesus Espinoza – CF DAL Tyler Wharton – RF NAS Austin Gordon
Platinum Sticks (CL): P ATL Hironobu Hanzawa – C BOS Jorge Arviso – 1B OCT Ian Stone – 2B SFB Armando Montoya – 3B LVA Alex Alfaro – SS MIL Fidel Carrera – LF SFB Grant Anker – CF BOS Eddie Marcotte – RF CHA Joe Washington
Gold Gloves (FL): P PIT Joe Napier – C PIT Nick Dingman – 1B DEN Bill Joyner – 2B SAC Justin Finnegan – 3B SFW Ben Wilken – SS RIC Jason Turner – LF LAP Jesus Espinoza – CF DAL Tyler Wharton – RF TOP Joey Christopher
Gold Gloves (CL): P NYC Erik Lee – C OCT Steve Preston – 1B VAN Jose Campos – 2B TIJ Franklin Serrano – 3B VAN Steven Spalding – SS MIL Fidel Carrera – LF BOS Steve Humphries – CF CHA Mike Pinault – RF TIJ Mario Asencio

Among these, Joyner and Round obtained free agency for the winter, but were type A free agents (as were division rivals Roger Pritchard, Matt Kilday, and Matt McLaren, and former Critter “Tipsy Bobby” Herrera), and the Raccoons had ended up with the bloody #13 pick again and I would probably not be able to get over myself.