[Westheim]

Adam Valdes claimed that he was not afraid to buy a championship but then only gave the Raccoons, who missed October ball by three games, another $2M increase to the existing $68M budget. We inched up one spot in the team budget rankings from 9th to 8th, but I had hoped for more resources in my bid to buy an entirely new pitching staff this winter.

Top 5: Knights ($86M), Thunder ($83M), Crusaders, Titans ($80M each), Stars ($79M)
Bottom 5: Bayhawks ($46.5M), Cyclones ($45M), Falcons ($44M), Aces ($39.5M), Wolves ($39M)

The remaining CL North teams slotted in 13th (IND, $59M), 14th (VAN, $57M), and 19th (MIL, $47.5M). Yes, the Loggers moved out of the poverty zone. Would they be able to make a run for it? At least they had already signed Fidel Carrera to a (disturbingly cheap!) extension through the 2069 season.

While the average budget went up this year by a sturdy $1.57M to $61.27M, the median budget was now $59.5M, which for the second year in a row was down $1M from last season. Rich getting richer!

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The offseason started with Juan Carrillo eagerly picking up his $2M player option after posting a 4.47 ERA this year, which filled me with joy. Or booze. Anybody’s guess, really.

Which gets us to the salary arbitration and free agency table [see bottom for full details]. The Raccoons had six arbitration cases on their paws, and five free agent, with the big ticket there being SP Tyler Riddle, who was a type A free agent and … the Raccoons would let him go. Yes, he had been largely blameless over his four years in Portland, apart from the injuries. There was every reason to believe that the injuries would not get better overall and that his asking price ($4M annually so far) would also not get better. The Raccoons were eyeing those draft picks, especially since we would probably forfeit our own #19 pick going after some free agent or other.

The other free agents were pitchers Alex Cruzado, Mike Hall, and Ryan Harmer, who would all probably improve the pen by just disappearing into the woods, and outfielder Elmer Maldonado, who did *fine* as a 32-year-old centerfielder, not quite reaching a qualifying amount of at-bats, but the Raccoons needed dollars for pitchers and with the emergence of Malcolm Spicer would probably shift Jack Kozak to centerfield, and what were we going to do with a fourth outfielder hitting just over league average probably costing $2M that Carrillo had just sucked up for no good reason?

On the arbitration side we had two starters (contorts himself already) in Alba and Morris, another reliever that I didn’t particularly fancy in McDaniel, serviceable backup catcher Marcos Arellano, the aforementioned Kozak, and Todd Oley, who finally reached “mini payday” at the ripe old age of 32, which already sounds a lot like someone was about to be non-tendered.

Since the Coons’ offense had just finished tops in the CL, only minor tweaks were to be expected on that front, mostly to the bench. The pitching staff was the one that needed to have the sledgehammer taken to it for some fine tuning.

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Yes yes, there’s more stats coming. But the Civ7 developers are streaming soon, and then I am still not sick of the game myself. But we’re gonna get there, I promise. (raises paw and looks as innocent and holy as he can)