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We have the largest budget but I never spent anywhere near to the limit. I'd leave 10-15% unspent because I didn't want to spend money just to spend it. But this loss-season, I am changing course. I am going all in.
27 year old 2B Barry Larkin was the prime target in free agency and we had to battle the Orioles and Mets as they both offered 10 years whereas I offered 8, but my $$ equaled theirs, so Larkin took the shorter term and signed for us: 8 years/$52,500,000 with a player opt-out after 4 years. He's a 4-time All-Star and 3-time Silver Slugger winner with career 162-game averages of .293/.365/.447 15 HR 35 2B 70 RBI 91 R 22 steals and a plus fielder at 2nd.
So now that we have a new 2b, what to do with Julio Franco. We shopped the 33 year old around, and we got a response that RF John Kurt was available. Franco just had 1 year left on his deal at $2.4 million and Kruk has 2 years left at $3.1 a year so I pulled the trigger to acquire the 28 year old. His 162 game averages are .300/.377/.438 14HR 28 2B 71 RBI 77 R and 15 steals, this Kruk can run and field.
At the same time, soon to be 40 year old Fred Lynn opted out of his last season at $4 million a year. I was not going to let him end his career anywhere else, so we signed him for 3 years/$12,000,000. He's coming off .277/.370/.501 26HR 32 2B 95 RBI, so I don't think he's going to just stop being an all star, even at age 40.
More to come, it's just January. I need to shed some salary, we went over re-signing Mike Stanley to catch again. We have 15 pitchers who should be starters, so I am going to try to package a few pitchers for an upgrade somewhere or a prospect
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