[Westheim]

A.J. Taylor had been taken with the #39 pick in the 2064 draft and had then immediately been named the #2 prospect at the start o the next season. The Raccoons got paws on him that July when they traded Josh Elling, Jack Kozak (who had completely disappeared, hadn’t he??), and Tetsu Kurihara to the Thunder or a package of him, Ricky Baca, and George van Otterdijk (who we might yet hear or see about next season).

Two-and-a-half years later, and Taylor was still being ranked in the top 5 of prospects. And I just didn’t know ******* WHY.

There was no major discussion to be had about his defense, which consisted of good range, a good arm, slightly clumsy paws, but surely enough to play a competent middle infield with the glove. He had the potential to be the next serial stolen base champion, too. But the bat…! The bat…! The Thunder had him in single-A Tempe until the Coons swooped in and put him in Ham Lake right after the trade. He had made 14 appearances with the Alley Cats this September because bodies were needed there after the Coons bolstered their collapsing roster, and we’d not go too deep into how he had batted .224 of mostly singles in those 14 games. It was the AA performance that was despairing me.

In 321 games at Ham Lake, A.J. Taylor, a top 5 prospect throughout, and 23 years old this coming March, had batted .219/.322/.336 with 20 homers and 106 RBI. And even then only 64 stolen bases. In other words, he had produced NOTHING.

It’s not like we were not sorely aware of this already, but Oscar Semchez came in and the issue of turning him into something, anything of value before it was too late was right at the top of his to-do list. Semchez urged me to get rid of Taylor at least three times a day, and it was frankly becoming somewhat annoying. Yes, Mom! Okay…! I’ll *do* it…!!

The other issue was the team chemistry, and Semchez had read enough about that to encourage personnel changes in that regard. The worst offenders for clubhouse malcontents were unfortunately three pitchers that kept the staff glued together and the guy that had hit nicely down the stretch (well, in August at least), and was now tapped to be the new starting second baseman. We had already floated Jesse Dover and Josh C (no, I can never remember his name, hence the “C”) on the shopping wire, where they generated no interest, and I wasn’t keen on axing the switch-hitting Gutierrez just yet, so to get somewhere here we had to deal with Shoma Nakayama. The stories about the rancid Raccoons clubhouse were so bad that even usually absent owner Adam Valdes phoned in to voice his concerns and demand action.

Thankfully, dangling a #3 prospect was a good way to get the attention of other teams’ GMs…

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November 23 – The Loggers deal SP Ramon Carreno (81-108, 4.08 ERA) and $1.5M in cash to the Crusaders for 30-yr old 2B Chance Brantly (.247, 4 HR, 19 RBI) and a prospect.
November 25 – In a jaw-dropping trade, the Raccoons send SP Shoma Nakayama (32-43, 3.79 ERA) and #3 prospect INF A.J. Taylor to the Cyclones for 30-yr old INF Jared Duhe (.264, 37 HR, 310 RBI), 28-yr old current FL Reliever of the Year MR Pedro Valentin (17-14, 3.05 ERA, 28 SV), and 27-yr old AAA SP Randy Rautenstrauch (16-14, 4.58 ERA).
November 26 – The Condors sign up former Rebels SS Jason Turner (.247, 118 HR, 560 RBI) for $6.88M over two years.
November 27 – Milwaukee acquires right-handed swingman B.J. Butrico (8-11, 4.01 ERA, 4 SV) from the Wolves for two prospects, including #176 SP Justin Miller.

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The Agitator was so baffled they failed to come up with new superlatives to describe the stupidity of the Raccoons front office, which was all fine by me. But there were a lot of items in that trade, and so far we had only talked about three of them. Duhe was going to slot in as leadoff man and in whatever position we’d finally need him in. The two pitchers were interesting because we added more sturdy relief in Valentin and his curveball that had batters look sillier than most breaking balls on the circuit.

And then there was Randy Rautenstrauch – yes, absolutely from the Jimmy Eichelkraut school of family names, and you hadn’t seen the unsteady look in his eyes yet! – who had an absolutely BAFFLING career trajectory so far. Rautenstrauch had been taken #6 in the 2061 draft, and you may recall that he was high on our draft board and mentioned in the hotlist, but the Coons were *good* at that time (imagine??) and didn’t pick until #21, where we’d get Jake Flowe from that year. From there, Rautenstrauch worked his way up a level each year and spent all of 2064 in the Cyclones’ rotation, going 11-9 with a 4.19 ERA. He hit a rough spot with control struggles the year after, went 5-5 with a 5.07 ERA before being returned to AAA – and never made it back. HOWEVER: over the last two seasons, which he had spent exclusively in AAA Glendale, he had gone 31-6 with a 2.76 ERA and improving control, and had NEVER gotten a call back. And I just COULDN’T FIGURE OUT ******* WHY!!

Anyway, he’d fit excellently into our puzzle of “Are they starters or are they not?” which gained increasingly more pieces as we moved along here. Him, and Rios, and Kehoe, and whatever still hung around the roster here – you got to fill the rotation somehow…!

Right now we had only those question marks behind Walla and Gaytan, which made you wonder whether a free agent starting pitcher was called for. Not a type A, of course.

If you wanted to keep your draft picks, then the best options around out there were about 32/33 years old and showing first signs of wear. Josh Elling could be reunited with the Raccoons as free agent, but was visibly losing his stuff already. Marco Clemente and Preston Young came with similar baggage. Loggers pitcher Girolamo “Pizza” Pizzichini was a free agent, but demanded too much money for our tastes, and now that I said “Pizza” I already had a couple of our outfielders climb up my legs with hunger in their eyes.

Then there was Alex Dominguez, who had gone 7-2 with a 2.30 ERA last year before tearing a flexor tendon in June. He was a toss-up for being ready on Opening Day, but if he could return to that performance he was certainly one of the best options out there. Huge gamble, though, unless you could get him on a 1-year deal to build value.