[jksander]

October 16, 1946: I’ve signed my first player of my tenure as GM of the Browns! Tom Seats became a minor league free agent after being let go by the Dodgers, and we needed veteran leadership for our pitching, so we’ve signed the 36-year-old left handed pitcher to a minor league deal worth $10,000 if he gets promoted to the major league roster. Right now we have him set to start with the AAA Toledo Mud Hens, but it’s very likely he’ll make the jump to the bigs in time for spring training. Last year with AAA San Diego he put up a 14-16 record with a 3.96 ERA, striking out 139 batters and putting up 5.8 wins above replacement. And though he’s all control, most of his best stuff now in his past, he still has a great changeup and the stamina to throw it and his fastball and curve while holding runners on base at a big league level.

The draft pool has been officially revealed, and we have a lot of options for our first round pick ... 27-year-old Diomedes Olivio is the best player who is ready to start now, with a five pitch mix and incredible stuff, and he’d be an ace from opening day. But he’s 27 ... and if we take him now, we’d have to pass up younger guys like Harvey Haddix, Bob Rush, Roy Sievers, Curt Simmons or Joe Adcock, all of whom have higher potential than him to become great players but at extreme development risk. Olivo, who hails from the Dominican Republic, may be too good for us to pass up, considering we need to build a team that can compete on the field now before we can focus too much on drafting risky players for our future.

We’re still awaiting the final declarations of free agents following the final negotiation stretch for teams to extend their players’ contracts. At that point maybe we can luck out and get someone from one of the big teams to add to our 1947 roster.
 
November 3, 1946: Salary Arbitration has begun, and we’ve offered all our minor leaguers automatic extensions while we figure out the direction of this organization long term. We offered Joe “Dode” Schultz an $11,500 contract, based off his .300 hitting and 3.0 WAR for us at catcher last season. Jack Kramer (7-15, 4.60 ERA, 2.7 WAR) got a $9,000 offer at age 28, and Bob Muncrief (8-15, 5.28 ERA, 2.2 WAR) got a $13,750 offer at age 30. Two veteran players, Al Hollingsworth and B abe Dahlgren, will be allowed to become free agents, as neither looks to be above replacement level for us, and that really says something.

Awards announcements begin November 11th, starting with Gold Gloves, followed by Reliever of the Year (Nov 12), Platinum Stick awards (Nov 13), Rookie of the Year (Nov 14), Manager of the Year (Nov 15), the Cy Young Award for Pitcher of the Year (Nov 16) and the MVP Award (Nov 17). Arbitration hearings are scheduled for November 24th, and free agency will officially begin on November 26th, just a couple days before Thanksgiving! Hopefully a few team leaders will be turkeys and allow players to fall through the cracks for us to feast upon as we head toward a new year!

November 7, 1946: Muncrief, Kramer and Schultz all signed their one year contracts without taking it to arbitration. Aside from a few minor league holdouts, we’ve done what we set out to do. And when those minor leaguers get free agency, we’ll move to fill the spots with players who want to be here.

November 15, 1946: It’s draft day, and after a lot of internal discussion we decided to go with center fielder Richie Ashburn with the number one pick, choosing his high potentials in pure contact and defensive ability over a quick roster fix ... the 19-year-old will definitely need some development time. In the second round, however, we did decide to take Diomedes Olivo, who will come into the league ready to be a number one starter ... we couldn’t risk waiting for later rounds and miss out on a guy who can play for us now. The rest of the draft was pretty uneventful ... twenty-three more rounds to find minor league development players. We’ve offered Ashburn $7,614 as the #1 pick, and all our other players have offers on the table befitting their talent levels.

We got Ashburn, but other top guys are worth noting as well ... the three top pitching prospects went to the Senators (Curt Simmons), the Reds (Bob Rush) and the Cubs (Harvey Haddix), though the Giants seem particularly happy with their young hurler Whitey Ford who is all stuff, no control at this point. The Tigers are pleased with second baseman Nellie Fox, and the Cardinals took shortstop Johnny Logan who, even as a long-term development risk to reach his full potentials does look ready to at least play major league defense. It’ll be interesting to see how our guy fares against all theirs in the grand scheme of things.

We’re just a couple weeks away now from the league’s first real run of free agency bidding. Stay tuned!