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Offseason 2051
Time to take a look at the team – we started out with several players being offered arbitration salaries for next season. I also offered multiple season extensions to Pedro Cortez, William Sharp, Miguel Reyes, and John Inman to get some of my main guys locked down for the future – currently waiting to see if they will all sign but it's looking good. I also re-signed reliever Jim Coffman and a couple of other minor players to prevent them from leaving the tema.
We also made a trade with the New Orleans Chariots – we're going to be bringing hot prospect catcher Doug Rutherford to the majors next year, and keeping solid starter from this year Andres Delgado – this left backup catcher Frank Howard as the odd man out, and I was able to broker a deal with New Orleans for capable relief pitcher Adrian Flores. If the worst happens, we've still got solid minor leaguer Pat Castle and another guy in the system for emergency backup.
Free agency opened up on 11/02/2051 – our new owner has pried open the coffers a bit and given us $18 million for free agents – we're quite happy with that amount. We also have a lot available for extensions but most of our young players are pretty cheap. Mack Carver has made it clear that he wants a starting pitcher, and there are several good ones, but do the Snakes want to blow all their money on one guy? The best options are Pat King and Fernando Cruz – both are top 10 pitchers, and King has back to back 18 win seasons. Unfortunately both want a ton of money and long contracts, and both are getting kind of old. Cruz is the better option for the Snakes – he's a control guy, with a great groundball percentage, and our rotation really needs a guy like that. Unfortunately he wants a 5 year deal at 16 million per year, and he's already 34.
Ultimately Carver decided to go with neither option – instead we would approach two of the solid, second tier pitchers (three star guys) who would be upgrades to our current pitchers and would be cheap. We made offers to Mike “Major” Burke, formerly of the LA Champions, and Derrick Howell, formerly of the Boston Vandals. If they sign, we will get two solid pitchers for $6 million a year total, upgrade our staff, and still have some more room. We also made an offer to standout relievers Ray Jackson and Pierre-Jean Dumont. Fortunately for us, all of these players accepted, and we have really improved the Rattlesnake starting rotation and bullpen for next year, and all for about $9 million this season.
We also picked up solid looking reliever Jonathon Morris in the Rule 5 draft, from the Brooklyn organization.
In staff news, longtime hitting coach Juan Rosa left the team – we'll need a replacement for him, and maybe an upgrade somewhere else as well. I checked out the available hitting coaches, and found a steal – Kenneth Harrison is a former minor leaguer with a fantastic swing and a great attitude. Well-liked by everyone, he's a terrific hitting coach and knows just how to handle every kind of player. He was moldering away as a single A head coach before, but now should improve our team. We also looked for a new trainer and after a few months of searching found Tomas Gomez, an all around excellent trainer who is especially good with arms, and signed him.
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