It was an ugly season in 1946. Not that we expected too much more, but it's clear we have a long way to go.
One benefit of our focus on young talent in the expansion draft was that we have no pending free agents, and of our eleven-player arbitration class, just two are entering their final year of control, and three have two years of control left. So I guess we have this terrible squad for a bit longer?
Before we go any further, let's generate our transaction allowances. Since we had a losing record, we generate numbers between 0-2. But because we also had the worst record in the league, we'll have to subtract one from each. Great.
Luckily, we generate a 2 in each, which leaves us with 1 free agent and trade allowed. But let's also look at the other incentives/penalties...financially, we brought in a profit of $56M, which gives us 1 back in both categories.
So in the end, we have:
45+ rated Free Agents allowed: 2
Trades allowed: 2
I'll take it.
One member of our arbitration class gets non-tendered, and we head into FA with needs all over the field. Let's take a quick look at some players who had good years:
SP Joel Berryhill (7-21, 4.40 SIERA, 2.9 WAR)
Here's what we said about him when we took him with our first pick in the expansion draft.
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Still, the bats are light and no one really jumps out at me. But looking at the pitchers, one guy stands out. Righty SP Joel Berryhill is 26, listed as "durable", and is rated as a 55 by our scout. A 5th round pick in 1937, he's currently with the Washington Wasps, starting 31 games last year with a 4.00 SIERA and 2.6 WAR. He's also still making the minimum salary with just two years of service. That'll do, for us.
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He made 33 starts for us, with 167 much needed innings, the most on our team.
OF Mario Camarillo (.264/.303/.393, 92 wRC+, 2.4 WAR)
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CF Mario Camarillo is next to suit up for the Rosebuds. Another career minor leaguer, he can play center decently and has enough tools to maybe be a bench piece on a bad team. He's got the "sparkplug" personality which will hopefully keep the boys going when we're in last place.
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Camarillo was our 7th pick in the expansion draft, and had an okay year for us. Like I thought, he'd be much better as a 4th OF, but he was our best player on offense.