FA roll (0-2): 1
Trade roll (0-2): 2
Carryover: +1 in each
Profit ($8M): No bonus/penalty
That leaves us with:
45+ rated FA: 2
Trades: 3
Our only pending FA's are our backup catcher (awful) and 2B Eric Lang, who's been around since the beginning but has turned into a bench piece and is now 33. Both will move on.
The arbitration class, however, is interesting, with a ton of decisions to make. It's 14 players deep, and full of guys who were once decent role players on our team, but as some of them start to cost a little bit more, we're moving on.
Five players will be non-tendered, which will save us about $17M next season. Financially, our fan interest (which was super high as an expansion team) is now dwindling as we've fallen to put a winning product on the field for years. While our profit this year fell largely due to a higher payroll, we're also seeing less attendance; so saving this money should help us quite a bit.
1B Adam Escamilla is one of the cuts; he's been with us since day one.
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With our next pick, we take the best of the aforementioned glut of young, decent 1B, right-handed Adam Escamilla. He's also 26, listed as durable, and is rated as a 50 by our scout, with a solid 6 hit tool and 5 power and eye. He'll strike out a bit, but the other nice thing about him (other than also being on min-salary) is that he's very popular locally and well-known nationally. We gotta get butts in seats, and he'll help.
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He never had more than 400 PA, but did have a solid year in 1947 with a 118 wRC+. We're crunched at 1B, and he struggled this year to a 69 wRC+.
2B Jose Solis is another. He was a free agent signing back before our inaugural season, and was a full-time starter for three years. Last year he lost playing time and had just 355 PA, but was never great offensively to begin with. The defense has been solid, but with 2B Bill Marek in the fold we can afford to move on.
We have about $14M or so to work with budget-wise, as the Rule-5 draft approaches there's some guys in my system that are not protected, not in my plans, and probably good enough to get something in return. So we make a deal sending one of those guys, OF Jorge Rodriguez, for RP Brian Weddle, a 29-year-old in the final year of team control. He's got great stuff but struggled in 1949 with a very high BABIP and home run rate.
FA: 2
Trades: 2
There's a 35-year-old infielder, 2B Dave Cox, in free agency that looks like a good target for us. He can play 2B, 3B, and LF decently, and is a lefty bat that found power in 1949, hitting for double-digit homers for the first time and posting a 125 wRC+. He's also a captain, which our team could use. He signs a couple weeks later on a one-year, $6M deal with a 2nd year option.
FA: 1
Trades: 2
And that's how we leave things. Hoping some of the young kids start making their way to the upper end of the minors soon because we really need some cheap talent on the roster.