1970 Off Season
Jim Rittwage gets $272K in arbitration. Ooofah. I'm just stretched beyond where I can afford to pay him and I still have to resign Jenkins who's in the last year of his deal.
We sign Fergie Jenkins to a 7 year extension worth $530K per season, which means Rittwage has to go.
The White Sox offer us $446K for Rittwage and I gotta take it.
I want to revamp my pen, they've been awesome, but I have young pitchers who are ready and I've got nowhere to put them.
I move closer Len Church to Baltimore for $52K and I move RP Ed Sukla for a backup catcher.
While we aren't getting too old, but we are getting up there. Yaz is 30, Mota & McCovey are 31 & Javier is 33. I'd guess we have 2-3 years left before those guys start to show their downside so we've got to make these next couple years count.
We're officially starting to get thin in the minors both in terms of talent and depth. It's very likely that Mota walks after this season as Al Bumbry is a great Center fielder in our system and should be ready next year when Motas contract is up. Beyond that we're at least a few years away from our other prospects being ready.
The pitching should be fine. Rick Henninger joins the rotation and he's quite the good looking arm. Rookie Bill Champion steps in as closer, he's got some nasty stuff. While our depth in the minors is low, and we don't have any arms at AAA, we do have a good number of quality prospects at the AA level who should mature.
Our finances are not good, but they're bearable. We're probably gonna lose close to $900K this year but I've got about $2M in the coffers and only SP Danny Lazar & CF Manny Mota to worry about next year, I'm sure Lazar will want a big chunk of change though so we'll see what happens. I've already pretty much committed myself to losing Mota next year with Al Bumbry waiting in the wings.
I think we can take the East rather handily again, and I'd love another shot at that stinkin Braves team. Let's rock & roll.