Prologue | Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Chapter Ten: D-Day

You can hear a collective sigh of relief as the clock strikes 10:00pm. The trading deadline has passed. Phase One is complete. The Cowtippers have made a startling sixteen trades this winter – more than double the number of trades made by any other team in the league. There is no rest for Glander and his staff, however. The next task is handing out contracts. That’s the easy part. The hard part – preparing for the free agent auction and draft – will consume every waking minute of Glander’s life for the next three weeks.

Fortunately for the Salem staff, most of the up-front prep work has already been done, as staffers have already been working around the clock, compiling statistics and scouting reports for every free agent (and possible free agent) on the open market. The major task remaining for the Salem braintrust is formulating a concrete Draft Day strategy.

The Cowtippers have $28.8 million to spend on 13 players. There are four glaring holes that need to be filled on the active roster: second base, shortstop, right field and left-handed setup reliever. That leaves nine spots at $100k each, giving Salem roughly $28 million with which to fill those four holes.

At second base, the Cowtippers are targeting Placido Polanco – a decent hitter who happens to be the best defensive second baseman in the game. Polanco should sign for somewhere between $4m and $5m, but Salem is allocating $6m, just to be safe. At shortstop, there are only two choices in the auction – Miguel Tejada and Michael Young – and no quality, full-time starters available in the draft. Salem’s entire draft strategy hinges upon how those two auctions play out. The scouts all say that the difference between Young and Tejada is no more than a couple of million dollars, yet Tejada will most certainly fetch at least double the amount that Young will settle upon. In right field, the Cowtippers have two options: sign a platoon of Trot Nixon and Tim Salmon, or sign Brian Giles to play full-time.

When the auction lots are announced, the entire war room groans in disapproval. As fate would have it, both Tejada and Young have been placed in the first auction lot – the worst possible scenario for Salem. The ideal plan of attack would be to target one of the two shortstops, then have the second to fall back on if the first bid is lost. That, however, is no longer an option.

The Cowtippers have no choice but to place their maximum bid on both players. The worst-case scenario is that they lose both players and are left without a shortstop for the 2004 season. The next-worse scenario is that they win the bids on both shortstops, and are left with too little money to spend on an outfielder and reliever. Even if the Cowtippers win their bid on Tejada, but lose their bid on Young, they will have paid far more than they would have ideally preferred in filling that hole at shortstop. In the best-case scenario, Salem would win the bid on Young and lose the bid on Tejada while driving up Tejada's price in the process.

Salem places a bid of $10.5 million on Tejada on the very first day of bidding. By the second day of the auction, Tejada’s current price has risen to $9 million, while Young’s bid is already up to $4 million. Glander, Reuschel and the rest of the staff stare at the auction board in nervous anticipation, running through all of the various scenarios in their heads. Within 24 hours, either a major piece of the puzzle will fall into place, or the Cowtippers will be scrambling toward one of their many backup plans.

On the third and final day of bidding for the first lot of players, Glander is once again in the midst of a tirade, hurtling chairs and toppling desks. Mike Stein, the GM of the Cleveland Rocks who revels in his role as the unofficial troublemaker of the BDBL, has posted a “Player A/Player B” comparison between Tejada and Young on the BDBL forum. He demonstrates that there is very little difference between the two, and wonders openly why Tejada’s current bid is more than double that of Young’s.

“That rat-bastard!,” Glander shouts across the office, as staffers take their customary positions beneath their desks.

The remainder of the day is filled with tension, as the consequences of Stein’s message are contemplated among the Salem staff. If bidding suddenly ceases for Tejada, or if Young’s asking price suddenly jumps through the roof, all of Salem’s Draft Day plans will have to be erased and re-written. Several weeks of tireless preparation eradicated by one careless comment.

The war room is deadly silent as the clock strikes 10:00 on Saturday night. Within seconds, signings will be announced for the first lot of players in the free agent auction. Glander sits, quiet, but tense, staring at the board. Reuschel chews nervously on a stick of licorice. Staffers are lined along the walls, standing at attention, waiting nervously for further orders.

At 10:15, the board lights up and the room erupts into raucous celebration. Tejada has signed with the Marlboro Hammerheads for $10.5 million, and Young has signed with Salem for just $5 million. Not only did the Cowtippers get their man, but they drove up the price on a top Ozzie League rival and spent $1 million less than they were planning to spend.

“It couldn’t have worked out better,” gushed an elated Reuschel, wiping a tear from his eye. “The hard part is over now. Now, we’ve got some money to spend and lots of options on how to spend it.”

The next lot of players includes center fielder Brian Giles. Giles would give Salem an upgrade over their current center field platoon (Kearns and Bradley) against righties, and would fill in the hole in the outfield against lefties. Salem’s first preference, however, is to sign Trot Nixon. Nixon’s lefty power is a perfect fit for Salem’s home park, and he would be a much more productive hitter against righties than either Giles or Salem’s current platoon. The downside is that Nixon is useless against lefties, so the third outfield spot against lefties would still need to be filled. Salem has targeted Tim Salmon for that role.

The Cowtippers have allocated $9 million to sign Nixon and $5 million to sign Salmon. However, Giles alone should fetch no more than $11 million. Signing Giles, then, would free up $3 million to spend on a reliever. Salem submits a bid of $11 million on Giles, then waits for the following day’s results.

The level of tension in the war room at 10:00 is significantly less than what it had been the night before. Glander reclines in his chair, sipping a Sam Adams Winter Ale as he watches the board, while Reuschel happily dips into a bowl of cashews. When the results are posted, and it is learned that Giles has signed with the Villanova Mustangs for $11.5 million, there is barely a reaction in the room.

“Giles would’ve been nice,” says Reuschel, “but Nixon would be so much nicer.”

Attention now turns to the next lot, where Manny Ramirez is among the players on the block. Like Giles, Ramirez would fill both holes in the outfield against lefties and righties while freeing up extra cash for a reliever. However, Ramirez has several things going against him: he’s right-handed, he can’t play defense and Glander despises him.

Nevertheless, the Cowtippers place a $9 million bid on Ramirez.

When the winning bids are announced, Glander and his staff do not seem surprised that their $9 million bid for Ramirez fell short.  Ramirez has signed with the Stamford Zoots.

“Manny Ramirez on the Stamford Zoots,” Glander says, dryly. “As if we needed another reason to root against him.”

Next up:
Chapter Eleven: A Change in Plans