Over the past week, there was not a whole lot going on in the Valencia camp. There are still a few coaches for the Stars' organization to pick up and maybe a handful of points to throw on top of the PP pig pile as it were.
There were two arbitration decisions made with Valencia personnel. One decision went in favor of starting pitcher Sam MacPherson. Valencia offered up $1.3M but the arbitrator decided to give a contract of $1.39M. MacPherson is tentatively penciled in at the #5 spot in the rotation. If MacPherson can duplicate his 2063 performance of 1.2 WAR, he will be considered a bargain.
The other decision went in favor of the front office as Alphonse Lease was award $800K instead of the player requested $1.01M. In a move questioned by many, Lease barely broke even with his WAR calculation last season. The Valencia scouts have shown that Lease improved in his ratings at the end of the year. We will see if the scouts were onto something or simply just on something as the 2064 season unfolds.
The moves leave the Valencia total player payroll just shy of $13.8M going into the first day of free agency with an estimated budget of $106M and a projected profit of $47.2M. Only the Tokyo Pearls in the GBC have a lower payroll in all of the BBA universe. With all that being said, the Valencia pocketbook could send out the better part of $30M and still be looking pretty good going into 2065.
Ideally, it would be good if four pitchers and two contact-type bats were added. If not, there are people waiting in the wings to take up the open spots, but that will not be enough to get Valencia to playing .500 ball.
Stay tuned until next week to see how the Stars start aligning.