This is the third installment of a multi-part series that documents a conversation between the Cliff Note staff and Ron Collins, the General Manager of the Lupin Cliff Hangers.  Today we pick up with questions about the inner workings of the Lupin front office as they deal with new uncertainties in this emerging financial world of merger and acquisition..

PART III: 2020 & Beyond – An Interview with the Lupin GM

C-Notes: The team has been making some bold moves this off-season.  Has it all gone according to plan?

RC: According to plan? Yeah, right.

C-Notes: Okay. How far off have you been?

RC:  Actually, I was probably just being a bit sarcastic.  In reality we’re doing about what we planned on in the big picture.  We decided during the post-season that we would work hard to improve the farm system’s depth, and that we wanted to improve our situation at first base.  Then when the big hubaloo happened we got together and agreed we would use that process (the contraction draft) to add to the big-league club where we could.  The names have been different than we expected, but in the end we’ve pretty much gotten that done.

C-Notes: What names have you missed out on?

RC: Specifics?  <laughing> You want specifics?

C-Notes: I think we deserve specifics.

RC: You can’t handle specifics.

C-Notes: <smiling> try us. We can take it.

RC: Let’s just say that agents of players from the PEBA seem to think us folks from Japan have just fallen off the turnip truck.  They’re as greedy as lawyers in an emergency room.  Of course, those are just the ones who will talk to us.

C-Notes: You mean you’re getting the cold shoulder?

RC: True enough.

C-Notes: Now we’ve got to have a name.

RC: I suppose we’ve already burnt a bridge, so I’ll say that early in the Free Agency period we had decided to make a premium first baseman a real target, and touched base with Jaime Boyd’s people. We told them we were serious about bringing him across the pond, and “showed them the money” to back up our words.  Then we just sat there for weeks.

C-Note: No call-back?

RC: Notta call, notta text, nottan e-mail.

C-Notes: Seriously?

RC: Everything worked out for us, though.  We picked up enough quality from the contraction draft to be able to deal for a great young firstbaseman (Tenno), and that left us with a lot more money to spend on other guys.  And, man, if you wanna fish in the big-boy tank, it’s clear that you BETTER bring the big-boy bucks.  These PEBA free agents are a bunch of greedy guys.

C-Notes: And that’s different than in the LRS?

Very very different.  The revenue stream is changing so rapidly for us that it’s hard to describe the difference.  For example, the deal we have (star centerfielder) Sadatake Sato starting this year was massive for us under the LRS caps, but it’s going to look like a great deal as we go forward.  Best investment of our lives, eh?

C-Notes: Do you expect this to settle down?

RC: No.  Not really.  I think we’ll see some wild fluctuations for the next couple years.  PEBA squads were on a growth path already, and we expect attendance to be good early this year.  But we predicting the future is tough.  The owners of us LRS franchises are struggling with it all.  They are in real Jekyl and Hyde modes. Understandably so. And player agents are paid to make the most of this kind of thing.

C-Notes: How so?

RC:  Take our case.  We’re cash rich, and we can project this year’s revenue pretty well.  SO spending this season is not too difficult to project.  But Paul (Lupin owner Paul Walker) is struggling with what’s going to happen in 2021, so our early budgetary constraints for next year are pretty tight.

C-Notes: Your payroll is certainly growing.

RC:  This year.  Yes.  And I expect it will next year, too.  But Paul’s actually put us on a $10M diet for next season until we get closer and can get a better handle for what’s really going to happen.  I understand exactly why he’s doing that, but it makes it hard to go fast when you’ve got a pop-off valve on the throttle.  But, yeah, I expect a bigger budget for 2021. I just can’t go out and write checks against it right now.

C-Notes: So, what can we expect for the rest of the off-season?

RC: We’ve been doing a lot of work on the organization’ depth, making deals and signing guys to minor league deals. [Ed: the team has signed over a dozen such deals in the past couple weeks].  In addition, I’ve asked our scouting director to spend a lot of time in Canada and the Domincan, and that’s added some real depth to our international complex.  We’ll keep that focus.

C-Notes: And at the big-league level?

RC: It’s probably about the bullpen for us there.  We wouldn’t mind a bat, too, but I’m not sure we can afford the guys we would be interested in adding. [Ed – a month after this interview, the team made news by signings that fans are calling the Putt-Putt and Pepe Double-Header, dropping about $14M a year for two seasons each on 37-year-old veterans Putt-Putt Aguilar and Pepe Rico.  It is notable based on the comments above that Collins negotiated that the last year of both contracts be activated at the team’s option.]

At the end of the day, though, we’re getting close to the time when we’re going to start turning our attention to longer-term planning.

C-Notes: It sounds like an exciting time to be a GM.

RC: It is.  It really is.  You can probably say that most of the time, but I can speak for my entire team when I say that the front office of the Lupin Cliff Hangers is really energized right now.  I haven’t seen such energy in a front office before.

C-Notes – Good luck.  And thanks for spending your time with us.

RC:  Thanks.  It’s been great fun.

This brings us to the end of our long discussion with the Lupin GM.  It’s a fascinating time to be a baseball fan, and an even more exciting time to be a associated with the Cliff Hangers.  What will the future bring? Will we see a Neo-Tokyo Cup in Lupin? Or a Rodriquez Cup the following season?  Such are the questions of our time.  Yes, indeed.  Such are the questions of our time.