When Cory Pierce took a 3-2 fastball deep over the centerfield fence in the top of the 12^th inning of game 4, the home crowd knew that this was the end. The Nutmeggers were done for the year. Unceremoniously swept out of the PEC by perennial power house Aurora. Some commentators openly complained that the Underground had failed to advance. At least London would’ve provided some competition for the Borealis, they opined.

Still, the 2019 season was a success by most standards.  The Nutmegger offense outscored every other team in the IL.  The pitching staff was 4^th in runs allowed, and while the PEC was a disappointment, getting there was already an achievement for a team that two seasons earlier had never even sniffed the postseason.   A 90-win regular season marked the highest total in franchise history, and Ronald Lowry won his second Royal Raker award.

As attention turned to the offseason and sculpting the roster for 2020, the first order of business was to figure out what Lowry’s fate would be.  Raúl García and En-guo Guao were sent off to West Virginia in a salary dump , and the choice was made.  The Nutmeggers would make a push to resign their star before he hit free agency.  His demands were rumored to be on the order of a 7 or 8 year deal at well over $25 million annually.  GM’s from teams around the PEBA and LRS inquired about the possibility of a trade in the hopes that they might be able to sign him, but those offers never materialized into anything concrete.  In the end, Lowry chose to stay in Connecticut on a 4 year deal with most of the salary deferred until years 3 and 4.

With that one big contract signed, the Nutmeggers appeared to be done.  There were no rumors of players on the block before the Winter Meetings.  The team’s big acquisitions for 2020 look to have been acquired in June and July.  That was when the Nutmeggers acquired outfielder Arthur Collins and starter Clayton Lewis in exchange for the team’s top draft picks and some of the better prospects.  There really wasn’t any reason to expect the Nutmeggers to make any deals.

However, as the Winter Meetings unfolded, outfielder John Martin’s name kept coming up again and again.  A number of teams were on the search for a center fielder, and the Nutmeggers had three players who could start there on a regular basis: Martin, Collins, and Russell Wright.  Collins was obviously not going anywhere after the tear he went on with his new club.  In his 96 games for Connecticut, he actually posted a higher OPS+ than Lowry did for the season.  Wright had just signed a 2-year extension with the team to buy out his final two seasons of arbitration.  So when Martin was announced as being traded to the Badgers, those who had been paying attention weren’t all that surprised to see his name included.

What was surprising was to see Niccolo Arcimboldo heading to Kalamzoo as well.  Luigi, as they call him, has been tremendous for the team since coming over from Tempe two years ago.  He was actually the runner-up in IL Golden Arm voting in 2018, a huge surprise to just about everyone.  His 16-9 record with 2.62 ERA were light years different than the 5-7, 5.68 ERA he had posted the year before in for the Knights.  He wasn’t quite as good this past year, but he was still in the top 10 in the IL in ERA and WHIP, so to see him heading off to Kalamazoo seemed a bit odd.

In return, the Nutmeggers got a pair of Manny’s and a draft pick.  Starter Manny Montoya and outfielder Manny Womack will join the team’s more famous pair of Ronalds.  Montoya is a bit of a junkballing control artist who’ll hopefully enjoy the change of scenery.  Womack’s offensive skill set looks an awful lot like slugging first baseman Jesús Santos, who’s been shuttled back and forth between Bridgeport and Providence.  He’ll provide some added pop in a batting order which, despite finishing with a franchise record 182 home runs, was still only 8^th in the IL in the long ball.

The draft pick coming the Nutmeggers’ way is Kalamazoo’s 2^nd round pick, which should be a solid position to draft from.  Whether the team decides to keep the pick or try to flip it for major league talent is yet to be seen, but rumors suggest that it has already come up in discussions with rebuilding clubs looking to cash in on the Nutmeggers’ failures in the 2019 PEC.  Regardless of what the team does the rest of the year, that’s one memory they’re going to be trying their hardest to erase.