Mr. 500 Foot Bombs

A quick look through various posts on Cleveland sports blogs and websites seem to identify one thing. A collective look of puzzlement. People are moaning and groaning that Matt Laporta will now have to shift around the diamond to ensure Branyan will get the at bats he may have been promised. Others are nervous that this is a case of Shapiro signing a veteran free agent to "give more time" for Michael Brantley's development in AAA (reeking of signing Juan Gonzalez to play over Grady Sizemore, before Gonzalez inexplicably left his hamstring in the batter's box while running to first base, forcing Shapiro's and Wedge's interlocked hands). Some don't understand where the $2 mil to sign this guy is coming from (and rightly so, why spend money on a guy who will fortify a lineup that isn't supposed to compete anyways). However, I have a different take on this investment...

I don't propose to be an expert on player movement. I have a pretty good idea of the transaction wire, based on the fact I love baseball and have an above average memory. I don't study the boards, look very deep into statistics, or surf a million websites. But I do work in baseball, and being around it all the time helps one think about it all the time. Around the baseball trading deadline last season, I was coaching a high school travel team in a tournament in Missouri. One of our pitchers was getting recruited by Vanderbilt, and their assistant coach, Josh Holliday was their scouting. Josh's brother Matt had just been traded to the Cardinals from the A's. This got me thinking. Why would the A's, a traditional small market/low budget team decide to pick up a player like Holliday, and trade him mid year. Then I started thinking....

How have the A's built and maintained success? By drafting smart and trading their groomed stars for other team's prospects of course. In a game where, like it or not, statistics are so dominant, the players that put up the best statistics are going to win out time and time again. The reason why professional poker players play millions of hands is to make sure they play enough hands that the 63% chance they will win a hand, happens 63% of the time (the singular "bad beat" hands you see on television are the anomaly, whereas, if that hand played out enough times would produce the expected percentage results - quick little stats lesson for ya). But success breeds copy-cats, and Billy Beane's secrets to success were out. Couple that with the fact that large market teams were using those secrets, Beane went back to the drawing board.

Now this is only my opinion, and I could be way off but... I think Beane said, "well, I've got no star players of my own to trade anymore... so why don't I go and get someone else's star player to trade." He gave up one of his biggest name's in Street, and a couple of prospects whose ceilings were in the process of being lowered, for one of the best pure hitters in the game. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2008/267167.html Holliday came, Holliday didn't hit too well, and Holliday left. Even if he put up monster numbers, I am fairly certain he would still be shipped out of town. And their inlies the genius. He traded his prospects that weren't panning out, for other prospects who have tremendous upside... "Not only did the A's receive nearly four full months of service from Holliday, whom they acquired from the Rockies last November, but in trading him to St. Louis (along with $1.5 million), they received arguably a greater return than what they paid the Rockies last year. Landing Wallace alone could provide more value to Oakland than the combination of Huston Street, Carlos Gonzalez and Greg Smith ever will to the Rockies." http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2009/268597.html .This year he signed Ben Sheets. I am fairly certain that, once again, he plans on shipping him out at the deadline for more young prospects.

This is where Shapiro/Antonetti come in. Even if Branyan hits 35 bombs, drives in 120 rbi, and cuts his strike out numbers in half, what value does he really bring to this club? A $5mil mutual option for next year?? Does that sound like something an owner would pickup who treats money as if it will never be printed again? Or, does that sound like a cheap price tag for a contending big market team to pick up for a guy who could potentially be a middle of the order guy?

I hope you see where I am going with this. Do not get all bent out of shape over this signing. Yet. Laporta needs some time to come back after the surgeries. He needs some time to learn how to play first base competently. He can do all of this while Branyan hopefully mashes, and brings in well more than $2mil worth of prospects at the trade deadline. Read the rest of this article

How to Resuscitate the Indians in 5 Easy Steps

It's easy to forget about the Indians. They're a lifeless last-place team with absolutely no personality. They play in a football town that also just so happens to be the main stage for the greatest basketball player on earth and a team that is potentially on the verge of a title. Their home is a somewhat dated looking ballpark that is, much like it's sole tenant, a decade past its prime. They play in front of crowds that long for the big bats and bigger personalities of the 90's. As Mike Tyson might say, the Indians are quietly fading into Bolivian.

For the most part, the death of the Indians has been little more than a footnote on this site. With enough stress and disappointment in our lives, it's just easier to talk about the Cavs than it is to dwell on the Tribe's downward spiral. Although we would all probably acknowledge that something has been missing from this summer, most of us are generally content to keep the Indians out of sight and out of mind. While I find it difficult to find compelling reasons even to get myself to care about this organization, before we write them off altogether, let me just remind you of something that drifted into my conscience while reading a piece (more on the content later) about the Indians on ESPN today: When the Indians are winning, they're probably the most fun of any of our three teams to root for. I know that this town would probably implode if the Browns ever reached a Superbowl, but just consider the following about the Indians: 1) They play 162 games a year, 2) the bulk of their season is played in the summer and fall when people in Northeast Ohio actually venture out and associate with others, 3) you can watch them from a good seat for $15 bucks, and 4) they play the sport that has the most thrilling postseason (baseball is my 3rd favorite sport to watch but NOTHING, and I mean nothing, comes close to October baseball. It's as good as it gets).

Bottom line: We should care about the Indians. Our parents and grandparents care about them because they remember the champions of the 40's and 50's. We care about them because they were the central part of Cleveland's renaissance in the 90's. As much as we try to forget about it, this team really matters to this town, or at least it used to. Go ask the Downtown businesses which team is most important to Cleveland's metropolitan revitalization. It's not even close. 40,000 fans 81 times a year dwarfs the economic impact that any other team or activity can have on this city. The point to be made here is that the Indians have turned into a crappy organization and this town can't afford to have them stay that way. So, without further ado, I bring you 5 easy steps to fix the Indians.

1. Fire Eric Wedge:

I think I speak for just about every Indians fan when I say that it will be a slap in the face to all of us if Wedge survives this season. I don't even need to go through every reason. In a nutshell, he doesn't develop players and he doesn't give the fans one god damn reason to care about the team. His stoic bullshit has run its course with all of us. At this point, every interview is just a disgusting, patronizing sham. If you're going to act like he does, you'd better make sure you're a winner. Wedge may have taken a team with two aces and two unhittable relievers to the brink in 2007, but everything that happened prior to that second-half run and everything that has happened since game 4 of that ALCS have proven that Wedge is not a winner. Get rid of him.

2. Trade all or some of the following: Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, Rafael Betancourt, Carl Pavano, Kerry Wood, Ryan Garko, and Jhonny Peralta:

Lets take these one at a time:

Cliff Lee: His value is at an all time high. If the Indians traded him now with a full year and a half left on his reasonable contract, they could duplicate the haul they received for Sabbathia. Contenders are always willing to trade prospects for aces. What makes Lee unique is that the Indians could even have small market teams offering multiple top prospects if he is moved now because those teams be willing to give up more for what is beyond the traditional 3-month trade-deadline rental. Lee has inexplicably become one of the best pitchers in baseball. Unfortunately, by the time the Indians are ready to contend again, he will have almost definitely moved on anyway. Trade him now. Let the deals for him and CC become the cornerstones of the next Indians contender.

Victor Martinez: This is by far the toughest call to make because Victor is one of the last guys here that actually makes the fans care. Trade him and you might have a full-fledged fan mutiny on your hands. Here's the thing though: Trading him just makes too much baseball sense to ignore for cosmetic reasons. He's over 30. His contract will be up before the Indians can contend again. Teams would pay a ransom for a backstop with his bat. Finally, and most importantly, the Indians top prospect plays his position (Santana). I love Victor Martinez. He plays hard, he does it with personality and flair, and he has been nothing but good to the fans in this town. That said, we'd be doing him a favor by moving him to a contender. It's in everyone's best interests to trade him soon.

Rafael Betancourt: Teams are always willing to overpay for relievers at the deadline, even right-handers. Betancourt is too old (34) to contribute to the next Indians contender. Moving him is an easy call.

Carl Pavano: It's a miracle that he actually has value right now. The Indians should take advantage of it.

Kerry Wood: There obviously aren't many games to save. I'm not sure what we accomplish by paying him another $15 million over the life of his deal. Even given his rocky start, teams needing a setup man or closer will pay for his services at the deadline.

Ryan Garko: Slow, no pop, no position. This is exactly the type of player that has no future here. See what you can get for him and move on.

Jhonny Peralta: See Garko, Ryan. This isn't the type of guy you build a team around. Asdrubal is our SS of the present and future. Peralta is a disgusting player, and I never want to see him in an Indians uniform again.

If a player isn't on this list, it's either because he's both young and good (Sizemore, Cabrera, Choo, etc.), promising enough to potentially be a part of our future (Reyes, Carmona, Laffey, Lewis, etc.), worthless in trade (Francisco, Barfield, etc.), or just laughably overpaid to the point where it's not even worth trying to move him (Hafner). If a player isn't in one of these categories, he needs to be moved.

Now, I know what you're thinking: If you traded all of the guys on my list, the Indians would be a 55 win team that nobody would watch. Here's my question to you: Is that any worse than a 70-win team that nobody will watch? I mean honestly, what's the difference? The only difference I can think of is that our current 70-win team lacks the depth of top-level prospects to actually improve in the coming years. My hypothetical 55-win team is stocked with a handful of elite prospects and even more high-ceiling developmental players that could evolve into solid major-leaguers. As a fan, which team would you rather root for?

Here's what this really boils down to: When you're a small to mid-market team like the Indians, if you're going to build a perennial contender like we saw in the 90's, you either have to get extremely lucky through the draft and player development (obviously not the Indians forte), or you have to make enough timely moves to create a bumper crop of top prospects that can grow into a contender before they all reach free-agency. The Indians need to infuse their system with a glut of young talent in the mold of Santana, Brantley, and LaPorta. Holding on to veterans just for appeasement and appearances isn't going to help anyone. Still, I recognize that a massive fire sale is going to create even more resentment from the fans. Thus, I give you step 3 . . .

3. Hire Omar Vizquel or Mike Hargrove as Manager:

I know what you're thinking: I'm typing with my heart and not my head. Allow me to make my case: The Indians have two gigantic problems right now: 1) They stink and have no serious prospects for improvement; and 2) perhaps more importantly, they have NO connection with the fans anymore. There is not a single personality in that dugout, aside from maybe Martinez, who gives the fans a reason to care. They all carry on like robots. Even Sizemore, who I love as a player (and who under the right regime might actually become the top 5 player that he should be), is more of a bassist than a frontman. There is a huge disconnect between the Indians and their fans. That problem is only going to be exacerbated by the selloff that I'm calling for in step 2. There are only two men on Earth who harbor the potential to make the fans care again if this franchise goes into a full-blown rebuilding mode: Omar Vizquel and Mike Hargrove.

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Vizquel is the better choice of the two here. The Indians would sell more tickets with a 50-win team managed by Vizquel than by continuing with their current operation headed by Mr. Personality. Vizquel is one of the most beloved athletes in the history of Cleveland sports, which is saying a lot for a career .273 hitter. What's more, I think he will eventually be a very good manager. He obviously has a high baseball IQ, he was well-liked as a teammate, his media skills are fantastic, and most of all, he understands how to connect with the fans. Some might argue that it's foolish to hire a guy without any coaching experience, let alone managerial experience, but honestly, how much of a risk are we really talking about here? First, you'd be handing him the keys to an operation with no chance of contending regardless of the manager. Second, he can't be any worse at developing players than our current manager. Third, we're talking about a baseball manager here. They're important but they're not football coaches or even coordinators for that matter. They make a difference but it's not as if the job couldn't be done by a novice, especially one who has been playing professionally for 20 years.

Vizquel + young talent is a package you could sell in this town. They'd still be bad and they still wouldn't be breaking any box office records, but I assure you, this town would embrace them. People would actually care about the Indians again. Vizquel could walk out of the dugout and simply wave his cap, Jimmy Dougan style, before every game, and it would still give fans more of a thrill than the outfit currently masquerading as the Indians. If you don't believe me then you didn't see the reception Vizquel got when he came back to Cleveland as a Giant. The word beloved doesn't do justice to the relationship between Vizquel and the fans here. He's the right guy to make this team matter again.

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Would he take the job? It's hard to say. He's still under contract with the Rangers and probably wants to play as long as he has a job, but you could concieve of a scenario in which Wedge is fired, an interim manager is named, and then Vizquel is contacted about taking the job next year. The guy loves the Indians, loves the game, and probably wouldn't mind keeping a 7-figure salary for the foreseeable future. Who knows if he wants to manage, but there is at least some reason to believe that the Indians would have a shot.

If Omar won't take the job, the Indians would have no better option than Hargrove. I'm the first to admit that teams rarely go forward by looking backwards, but given the special circumstances surrounding the Indians right now (namely, that the fans hate the organization), a little nostalgia might go a long way. I saw a piece on ESPN yesterday about Hargrove (the one I referenced earlier) and I have to admit, it made me sad. I was never really a huge Hargove fan but I must concede that I miss the guy. Yes, 99% of those feelings are probably more about what Hargrove represents than what he actually brought to the table, but perception is every bit as important as reality. If the current Indians regime can make itself look a little bit more like the one that preceeded it, maybe the fans would be willing to give them a shot. You could sell Hargrove + a youth movement as the second coming of the 90's Indians. Plus, while Hargrove may not have been the best game manager in the league, he certainly oversaw the development of a lot of great young players, roids or no roids. He's currently managing a Summer League team in Kansas called the BJs (I swear I'm not making that up) and desperately wants back into the Majors. If called, he'd be on a plane before Dolan hung up the phone.

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4. Sell Reality:

Cleveland fans are not as stupid as the current Indians regime might wish to believe. They can feed us heaping bowls of bullshit, and lord knows they try, about staying the course and sticking with what you've got, but we all know the truth: The Indians aren't going anywhere. They have a couple of stars, a handful of above-average players, a few talented prospects, and a bunch of crap. Yet, in spite of this painfully obvious reality, we can't ever seem to get an honest assessment from Wedge, Shapiro, or Dolan, about what's really happening to this team. When my plan takes full effect, and the Indians as we know them have been imploded and the team is led by Vizquel or Hargrove, ownership and the front office need to come clean. Tell the fans the truth: "Look, we weren't going anywhere so we traded all of our veterans and and decided to go into full-blown rebuilding mode. But, at the same time, we whacked the manager you all hated and replaced him with an icon that all of you love and who knows the game well enough to succeed. We want you to come along for the ride and grow with this team, because as you can see by all of our elite young talent, we're going to be special down the road." Give Cleveland fans some credit. It's not that we're afraid of losing . . . It's that we're afraid of never winning. Give us genuine hope and we'll buy into it, even if you tell us it's going to take a while.

5. Let the kids play:

If you're going to sell the youth movement, you've got to let the kids play. Aside from speeding along their development, this will also foster the type of player-fan connection that is so sorely lacking in the current state of affairs. Fans always have a greater connection to players that they watch grow up. That's part of the reason, along with the fact that they had all-stars at every position, that the mid-90's Indians meant so much to this town. So many of those guys made the leap as Indians. For my future team, the same thing needs to happen. No more Dave Delluccis, Carl Pavanos, or any other stopgap veterans brought in to make the team slightly less worse (and take away at-bats or innings from the prospects). It will be time to live, and more likely die, at least for a while, with the kids.

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That's it. That's my plan. You may not like it, but I can assure you it's better than the road to nowhere we're currently traveling. How about it Tribe fans? What do you think?

Read the rest of this article

We're All Thinking It: We Just Don't Say It

Well the Indians got blitzed in Texas and appear to have some serious problems, but for all of our sakes, I'll skip the gruesome recap. I'll just say that it's not hard to believe that a team with just two above-average starting pitchers, two threatening hitters, and a cleanup hitter that can't hit his way out of a wet paper bag, might struggle to win games at the major league level. But I'll save the discussion of the overall roster for another day. Right now, it's the aforementioned cleanup-hitting DH that I'd really love to talk about.

I haven't really said a word about Travis Hafner since the last time his career was at all relevant to my rooting interests as an Indians fan. That was 2007 during the ALCS, and even then, his relevance had little to do with his performance and much more to do with the fact that he was in the starting lineup for a team on the verge of winning a title. Truthfully though, Travis Hafner hasn't been Travis Hafner since 2006. Now listen, by all accounts, Travis Hafner seems like a pretty good guy. His teammates seem to like him, he plays hard every day, and he's never said anything but positive things about the city of Cleveland. However, it has been those same endearing qualities that have shielded Hafner from what, for a less likeable player or one in a more intrusive media market, could have been a firestorm of criticism. Consider the facts:

1. Travis Hafner was not a highly regarded player in his youth. He was a 31st round draft pick out of Cowley Community College in Kansas in 1996 and never really distinguished himself as an elite prospect at the minor league level.

2. Hafner spent 5 years in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the Texas Rangers' farm system. During that period, the Rangers were absolutely loaded with steroid users. Although we can't know the full extent and the depths to which the steroid culture permeated the different levels of the Ranger organization, it is safe to say that during that period, the franchise was becoming the poster team for baseball's dark era. If you played in the Texas system in the late 90's, it's a pretty safe bet that you learned a thing or two about steroids.

3. Here are Hafner's numbers from age 25 to age 31 starting with plate appearances, then batting average, home runs, and finally, OPS:

25: 70, .242, 1, .716

26: 324, .254, 14, .812

27: 573, .311, 28, .993

28: 578, .305, 33, 1.003

29: 563, .308, 42, 1.097

30: 559, .266, 24, .837

31: 233, .197, 5, .628

I'm no statistician but I'd say that's a pretty a pretty steep curve on both sides of the crest. And keep in mind, we're talking about a six-year period here. In the life of an NFL running back, that's an eternity. In the career of a major league DH, six years is nothing, especially when they happen to span the end of player's youth and the beginning of his prime.

4. Baseball sluggers in general are not normally predisposed to such precipitous drops in ability. This isn't Ian Baker-Finch trying to find the fairway at the British or Rick Ankiel trying to throw a fastball for a strike. We're talking about a skill that once a player acquires, he generally continues to possess until his body begins to break down. Of course, there are exceptions to this general rule, but for the most part, All-Star sluggers don't just inexplicably fall off the map when they hit 30.

5. Pronk's decline can't be attributed to a specific injury. Yes, he broke a bone in his hand when he was beaned by C.J. Wilson on September 1, 2006, but that's not the type of injury that just ends a player's career. Plus, he played the entire 2007 season without any mention of that injury. In 2008, after a horrible start, he had his shoulder scoped, but mysteriously, the doctors never really ever found a problem with it. Am I the only one that finds that completely strange? James Andrews spent 45 minutes inside Hafner's shoulder and didn't find a damn thing wrong with it. We were told that the joint was "cleaned out" but were never offered any additional clarification as to what Andrews actually found that could have caused Hafner to lose all of his strength.

6. We've yet to hear of any mechanical issues with Hafner's swing. You'd think that after trying to work out of a "slump" for two years, if Hafner's problems had anything to do with his swing or approach at the plate, he and Derek Shelton would've figured it out by now.

7. Even though his shoulder joint is now apparently "clean," Hafner has lost virtually all of his bat speed. A player who was once perhaps the most feared in the American League can now have the bat absolutely blown out of his hands by a low 90's fastball on the inner-half of the plate. Moreover, even when he does connect, the words most apt to describe his power are "warning track."

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Hafner is now HALF THE SIZE that he used to be. This is easily the most alarming aspect of the entire ordeal and is also the inspiration behind my decision to write this post. I turned on the Rangers game the other day and almost fell out of my chair. Half is obviously an exaggeration, but for a guy who was once built like a lumberjack, Hafner now looks absolutely scrawny. This type of thing just doesn't happen to elite hitters in their early 30's. If anything, they continue to get bigger. I haven't seen what the Indians are listing Hafner at this year, but honestly, it doesn't make any difference. My eyes work. He's not nearly the same size that he was when he was hitting 30 and 40 bombs a year. Look at the two pictures above. One is from this year. The other is from Hafner's prime. Can you see the difference? If you can't, maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.

And please, don't tell me that the loss of muscle mass is because of the surgery. He's a major leaguer. Every professional athlete is put through an intense rehab and weight training program after a procedure like the one Hafner underwent. I've yet to hear any reports of any of them suffering from irreversible shrinkage of the chest, arms, or head.

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Now, forget for a minute that we're talking about Travis Hafner. Look at the last eight points but imagine that we're talking about a player for whom you never rooted or for whom you never felt any personal affinity. Play connect-the-dots for a minute. What conclusion would you draw?

So, what does this all mean? Well, I guess it means whatever you want it to mean. The thing is, you can't prove the negative: Hafner can never really prove that he wasn't on the juice. But, at the same time, the chances that any of us will ever be exposed to evidence implicating Hafner are remote at best. Baseball is primed to sweep the rest of the steroid era's dirty laundry under the rug. A few giant fish have been caught and disgraced, and based on the current HR numbers leaguewide, it appears that those who were not caught have been sufficiently deterred. In short, there remains little incentive to keep digging, especially around benign figures such as Pronk. We're just never going to know the answer.

Still, I think there is a point to all of this. We're all free to believe whatever we want to believe, but if you are like me, and are convinced, based on the overwhelming circumstantial evidence, that Hafner was juicing through at least the 2006 season, you have a right to be outraged. Hafner signed a four-year, $57 million extension during the 2007 all-star break. If he knew that the contract was premised on a level of performance that he could not, or perhaps did not intend to replicate, he defrauded the club by signing the deal. Now, the Indians are paying $13 million a year for a guy who has no place in a major-league lineup. If this were New York, we wouldn't care. For a team like the Indians and a city like Cleveland though, if my theory is correct, Hafner has screwed us all.

Finally, if Hafner was in fact roiding through his best years, Shapiro and Wedge had to know about it. That, above all else, is the most compelling defense Hafner's story has to offer. If Hafner was on the juice, a smart guy like Shapiro certainly knew about it; and if he did, it would seem horribly reckless for him to have given Hafner that extension. Of course, there is the possibility that 1) Shapiro suspected but didn't know for sure, and just figured whatever Hafner was doing, he would keep doing it, or 2) he knew exactly what Hafner was doing but thought, based on Hafner's popularity and ability to draw fans, he could squeeze enough out of him over the next four years to make him profitable.

In Conclusion, I don't really know what happened. My theory is based on nothing more than instinct and conjecture. All I know is that a lot of Cleveland fans are still holding out hope that Hafner will return to a level that, for whatever reason, drugs, injuries, or otherwise, I don't think he is ever capable of reaching again. I also know that the Indians are a mid-market team that owes a boatload of money to a guy who can't have more than a couple of months left as a "cleanup hitter," and probably doesn't have more than a couple more years left on a major league roster. And finally, I know that as an Indians fan, I really hope that Matt LaPorta is the real thing. Having watched multiple elite power hitters leave town over the years, and then another decide to stay, only to inexplicably fall off the face of the earth at the very outset of his prime, I need LaPorta to be as good as advertised . . . And unfortunately, unless another power hitter miraculously falls from the sky, the Indians are going to need him if they hope to contend in the years ahead.

Read the rest of this article

C.C. Trade Complete: Tribe Gets Brantley

A day after C.C. Sabathia once again reminded the world that is he not a big game pitcher (his career postseason ERA is 7.92), the Indians and the Milwaukee Brewers have completed their trade with the Tribe selecting outfielder/first baseman Michael Brantley.

Though most thought the selection would come down to Brantley and Taylor Green (2b/3b), I, for one, am thrilled at the selection of Brantley. Brantley has all the peripherals of a player primed to succeed at the major league level. His father, Mickey Brantley, is a former major leaguer who played four seasons with the Mariners in the late eighties. The lefthander hit .319 with 80 runs, 17 doubles, two triples, four homers and 40 RBI in 106 for Class AA Huntsville this year. He also stole 28 bases in 36 attempts and had 50 walks against only 27 strikeouts. Perhaps most impressively, Brantley has a minor league career .399 OBP. For comparison, Shin-Soo Choo led the Indians this year with a .397 OBP mark, and only three players in the American League had a better OBP. Baseball America has rated Brantley as having the best strike zone judgment and the best base running skills in the Southern League.

Brantley has the potential to become the prototypical leadoff hitter the Tribe has lacked since the likes of Kenny Lofton. Though it appears as if Brantley might be headed to Akron to start the season with the reemergence of Trevor Crowe this year, it is quite possible that we might see Brantley patrolling the outfield as early as the end of next season. (Edit: When asked how close he is to helping the Indians, Shapiro said, "He'll determine his own pace, but he'll be in Triple-A. That's an indication that he's not that far away."- from the Plain Dealer ) Placing Brantley in the leadoff spot of the lineup would finally allow the shift of Grady Sizemore down to the third spot, taking advantage of Brantley's high OBP numbers and Grady's power bat. Having Brantley in the outfield would also allow a shift of Matt LaPorta, the main player of the C.C. trade, to first base.

As shown by Billy Beane in Moneyball, taking pitches, having a great awareness of the strike zone and a high OBP are some of the most important traits a player can posses. If Brantley continues at the same rate as his minor league numbers project, the C.C. trade could become this generation's Bartolo Colon deal. Read the rest of this article

Casey Blake? Really?

As I sit here beginning to write this, the Indians are "beating up" on the second place White Sox. I use the term "beating up" loosely, only because the White Sox pitcher's inability to throw strikes is hardly grounds for the Indians delivering a whuppin. This post will pop my proverbial cherry as a writer for this site, and to begin I will touch on a few things that stick out from a lost season. First and foremost, while its fresh on my mind, last night after the Dodgers clinched, Joe Torre said something like "It all started to come together when Casey Blake arrived here..." Casey Blake? Really? you just landed Manny Ramirez... and Casey Blake is the difference maker? maybe Eric wedge was onto something when he kept him in the lineup all those years when Blake was hitting .210...



Buster Olney did a piece this week for espn.com about the end of the Yankees dynasty, noting that their neglect of the draft ultimately led to their downfall. while only 10 position players drafted by the Yankees from 97-05 made it to the bigs. Who was second "worst"? The Indians, with 11. You may say to yourself, yea but Shapiro has placed an emphasis on depth at pitching in the organization so we must have had a bunch of pitchers come through the system over those nine years... The real number is 14. Good enough to be tied for last in the league. Has there ever been a more astute GM at making trades for prospects and signing international talent, while being so terrible at drafting. Of course this falls on the GM but trickles down to the scouts who give their opinions on these players. One last thing about this, those who did not want Sabathia traded, if CC walked after the year and the Tribe received a few compensation draft picks, would you be confident Shapiro would land a Laporta type player? or even a PTBNL type player?



One player who Shapiro should take credit for is drafting Ryan Garko. While he has been mired in what seems like a season long slump, and everyone seems to be down on him, he has actually turned it around and will at the very worst finish with 89 RBI. In what can be considered his sophomore season, Garko's actual power numbers have dipped, his OPS is down almost 100 points from last year. But it is his second year when pitchers typically make adjustments. Hitters make adjustments in their third year. Garko, a third round pick out of Stanford, certainly has the pedigree to make intelligent adjustments. I have always been a Garko fan, ever since watching him mash his way through the College World Series.

This seems like a good time to talk about the ground rules for the posts on this blog. I have a few laws I must follow as set forth by the Commander in Chief. I must write about the Indians. If I don't write about the Indians it must be baseball. And if I don't write about baseball it must be about sports in general. A little confusing you say? Just know that unless something outlandish happens (and by outlandish I mean the Buckeyes open up the offense, the Browns do anything right, or Todd Lowber plays a snap in a real NFL game) this will be a baseball column.

My rules are as follows:

1. Eric Wedge game management is donkey-like. This needs to be read into a little bit, because I do respect the clubhouse he keeps and the way players will run through walls for him. But he routinely puts the wrong guys in the wrong place in the games. If we could keep Wedge as the manager but surround him with a very good bench coach we would be in business.

2. Derek Anderson Sucks

3. Todd Boeckman is the Derek Anderson of Cbus

4. Platoons are not fun

5. Jacob's Field will always be Jacob's Field

6. List is subject to change at any point

There you have it. I will touch on all levels of Indians baseball. I do follow the draft closely every year. There is a player the Indians passed over in the draft this season who played for me over the summer, and I tell you he very well could be the next Grady Sizemore. We will touch on that at a later date. Currently I live in New Jersey and am surrounded by Yankees and Mets fans. And fake Yankees and Mets fans. Which is nice this year because they have not been out in full force. You will catch some comparisons on here between the Cleveland fan base and the NY teams. You will also catch me bitching about these people. My next post will most likely be an end of season wrapup on Monday or Tuesday. I know you'll be looking forward to it... Read the rest of this article