Lazy Sunday with Fraying Edges

If the wheels hadn’t officially come off of the Indians’ season this year yet, allow me to relay the post-game comments after Friday’s game to provide a little glimpse into what’s happening in the Indians’ locker room.

We all know what’s happening on the field, but not unlike what’s being seen between the lines, what’s being seen and heard in the clubhouse…it’s…um…it’s not good.

It starts with Cliff Lee on whether a fly ball in the 3rd should have been caught by “RF” Ryan Garko:
Asked if he felt the ball should have been caught, Lee said, “Do you? I don't pass judgment on that. I throw the pitches. Where it goes it goes. It's not up to me to move the outfielders or infielders. All I do is pitch. It did seem like it was in the air a long time. I don't know if they had him shaded the other way or what. You'd have to ask him or Wedgie.”

Yikes.
To me though, this doesn’t look like a shot at Garko the OF, but rather at not-so-thinly-veiled shot (and an accurate one) at the person who decided to put Garko there in the first place, even going so far as to question where the coaching staff had Garko playing on that particular play.

Apparently, Garko didn’t see it that way:
Garko said he was playing Laird straight up.
“Sometimes I think because it's me, I don't make a play, and it becomes a big deal,” said Garko. “If [Shin-Soo] Choo's out there, it's a double and it doesn't become an issue. I got a good jump on the ball, went all out. I just didn't make the play.”

And now two bodies are under the bus, though it is strange to me that Garko brings Choo into the conversation. Regardless, you can tell that this talk of him not being cut out for the OF is getting to him. However, the fault with Garko playing the OF doesn’t fall to Garko’s feet as he’s simply trying to learn a new position (which he probably shouldn’t be asked to play) and can only go by what he’s told by the coaching staff.

From the coaching staff perspective, how’s this for a comment on the situation:
Wedge had no problem with Garko.
"That's a tough play for anybody,” said Wedge. “He made a great effort. You can't do any more than he did.”

“A tough play for anybody”?
Maybe, but isn’t it also a little tougher for a college catcher playing RF in the expanses of Comerica Park?

While this little exchange of thoughts from Indians is all well and good to pore over, what it really brings to light is that the frustration over the questionable moves that are being made by The Atomic Wedgie on a nightly basis is not only grating the most forgiving of fans – it’s fraying the edges of the clubhouse.

Lee says what everyone’s thinking…
Garko defends himself (even if he wasn’t the target of Lee’s comments) by inexplicably bringing Choo into the mix…
Wedge happily goes back to putting his head in the ground after the post-game media session…
And it’s all happening in front of the notebooks and the microphones for all to see…

If the edges are fraying in front of the media, how do you think this is playing out behind closed doors?

Do you really think that CP Lee is simply going to face the collected media after his next loss and toe the company line once again?

You might, but I don’t see it happening and the frustration that we’ve all been feeling seems to be bubbling over among the players with some very real consequences being possible. That is, we all know now that the positions that Wedge is putting these players in is not simply being questioned by the fans or the media, but also by the players…and the best player on the team to boot. Plus, that “best player” also happens to be a FA after next year with the team crumbling around him as he sinks deeper and deeper into a resentment that could have very serious ramifications if he sees his situation in Cleveland as untenable.

Realizing that Lee is the same guy who doffed his cap to the fans in 2007 prior to his being sent down to AAA (then denied ever doing it), would Clifton Phifer throw the organization under the bus as the season wears on?

Would he demand some sort of trade under the light of “this team’s going nowhere and I want out”?

How does the clubhouse not look fractured in all of this?

Wouldn’t now be a good time to see some leadership (whether it come from ownership or the Front Office) to acknowledge that this ship needs to be righted and that the season is not only lost, but that major changes are on the horizon?

And finally, do those major changes include one Clifton Phifer Lee?

The next three weeks (trading deadline is July 31st) just got a whole lot more interesting and with that in mind and on just such a topic (regarding an ace on a team going nowhere), let’s start off the Lazy Sunday:

Before looking forward to those three weeks though, let’s take a quick look back at last year’s major move with Castro’s piece on the return for the aCCe and whether (in light of what we’ve seen this year) the Indians should have been targeting pitchers as the return for The Hefty Lefty and, more specifically, if an offer involving pitching was ever even on the table:
The Phillies were said to be dangling right-hander Carlos Carrasco, and that might have been the offer Shapiro was referring to. But the Indians reportedly didn't have much interest. Carrasco is currently 5-7 with a 4.70 ERA in 16 starts at Triple-A this season.

It's believed the Indians talked to the Yankees about Phil Hughes, but the Yankees were not among the final contenders for Sabathia's services, either because of their hesitancy to deal Hughes or their inability to work out a sign-and-trade in which Sabathia was guaranteed to them beyond 2008.

Other than that, I'm not sure the Indians had any offers or conversations that centered on pitching. Most likely, their focus on outfield depth was as much a function of what was available in the market as it was an address of the organization's needs.
As AC asserts later in the piece, wouldn’t it be nice to see that “outfield depth” in light of what we’re seeing everyday with the parent club?

But I digress…what pieces and parts might be going this year?
Terry Pluto makes the case that Jhonny Peralta may be due for a change of scenery (although I think I could make an equally compelling case for Peralta’s manager needing a “change of scenery” which might give Jhonny some new life), suggesting that giving Andy Marte a chance for the second half of the season could provide a solution past Peralta at 3B…

Wedge says that the post-All-Star break rotation will be Lee, Ohka, Huff, and Sowers (noted in the print edition of the PD, not online) until Pavano gets his next start on July 22nd, by which time he’s not too likely to be wearing an Indians uniform…

The Athletics acquired a 23-year-old RHP in Justin Souza from the Mariners for Utility IF Jack Hannahan, meaning that an upper-level arm (albeit not a wildly exciting one) can be had for a middling middle infielder. Jamey Carroll, it’s been a pleasure…

But back to the main course of this discussion, moving a MAJOR piece like Clifton Phifer at what could represent “peak” value for pitching, here’s Ken Rosenthal’s piece on the Blue Jays “allegedly” shopping (or at least listening to offers on) Roy Halladay.

Why is this rumor and innuendo relevant to the Indians?
Replace the word “Halladay” with “Lee” and the similarities become striking – two AL Cy Young Award winners (currently ranked 6th and 10th in VORP among pitchers, a year after finishing 1st and 4th in VORP among pitchers) in their early-30’s, whose deals expire after the 2010 season, currently pitching for teams whose chances for contention in 2010 are certainly up for debate.

One major difference between the two, in terms of contracts, is that Halladay holds a full no-trade clause which would need to be waived for him to be moved (CP Lee does not) and Halladay is owed about $23M over the next year and a half while Lee is owed about $12M through the end of 2010.

To that end, Dave Cameron at Fangraphs.com has an utterly fascinating look at Halladay’s value over the next season and a half. If you’re looking to equate Cameron’s formula to Lee, the value of Halladay (in terms of performance) would be greater based solely on the length of Halladay’s effectiveness compared to Lee as Halladay has been a truly elite pitcher for seven out of the last eight years while Lee is really only working on about a year and a half with varying degrees of success in the 2005 and 2006 seasons mixed in. Thus, if Halladay is “a +6 to +7 win pitcher, easily the best in baseball”, as Cameron states, let’s say that Lee is a +4 to +5 win pitcher…which is actually probably a little low given what Lee’s accomplished since the dawn of the 2008 season.

Cameron equates a “win” to about $5M on the open market for a premium Free Agent, with the lesser risk of only holding a contract on a pitcher for a year and a half (that is, the long-term risk of a shorter deal is limited) pushing the deal that Halladay is working under (which has the same timeframe as that of Lee) to about $5.5M a season. That puts Lee’s value (in Cameron’s language) to $22M to $27.5M per season. Again, like Cameron, if we settle on $25M as middle ground (he has Halladay’s value as $35M per season), a year and a half of Lee at his current performance is worth $37M.

It should be noted here, that Cameron is not saying that these players SHOULD be paid these numbers, he’s simply trying to assign value to particular players’ performance to discern what an apples-to-apples comparison of a players’ worth would be.

Back to the exercise, Cameron asserts about Halladay that “you can’t forget about the fact that he’s very likely to be a Type A free agent at the end of 2010, and the acquiring team would be able to recoup two quality draft choices if they didn’t re-sign him as a free agent. Thanks to some good work by Victor Wang, we can see that the value of Halladay’s Type A status is around $8 million or so.”

That $8M number would be no different for Lee, so if Cameron’s math can be applied to Lee, it would go something like this:
$37 million for Lee’s performance + $8 million for the draft picks = $45 million in total value. He will be paid $12 million over that time frame, so 45-12 = $33 million over the next year and a half.

Halladay’s “value” came in at $38M, with Cameron asserting thusly:
To acquire the Jays ace, teams should be expected to surrender something like $40 million in value.

What does $40 million in value look like? Something like three terrific prospects who are not that far from the majors. No one’s giving up players from the Matt Wieters/David Price mold, but it’s going to take several players from that second prospect tier, the top 25-50 type guys.

Phillies fans - that’s Dominic Brown, Kyle Drabek, and Carlos Carrasco.
Mets fans? Fernando Martinez, Wilmer Flores, and Jenrry Mejia.

To put those names in terms of what stage of development those players are in, Cameron’s Phillies “offer” would be (in order of significance) Drabek (a 21-year-old RHP in AA with a 2.70 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP), Carrasco (a 22-year-old RHP in AAA with a 5.06 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP), and Brown (a 21-year-old OF in High-A with an OPS of .919). His Mets “offer” would be Martinez (a 20-year-old OF in AAA with an OPS of .877), Mejia (a 19-year-old RHP in AA with a 3.74 ERA and a 1.48 WHIP) and Flores (a 17-year-old SS in Low-A with an OPS of .684).

It’s a lot of math and analysis, I know, but it’s also an awfully comprehensive look at how the value of a Halladay stacks up with the value of a Lee with higher expectations for Halladay and a lower price tag for Lee.

As for what the Blue Jays are concretely asking for, SI.com’s Jon Heymann reports that Toronto is looking for “two big-time prospects who'll be major-league ready by next year, including a prime hitter, and two very good prospects who are further away from the bigs” within a piece about whether the fan backlash to a trade of Halladay would preclude the Blue Jays from making such a move.

Back to the North Coast and CP Lee, an interesting wild card (other than Halladay also possibly being available, obviously) in the possibility of trading Lee would be whether the Indians employ the strategy they used in the Casey Blake deal last year and pick up the remaining salary for Lee in 2009 if he was moved. If that were to happen, a year and a half of Lee would “cost” only $9M, which could increase the return for the Indians if they were so inclined and if the acquiring team was looking to limit adding payroll this year like the Dodgers did last year.

The Dodgers, eh?
Have I ever mentioned my irrational hope for a CP Lee deal around Chad Billingsley from the Dodgers, regardless of how little sense it makes for the Dodgers?
What’s that? James McDonald and Blake DeWitt…sure, we’ll take him off your hands too for Clifton Phifer.
Yes, I’m kidding.

With a hat tip to serial poster Alex, speaking of netting a higher return by paying off Casey Blake’s 2008 salary, anyone notice that Carlos Santana is rated the #7 prospect in baseball at the mid-season point, as per Baseball America?
Matt LaPorta, who should be in his 6th week of being an Indian, is #22 and Lonnie Chisenhall and Nick Weglarz are in the top 50 (the prospects aren’t ranked after 25) for the Tribe.

On the topic of prospects, this week’s edition of “Smoke Signals” consisted of two parts – a first half about the wildly disappointing parent club and a second half updating Tony Lastoria’s pre-season Top Prospect rankings and checking in on what players have seen their stock rise and what players have seen their stock fall in the first half.
Guess which half of the show was more enjoyable to discuss…

Back to the fine folks at Fangraphs.com and pertaining to two players who did not appear on the BA mid-season Top 50 (though are certainly hit on at length by Tony in “Smoke Signals”), here’s a little piece on RHP’s Hector Rondon and Jeanmar Gomez and a bit on Rondon from Vince Grzegorek at “’64 and Counting” regarding Rondon’s importance to the future of this team, written after Rondon’s brilliant debut in AAA.

Ah, prospects… certainly something to dream on (and now would be a good time to mention the All-Star Futures Game with Nick “The Stick” Weglarz and Carl Santana repping the Tribe is on at 2 PM on ESPN2, particularly notable if an Ohka v. Verlander match-up goes awry quickly), which is basically where we’re at as the Indians continue to scuffle along through the darkness with the same pieces and parts that have been scuffling all season long, with the edges fraying, and with no end in sight.

Tomahawks Falling Like Rocks

As the free fall continues and the bottom is no longer visible, due in no small part to the Indians not learning from mistakes of the past (is there ANYONE outside of the Indians’ dugout on Tuesday night who thought that getting some arms up in the bullpen didn’t make sense to start the 6th…you know, just in case Jeremy Sowers gets into trouble his 3rd time through the lineup) and from the team simply going through the motions, it’s time to release some Tomahawks.

Except this time, the Tomahawks don’t have a lot of air under them or that nice little arc…no, these are dropping like rocks:
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From the “What exactly is Wedge thinking” file, David Huff has 10 starts under his belt as a starting pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. In 5 of those starts, Ryan Garko has been the starting LF and, in fact, all of Garko’s career starts in LF have come with Huff on the mound.

Just to clarify any confusion that may be out there, Garko is a converted catcher who now plays 1B and is ideally a DH on a deep AL team. He also happens to have played LF in half of the games that the Indians’ best pitching prospect at the upper levels has pitched this year.

Isn’t there something to putting your players in the best positions to succeed and backing your young pitchers up with the best defensive alignment possible?

Is putting a converted catcher in LF with a young pitcher whose flyball ratio in the minors was 40.4% really putting up the best defensive alignment possible?
Really?
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Speaking of Garko, does anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that a deal is coming having to do with Garko…Polo?

Connect the dots here while allowing me to vent for a moment…
First we have this ridiculous quote regarding LaPorta or Brantley getting promoted:
“There's no opportunity for young guys to play right now," said Shapiro. "If there are guys pushing to get up here from Triple-A or guys traded off the big-league team, we'll react appropriately.”

“Pushing to get up here” like…say…Matt LaPorta posting a .922 OPS in AAA (good for 2nd in the International League behind the 29-year-old Shelly Duncan) after posting a cumulative .924 in AA the previous year while playing the two offensive positions of most need for the parent club?

Without getting into the utter insanity of the notion that LaPorta’s not topside because Ben Francisco can “play” CF and they need Frisco on the team to spell Grady from time to time, which sounds like the role of a…wait for it…4th outfielder role that Francisco is best suited for, while the club carries 13 pitchers (of whom two are named Mike Gosling and Winston Abreu), look closer at what Shapiro’s saying.

“Guys traded off the big-league team”, like who?
A player whose “best” defensive position is one of relative strength in the organization with a potential logjam occurring there in the very near future, whose movement to another team perhaps presents an opportunity to turn a expendable player with a MLB track record but not a clear future in this organization into an arm that would be more useful for the remainder of this year and beyond?

Could that Master of the RBI, Ryan Garko, be on the block as his performance peaks?
Maybe, and while we know Garko is what he is (a high-OBP, medium-SLG mediocre place-holding 1B), it’s possible that Garko could be seen as an offensive upgrade for a playoff contender whose price (in terms of what the playoff contender would have to give up) may not be as high as other offensive players purported to be on the market.
The thought is not without merit as (while this is nothing new around these parts) Garko has positively crushed RHP this year, with his numbers against RHP looking about average for a ML player:
Garko vs. LHP – 2009
.318 BA / .400 OBP / .568 SLG / .968 OPS

Garko vs. RHP – 2009
.248 BA / .337 OBP / .390 SLG / .727 OPS

That being said, Garko would have some value on the trade market given his ability to hit LHP and to provide some increased production for contenders without costing too much in terms of what the Indians would be looking for in return (that would be an arm…any arm) and in terms of salary. Also working in the Indians favor would be the fact that a number of contending teams find themselves in need of an offensive upgrade at 1B or thereabouts.

Who might show an interest in a package involving Garko?
Texas
As Chris Davis’ struggles (.671 OPS) have resulted him now being sent down to AAA, it would seem that the Rangers are in need of a 1B (unless they want to fast-track prospect Justin Smoak, who is coming off an oblique injury and just joined AAA Oklahoma City) or at least as a RH complement to 1B/DH Hank Blalock, who has posted a .877 OPS vs. RHP and a .613 OPS vs. LHP. Even if Davis turns himself around or Smoak gets the call, Garko could provide the Rangers with (at the very least) an option at DH past Blalock for next year and some offense this year in their push for the AL West.

Atlanta
Casey Kotchman’s disappointing season (.272 BA / .338 OBP / .387 SLG / .725 OPS) with 3 HR and a dreadful line against LHP (.257 BA / .305 OBP / .338 SLG / .643 OPS) have contributed to one of the many holes in the Braves’ offense, which looks to be the weak spot of a team still very much in the NL East race. Atlanta is allegedly looking to upgrade a punchless offense and, while Garko isn’t going to be an addition in the vein of Mark Teixeira (no…really?), he could be seen as an improvement on what the Braves are currently getting from their 1B.

Florida
While 1B isn’t the problem in Florida, 3B is as Emilio Bonifacio is currently sitting on a .620 OPS. Certainly nobody would suggest that Garko could play 3B (LF and RF is enough of a laugher), but the Marlins could move current 1B Jorge Cantu back to 3B (despite the fact that he’s an absolute butcher at 3B) to take AB away from Emilio Bonifacio, and upgrade the offense in the process. The infield defense would be an absolute horror show with Garko, Dan Uggla, Hanley Ramirez, and Cantu…but I wouldn’t bring that up to Florida officials.

New York Mets
Desperate for production from 1B until Carlos Delgado gets healthy, the Mets’ current Daniel Murphy is sitting on a .665 OPS, over which Garko certainly represents an upgrade. After (or is it “if”) Delgado returns, Garko could serve as a RH bat off the bench or even as a platoon partner with Ryan Church (.182 BA / .245 OBP / .205 SLG / .450 OPS vs. LHP) once Delgado is healthy if the Mets can take “The Adventures of Garko the Outfielder” in the expanses of Citi Field.

All told, LaPorta is likely coming up in the very near future (wish I had a nickel for how often I’ve written that) and one would think that he’ll be playing LF and 1B when Victor is not so…the odd man out there would be Garko, right?

If Garko has some trade value and can be packaged as part of a deal, now would be the time to do it instead of giving him AB for the remainder of the season over a player like LaPorta who significantly figures into the future of this organization…or at least he should.

In terms of a package deal, if you’re thinking that Winston Abreu was brought aboard to simply be part of a package to a team that was interested in him but couldn’t get him in the waiver process (though his Tuesday debut didn’t exactly put a lot of shine on his apple and if there was an interested team, I'd like to see how “interested” they are now), maybe a deal with Garko as the “centerpiece” and Abreu as the window dressing is possible.

All those teams listed above are likely to be looking for bullpen help at some point as Texas just moved their prized prospect Neftali Perez to the bullpen to assist the parent club, Atlanta always looking to add arms to their stable to be massaged by Bobby Cox, the Marlins have brought in Luis Ayala and Brendan Donnelly (yes, that one) as FA signings and are watching Scott Williamson in the minors, and the Mets are in their annual search to fill out their bullpen with quality.

Maybe you can add Boston to this list with Lowell’s injury (though I can’t bring myself to think of Garko going to New England and becoming some kind of folk here), but let’s acknowledge that it’s time to clear the decks for these youngsters to get ready for 2010 and beyond. If moving Garko is involved in that “clearing” to make way for LaPorta, clear away…and take Abreu with him.
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On the topic of Winston Abreu and the bullpen, does anyone else get the sense that no matter what arm the Indians add to the bullpen or trot out there, the results are going to have the same effect on the lining of our stomachs?

At this point, it’s become almost comical (because we’d all be crying if we couldn’t laugh) that the Indians have been unable to cobble together a consistent bullpen in 3 of the last 4 years (and 2007 was really only saved by Lewis and Perez joining an out-of-his-mind Betancourt down the stretch) in terms of how every other team is seemingly able to pull off a moderately effective mix of veterans and young arms from year to year.

Forget about wishing that we had a bullpen full of Joe Nathans and Mo Riveras, why is it that the Indians can’t pull together a mixture of pitchers that can perform at even a league average level?

Want to know how shockingly bad the Indians have been in terms of having multiple relievers contribute 30 innings (a pretty low number) exclusively as a reliever or more at simply MLB average numbers (using ERA+ as the gauge) since they were thought to be contenders at the beginning of the 2006 season?

You might want to make sure that you’re near a garbage can for this:
2006 – 128 relievers in MLB pitched more than 30 innings with an ERA+ of 100 or above
2 of those relievers were Indians (Rafael Betancourt and Jason Davis)

2007 – 125 relievers in MLB pitched more than 30 innings with an ERA+ of 100 or above
3 of those relievers were Indians (Betancourt, Rafael Perez, and Aaron Fultz)

2008 – 129 relievers pitched in MLB more than 30 innings with an ERA+ of 100 or above
2 of those relievers were Indians (Jensen Lewis and Perez)

2009 – 134 relievers have pitched in MLB more than 15 innings with an ERA+ of 100 or above
3 of those relievers are Indians (Betancourt, Matt Herges, and Joe Smith)

OK, pull your head out of the toilet or garbage can or whatever other receptacle you were using there…

Sure, building bullpens is a crapshoot and relievers are, by nature, a volatile bunch but of the 516 seasons put forth by relievers over the past 5 years that had an ERA+ of 100 or better, 10 have been done in an Indians uniform…or about 1.9% of the LEAGUE AVERAGE seasons or better by relievers have come for Cleveland Indians.

What’s the answer?
Who knows at this point, but they need start asking some different questions if we’re on the fourth year of this mess with the results getting worse and worse, seemingly on a nightly basis.
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Is BJ Ryan a possible answer?
I’m not even going to venture a guess (though the guy did post the 22nd best WXRL last year, so he’s not that far removed from effectiveness), but this is an interesting quote in the article announcing his release:
On Monday, Ryan said he believed his sporadic use was contributing to his location woes.
"It's frustrating," Ryan said on Monday morning. "It's frustrating when you sit and you wait to pitch and you get in there and you don't do good. It's tough. You kind of find yourself in that same circle. You sit for four or five days and you get out there and you want to make pitches and you don't."
Ryan, who saved 32 games in 60 games for the Blue Jays a year ago, said his situation has been made tougher by the fact that it seemed as though his manager had less confidence in him than he did in himself.
"Absolutely. 100 percent," Ryan said. "That's universal throughout all of baseball."
Sour grapes?
Probably, but it would be interesting to see how usage patterns affect how these guys throw, particularly because they seem to consist of nothing but charged particles.
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Finally, I believe that I’ve concocted a wonderful (relatively speaking) way to watch this team play.
Step #1) Find a show that you’ve always wanted to see or have heard good things about and add the 1st season of said show to your NetFlix (or whatever you use) queue…right now, The DiaBride and I are enjoying “Mad Men”.

Step #2) Set the DVR to record the Tribe game from the beginning.

Step #3) Watch a few episodes of the TV show on DVD (2 episodes for a 7 PM start, 1 episode for an 8 PM start).

Step #4) Upon completion of your episode watching, pour yourself a stiff drink, cue up the game on DVR, and watch the game on fast-forward to limit frustration and cursing.

Step #5) Once you catch up, survey the score and decide whether to continue watching the game or to simply enjoy a beautiful summer evening with very little of your night committed to the game (time-wise), but fully aware of everything that’s happened.

I’m telling you, it works and it is terrific.
The games I’m watching after “Mad Men”…not so much.
But “Mad Men”?
Just great, though my gin consumption is increasing.

Staying the Course…But What Course?

With the news coming on Sunday from Mark Shapiro that The Atomic Wedgie and his coaching staff will finish out the season, I’m surprised at the reaction that I’m feeling…it’s not anger or rage or even an urge to release vitriolic condemnation on the decision.

Rather, all I feel is disappointment and dread.
Not disappointment that a man gets to keep his job or that the season is suddenly lost (as that feeling came during a walk out of Wrigley Field a few Saturdays ago), but the disappointment that I feel is that the obviousness that a message needed to be sent to acknowledge that the present course that the Indians find themselves on is an unacceptable one and that a sign that continuing on such a path is not condoned needed to be sent.

Whether that’s fair to scapegoat Eric Wedge or one of his coaches is up for debate, as (by Shapiro’s own admission) there’s plenty of blame to go around and simply blaming one man for the mess is an unfortunate conclusion to draw. But a conclusion needs to come for this organization to draw a line by which they can move on, and the opportunity to draw that line neatly and forcefully has now come and gone.

However, disappointment is not the overwhelming feeling that fills me…no, that would be dread.

Why, you ask?
Well, we all know what happens if the Indians’ slide continues into the second half as Wedge and most of his coaching staff will be let go (certainly no declaration was made that Wedge is “manager for life”…at least I hope not) and the Indians will attempt to lick their wounds, survey the scene for a new manager and coaching staff turning the page from the Eric Wedge Era.
This does not fill me with dread…and I say that as a season-ticket holder.

No, what fills me with dread is the very real possibility that the Indians finish the year out strong and pull off one of their second half pushes, even if it’s only to the measured mediocrity that they reached last season.

What happens then?
What happens if the pattern of second half surges continues, as they have in three of the last four years?
Second Half 2005 – 47-34 (.580 WP)
Second Half 2006 – 40-41 (.493 WP)
Second Half 2007 – 47-34 (.580 WP)
Second Half 2008 – 44-37 (.543 WP)

Now that the team is looking like it was supposed to, with Sizemore (allegedly) healthy, Pronk back at some percentage of his former self, Cabrera healthy, Westbrook close to being ready, Laffey working his way back…what if this team starts playing well and some of the young players like Huff and Hurricane Perez start contributing, as do Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley?

Is the argument gong to emerge to keep Wedge, because he kept the team “fighting” by “separating” and having players “run into one” now and again?

I certainly hope not because the second half has never been a problem for Wedge-managed teams that were thought to be contenders…the first half on the other hand, that’s another story:
First Half 2006 – 38-43 (.469 WP)
First Half 2007 – 49-32 (.605 WP)
First Half 2008 – 37-44 (.457 WP)
First Half 2009 – 32-49 (.395 WP)

We all know why this is relevant, but I’m going to put this up here in another manner to essentially put to rest the idea that keeping the Wedge for the second half of 2009 is going to “build momentum” under the guise of “stability”:

Second Half 2005 – 47-34 (.580 WP)
First Half 2006 – 38-43 (.469 WP)

Second Half 2006 – 40-41 (.493 WP)
First Half 2007 – 49-32 (.605 WP)

Second Half 2007 – 47-34 (.580 WP)
First Half 2008 – 37-44 (.457 WP)

Second Half 2008 – 44-37 (.543 WP)
First Half 2009 – 32-49 (.395 WP)

After the excitement of the 2005 season, when the Indians came up just short in the playoff chase, the team played 5 games under .500 in the first half in 2006…

After the 2007 ALCS year, the Indians came out of the gate flat, playing 7 games under .500 in the first 81 games in 2008…

After the furious finish of 2008 was supposed to “build momentum” for this year, the Tribe sat at a 17 game deficit under .500 after the first 81 games…

So, after the three best second half records posted over the last 4 years, teams managed by Wedge (with essentially the same players that closed out the years so strong and additions made in the off-season) saw their winning percentage drop precipitously enough to debunk any kind of absurd notion that stability from year to year, in terms of players or managers, has benefitted the Indians under Wedge.

That’s the fear though – what if the Indians go 48-31 over their remaining 78 games to finish 81-81 again (that’s a .607 WP clip) with pieces and parts healthy and the difficult portion of their schedule behind them…does that keep Eric Wedge’s job safe to start 2010?

If the idea that keeping Wedge to create momentum to 2010 is folly if you’re looking at a four-year body of work, what’s the upside in keeping Wedge aboard?

The argument is out there that the Indians aren’t going to find their long-term solution in early July and that interim managers don’t really do much more than hold the place on the bench for the manager to come; but what is the harm in allowing an interim manager to close out the season if a change is a necessary message that needs to be sent across the organization and with the knowledge that the 2009 season is over in terms of won-loss records?

If Joel Skinner closes out the year as the manager – so be it.
He knows he’s not the long-term answer just as well as the Indians do and the idea of getting a guy like Mike Hargrove or Buddy Bell (someone who’s killing time in early July with an MLB season underway) isn’t all that appealing to me. The guys they should be targeting (most notably John Farrell) have jobs right now and won’t be available until the off-season, but at least with Wedge securely out of the way and with the matter decided now, a search can start in earnest as soon as the season ends and we won’t be forced to go through this nonsense for the rest of the season with the dread of Wedge keeping his job hanging over our heads.

At the end of the day, the Indians find themselves now stuck with two scenarios, both equally distasteful – on one hand, the season continues to go south and Wedge is fired after the season, on the other hand, the season improves greatly and the “Should they Keep Eric Wedge” debate rages on into October.

A chance to acknowledge that this team is headed down the wrong path by sending a message that poor results won’t be tolerated in the name of “stability” and a chance to make a turn off of that wrong path has just been missed. As a result, we find ourselves on this same lonely path, accompanied by a dead man that we still find walking with us.

A Lazy Sunday After the Fireworks

After watching the fireworks burst over Lake Chautauqua last evening and seeing that the Indians’ ails seem to be fixed by merely playing the Athletics (OK, maybe not ALL of the ails are remedied), let’s roll right into a Lazy Sunday:

While moving the 24-year-old John Meloan for the 32-year-old Winston Abreu certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense at first blush as the Indians essentially traded a AAA reliever for a AAA reliever, netting the OLDER player at a time when all young bullpen options should be getting looks, let’s take a different look at this with the assumption that this is simply a precursor to another move.

It’s something that Tony Lastoria and I hit on during this week’s “Smoke Signals”, but let’s create a scenario for a moment that the Indians are in negotiations for another deal (larger in scope than the Meloan deal) with a playoff contender…let’s call them Team A.

Follow me on this:
The Indians, immersed in trade talks with Team A for players that Team A is interested in, is trying to make a deal come through as while the acknowledgement that the 2009 season is not quite being publicly admitted, it is a foregone conclusion.

Winston Abreu is DFA’d by the Rays and is exposed to waivers, with the teams possessing the worst records in MLB getting the first crack at making a waiver claim on him.

Team A, further back in the waiver claim hierarchy due to their record, informs the Indians that they have an interest in Abreu, but will have no chance at seeing him fall to them in the waiver order as a claim will surely be made before they get their chance.

The Indians make a waiver claim on Abreu, essentially to add him as a trading chip for the larger deal that they are in discussions in with Team A.

With the waiver claim made, the Indians and Rays have to work out a trade to get Abreu to the Indians, with the Rays asking for (and ultimately) receiving John Meloan, whose standing in the Indians’ organization as a relief option has been diminished to the point that he has yet to be called to the parent club despite an obvious need in the bullpen.

Meloan joins the Rays while Abreu joins the Indians until the particulars of the greater deal with Team A (which now includes Abreu as a piece going from the Tribe to Team A) are finalized.

If that’s the way it’s going to go down (and that would be my guess because the trade doesn’t make sense in a vacuum), don’t get too attached to Winston Abreu and get ready for him to be moved in another deal that is forthcoming.

What sort of deal?
Who knows (though I don’t see it being a earth-shattering one as Winston Abreu is not going to be some “final piece” to a deal involving CP Lee or El Capitan), but short of that scenario playing out, the Meloan-for-Abreu deal doesn’t make much sense for the Indians, despite their obvious strategy of trying to find “lightning in a bottle” among these relievers.

On said trade front, there are a couple of hot spots to hit in terms of relating it to Indians’ news starting with SI’s Jon Heymann, who adds the “Will the Indians trade Victor Martinez” to what must be his already full “Will the Indians trade CP Lee” basket, mentioning the Red Sox and the Giants as potential suitors but only by reading the first two paragraphs, you get the sense that this is simply idle speculation by Heymann:
Indians higher-ups say they aren't likely to trade hitting star Victor Martinez. Not only is Martinez one of the better hitters in baseball, with 14 home runs, 57 RBIs and .313 batting average, but the Indians hold a bargain 2010 club option on Martinez for $7 million.
A trade for Martinez still has to be considered something of a long shot. Yet, within the past day or two the Indians dispatched a scout to check out the progress of Boston's best prospects, according to a league source. The Indians, a realistic early seller, may only be covering their bases. But of course, it could develop into something more, as Boston's interest in Martinez is well known.

Wait…“aren’t likely to trade”…“something of a long shot” and “may only be covering their bases”, all in the first two paragraphs?

Yes, the Red Sox have young pitching and, yes, the Indians have catching and 1B options behind Martinez, but the whole piece (if you read it carefully) actually sounds like something ISN’T going to happen between the two teams…you just have to get past the article’s title.

Jayson Stark has some Tribe nuggets pertaining to trades that have happened and trades that look unlikely to happen:
• Run for DeRosa: Turned out the duel for Mark DeRosa was an all-NL Central extravaganza by the time the Indians' trade talks approached the finish line. In the end, the Cardinals went from a team that was not even willing to discuss Chris Perez to a club willing to offer Perez plus a prospect to be named by Sept. 1, plus the Cardinals took on all of the $2.9 million remaining on DeRosa's contract. And that's what it took for them to outbid the two runners-up, the Reds and Cubs. So what about the Mets, who have been portrayed as having been in the DeRosa sweepstakes to the end? They were one of 10 teams that checked in. But they were never willing to move Bobby Parnell or any of their best young arms. So it appears they were never much of a factor. The Phillies, meanwhile, have now lost out on bids for DeRosa twice in six months: once at the winter meetings, a second time in this derby. The Marlins and Giants were also in this mix.

• Knock on Wood: Another Indian whose name continues to float is Kerry Wood. But the Indians seem much more interested in moving Rafael Betancourt if he gets his act together after he comes off the disabled list. And Wood's two-year, $20 million contract almost makes him unmovable anyway. "It was two and 20, so now it's down to, what -- 1½ and 15 [million]?" laughed an executive of one club. "I just don't see anybody taking on that kind of cash. And much as I love [Wood's] stuff, I don't know that he has the command to make the pitches he has to make. With his stuff, it's unbelievable he doesn't get out of more jams. But he just doesn't get ahead enough."
Doesn’t that DeRosa thing sound about right…that the Indians DID in fact pit the NL suitors for DeRosa against each other and, seeing that Parnell wasn’t coming, pushed the Cardinals to give up more than they likely wanted to?

On the other relievers, I mentioned earlier in the week that Betancourt might be a name that could be moved, assuming he proves that he’s healthy and effective for a prolonged stretch before July 31st. As I said, the Indians hold a $5.4M club option on him for next year, one that I can’t see them picking up as it’s presently constructed. Maybe they guarantee the year at a lower number and add a club option for 2010 to guarantee Betancourt some money (who knows what he’d get in the open market considering his last 2 years), but the other option is obviously to move him for a younger arm that will join the “throw against the wall and see what sticks” group of young, power arms that the Indians (rightfully) seem to be accumulating or targeting.

Speaking of one such power arm, Stark quotes a scout later in the piece regarding Chris Perez:
"We like Chris Perez. We don't love Chris Perez. We've questioned his command going all the way back to college. I can see him becoming a decent seventh- or eighth-inning guy. I don't see him as a closer."“A decent seventh- or eighth-inning guy?”
After this year…tell me where to sign up for a 7th or 8th inning guy for the next five to six years out of C. Perez.

On the topic of another power arm, Terry Pluto has this little bit regarding Indians’ (as-yet-unsigned) 1st Round Pick RHP Alex White:
From Bruce Winkworth: "I'm the baseball sports information director at North Carolina State and have seen plenty of [North Carolina pitcher] Alex White. If I was younger and had any coordination, I'd have done cartwheels when he fell all the way to the Indians with the 15th pick in the draft. Alex is a horse -- great arm, tremendous competitor. I'm not sure I agree with the idea of putting him in the bullpen. I know [the Indians] need relievers, but he doesn't figure to pitch in the big leagues before 2011. Who knows what the bullpen will look like by then? Not that White wouldn't be a stud reliever. UNC used him out of the pen at the 2008 College World Series, and he was extraordinary."

This is something that was brought up to me via e-mail from Richard Scheir after the bit on who the PTBNL from the Cards might be, but if the Indians’ strategy of stockpiling these young power arms for the rest of the season through various channels, the pressure to move Alex White (to, in effect, fast track him) may become less of a priority and the Indians can give White some time in 2010 (assuming he’s signed) to perhaps show his worth as a rotational option.

White was purported by some to be the best RHP in the draft not named Strasburg, so maybe the trickle-down effect of netting relievers like Hurricane Perez (Chris did go to “The U”) and a guy like Jess Todd allows them to use some patience with White’s talent. When it’s all said and done, maybe he does end up in the bullpen, but giving him at least a window of opportunity in the rotation (given what we’ve seen in terms of rotational depth) may not be such a bad idea either.

Finally, finishing up with some lighter fare (because don’t we all need some in the midst of this season), Andrew Humphries of the LGT presents a brilliant short play that puts the Indians’ season in hilarious perspective with the Jhonny Peralta “character” absolutely stealing the show.

Homestand Tomahawks

Since it is still summer and it is still (at least technically) baseball season on the North Coast, I took in a couple of games this week at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario with a few thousand of my closest friends as the Indians only have eight home games in July and…well, the way this thing is going, I’m not sure how the team I’m going to be that interested to see the team after July if the Indians are still maintaining their “consistent approach” of playing middling players at the wrong position, capturing defeat from the jaws of victory, and overwhelmingly sucking the life out of any optimism we may feel for the team.

Nevertheless, and with that rosy picture painted, let’s release some Tommies:
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In case you haven’t noticed (and the empty seats in the Mezz near me tell me that may not have), the Indians are now 2-13 in their last 15 games against Milwaukee, the Cubs, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and the White Sox. The combined winning percentage of those six teams, year to date as of Thursday, is .501 (193-192).

Against a mix of teams whose combined records almost improbably suggest that the Indians were facing the MLB average, the Indians went 2-13.

In case you were wondering, the next off day is Monday before the West Coast trip, then the All-Star Break a week later…have I ever mentioned that off days are nice days to make a change?
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After Castro’s justified tirade in which he joined my long-stated confusion as to why The Ben Francisco Treat continues to receive steady AB for this team (check out this comparison from April 30th of how Michaels and Dellucci were actually more productive than Frisco), I thought I would do a little research as to how The Frisco Kid has fared this year against Andy Sonnanstine of the Rays and against all pitchers not named Andy Sonnanstine.

I’m not sure if your stomach is ready for this, but…
Frisco vs. Andy Sonnanstine – 2009
1.000 BA / 1.000 OBP / 4.250 SLG / 5.250 OPS with 3 HR, 8 RBI in 4 plate appearances

Frisco vs. non-Andy Sonnanstine pitchers – 2009
.213 BA / .293 OBP / .286 SLG / .579 OPS with 1 HR, 15 RBI in 266 plate appearances

Take away Frisco’s four (FOUR!) AB against Sonnanstine and you’re looking at a player that’s challenging for the lowest OPS in MLB among players with more than 250 plate appearances. A 23-year-old Luis Valbuena has an OPS that is 50 points higher than Francisco (non-Sonnanstine division) this year!

Would now be a good time to mention that Francisco has the 5th most plate appearances of anyone on the team to date?

Didn’t the Royals once express an interest in obtaining Francisco…assuming they don’t see those numbers for the now-27-year-old, any chance there still might be some interest?

How many times can these rhetorical questions be written about Frisco until he stops seeing everyday AB…would now finally be a good time?
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Much has been made regarding the importance of Fausto Carmona to the Indians going forward (admittedly by me, and I think we can come to the conclusion that his impact on the 2009 season was not a positive one), so we’ve all been watching these box scores as Fausto makes his way up the minor-league ladder in the hopes that he can somehow find his 2007 self down there on the farm.

To that end, Al Ciammaichella over at Tony Lastoria’s Indians’ Prospect Insider attended Carmona’s rehab start for Akron in Bowie and while Fausto’s stat line certainly looked good (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K), Al went that extra mile after the contest and called the Bowie Bay Sox director of media relations to see if he could speak to Bowie manager Brad Komminsk (yes, that one…the old Aeros’ manager) and his coaching staff about Carmona, his stuff, and the Bowie hitters approach to Carmona.

Here’s the report from the Bowie side via Al at his post at IPI:
When I asked Komminsk what he thought about Fausto’s start, the first thing he said was, “that is just not the same Fausto.” He said that Fausto used to be a power pitcher, aggressively attacking hitters with his fastball to set up his devastating sinker as his out pitch. He thinks that Carmona is a good 8 MPH slower on average with his pitches, and is trying to be a finesse guy. He mentioned a couple of times that all Carmona really did was do a good job getting a poor-hitting AA team out for 7 innings (Bowie’s roster doesn't have much in the way of position player prospects now that Brandon Snyder has been called up to AAA). I asked him and hitting coach Moe Hill if they told their hitters to make any adjustments for Fausto (lay off the sinker, make him throw strikes etc), and they both said no.

Komminsk, Hill and pitching coach Larry McCall all said that his sinker was nothing special Tuesday night. McCall did say that Carmona’s slider was better Tuesday night than he remembered, but he could’'t understand why Carmona has gotten away from throwing his changeup, which McCall thought could be an out pitch for him. McCall and Hill agreed with Komminsk that Carmona had gotten away from his power-pitching mentality; McCall even went as far as to say that Carmona looked like a “right-handed Jeremy Sowers out there.” Ouch. Komminsk and Hill both said that the strike zone was “huge” in the game for Carmona, and Komminsk said he thought that Carlos Santana framed the ball well enough behind the plate to get Carmona a number of borderline pitches that shouldn't have been called strikes.

Komminsk seemed almost frustrated with Carmona’s outing. He said that Carmona was one of the best pitchers he has coached, and can’t understand why he has gotten away from the power pitching mentality that made him so successful. McCall closed our conversation by telling me that he thought Carmona was better when he saw him pitch for the K-Tribe several years ago in Kinston than he was last night.

Tremendous stuff from Al, but…oof.
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As for another pitcher who brings up very emotional reactions, can we all just agree that Chris Perez’s first outing went just about as poorly as one can imagine and move on from there?

Let’s hold off on sending the package with the Ricky Vaughn glasses down to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario to his attention because of a lousy inning of wildness and let’s hold off on dubbing him a “bust” after one outing.

Perez is still, as Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus says, “as blue as blue-chip relief prospects get” and while that may not say much about relief prospects, Perez’s standing as a potential future closer is almost universal in the baseball community. Beyond looking simply at him, Kahrl has (in the same piece) a tremendous take on the acquisition of Chris Perez in the greater sense of what could be called a seismic shift in organizational thought pertaining to bullpen “philosophy”:
Now, perhaps acquiring Perez, as blue as blue-chip relief prospects get without getting overly oxymoronic, reflects something of an adaptation, as the Indians forgo the indignities of employing roster nomads of various price points, and just go get somebody who's young and can deal mid-90s heat.

After watching the last few years of relievers, is anyone else ready for an “adaptation” in acquiring bullpen arms?
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As for the other bullpen arms that may be following suit in that “adaptation”, FOX Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi was the first to report two of the alleged names on the PTBNL list from the Cardinals, Jess Todd and Francisco Samuel.

The first name on the list is that of RHP Jess Todd, who was ranked as the #5 prospect in the Cards’ organization going into this year by Baseball Prospectus (Chris Perez was #3) who has posted a career MiLB 2.80 ERA, 1.04 WHIP with a high 9.1 K/9, a manageable 2.4 BB/9 since being a 2nd round pick out of Arkansas in 2007. While those numbers are certainly good, his performance this year as a 23-year-old in AAA certainly represents his best effort to date, posting 45 K to 9 BB in 36 IP while compiling a 2.50 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP.

The fact that this season is the best that Todd has put together is relevant because this is the first year that Todd has been used exclusively out of the bullpen and his response to that transition (he’s finished 24 out of the 30 games he’s pitched in AAA with improvements across the board) is what has put him on the prospect map and resulted in him getting a taste (albeit a brief one with one appearance on June 5th) of MLB about a month ago.

The transition to the bullpen for Todd is detailed quite nicely here with the piece stating that he throws a low-90’s fastball and commands his slider very well and presupposes that the two-pitch mix will play well out of the bullpen, which it obviously has in Memphis.

Todd would look to be a pretty safe bet to be able to contribute right away and the fact that he was not simply chosen as the PTBNL leads me to believe that the Indians are waiting to see what happens with the other name purported to be on the list, Francisco Samuel.

Samuel is the 22-year-old closer for the Cards’ AA affiliate whose K/9 rate of 11.1 this year shows that he definitely has the ability to miss bats but (not unlike Perez) sometimes he’s missing bats because the ball ends up outside the strike zone, as his otherworldly 8.0 BB/9 rate this year attests. He’s currently sitting on a 4.55 ERA and a 1.58 WHIP portends that he may still be harnessing the 94 MPH to 95 MPH “stuff” that FutureRedbirds.com said last September is the key to his development:
“You also have to wonder if he will add even more to his 94-98 MPH fastball as he fills out. There’s a lot to dream on with Samuel, you just hope that he gets his control to at least a passable level.”

While the other name (or names) remains a mystery (and the Indians have until September 1st to make a decision), the two names listed give you the idea that the Indians are rightfully looking to stack their upper levels with bullpen arms and Todd represents a close-to-MLB-ready choice that may never develop into a true “back-end” type of reliever but could be the steady presence that the Indians have lacked while Samuel is a pitcher that they can watch to see if his control improves to add another viably electric arm to the bullpen mix.

If you’re asking me, without knowing who those names are…just go on and take Todd already – he’s an upgrade over what the Tribe has in the system and he could help tomorrow.

But that’s me, sitting up in the Mezz wanting for this madness to end.
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Speaking of wanting this madness to end, think back to June 15th if you will…the Indians had just pulled to within 6 games of 1st place and, while they still resided in the AL Central cellar, their victory over the Cardinals on a Sunday afternoon gave them a 7-4 record in their previous 11 games, ready to make up ground in the division.

The Brewers were in town and the Indians were up in the first game of the series by a 12-7 count headed into the 7th inning. A mere nine outs away from another step closer to .500 and hopefully another step up the ladder in the AL Central.

What happened on the way to those nine outs can best be summarized here and I was going to embed the video, but it's just too painful.

You want the death knell for the season?
There it is in living color and moving pictures…Wedge’s Waterloo, out there for everyone to witness as the bullpen meltdown punctuated by Prince’s Granny has put the Indians into a 2-15 tailspin, providing the final nail for the 2009 coffin.

Have I mentioned that next Monday is the next off day after todays off day and that the All-Star Break begins a week after that?
Also, have I mentioned that off days are good days to make changes?

What To Watch For

At the risk of bowing to the ESPNification of sports news with that title (of which I recently heard Fox Sports’ Andrew Siciliano refer to as “Bristol Red”, which has a nice Kremlinesque feel to it in terms of dictating what’s relevant to the average consumer by packaging sports information in neat little packages because the average sports fan can’t handle much more), with the 2009 season over before July 4th, it struck me how the next month may reveal quite a bit in terms of how this organization views the near future and who is involved in that future.

While it’s technically true that more than half the season still awaits us (HOORAY!), the real truth lies in the fact that prior to the Trading Deadline at the end of July, the seeds for 2010 and beyond may be sown in terms of management, players, and organizational approach. The tone of the moves (or non-moves) that occur over the next month then, will go a long way in determining whether contending in 2010 is remotely feasible and what players will be involved in next season, as well as who will be filling the names of said players into the lineup card.

The biggest question that will be answered in the next month is whether Wedge makes it past the All-Star Break as there is a point after which the firing of Wedge doesn’t really differ that much from waiting until the off-season to do so. Whether he stays or whether he goes, however, is suddenly intrinsically connected to Shapiro and the power that he wields in the organization as Shapiro has repeatedly (and surprisingly, publicly) come out in defense of Wedge and calling a firing of the manager a “cop out” as blame falls on more shoulders than just Wedge’s.

While that is certainly true, what Shapiro has done is painted himself into a corner in terms of his relationship with Wedge and put his own standing in the organization out there as a result. By not just publicly backing Wedge (which would have been the trite “vote of confidence” that so often precedes a firing) with the “we think he’s doing a good job” nonsense, Shapiro stated that “winning is an organizational result”, meaning that he’s putting himself into the same boat as Wedge, sink or swim…almost to the point that it could be viewed as a package deal, the two of them.

The wisdom of this strategy can certainly be debated as a very real scenario emerges in which Shapiro pleads his case to the Dolans to keep Wedge and they overrule him, believing that a change in field management is one way to stop the bleeding. If that happens, Shapiro’s power in the organization immediately (and very publicly) diminishes considerably as his hand-picked manager that he backed through some very troubling times has been fired, despite his public protests, and the freedom which the Dolans reportedly allow him in terms of decisions would almost certainly be cut considerably as a by-product, even if it is just seen that way in the public arena.

Of course, there is another scenario that could play out that would end just as badly if Shapiro pleads his case to the Dolans to keep Wedge and they do, with more of the same putrid results continuing as the season goes on and even into next. Suddenly, Shapiro has lumped himself into the “organizational result” of failure, right alongside the manager whose job he pleaded to save. Maybe Shapiro’s head doesn’t hit the chopping block immediately, but again his power diminishes considerably, perhaps even more than the first scenario as Shapiro’s pleas to keep Wedge result in more losses (whether they’re Wedge’s fault or not), fan apathy, and the sense that the Dolans waited too long to make a change.

Of course, the only other possible scenario that emerges is that the Indians (suddenly and miraculously) start their annual second-half push with Wedge at the controls. Whether this is simply another case of too-little, too-late or not, it gives the Shapiro-Wedge dynamic the ammunition to live another day, pointing to the “fact” that the team, once healthy and whole, met or exceeded expectations placed upon it as the season started.

This final scenario feeds into another point of interest over the next month or so as the Indians are beginning to get healthy and the lineup is close to looking as it did on Opening Day (with options still being available from AAA) while the likes of Westbrook and Laffey may emerge from rehab starts to re-join the rotation. What I’m getting at here is that there may be a point sometime in July when the Indians team looks like it was designed to look when Spring Training broke (minus DeRosa), with the talent from the minors arriving as players like Westbrook return to put the roster pretty much in line with where it was designed to be when all of the best-laid plans were still in play.

So the question becomes – how does THAT team play?
With a rotation of Lee, Westbrook, Laffey, Huff, and maybe Carmona…with a bullpen with Wood and a healthy Betancourt at the back end, and with every significant member of the lineup (allegedly) healthy and ready to play every day, what will that team do?

If the hope was that the 2009 team could stay close enough (they couldn’t) until Westbrook was healthy and LaPorta, Huff, and the like were ready to help, now that those things are happening, what does this team look like and what does it portend for 2010…is it really the possibility of contending next year?

This leads us to the next pertinent question that will find an answer in the next month, which is whether the Indians are legitimately considering trading Cliff Lee and what it would tell us about how the organization feels about their chances to contend in 2010. According to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (via a video), the Indians are INDEED listening to offers for CP Lee, who Rosenthal’s sources tell him is as good as gone from the North Coast after the 2010 season, intent on testing the FA waters.

This certainly represents a sharp departure from what we’ve previously read in terms of the Indians having to be “overwhelmed” to consider trading a season and a half of Lee at a wildly affordable price…or does it?

Isn’t this just a toe in the water to see if a team would be willing to part with some valuable pieces for Lee? Rosenthal states that the Rangers are a team that could match the Indians’ demands with Neftali Feliz and Derek Holland being the type of high-end pitching prospects either in AAA or MLB that the Indians are reportedly asking for. But if this is the case and this is allegedly what the Indians are looking for in return (and I can’t imagine that Rosenthal came up with the Rangers or these names out of thin air, or with the names of Tommy Hanson and Clay Buchholz in his previous piece), what does the inclusion of players who would still be cutting their teeth in MLB in 2010 tell us about the Front Office’s expectations for 2010?

It would be folly to assume that if the Indians traded Clifton Phifer for pitching prospects (whether they were purported to be of the “can’t miss” variety or not) and not players that immediately slot into the front of the rotation, that 2010 would be nothing more than another “year to build upon”. That is, let’s just say for a moment that the Indians traded Lee for Neftali Perez and Derek Holland, two starters under the age of 22 who are either in AAA or are in MLB. While that certainly adds impact arms to the system at the upper levels, look at what it does to the 2010 rotational mix without Lee:
Westbrook
Laffey
Carmona
Huff
Perez/Holland
Does that look like a rotation designed to compete in 2010…or more like a group of young pitchers (save Westbrook) that will need to mature as a rotation to contend in 2011 and beyond?

The question that’s going to be answered if the Indians move Lee, and for what, is whether the Front Office is pointing at 2010 as a legitimate year to contend or if they’re dealing or are they looking at the team as it’s presently constructed and imagining a longer timeframe?

While you’re thinking about that, take a look at this quote from Shapiro in an excellent piece by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN in which he dissects what has gone wrong for this organization since the 2007 ALCS:
"I truly believe in my heart that we're going to be back in the playoffs again in the next three years…As much as I feel [the fans'] pain, I can't get caught up in the emotion of the history here. I don't believe we're going to be a bad team. I don't believe this is the beginning of another 40 years of losing. I believe this is a bad season. That's what it is."

Look past the histrionics of “feeling pain” and “a bad season” for a moment and look at the most important aspect of this piece. Now, realizing that Shapiro has already learned his lesson on putting specific dates on a return to anything after fans held the “we’ll contend in…” over his head after the Colon deal, what can be gleaned (if anything) from this “we’re going to be back in the playoffs again in the next three years”?

Obviously, for him to say “we’re going to make the playoffs next year” is a foolish statement to make, but is this a glimpse into the mindset of the Front Office as it stands today?

That is, there seems to be two camps of thought that are developing in their perception of the Indians – one camp perceives the Indians to be miles away from competing and advocates re-tooling for the 2011 season, when the likes of LaPorta, Huff, Rondon, Santana, Brantley, and Weglarz are all ready to contribute and feel that augmenting the team, with that date in mind, is the direction to go while the other camp sees a team that isn’t too far away from contention in 2010 with a healthy and deeper rotation, a lineup that would boast impact players at multiple positions, and a bullpen that…well, could the bullpen really be any worse.

Which camp is the Front Office in?
Whether or not CP Lee is an Indian on August 1st is going to go a long way in revealing their feeling as there’s no question that Lee is a vitally important piece to the team in terms of competitiveness for 2010 and (unless the Indians are netting a front-of-the-rotation starter that can be considered their ace from the moment he dons a Tribe uni…which is the ideal) him not being at the top of the Tribe rotation in 2010 means that the idea of Indians’ contention in 2010 is pretty far-fetched…to the tune of the Indians’ starters not named Cliff Lee compiling a 6.27 ERA and a 1.61 WHIP this year over 62 starts and 326 IP.

Here’s the rub in this whole Clifton Phifer situation though – we all know he’s leaving after 2010 and while the reaction to losing an elite starter via trade a full year and a half prior to him being a FA is going to be severe, it’s not as it Lee is a fan favorite like, say Victor (also a FA after 2010 after his club option is picked up) is and while his worth to the competitiveness to the team is unquestioned, the overall sentiment that Lee can’t wait to get out of Cleveland and that he’s not exactly a warm and fuzzy guy is pretty all-encompassing just from watching his demeanor. So…do the Indians strike when the iron is hot and there is a year and a half of Lee to offer at a wildly affordable rate, do they wait to see how the 1st half of 2010 progresses before making a decision, or do they simply risk watching Lee walk away after 2010 with nothing coming back to the organization in return more than a compensatory draft pick?

Back to 2010 though – if these two schools of thought exist (one that thinks the team is years away from contending and should cash in ALL their chips now to get ready for 2011 and one that thinks that this team is a couple of tweaks away from contending in what likely figures to be another weak AL Central next year, where do the people whose opinion matter (the ones making the decision) reside?

Whether or not Cliff Lee is traded in the next month will probably be the best indication of such as, sure, the Tribe could trade Lee in the off-season – but if you’re talking about maximizing return to ready the team for a run AFTER 2010, now would be the time to strike. If they do strike though, and don’t get a legitimate replacement for Lee in the rotation for next year, 2010 immediately becomes a non-factor.

Beyond what happens to Wedge and Lee and (gasp) Victor before the end of the month, the most telling action taken by the organization will be how they handle what could be called their “middle tier” of MLB talent and the players below them. Players like Garko, Frisco, Sowers, and Shoppach have now all had significant amounts of time to establish themselves in MLB and each has done so with varying degrees of success. How the Indians handle playing time for these players (when players like LaPorta, Brantley, Huff, Torregas, and Santana are getting closer to being ready to legitimately contribute consistently on the MLB level…or at least get the chance to do so if they haven’t already) as the season winds down will be telling as it will again foretell how quickly the Indians want to ingratiate their young talent into the mix at the expense of players that may have value to a MLB club, just not as much more than a minor complementary part.

Certainly, the possibility exists that the Indians get aggressive with their youngsters and look to move a player like Garko, Shoppach, or The Frisco Kid in an attempt to add more pitching regardless of level, but that brings up the final question that will be answered this month – how deep will this swath go in terms of players being traded? Pavano seems like a certainty to be moved and maybe a player like Betancourt (who the team holds a $5.4M option on for next year) could be shopped once he’s healthy (or at least approached about adding another guaranteed year to spread out that money), but how aggressive will the Indians be in adding the arms that are so desperately needed? Will they simultaneously play the role of buyer and seller to take advantage of the market and add arms for what could be termed “expendable” talent?

It’s one of many questions that figures to be answered in the next month, which could see a new manager, a GM with reduced power, a glimpse into whether contention in 2010 is seen as a possibility by the Front Office, and an idea of what players the organization should be on the field on August 1st.

A Lazy Sunday with Some Action Taken

Remember the whole “at this point, play the waiting game - if Cards won't part with Chris Perez and Mets won't trade Bobby Parnell right now...wait for them to become desperate enough to be willing to part with a young impact arm for a few months of DeRosa” from Thursday’s piece?

That took about a day and a half as news that Mark DeRosa has, in fact, been traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Perez and a PTBNL (which will handled in a manner similar to way that Mike Brantley was selected by the Indians off of a list of possibilities at the conclusion of the MiLB seasons) as the Indians decided that the time was now to cash in their biggest trading chip and add the young, MLB-ready arm that they are so badly in need of.

DeRosa’s departure brings a quick end to his tenure as an Indian, one in which he found himself traded for bullpen prospects and netted the team (at least) one bullpen prospect with the time in between spent patrolling 3B, 1B, LF, and RF all while providing the steady contributions that the Indians thought they were acquiring last New Year’s Eve.

His departure, however, also trumpets the arrival of Chris Perez, a RHP power reliever who has worked his fastball and slider mix into a quick trip to MLB after being a 1st round pick in 2006. After signing with the Cards, he spent the remainder of the 2006 season in A ball, striking out 32 batters in 29 1/3 IP (while also walking 19), then spent 2007 in AA and AAA, compiling an ERA of 2.96, a WHIP of 1.17 and striking out 77 batters in 54 1/3 IP.

Last year, Perez started the season with the Cards’ AAA affiliate and earned a shot to contribute to the parent club at the age of 22 by dominating in Memphis, with a WHIP of 1.18 and striking out 38 batters in just 25 1/3 IP. He arrived in St. Louis in mid-May and worked his way up the Cardinals’ bullpen ladder, finishing 23 of the 41 games that he pitched in and notching 7 saves in the season as his gaudy K numbers continued (42 K in 41 2/3 IP), but the control issues that hampered him somewhat in his MiLB career raised a bit of a red flag, with 22 BB in those 41 2/3 IP. This year, after a brief stint in AAA Memphis to start the season, he re-emerged in St. Louis as a back-end option with the same devastating K numbers (30 K in 23 2/3 IP), but the same inconsistency in terms of allowing walks (15 BB in those 23 2/3 IP).

Perez’s ability to miss bats is his strength, as his high K numbers suggest as does the fact that MLB hitters have posted a .195 BA against him this season; but his inability to throw strikes at times presents the downside with a young arm like Perez. That, however, should not be taken to be a downer in the acquisition, though, as Perez brings a repertoire of a fastball and a slider that the Indians simply do not possess among their home-grown relievers and the fact that he is so young certainly portends good things.

How young is he?
He’ll turn 24 on July 1st and has already logged 65 1/3 IP over the last two seasons in MLB.
How does that age rank in terms of Indians’ pitchers?
He’s immediately the youngest pitcher for the Indians and is older than only Chuck Lofgren (by 7 months) among pitchers in Columbus.
If you were looking for a young, MLB-ready, impact arm for the Indians bullpen as a return for DeRosa, Perez is about as good a fit as you’re going to find.

But, the Indians got “only” a reliever for DeRosa when the market was reported to be so hot for him?
I suppose if you want to look at it that way, you certainly can – but the Indians are desperately in need of young, talented arms that can contribute from Day 1 in the rotation or in the bullpen and will remain under club control for the foreseeable future. With a not-yet-24-year-old RH reliever who can touch 99 MPH on the gun (and usually sits in the mid-90s with the fastball) with a complementary wicked slider who has 7 career saves with over 65 IP to date on his resume, Perez fits that bill. Throw in the fact that the earliest he MAY be eligible for arbitration is after next year and you begin to see that Perez is about as close as the Indians were going to come in terms of maximizing their return for a couple of months for DeRosa, particularly when you look at how Perez fills their needs.

Obviously, acquiring Perez is not a panacea for the bullpen and obtaining a high-ceiling reliever is certainly not without risks (as his high BB rate can attest), but the Indians find themselves in a position where they need impact arms now and they need those impact arms in the bullpen most of all. If what Baseball Prospectus’ 2009 Annual said about Perez before the season that “the Cardinals’ closer of the future has a classic plus-fastball/plus-slider combination; he’s only a modicum of improved control away from being elite” is even close to true (they had Perez as their 66th best prospect in all of MLB coming into the season), then any risk associated with Perez is easy to accept, particularly when the player that the Indians give up to net him is essentially a rent-a-player for the Cards.

The other factor that will be interesting to watch in the DeRosa deal is how this PTBNL shakes out because you almost have to assume that it’s going to be another arm, given what the Tribe is targeting. According to Castro, “GM Mark Shapiro said the PTBN component is an important one, akin to the Coco Crisp and Michael Brantley acquisitions in the past” which means that DeRosa-for-Perez straight up is not the whole deal and, according to Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (or at least his Twitter account), “the quality of the player to be named later is tied into whether the Cardinals sign DeRosa to stay beyond this season.”
So throw that log on the fire.

All told, obviously passing judgment on a deal less than 12 hours after said deal is consummated is obviously wildly premature. But if the thought was out there that DeRosa was the best chip to upgrade the talent in the organization in terms of bringing an impact arm, and one that was either MLB-tested or MLB-ready, Perez is a pretty good net result in what the boys at Viva El Birdos feel will be “four years from now this will be remembered as the Chris Perez trade.”

Moving on from DeRosa (though certainly not done with it), let’s roll right into a Lazy Sunday because…well, it’s Sunday:
On the topic of what’s gone wrong with the Indians, Jay Levin of the LGT espouses some theories in a piece called “However Beautiful the Strategy” that really gets to the crux of where the Indians find themselves and how they got there. Unsurprisingly from Levin, it’s a well-thought out, insightful piece that breaks down all of the potential “this went wrong” ideas clearly and lays out very specifically what aspects of the organization may have failed and how each may have done so.
Set aside some time to read this and don’t simply click the link, see that it’s a long piece, scan it quickly, and move on…no, read it even if it takes a while because it’s absolutely worth your time.

As for the “Wedge Watch”, for an interesting look at whether changing a manager mid-season has, historically, resulted in a “bump” in terms of performance on the field, The Hardball Times has a comprehensive analysis of that very question. At this point, I think a “bump” that could put the Indians back into contention for 2009 isn’t happening here, regardless of who comes in, if only because it would take everything that has gone so horribly wrong for the team to simply turn on a dime and go so unbelievably right…and that just isn’t going to happen.

As for whether that move for a new manager will happen this year, it certainly sounds as if Shapiro is stepping in front of his manager, ready to take a bullet even if, as Jon Heymann reports:
One person with ties to the Indians claims things have gotten “stale,” and perhaps a change wouldn't be such a bad thing. At 30-43, they are surely one of baseball's most underachieving teams. “Maybe they need a new voice,” that person said.
Shapiro disagrees: "I don't think a new voice is going to change the bullpen's performance."
Maybe so, and Wedge should be safe as long as Shapiro continues to believe Wedge isn't the problem. And even if Shapiro's bosses don't share that sentiment, the club-owning Dolans do believe in their GM, who is expected to eventually be promoted to club president. So it would be something of a surprise if they overruled Shapiro now.

Anyone else following this thing, while the voice in your head says, “like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives…”

Switching gears to the obligatory “Will the Indians trade Cliff Lee” stack, Ken Rosenthal reports that the Dodgers have inquired about Clifton Phifer (no surprise there) and that the Indians have said that they will entertain moving him “if they are offered a potential top-of-the-rotation starter at the level of the Braves' Tommy Hanson or Red Sox's Clay Buchholz.”

Truthfully, I’m not sure that a return like a Tommy Hanson or a Clay Buchholz justifies trading a year and a half of wildly affordable innings from a LH Cy Young Award winner. Hanson and Buchholz, between them, have 22 MLB starts with simply not enough time to draw legitimate opinions about either. The 22-year-old Hanson just emerged from AAA and while early reports are positive, they are just that – early reports. Meanwhile, the 23-year-old Buchholz is constantly put forth as this wildly hyped prospect, but in 18 games in MLB, he’s posted a 5.56 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP with a 1.84 K/BB ratio.

What would it really take?
Well, if the Dodgers are interested, guys who are young and have proven themselves in MLB like Clayton Kershaw (a 21-year-old with a career 4.05 ERA and a career 1.43 WHIP over 35 starts) or Chad Billingsley (a 24-year-old with a career 3.24 ERA and a career 1.38 WHIP over 83 career starts) are exactly who would fit the bill.

But (back to Rosenthal), “the Dodgers' best young starting pitchers, right-hander Chad Billingsley and lefty Clayton Kershaw, are part of the major-league rotation and all but untouchable” so there’s that answer or if Jayson Stark is to be believed on the topic, “What the Indians have told those teams is that they'd “have to be overwhelmed” to deal Lee. But given the lack of top-of-the-rotation alternatives, is it possible that somebody could succeed in overwhelming them? Sure, theoretically -- especially if the overwhelming offer included a future No. 1-type starter. But the Brewers aren't trading Yovani Gallardo. The Dodgers aren't trading Clayton Kershaw. The Phillies aren't trading Cole Hamels, or even Kyle Drabek. So it's doubtful any of those deals can happen.”

While that may be true, that kind of return is what the Indians should be targeting, if they do move a season and a half of Lee if you take a look at what the team trading for Lee would be netting. That return would be a LH pitcher scheduled to make a little less than $12M over the next SEASON AND A HALF (less than $3M still owed to him in 2009 and $9M owed to him in 2010) who is currently sitting on the 3rd highest VORP in MLB a year after posting the highest VORP.

Seeing what other pitchers are providing this year for a little more money this year over ONE year, it’s not a stretch to hear the Indians ask for more than just a AAA “can‘t miss” prospect at this point due to the amount of time that Lee would be pitching and the affordability of his deal. Oh, and another reason that the Indians should ask for the“moon and the stars” if they did to decide to move Lee can again be best seen here in Joel Sherman’s piece from last week that the Indians are nothing without Lee in 2010 and the events of the past week haven’t changed that, making Sherman’s argument as relevant as ever.

Changes are afoot and the first domino has fallen in the DeRosa deal…what next?

Time for Some Action

Maybe Wedge is staying, maybe Wedge is going – who knows at this point – but if he stays, if he goes, there’s no question that the time “to talk of many things, of shoes and ships…” has long since passed and internal meetings that should have been initiated when this team was 14-26 on May 19th (you may remember that as the FIRST time they went 12 games under .500) should now be over and the suggestion by the estimable Cypress Hill that it is “time for some action” needs to find some footing. That action needs to come, loud and decisive, to right the wrongs of the season and to attempt to cast an eye towards 2010 not turning into another lost season.

Tuesday’s moves obviously represented a good start with Sizemore coming up to replace a not-surprisingly-overwhelmed Trevor Crowe and slotting Tony “Don’t Give Up the” Sipp to replace a Jose Vizcaino who isn’t in the Indians’ long-term plans and, frankly, wasn’t really ever in their short-term plans. The next move to bring Cabrera up to play SS everyday and bat leadoff (presumably until Grady tells someone that he’s ready to ascend back to his perch at the top, with Carroll serving as a RH complement to Valbuena at 2B with Barfield almost assuredly going back to Columbus) is going to be another step in the right direction.

Guess what, though…those guys (Grady and Asdrubal) haven’t been gone all that long and their return isn’t going to be a sudden balm for all that ails the Indians and if each performs as they’re expected to, warm fuzzies aren’t going to suddenly replace this emptiness inside.

What should be done, you ask?
Well, I’m glad that you did because I’ve broken it up into things that should be done today, things that need to happen in the next month and things that need to happen as the season winds down for the Indians…and no, Eric Wedge’s name isn’t mentioned as I’ve already said my peace on him:

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NOW
Fire Chuck Hernandez as bullpen coach, Promote Scott Radinsky
If you want heads to roll (and there is certainly a bloodlust out there), how about starting with the coach that’s presided over this mess of a pen and allow the move that should have happened in the off-season to finally occur? The Indians’ bullpen has been the Achilles’ heel of the team all season (well, one of them) and the notion that relievers emerge from AAA “fixed” or at least more effective when they left lends credence to the notion put forth by Ken Rosenthal some time back that Hernandez’s strength as a coach is not in identifying and fixing mechanical flaws.

Too often, we see players arrive from Columbus with a renewed effectiveness or a new approach and, for the lack of discerning anything else out of that, the bullpen coaches in Cleveland and Columbus would have to have some bearing on that.

Would the move be a minor one?
For sure, as I challenge anyone to tell me exactly what a bullpen coach does; but this goes back to the notion that maintaining the status quo when the status quo is not working suggests that a change is needed and what better place is there to start than the bullpen.

Once Radinsky came topside, I'd ask him who the best 6 relievers are that he’s seen this year in Columbus (everyone but Lewis and Wood have spent time there) and make that your bullpen along with Kerry Wood. If that includes Chulk, call up Chulk…if that doesn’t include Sipp, send Sipp down. Newly acquired Jose Veras and pitchers of his ilk need not apply in this scenario, but if the Indians want to search out that “lightning in a bottle” again, it’s at their own risk.

At this point, the Indians shouldn’t be married to any one of their relievers (save Wood, of course, if only because of the contract) and if a fresh set of eyes is needed to get a better picture of where this bullpen stands and what it should be, Radinsky should be the owner of those new eyes.

Call up LaPorta to play him every day at 1B, send Gimenez to AAA
Is it time to declare the “Ryan Garko Era” over yet or can we concede that the team should have sold high on Kelly Show Pack? If the answer is yes on both counts (and it is), then it’s time to give the keys to 1B to Matt LaPorta. With him at 1B, Martinez goes back to being the full-time C and is DH when Cliff Lee pitches (because you know CP wants ShopVac back there for him) to give Hafner a day off from time to time.

I’m pretty sure that everyone is aware who LaPorta is, what he’s done as a Minor Leaguer, what he’s done this year, and how he was mishandled in his first stint with the team in terms of the organization (regardless of whose intent it was) allowing lesser players with “track records” (and that’s not just The Looch) to play instead of LaPorta.

Right away, somebody needs to sit down with The GateKeeper (that’s LaPorta) to tell him that he’s going to play every day, more often than not at 1B and to just relax and play baseball. Whether that “somebody” has a facial tic while the conversation is occurring really doesn’t matter to me, but if the Indians have potential deficiencies at 1B (with Garko and Shoppach underperforming and Victor essentially slotting back to catch every day), I'd like to hear the argument that LaPorta has not earned the first shot to take the mantle of 1B and run with it or at least play out the season without interruption from “getting AB” for Frisco and Garko.

The only reason that Gimenez gets the demotion instead of Garko (who could be sent to the DL with this wrist thing just as easily) is because I'd rather see Gimenez get everyday AB in AAA and his development means something to the team as a super-utility player, a role that will be vacated by DeRosa in the next month. Thus, tell Gimenez that he’ll be back in less than a month regardless of how he performs and allow Garko to essentially turn into a late-inning pinch hitter against LHP with an occasional DH start to rest Hafner if he so needs it.

Slot Laffey into the ROTATION when healthy, move Sowers to the bullpen
This really shouldn’t even be a question, although it has been argued that Laffey’s success as a reliever after being moved there could mean that his return to the bullpen would provide some needed stability. However, if Laffey’s future is in the rotation and not in the bullpen (and it is), why not get him used to pitching every 5th day in MLB again?

Laffey has proven himself to be, right now, a credible back-end-of-the-rotation starter who could top out as high as a #3 in the rotation when he’s really rolling. For a guy that just turned 24 in April and has a career ERA+ of 106 over 177 1/3 innings pitched, isn’t it time to just put him in the rotation, give him the ball every five games and dispense with the “he warms up fast” nonsense and maximize his ability as a starter?

Speaking on “he warms up fast”, the corresponding move that goes with this should not be to send Tomo Ohka on his way (that will come soon enough), but rather to send Jeremy Sowers to the bullpen to assume the reins as the long man in the bullpen. It’s been said that he takes a long time to warm up, so…how about giving him ample time to do so and seeing if he can eat some innings for the Indians? He has nothing left to prove in the Minors (2.47 ERA, 1.17 WHIP), but also has shown himself to not be an MLB starter.

Not that I’m breaking any new ground here, but Sowers actually does well in his first and (to a lesser extent) second times through the lineup so why not utilize him to pitch innings 3 to 7 when a starter bottoms out? I’m not saying that moving him to the bullpen immediately saves the season, but these opponents’ numbers are hard to ignore:
Facing Sowers 1st time in a game
.209 BA / .250 OBP / .343 SLG / .593 OPS

Facing Sowers 2nd time in a game
.281 BA / .347 OBP / .453 SLG / .800 OPS

Facing Sowers 3rd time in a game
.500 BA / .647 OBP / .818 SLG / 1.465 OPS

What does that mean and why does that happen?
Who knows, but if the Indians are playing the hand that’s dealt to them right now in terms of players, how about maximizing these guys and playing up to their strength? Sowers’ strength may not be going 6 shutout innings and blowing anyone away, but if he can be an effective long man and go 3 to 4 innings to save the bullpen as a whole by pitching for an extended period if a starter goes off the tracks, there’s his spot.

With Sowers out of options after this year and having proven that he’s not a viable MLB starter, how about giving him a look in another role before simply seeing another #1 pick bound away with nothing but bad feelings around? Would he thrive as a long man and potentially contribute in 2010 in that role, one that good bullpens have the luxury of carrying?
There’s one way to find out.

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN SOON
Trade Mark DeRosa for arm, or arms (plural), if possible
Let’s get this out of the way at the top – Mark DeRosa shouldn’t be on the Indians this year. If the Indians acquired DeRosa to play 3B (and everything they said gave that impression and his playing patterns certainly confirm that), then the Indians’ organization was drastically misguided to make him their offensive addition of the off-season given that Peralta was playing 3B in winter ball and made the permanent move to 3B before Memorial Day (one he is not happy about apparently, in terms of the timing of it).

DeRosa essentially found himself in the super-utility role that Casey Blake was never really specifically put into and his ability to play multiple positions and play them well is a valuable commodity, just not on a team with more glaring needs in the off-season and not for a team that already had a 3B-in-training in Peralta. He was brought in to replace Casey Blake (which he has done admirably), but with issues facing the rotation and with the knowledge that Cabrera would eventually be the SS and Peralta would eventually be the 3B with no plans to play DeRosa at 2B, he finds himself just as expendable as Casey Blake last year – a tremendous complementary part on a team that is in need of principal parts, not complementary ones.
In terms of his value, the Casey Blake comparison is actually frighteningly relevant if you take a look at what Blake put forth in 2008 and what DeRosa has done to date this year:
Blake 2008 – Age 34
.289 BA / .365 OBP / .465 SLG / .830 OPS with 11 HR in 368 plate appearances

DeRosa 2009 – Age 34
.273 BA / .346 OBP / .464 SLG / .810 OPS with 13 HR in 302 plate appearances

If Blake’s trade made sense last year in terms of a 34-year-old versatile player who would command money on the FA market after the season that would be better used in other areas for the Indians, than DeRosa’s value should make sense as well. Not unlike the Blake situation, the Indians may be able to net a nice haul from an NL team in need of a versatile veteran to fill the gaps for their team as they make a playoff push and the interested teams that have been mentioned have been just about every NL team in contention.

With the Indians in need of young, MLB-ready arms in both the rotation and the bullpen and with so many teams allegedly interested in DeRosa, the Tribe may find itself in a bit of a catbird’s seat in terms of trading DeRosa. They’re in no hurry to trade him and his value only increases with each passing day that sees the Cardinals shut out or the Mets losing a game because of a thin roster. At this point, play the waiting game – if Cards won’t part with Chris Perez and Mets won’t trade Bobby Parnell right now…wait for them to become desperate enough to be willing to part with a young impact arm for a few months of DeRosa. He’s probably not going to get the Indians a legit starter, in terms of front-of-the-rotation stuff, but if trading him could throw a high-ceiling, MLB-ready arm into the bullpen…have at it.

Will the team miss DeRosa?
Almost certainly, but 3B is handled by Peralta and 1B should be LaPorta’s, so where does that leave DeRosa but in the outfield? Assuming Francisco is there as the 4th OF, depending upon how long the Indians wait, wouldn’t it be prudent to promote Mike Brantley to the parent club while he’s riding a hot streak in AAA? If he’s your 2010 LF, why not get some AB under his belt at the bottom of the order and see how he reacts to MLB pitching this year instead of watching the first experiment in 2010? As for who handles those super-utility duties that DeRosa provided, Gimenez comes back up to fill the cracks at 1B, 3B, LF, RF, and C and to give days off to regulars as they may be needed.

In the very worst case scenario, if the trade market for DeRosa doesn’t turn into the sweepstakes you want it to, add a young MiLB bat (one of the many 1B/DH types that clutter the system) to get the arm you want. The Indians need pitching at their upper levels and in Cleveland right now and DeRosa looks to be the best path to fill that vacuum quickly and with quality as they’d be selling high on him right now. If that arm still isn’t coming with just DeRosa as a return, there may be a way to up the ante a little bit and go after a couple of arms if you…

Throw Shoppach to sweeten the purse
I know…you always try to “sell high” on a guy and moving Kelly now would be the antithesis of that strategy. But I fear that the “sell high” period has passed for Show Pack and if the teams looking at DeRosa are mainly NL teams that could use an upgrade at C – MIL (Kendall), NYM (Schneider), CIN (Hannigan) – isn’t it possible that the inclusion of Shoppach in a deal could net more arms when more arms are so obviously needed?

If I may put on my salesman hat here, how about telling an NL team that Shoppach could sit an the #8 hole ahead of a pitcher in the NL and just feast on fastballs to provide some power from behind the dish?

But, he’s a windmill, right?
No question, but I go back to a comment that Terry Pluto made some time back before the season when he joined Tony Lastoria and I on “Smoke Signals” when he was asked if the Indians had missed their chance to get maximum value for ShopVac. Pluto responded that in MLB, if a player had ever experienced prolonged success (and Shoppach certainly did in the 2nd half of last year), another team would point to that success and say that “they could fix him” to get the player back to that success. I’m not sure if that would hold in terms of a team seeing Shoppach as a reclamation project, but as a catcher with power in a league full of catchers providing little or no offense, he would have to retain some value despite his prodigious K totals.

Could the Indians wait on this until the off-season?
Sure, but at this point, Wyatt Torregas is ready to come up to become the back-up catcher and the fact that Gimenez can help with the catching duties means that Shoppach’s value as CP Lee’s personal catcher who “runs into one” every so often decreases daily. Moving him now would serve as the transition to 2010, where Torregas and Gimenez figure in as a backup catchers, and clears the path for Carlos Santana to head up to AAA to play every day in anticipation of him helping the parent club sooner rather than later.

Somebody’s just going to have to break the news to Clifton Phifer…NOT IT.

Trade Pavano for…well, anything
If we’re on the topic of diminishing returns, now might be a good time to cut ties with Pavano to see if he can net anything of value for the Indians as a trading chip. The problem with Pavano at this point (at least the main one in terms of trading him) is that his value (which isn’t that great to begin with) diminishes with each poor start and the likelihood of him netting much more than cash considerations or a PTBNL dips further and further with a bad start or, worse, a skipped start because of an injury.

If his effectiveness has come to an end or his shoulder or neck (or whatever allegedly ails him) is going to continue to affect him as a starting pitcher, the Indians should be looking to move him for a part, any part, sooner rather than later as the time is not far away that Pavano is either going to become a non-chip or he’s going to find himself on the DL, removing any trade value that may exist for him today.

Unlike the potential attractiveness of a guy like a Jamey Carroll (who, as great as he’s played recently, is not unlike 20 other players in MLB, many of them already on playoff contenders), there’s plenty of teams looking for starting pitching in a market bereft of it, so maybe somebody takes a chance on Pavano – maybe someone in the NL – but the time to act is now, particularly taking into account his last few starts.

Would it be ideal to wait for Westbrook to be ready to move Pavano so the likes of Zachson and his ilk don’t get starts? Sure, but holding onto Pavano past his expiration date (which looks to have already happened) is not going to make him any more palatable as the days and weeks pass.

Don’t rush Westbrook or Lewis back, set your rotation for next year
On the topic of starting pitching, when Laffey comes back, you have Lee, Pavano (until he’s moved), Laffey, Huff, and Ohka going and the last time that I checked, that rotation is not going to win the AL Central…but guess what, they’re not going to win the division by simply adding Westbrook to that mix either. In light of setbacks and the danger that exists from a pitcher rushing back too quickly from TJ surgery, it’s time for the Indians to tell Westbrook that the spot is his when he’s ready and that coming back on some imaginary deadline date for him may be all well and good, but that his long-term health is much more important to this team going forward.

By the same token, news that SLewis has hit another bump in a road that has been filled with setbacks for him and, while his value is not as obvious or as pressing as Westbrook, Lewis is probably your first depth starting option for 2010 (Sowers is out of options, Lofgren and Rondon would both benefit from extended time in AAA), so don’t jeopardize his health by pushing him back too soon or seeing a need at the MLB level and forcing him back to action too early.

Once Westbrook is healthy, set the rotation for 2010 with Lee, Westbrook, Huff, Laffey, and a warm body (that hopefully doesn’t remove the stickers from the underside on the bill of his hat) and miss no starts once this pattern starts as the best way to get ready for next year is to get these pitchers into a rhythm in terms of gaining some much-needed steam for 2010.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE AS THE SEASON CONTINUES
Work Carmona in slowly
Fausto may be a mess right now, but if he was the key to the 2009 season, imagine what he’s going to mean in 2010 which is Lee’s contract year. If his struggles continue into 2010 and beyond, the best laid plans of having him anchor the staff past Lee’s departure go completely off the tracks and the Tribe’s rotation actually spirals further downward.

Carmona has already overcome one career-threatening stretch after his meltdown as a closer and the hope is that he can once again find himself as not only a viable MLB starter, but as the dominant one that we saw in 2007. With 2009 essentially now just playing for next year, the Indians should be breaking out the kid gloves with Carmona, if only because of his importance to this team after this year and, more obviously, after next.

Getting Carmona right should really be Priority #1 for this year because another year of him “contributing” like he did this year will only lead to discussions this time next year as to what the Indians can reasonably net for CP Lee and El Capitan.
Not sure about you, but I'd like to avoid this ugliness next year.

Fill out the bullpen with arms that may play a role in the future
Going off tangentially from the idea that Hernandez would be fired and Radinsky would be hired, wouldn’t it benefit the Indians to see what they had in their own prospects in a lost season instead of “getting lucky” with a Greg Aquino, a Jose Vizcaino, and a Jose Veras?

If Tony Sipp was purported to have closer stuff a few years back and has seen some effectiveness in MLB, isn’t it better to allow him to get acclimated to pitching against both LHP and RHP in Cleveland instead of in Columbus?

If Rafael Perez was the most effective reliever on the team over the last three years, doesn’t it make sense to try to fix him against Morneau and Mauer and not the Jeff Mantos of the world to get him right for next year?

Wouldn’t it be better to see in September or so if these guys who have made the transition to full-time relievers in the past month or so (Frank Herrmann, Zach Putnam, Steven Wright, etc.) have the arsenal that translates to MLB?

If we’re playing the “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” game, can we at least play the game with some pitchers that MAY have some upside and MAY have a future with the team instead of trying to resurrect a career, something that hasn’t happened for more than a month or two since Bob Howry?

Would it be painful to watch if these youngsters fail?
Absolutely, but have we not been subjected to some painful late innings at the hands of Vizcaino, Herges, and Aquino? If I see failure, I want to have it done by a young guy who may learn something in the process – something that may help him the next time he’s in that situation – to help him down the road, whether that be this year, next year, or beyond.

When it’s all said and done, you go with a team that looks like this:
C – Martinez
1B – LaPorta
2B – Valbuena
SS – Cabrera
3B – Peralta
LF – Brantley
CF – Sizemore
RF – Choo
DH – Hafner
Bench – Torregas
Bench – Carroll
Bench – Gimenez
Bench – Francisco or Garko (not both)
SP – Lee
SP – Westbrook
SP – Laffey
SP – Huff
SP – Carmona (when ready, before that…whomever)
CL – Wood
RP – Aw, hell…I’m not even going to venture a guess on this…

Doesn’t that look about what the Indians should head into 2010 with?
Shouldn’t they have more answers than questions about those specific players going into the off-season?

We already know how the 2009 chapter of this book is going to end, it’s time to turn that page and start writing the 2010 chapter to see what direction that’s going to take…and the writing should be starting now.

The Blame Game

As Eric Wedge apparently lives to manage another day and voices on each side of the debate as to whether he is to blame (or how much blame can be placed on him) for the mess of the 2009 season on top of the 2008 season, the question comes rattling from the rooftops – who is to blame for the mess that the Indians find themselves in?

While the fickle finger of fate has blame resting on shoulders as varied as Wedge, Shapiro, Wedge AND Shapiro, the Dolans, and Luis Isaac (OK, I made that last one up), why does this suddenly feel like the climax of “Reservoir Dogs” where everyone is staring down the barrel of a gun, voices in the room rising, and the knowledge overwhelming all of us that this isn’t going to end well?

Starting with the man who must be feeling cold steel on his forehead with the events of the past week, how culpable is Eric Wedge for the hole that the Indians find themselves in?

At the top, let’s forgo the notion that the Indians have “quit” on Wedge as their current 6-game losing streak at the hands of the Brewers and Cubs included two 2-run losses and three 1-run losses, so it’s not as if the players are simply going through the motions and getting blown out on a nightly basis. Rather, look at the manner in which they lost those games in that they were outscored by a slim margin and if you believe (as I do) that a manager earns his stripes by winning these close games as opposed to losing them as strategy often plays a factor in close games or extra-inning games, you start to see where the frustration with The Atomic Wedgie is starting to boil over.

All season long, the Indians have found themselves in winnable games only to see the bats go silent or the bullpen explode at the worst possible times, resulting in the demoralizing come-from-ahead loss that has colored the Tribe’s 2009 season. Put away for a moment that this is on the players and their lack of execution (which is certainly part of the equation) and realize that a manager’s main functions in MLB are to fill out a lineup card which divvies up AB, to set a rotation, and to decide which relievers come into the game at which time.

Sure, there’s are daily questions that come up in terms of managerial decisions (a favorite quote of mine is that every man thinks he can do two things better than anyone else on the planet – grill a steak and manage a baseball team), but a manager’s job in MLB is essentially to put his best players on the field and to give those players the best opportunity to succeed in a given situation.

For a moment, let’s remove ourselves from the emotional train wreck of the past week and take a longer overview of the Indians performance under Wedge as a manager by analyzing how he’s stacked against a formula that actually exists to predict how many games a team should win and should lose (please not the “should” and realize that this is not a hard-and-fast formula) by taking the number of runs scored by a team and the number of runs allowed by a team. Created by Bill James (and tweaked a few times), it’s called the Pythagorean Winning Percentage and it’s used to take “luck” out of the equation.

Now, if we’re taking luck out of the equation, I’d like a quick answer on why exactly a formula that generally is off by only a couple of wins and losses from year to year (with one or two outliers) has these results for the Indians for the past 5 years, which would be the years in which the Indians did contend in the AL Central or were thought to be among the contenders when the season started:
2009 Actual Record (rank among 30 MLB teams)
29-42 (29th of 30)
2009 Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage (rank among 30 MLB teams)
34-37 (19th of 30)

2008 Actual Record (rank among 30 MLB teams)
81-81 (17th of 30)
2008 Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage (rank among 30 MLB teams)
86-76 (14th of 30)

2007 Actual Record (rank among 30 MLB teams)
97-66 (1st of 30)
2007 Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage (rank among 30 MLB teams)
94-69 (3rd of 30)

2006 Actual Record (rank among 30 MLB teams)
78-84 (18th of 30)
2006 Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage (rank among 30 MLB teams)
90-72 (5th of 30)

2005 Actual Record (rank among 30 MLB teams)
93-69 (5th of 30)
2005 Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage (rank among 30 MLB teams)
97-65 (2nd of 30)

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 4 out of the last 5 years (I’m not anticipating a HUGE turnaround this year) that the Indians have underperformed their Pythagorean Expected Winning Percentage, some of which happen to represent a pretty big disparity:
2009 – 5 more losses thus far
2008 – 5 more losses
2007 – 3 more wins
2006 – 12 more losses
2005 – 4 more losses

Obviously, the quick answer to why this is happening (without laying blame at any one person) is that a lousy bullpen can go a long way in losing a number of games that would otherwise be winnable, skewing the numbers to the negative.

But why is it, then, that Wedge keeps presiding over these horrific bullpens?

Is it really that the arms aren’t there to populate the bullpen to become effective as a unit or does usage of the available arms in the bullpen play a factor?

Want to know who the 4 best relievers are in the second best bullpen (ERA-wise) in MLB?
Mark Lowe – Age 26 – ERA+ 120
Miguel Batista – Age 38 – ERA+ 131
Sean White – Age 28 – ERA+ 234
David Aardsma – Age 27 – ERA+ 264

There’s the back end of the Seattle bullpen…are you telling me that those guys are that much more talented than the arms that have played a role in the Indians’ bullpen this year? Is it really just a case of getting guys who are cresting or is something more at play here?

I’m not going to pretend to know how to handle a pitching staff, but if the same guy is pulling the levers in the bullpen over a prolonged stretch and the pulling of those levers continually results in an explosion, isn’t there something to be questioned about the lever-puller, particularly when other teams are able to cobble together effective bullpens with cast-offs and young arms? I know that it’s probably unfair to simply say that Wedge is consistently pulling the wrong lever when it’s up to the players to execute, but unfortunately Wedge’s track record of handling usage for players (both pitchers and non-pitchers) has come under fire with the flame getting ever hotter this year.

Perhaps it’s the most recent issue, the handling of a particular OF being promoted earlier than expected this year only to sit on the bench while players whose track records where known and did not justify his prolonged absence from the lineup that has cast more doubt than ever before in terms of Wedge maximizing the talent available to him or, at the very least, putting his best talent on the field and putting them in the best possible situations for success. However, if we can throw doubt on the handling of LaPorta – which may be the tipping point in terms of the “attached-at-the-hip” relationship in terms of Shapiro making an option available to Wedge to improve the team and Wedge simply ignoring him for lesser players – doesn’t it suddenly (or maybe not so suddenly) become a questioning of every personnel move that he makes, where the focus of the magnifying glass grows hotter by the day?

And that’s where we stand now, unfortunately, as the news that a Wedge move may not come until after the season only allows this lost season to become an episode of “Cold Case” where we may not ever find out what happened and the longer the time gets between our last observance of any semblance of a season makes a recovery less likely. At a certain point, we just wish we could have it back.

Obviously, however, Wedge is not alone in his responsibility for the 2009 season and to simply lay the blame on his shoulders is folly. No, the issues go much deeper than that as Mark Shapiro is the man who oversaw the mishandling of personnel over the last few years, as Brendan Donnelly and Juan Rincon continued to see innings down the stretch last year and as Dave Dellucci arrived to the team this season to essentially take AB away from players that figured into the Indians future because Wedge apparently had more trust in a known quantity (even if not known for doing much good) than the development of players.

With the Indians, the buck ultimately stops at Shapiro’s desk as the Dolans have given him control of the baseball side of the team and, while maybe not always providing him with a payroll found in other larger markets, asked him to keep the product on the field competitive to a point that the playoffs was always a rational thought as each season began and to keep the flow of players coming to infuse the team with young talent.

To that end, Shapiro has not held up his end of the bargain, particularly this year where it was almost expected that the rotation would be a mishmash of players who would hopefully evolve into something effective by the time that Jake Westbrook returned. Or where it was expected that some of the players that were fighting to earn everyday AB to fall into the complementary roles that they should be finding themselves in.
Who among us counted Francisco and Garko as linchpins to the season?
How about Dellucci…Sowers?

Wasn’t the thought that if (that should be a big IF) the likes of Sowers, Francisco, Garko, and Pavano could hold on until the cavalry arrived from that the Indians could still compete in a very winnable division?

Regardless, the team wasn’t able to even hold ground in the Central and the player acquisition through the draft ultimately comes down as another culprit. Just as Shapiro is culpable for allowing Wedge to misuse and waste the players given to him, he bears just as much responsibility for “overseeing” John Mirabelli as he ran the draft from 2000 to 2007. As we sit here today, the pitcher drafted in those 8 years with the most wins (Sowers) for the Indians with 13 career wins also possesses a career ERA+ of 86 and the player drafted in those 8 years with the most HR (Garko) as an Indian with 48 now owns a .796 career OPS as a 28-year-old 1B.

There’s no question that mistakes have been made and as much as most of this was foreseen coming into the season (and exposed to the bone by injuries), the cupboard to me still doesn’t look as bare as most make it out to be. Pardon me while I put on these rose-colored glasses, but I don’t see the Indians suddenly entering a period of massive losing if only based on what the Indians lineup should look like at the end of July, with the current ages listed in parentheses below:
C – Martinez (30)
1B – LaPorta (24)
2B – Valbuena (23)
SS – Cabrera (23)
3B – Peralta (27)
LF – Brantley (22)
CF – Sizemore (26)
RF – Choo (26)
DH – Hafner (32)

Yes, the offense hasn’t been the problem this year and if you’ll remember, I was the one decrying the shortage in the bullpen and rotation as this season ground to a halt, but look again at that list above and see how the Indians have put themselves in this position, offensively at least.

The players acquired via trade include everyone listed above but Martinez and Peralta…every other piece of talent that the Indians should expect to be in their lineup some time after the All-Star Break came from elsewhere, and for whom?
Yes, CC and Colon…but also Broussard, Perez, Gutierrez, and Einar Diaz.
And, yes, the reason for that needed infusion of talent that was needed is directly related to a failure to acquire and develop young talent from within (which is precisely what we’re seeing bear out in the pitching staff), but if you’re talking about who’s acquiring that talent, you’re back to the GM whose moves to counteract problems (that truthfully shouldn’t have been problems in the first place) earn him some credit for the young talent on the offensive side of things. How he manages to do the same for the pitching side of things will likely determine his ultimate fate but the track record of overcoming obstacles (albeit self-inflicted obstacles) is there in terms of augmentation of the roster.

Ultimately, however, the culpability falls to Shapiro whose attitude of “trust us, we know what we’re doing” has come crashing around him as staying the course and sticking with people around him who seemingly do not know what they’re doing (or are some of the most historically unlucky people in history) have laid waste to the best laid plans.

If we’ve been told to trust, the statute of limitations on that has run out and the state of love and trust is moving to revolution as moves need to be made in this organization as the stability and the status quo that have run amok (and run in the wrong direction for too long) have taken us to the path that we now find ourselves upon.

Is it hopeless and are we readying ourselves for another 40 years in the desert?
I don’t think so, but a change in culture is needed and while that change may not go all the way to the top of the organization (yet), a message that the results of this season and last are unacceptable needs to be sent. If that means that Wedge is jettisoned, so be it with the idea that finding a suitable long-term replacement is not going to be as easy as simply picking up a phone in late June and seeing if Option #1 has some free time.

Change is needed and not just for change’s sake and every day that passes until a change (any change) is made makes the idea that 2010 becomes another rebuilding or re-loading year all the more obvious, where hopes and prayers take the place of known quantities and realities…because hopes and prayers are all we have now in the face of a very cold reality.

Lazy Sunday - The Aftermath

Walking out of Wrigley Field, head hanging for the second straight day as Cubs’ fans alternately told me to “go back to Cleveland” and commiserated with my experiences of the last two days in a feeling that they know all too well, the words were inescapable in my head…it’s over.

Whatever hope that may have taken up the smallest recess of my body that the 2009 season was salvageable disappeared as Kerry Wood’s offering hit the backstop as the stark realization that the Indians, outmanned as a team and outmaneuvered on every occasion by the opposing manager in this series, had dropped their 5th straight to once again fall 12 games under .500 and erase any thought that a “run” or a gallant sprint to the finish would represent anything more than too little too late at this point.

Trace it to Prince Fielder’s GS off of Rafael Perez if you like as Monday’s eminently winnable game against the Brewers served as the dropping point as the bullpen, mismanaged and ineffective regardless of whom was thrown out there, was where it had been for the better part of the early season – as the reason for the lost season.

Words are difficult to find to express my frustration as Cubs’ fans (and non-Cubs’ fans) asked me around the trough (yes, they still have troughs for urinals) if the Indians’ manager had any concept of how to match-up pitchers or how to use strategy in a baseball game. At one point, a White Sox fan pulled me aside and told me that he wanted to cheer for the Tribe against his hated Cubs, but could simply no longer bring himself to do it as he knew what the outcome was going to be…and this was after the 8th inning of Friday’s game.

What that White Sox fan was trying to avoid – inevitable heartbreak – is something that we, as Indians’ fans, cannot escape this season and as we wait for the inevitable firing of The Atomic Wedgie and the moves to come, we’re only left with what-ifs and what-could-have-beens in what is now unquestionably a lost summer.

Nevertheless, because it is Sunday and because The DiaBride has given me the hall pass to sit in her parents’ house and hammer out a Lazy Sunday (it is Fathers’ Day, after all), let’s roll right into it, if only to divert my attention from the disappointment that the games cast upon the last two days sitting under the Chicago sun, that even prodigious amounts of Old Style were unable to brighten:

It seems like the hot topic on everyone’s mind as we pass through mid-June is which teams are going to be looking to add pieces and which teams will be looking to move pieces prior to the July 31st trade deadline, and Kenny Rosenthal (not surprisingly) has the Indians as a seller. Reading the piece more closely however, reveals that he has them as a seller in terms of DeRosa and Pavano (assuming he’s healthy) as neither really factors into the long-terms plans for the team and has them moving players that DO factor into the 2010 plans (Vic and CP Lee) only if an overwhelming offer comes around.

Will that overwhelming offer come around for Lee though, as Jon Heyman states that the SP market is going to be thin and Bedard and Halladay just hit the DL? A bounty could likely be had for him, but to me there’s no reason to trade Lee unless you can legitimately get an arm that can slot into his spot at the top of the Indians’ rotation from Day 1 and would remain under club control for the next 4 or 5 years…and players like that simply don’t exist on the open market and the teams that have them certainly aren’t anxious to move them.

In fact, the best piece that I’ve read on the “Should They or Shouldn’t They” debate for CP Lee comes via Joel Sherman, who nails the argument that, realistically, Cliff Lee shouldn’t be moved under any circumstances:
So if the Indians trade Lee between now and July 31, they are not only damning any long-shot chance they have to get back into the AL Central race this year. They also are pretty much erasing contention next season. That might be more tolerable if they were playing in the AL East, where they would have to be thinking of ways to contend for the long term against the Red Sox and Yankees. But they play in the tepid AL Central.

"There is no reason in the world they can't compete in their division next year," an AL executive said. "At some point it has to be about winning and not selling off parts for a sunny day in the future."… With the chance to get healthier both physically and against a weaker set of opponents, the Indians want more time to try and contend in 2009. They can't do that without Lee, and they almost certainly couldn't contend without him in 2010 either.

While I know that Sherman is a NY Post writer who has generally made a name for himself in the Midwest as a little too NY-centric, anybody who feels that Lee should be moved this year or this off-season should simply have this piece placed in front of their nose to see the reasoning for keeping CP Lee laid out in a clear and complete manner.

Not to be outdone by Sherman, Jayson Stark lays the wood to the idea that Clifton’s headed anywhere and (rightfully) throws El Capitan into the same boat before effectively putting the argument that DeRosa is the biggest piece of bait in the Indians tackle box:
Can we pull the plug on the Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez rumors now? They're irreplaceable players, with affordable options for next year. So the Indians have no incentive to trade them, unless the payback is insane. That makes DeRosa far and away the best chip in town if they decide to sell. He's already up to 13 homers, 48 RBIs and 46 runs scored. And only six other players in the whole sport can match him in all three categories, none of them third basemen or second basemen. So Mark DeRosa gets more marketable by the minute.

This is about as good of a quick synopsis as I’ve seen in terms of identifying how important Vic and CP Lee are to the team next year and how DeRosa remains the biggest chip for the team, for whom changes are most certainly coming.

What type of changes?
According to what Terry Pluto is hearing from the Tribe, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see Mike Brantley up topside soon with Trevor Crowe (of whom I was asked by a Cubs’ fan to describe when he pinch-hit for Garko yesterday, to which I responded, “a pinch runner who can’t hit”…when the guy said, “I thought that was Josh Barfield”, I sunk a little lower in my seat) being sent down and Ben Francisco being relegated to 4th OF status.

Pluto also reports that Wyatt Toregas is getting rave reviews in AAA and one has to think that with LaPorta playing 1B in Columbus and Gimenez’s ability to catch as well as Torregas being an option that something may be afoot with Kelly Shoppach in terms of him being an auxiliary part.

As for what the Indians should be doing, I’ll try to throw something together in terms of what the Indians might be able to salvage in this lost season, some of which is brought up by Tyler Chirdon at the LGT, who has a couple of little snippets about a few relievers who were thought to potentially be heavy contributors in the Indians’ 2009 bullpen (Mayday Meloan and Stomp Lewis) and what, exactly, seems to have gone wrong with each. Not to throw a total damper on the day with the piece, though, his bit about Mike Brantley…um, yeah, it has me excited.

On the topic of prospects, Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus fame (he’s their Minor League guru) was kind enough to join Tony Lastoria and I on this week’s edition of Smoke Signals, and if you’re blown away by the depth that Tony goes into in his analysis of Indians’ prospects (and put me in the “blown away” category every time I read his stuff or talk to him), to hear Goldstein go on about Weglarz, Chisenhall, Carlos Santana, and others is simply unbelievable as Goldstein knows this stuff about EVERY prospect in MLB and speaks, at length, about all of these Indians’ guys with the knowledge and passion that we’ve grown to love with Tony.
Quite simply, it’s a must listen…if only to brighten up your day.

As for me, thank goodness that I decided against going to the Sunday game prior to the trip as I don’t think the dread that filled me the last two days, knowing that the other shoe was on its way to the floor, is something that I want to continue to feel.

Finally, thanks to everyone who came out to Sheffield’s after the game yesterday as the Tribe was well-represented and while rumors that the owners of Great Lakes Brewing Company were in the bar were never confirmed, to meet serial posters like milwaukeeTribe and s_bricker, as well as hang with site stalwarts Cy Slapnicka and t-bone, was unbelievably cool for me, if only to talk some Tribe after a tough weekend with some guys who were feeling it just as much as me.

See you on the other side as I’m heading back to Cleveland tomorrow…not sure if I can say the plans are as concrete for The Atomic Wedgie to accompany the team to Pittsburgh for Tuesday’s tilt.