Heading to Buffalo

With the announcement of Andy Marte, Ryan Garko, and Franklin Gutierrez being sent to Buffalo (along with Lou Merloni, Jose Flores, and Ben Howard being sent to minor-league camp), the roster stands at 32 with 7 more players to be cut to hit that magic 25 number.

Marte, Garko, and Gutierrez all being sent down certainly isn’t a surprise as that has been the stance of the Front Office since Day 1 of Spring Training, but the three represent a rarity in baseball. They represent viable options (Marte and Garko more than Gutierrez right now) to be called up to the Major League team to contribute. That they happen to play the same positions as the players who underperformed last year is astounding.

This group of “not-ready-for-primetime-players” (says the Front Office) may share more in common than that first group of performers at Saturday Night Live, who went by the same name, than you would think. All of the players are talented, and may be more talented than what is currently showing in “primetime”. They just lack the chance to do so, and should be more than ready when the call comes to play in the Majors.

The one explanation that Shapiro gave, specifically about Marte, but it could apply to the other 2 as well, is that Marte had never started a season in cold-weather and some players have trouble adjusting to the climate change, causing slumps at the beginning of the season. Shapiro’s logic is that he’d rather have these players start out in Buffalo to work out the kinks, without the glare, attention, and expectations of starting for the Indians on Opening Day. That argument holds some water, as an early-season slump in Cleveland would do more to damage a players’ confidence than one in Buffalo; but it also seems to infer that these players (Marte and Garko, specifically) will get the call pretty quickly in the chance that Boone or Broussard starts the season poorly.

The comment from the PD that I love this morning is from Grady Sizemore, who told Garko to “go down there and just blow everything up”. Do you think that the similarities of Grady’s situation of last year to Garko’s of this year are lost on the young CF? Grady came into camp last year, did everything that was asked of him to make the team, and was the last guy sent out of camp because of the Juan Gonzalez Experiment. Luckily for all of us, Gonzo's rubber band hamstrings forced Grady back onto the club in time for Opening Day.

Garko came in this year and proved that he was adequate defensively, while continuing to hit consistently. Grady, who some would argue is one of the leaders of the club at 23, has to see that the Indians may be better off with Garko at 1B and the comment would seem to indicate that Grady wants Garko to force the organization to make a decision sooner rather than later. Or it could just be a clichéd quote for the paper.

There is no denying Garko’s comment that the Front Office told him he could be a “championship-caliber 1B”. Hmmm…with the Indians meant to contend for the Central (at least) this year, do you think that Shapiro is saying the same thing to the two-headed monster of Broussard and Perez?