Lazy Sunday - One Week Later

While an event continues in Denver that I refuse to acknowledge, The DiaBride said (tongue-firmly-in-cheek), “I thought when we beat the Yankees, the season was over and that other series was just like an exhibition showcase”, let’s take a trip around a Lazy Sunday:

Terry Pluto touches on the OF decisions to be made after having already done so on Friday, throwing the idea that The Frisco Kid and The Tank should platoon in RF and a new alternative in LF being found as the Dellichaels anomaly doesn’t do much for him.

OF is going to certainly bear watching this off-season as the Indians may try to make a move from their depth at Starting Pitching (assuming Paul Byrd isn’t suspended for 50 games and his option is exercised) to upgrade a corner OF position.

Pluto also addresses the alarmingly low OBP of Josh Barfield and how it could affect his future with the team. For the Indians (who have often stated that OBP is a HUGE factor for them in determining their lineup), the fact that Jessie’s Boy had 14 walks in 420 at-bats this year and only 44 in 280 career games has to have the alarms sounding on the corner of Carneigie and Ontario. Pluto’s idea (and many others’ idea) that Barfield should play 2B with Cabrera as the SS has been debunked by Shapiro, who has firmly stated that Peralta will be the team’s SS next year. Even Hoynes thinks so.
Interestingly, the Padres waived Marcus Giles yesterday, leaving a void at 2B for San Diego…just pointing that out.

Pat McManamon touches on the C.C. money, ignoring some basic facts (as most people are tending to do) which I’ll bring up in a post this week making the case for C.C. being attainable, both in terms of willingness and dollars.

Andy Call has a very nice summation of the off-season with a “Shapiro To-Do List”, with my only exception being that Call thinks the Tribe needs another closer to step in for JoeBo (if necessary). Another veteran arm wouldn’t hurt at all, but does he not rise when “Betancourt is In Session”?

Call also quotes Shapiro that “Casey Blake will be back here next year playing 3B”. Does that mean full-time or as a Super-Utility player? If it’s full-time, will Andy Marte don an outfielder’s glove or be part of a package to land a young corner OF?

In addition to Neal Huntington heading to Pittsburgh, Buffalo manager Torey Lovullo may find himselt where the Three Rivers meet in 2008.

The Tribe Front Office could take another hit as Chris Antonetti has visited St. Louis, and I don’t think it’s just to go to the top of the Arch or just to take the Budweiser tour (which is quite good). Obviously, one byproduct of success in Cleveland (or anywhere else, really) is that other teams are going to want to raid the pantry of a successful or admired Front Office and, while the loss of Huntington doesn’t seem to be a huge loss as he had been essentially demoted out of Shapiro’s inner circle, I would expect Antonetti to wait for the opportunity that he (and probably Shapiro) deems to be perfect in terms of ownership involvement, autonomy, and access to purse strings. Whether or not St. Louis is that type place (Tony LaRussa’s shadow is pretty large there right now) remains to be seen, but Antonetti will be a GM in another city soon.

Coming this week – “The Case for C.C” and the beginning of the promised month-by-month review as well as a disgustingly thorough analysis of the 1986 Indians team that I am managing in the Strat-O-Matic replay, with the sidebar link to explain it.

154 days until March 31, 2008 when the Tribe welcomes the Pale Hose to the Jake (or whatever it will be called).