Lazy Sunday in the Bullpen

After a nice victory yesterday up North and hopefully another one coming in Baltimore this afternoon, let’s take a quick whirl around a Lazy Sunday:

Terry Pluto addresses how the Indians are shying away from FA and identifies what the Pirates and Marlins would be looking for in exchange for Jason Bay or Miguel Cabrera.
Here’s a hint: One of the names rhymes with GastroBlab.
Still interested in those guys?

Pluto also touches on some of the names that the Indians are looking at to fortify their bullpen depth via Free Agency, mentioning Troy Percival, Mike Timlin, and LaTroy Hawkins. All three would seem to fit the mold of relievers that the Indians generally sign – high-risk, high-reward type pitchers who would likely work off of a one-year deal so as not to compromise the financial flexibility of the club.

Here’s the entire list of relievers out there on the FA market.
Not too much to see here, unless you want to pay Francisco Cordero $10M for the next 4 years (allegedly what he’s asking for). Players that intrigue, like a Jeremy Affeldt or even David Riske, are probably in line for the Danys Baez treatment from some short-sighted, desperate team. Otherwise, it’s the same names that seem to populate this list year after year; and a lot of the players that were rumored to be coming to Cleveland (Dotel, Gagne) or never actually made it north to Cleveland (Foulke).

Luckily for the Indians, they have a pretty deep farm system when it comes to pitchers and the first bona-fide MLB relievers to come out of the Tribe organization since…well, David Riske (?), showed up down the stretch last year in Perez and Lewis and it is conceivable that more pitchers like that could emerge in 2008. While it would be foolish to count on any coming out of Winter Haven, pitchers like Jeff Stevens (whom Pluto mentions), Reid Santos, Randy Newsom, T.J. Burton, or James Deters could be fast-tracked to Cleveland if they compile a start to 2008 similar to what Jenny Lewis did.

Elsewhere around the horn, Pat McManamon touches on the Cy for C.C. adequately until he embarrasses himself by making fun of the VORP statistic favored by a good number of baseball statisticians as an accurate way to measure a player’s value.

I’m fine if McManamon doesn’t know what it is (it is very confusing), but why even bring it up then?
Just to make fun of something that he doesn’t understand?
By the way, the man who created VORP for Baseball Prospectus, Keith Woolner, was hired by the Indians last year…so, yeah, it might be relevant, particularly if you care to know how the Indians’ Front Office makes decisions.

In today’s Plain Dealer PdQ section, they “reveal” that the Indians have new Sunday uniforms, something that was mentioned here about two months ago…I think. While I can’t find a link or photo online (way to embrace the Information Superhighway, PD!), the article says that the new jerseys and hats will be available at the Team Shops for Christmas. If you forgot how phenomenal these are, here’s the design again:



By the way, there are no names on the back of the jerseys and the article claims that the retro look was Shapiro’s idea to go back to a “simpler look” as well as quoting Kurt Schloss, the Tribe director of merchandising interviewed for the piece that, “Chief Wahoo is a part of who we are. It’s not about representing a person or a group, it’s about our history.”

Outside the realm of reality, the 1986 Cleveland Indians are now sitting at 5-6 after finally taking a game from the red-hot Tigers last night thanks to Mel Hall’s big night and in spite of the Candy Man sitting on a 6.38 ERA after 3 starts.
By the way, Brett Butler is killing me.
One hit and two BB in 32 plate appearances at the top of my lineup does not create a lot of scoring opportunities.

Finally, some big things may be forthcoming this week (I hope) in terms of an “interview” that I don’t want to jinx, but stay tuned to see if it comes through as I think that it would be amazingly informative and insightful…again, if it comes through.