When present and future crash and burn

At the end of April I wrote an opinion on bringing up Alex White.  Well, now Alex White is on the DL.  Did bringing him up now lead to him getting hurt?  According to White and the Indians head trainer, the answer is 'no', it was probably a latent injury that would have happened eventually.  Still, you have to wonder if White didn't try to get a little extra bite on that breaking ball because he was trying to get a big league hitter out instead of trying to get a AAA hitter out.

The question is would more experienced guys such as David Huff or Zach McAllister have been able to do as well as White?

Well, the Indians won all three of White's starts.  He kept them in the game each time in close, relatively low scoring games.

So, I think, the answer is absolutely NOT for Huff.   With McAllister, who is also on the 40-man, the answer, for me, is a resounding YES.  In McAllister's 3 starts on dates identical to or close to White's three starts (not counting his rainout start), McAllister had this composite line:

3-0   21 IP  14 H  2 R  2 ER  1 BB  21 K

Yes, McAllister would have probably been able to duplicate White's effort. 

This supports what I said at the time: It was the wrong time to bring up White.  He either started collecting service time, which he will now do on the DL, or we burned an option on him if he doesn't work out.  With his finger issue, burning an option hurts but leaving him on the DL all season hurts as his service time clock continues to run, or at least I think it does.

But the Indians' FO, who was playing to win this year (hey, they're succeeding at it) decided to bring White up and then to leave him up. 

The Indians were playing for the present.  They were saying "damn the future".  My premise was, is and will always be:

WHEN YOU ARE THE CLEVELAND INDIANS, YOU ALWAYS PLAY FOR THE FUTURE BUT KEEP ONE EYE ON THE PRESENT

Bringing White up was a mistake.  Did it contribute to his injury?  Who knows.  But I do think McAllister would have done as well and we might well have not been in the roster mess that having a DL'd White on it creates. 

Dear Indians: Next time you get a chance to sacrifice the future for the present, DON'T.