Musings for an early February morning

•  Russ Canzler cost us $100,000?  Interesting as I am sure Tampa Bay took the best offer.  So why would a team like the Indians get an essentially first base-only guy when they have Duncan who is out of options?  Beats me and beats me why they would pay $100,000 for him.  Remember that Aaron Cunningham (he of the trade that cost us Josh Judy and Cory Burns) is also out of options.  100K is not much but getting Canzler doesn't seem to fit.  Heck, maybe he can turn out to be Casey Blake but without Blake's defense.
• Casey Kotchman?  Not a bad signing as we had to have better defense at first base with our starters.  However, let's remember that this is a domino signing.  Signing Kotchman means that LaPorta is probably going to the minors.  It also means that someone will be bumped off the 40 man roster and, as with Josh Jody, could easily be lost on waivers.  So when we consider Kotchman as a plus, and I do, remember that the incremental increase in talent will be dulled somewhat if LaPorta isn't here and if we lose the guy we DFA off the roster.  Again, this move does nothing to make the huge gamble in getting Jimenez look less fool-hearty.  And also remember that people talk about Pomeranz and White but Joe Gardner who we also lost in the trade is not chopped liver and performed very well after th trade.  As a groundball pitcher Gardner fits the mold of a guy who could get a lot of ML time in Colorado.
• As far as who will be lost from the roster, this will be interesting.  The Indians know much more about the health of Nick Weglarz than we all do.  My money is that he is not healthy and that the Indians will DFA him.    Popular money is on Juan Diaz or Danny Salazar as many fans can't understand why they were rostered this off-season.  One thing the Indians will probably NOT do is DFA Aaron Cunningham because their trade for him (loss of Burns and Judy) would look incredibly stupid at that point.   Aside from Weglarz, who would represent a significant loss for the organization, Ezequiel Carrera looks like someone they might try to sneak through waivers, as well.  As always, with the Indians, this will be an interesting roster move.
• Under this new administration it appears that when this organization is 'done' with a guy they are done with him for good and really don't value him at all.  They obviously don't give a crap about guys like Huff, Crowe, Putnam, Judy and Burns and, now, probably LaPorta.  The issue when an organization has this kind of attiutde that guys like Casey Blake sneak through and end up with good careers elsewhere.  The Indians were like thise regarding Jeremy Guthrie and Brandon Phillips, remember and look how that turned out.
• The Indians have dissed their minor league relief pitching prospects and gone with veteran minor league signings.  Over the past three years the Indians have had the following veteran relief AAAA filler who they have signed to minor league contracts: Chad Durbin, Justin Germano, Mike Gosling, Greg Aquino, Vinnie Chulk, Matt Herges, Tomo Ohka, Rich Rundles, Luis Vizcaino, Jose Veras.and Jamey Wright.  They let those guys pitch instead of giving the innings to their own prospects. Antonnetti said that the guys they brought in on minor league deals this year were brought in because they had a chance to contribute this year.  History would say the Indians have no clue how to pick these guys as none of the above guys had even decent stats here and most looked really bad.   Looking at the list of available relievers who signed minor league deals this off-season, I can spot at least 6 guys who were significantly better than the best AAAA reliever we signed.  Clearly we were bottom feeding and it is interesting we signed a lot of these guys AFTER we lost bullpen prospects and possible major league contributors this year in Putnam, Judy and Burns.  Could it be that the agents for the AAAA relievers smelled blood in the water after our trades and their clients knew from those moves and recent history that they would have the best shot to get ML time with the Indians, despite bad performances in the past and this coming season?  The Indians seem more intent on signing guys who will take the garbage the FO deals out and say 'may I have another, please?' in the hopes of getting a small amount of time in the majors that will come despite not earning it and will be extended beyond all reasonableness even if they pitch poorly in the big leagues.