I have said it before: The Indians gave away a lot of talent this winter. So far, it has not panned out:
Ubaldo Jimenez has not only been a bad pitcher this spring, now he looks like a head case. He cost us 4 prospects: Drew Pomeranz, Alex White, Joe Gardner and Matt McBride.
Kevin Slowey has been optioned to the minors. He cost us Zach Putnam, maybe a top 10 and certainly a top 20 prospect in this organization.
Aaaron Cunningham is barely hitting over .200 in spring training. He cost us Cory Burns and Josh Judy. Cunningham made the team ONLY because he was out of options and because he stunk it up just slightly less than his 'competition'.
Derek Lowe - Looking like exactly what they bought: an innings eater who will get lit up sometimes (cost us Chris Jones; may be worth the price and more). He looks like a solid trade chip in July
Josh Tomlin - If his body hangs together, an excellent #5 and a mediocre #4.
Jeanmar Gomez - I hope his body holds together although we still have Huff, McAlister and Barnes.
Bullpen: The Perezs, Sipp, Pestano and Joe Smith will be solid if healthy. Dan Wheeler stinks and so, probably, does Jairo Asencio. Note that the latter two would have EASILY been replaced by Zach Putnam and Josh Judy and THAT shows how stupid the trades for Cunningham and Slowey were.
The starting lineup: Duncan is coming off one hot month in his ML life (last September) and that earned him being our starter in LF. Hanahan is a .230 career hitter and had his career (.250) year last year. Kotchman had his career year last year and this journeyman is our starter at 1B. Thus three of our starting players are probably no more than AAAA players coming off career years or,in Duncan's case, one career month. That is truly pathetic. You invest heavily in Jimenez and then, the next year, start THREE AAAA players. The rest of the lineup is solide but the damage is done
The bench: Besides that Donald and Marson are the career backups they projected to be (and I said they would be) when we made the Cliff Lee trade, Lopez looks solid and Cunningham stinks so 3 of our 4 bench players are ML average, or better, for bench players. The bench is relatively strong except for Cunningham.
So there you have your 2012 Cleveland Indians. Remember, that except for the 30-15 start last year, Acta has essentially identical winning percentages for 2010 and 2011.
People, this team is in trouble on paper...and teams that are in trouble on paper don't give up 7 prospects and get very little back in return except increased salary. That is a recipe for disaster and Chris Antonneti is taking us down that road.
If we weren't Indians fans I would be worried about some of you and would ask that all sharp objects be removed from your grasp. But we are Indains fans and that sucking sound we hear from our team in April is actually music to our ears.
So, let the opening day crowd be a sellout and the second day crowd be about 10 times the number of vendors in the stands. If it was any other way it wouldn't be Cleveland.
Play ball...or whatever semblance of it the 2012 Cleveland Indians try to fumble through
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