...your favorite baseball player dies.
You know, it was a couple of years before I would bring myself to call Terry Francona by his father's nickname.
You see, Tito Francona was and probably still is my favorite baseball player. He was around when I was old enough to realize that I would probably be a lifelong Indians fan. I latched on to him. I don't even know why. Maybe it was because he was left-handed and played the outfield like I tried to do. Maybe it was because he hit .363 when I was 6 years old, the first memory I have of being an Indians fan. I don't really know why.
It's weird that you don't realize how close you are in age to these guys. He was only 19 years older than me. He could have been a really older brother or maybe an uncle instead of this guy I put on a pedestal.
I don't know what kind of a person Francona was but, in the dark ages of Indians' baseball, he was my light that kept me going. When he moved on to St. Louis I would listen to Jack Buck and Harry Caray broadcasting over KMOX in St. Louis with my transistor radio under my pillow so that my parents didn't know I was still awake and so I wouldn't disturb my brothers who were trying to sleep. I did the same thing when he moved on to Atlanta.
He was my favorite player and you follow your favorite player wherever he goes. As I was cleaning out some stuff the other day I noticed that I still had an article cut out from a paper the day after Tito had a 5 hit day for the Oakland A's when he was 35 years old and was mostly just a pinch hitter towards the end of his career. I remember that, for luck, I would carry that article around in my wallet...for years. It was just a little article but, when it is a highlight in the career of your favorite player you save it. I saw the title of an article that said he was the oldest living Oakland A. Seems odd to me but just another thing that made him special, I guess. Maybe I will tape it to a condolence card and send it to our manager, the new Tito Francona.
I will never forget the effect Tito Francona just playing the game he loved had on me. It made me a lifelong Indians fan. His son managing the Indians to more success than Tito's Indians ever had makes it even more special. Tito Francona was a ballplayer when ballplayers were larger than life. He was a ballplayer when little kids looked up to ballplayers for all the right reasons. I don't know how many other people considered him their favorite baseball player but I hope he now knows that he had a least one person who thought that the baseball world, and a little kid's world, revolved around him.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Thoughts on a Sunday - The clock is ticking
Spring training is around the corner and I am getting antsy.
No, not for baseball to start. After watching the Cavs and Indians the last two years the regular season is only the prelude with both teams having enough talent to easily make the playoffs. Doesn't mean it will happen but the Indians have enough talent if they stay healthy and productive.
I am getting antsy because the Indians have done essentially NOTHING to fix their two problems: the losses caused by losing hitters (Carlos Santana and Jay Bruce) and relief pitchers (Bryan Shaw, Joe Smith and Shawn Armstrong).
Let's start with the hitters. I woke up yesterday with a great idea: what if we sign JD Martinez to an outrageous one year deal, say $30 million, to bridge him through this year where he can't seem to get the multiyear deal he wants. Yes, it blows our budget for this year but there is no long term commitment there. Then I read the same thing on the internet. Great minds think alike, I guess. But, yes, that appears to be a novel and unique way to get the superstar you want without the long term commitment. Martinez gets more money than any player probably deserves in a year and we get a guy who is a great hitter without having to pay him through his declining years. I know this is just monopoly money to me but REAL money to the owners of the Indians but it is a way to make this team instantly better, better to the point where it might be able to suffer an injury to our big 3 (Ramirez, Lindor, Encarnacion) and still not be devastated. Right now, if one of those guys go down we are screwed as we have no guys in the minors or majors who are likely to be able to take up the slack for such an injury.
So, likely this won't happen but it is a way to make this team instantly better and not destroy the long term budget or set us up with untradeable superstars if we want to blow it up next year.
Now the relievers. Look, fans, we are in a desperate situation here! We need relievers. Here is the projected Indians pitching staff in 2018:
Corey Kluber SP
Carlos Carrasco SP
Trevor Bauer SP
Mike Clevinger SP/RP
Josh Tomlin SP/RP
Danny Salazar SP/RP
Ryan Merritt SP/RP
Cody Allen RP
Andrew Miller RP
Dan Otero RP
Nick Goody RP
Tyler Olsen RP
Zach McAllister RP
That's 13 guys. That's 5 starters and a Francona bullpen (8 guys). And, to even make this happen, two of the starters would have to take on full-time bullpen roles, something they have NEVER done in their life and NO ONE could get hurt!
There is no margin for error here and, frankly, I am already pretty sure there is something wrong with Corey Kluber.
After those 13 guys we have Adam Plutko, Julian Merryweather and Shawn Morimando on the 40 man roster and NONE of the pitchers we signed to minor league deals has ANY success in the majors as a reliever.
We have lots of relief arms in the minors but none of them look like they are ready now for the majors and, given the nascent stuff that those guys have, it is questionable if they will ever be ready to take over a significant role in the majors, let alone this year.
Basically, we're screwed if ANYONE in the top 13 gets hurt. Plus, even if everyone stays healthy we are still looking at having to add a reliever or two at the deadline to help us down the stretch and into the playoffs. Given what we had to give up for Joe Smith last year (Pannone and Taylor) our farm system can't really afford to make many, if any, more trades like that for relievers who we could have had for pennies in free agency.
And this is where I get ticked off. Even if you eliminate relievers who have gotten multiple year deals, the following relievers (with what they signed for) seem like the type we could have easily fit in our payroll.
Jeff Manship - minor league deal
Sergion Romo - $2 million
Dustin McGowan - minors
Frankie Rodriguez - minors
Seung Hwan Oh - $2.75 million
Blaine Boyer - minors
Bruce Rondon - minors
Jeanmar Gomez - minors
Tom Koehler - $2 million
Travis Wood - minors
Given what these guys signed for, we could have signed a couple or three as insurance. Now, you can say that given our roster, these guys might have seen the Indians as not needing anyone. However, these are all seasoned major leaguers with agents. They, even more than us fans, know that with injuries you need more than 8 relievers to get through a season. In fact, I would say that the Indians, as a winning team, would have been attractive to a number of these guys, if they saw that our depth in the bullpen was non-existent, if not a real weakness of this team. Maybe I could be wrong, don't know.
So, where does that leave us? There are still plenty of guys out there but, frankly, I would rather have 2 or three of the guys above rather than any one of them.
Matt Belisle
Trevor Cahill
Tyler Clippard
Jason Grilli
Greg Holland
Francisco Liriano
Jason Motte
Eric O'Flarherty
Oliver Perez
Zach Putnam
Robbie Ross
Trevor Rosenthal
Kevin Segrist
Koji Uehara
Tony Watson
There is still time but a lot of these guys above will take more money than we can spend and the rest may be done as far as being effective major league relievers either due to age or injury. Still, we need to do something because we are flirting with disaster that could make us lose our almost guaranteed playoff spot just because we wouldn't invest a couple of million dollars and a couple of minor league invites to help out our $100+ million payroll achieve what it should achieve.
I am telling you, we are screwed if we don't sign a reliever or two from this list as we will soon be putting out on the mound guys cut after spring training or minor leaguers of questionable talent if we don't do something. That is not what the preemptive favorite in the AL Central should be doing.
No, not for baseball to start. After watching the Cavs and Indians the last two years the regular season is only the prelude with both teams having enough talent to easily make the playoffs. Doesn't mean it will happen but the Indians have enough talent if they stay healthy and productive.
I am getting antsy because the Indians have done essentially NOTHING to fix their two problems: the losses caused by losing hitters (Carlos Santana and Jay Bruce) and relief pitchers (Bryan Shaw, Joe Smith and Shawn Armstrong).
Let's start with the hitters. I woke up yesterday with a great idea: what if we sign JD Martinez to an outrageous one year deal, say $30 million, to bridge him through this year where he can't seem to get the multiyear deal he wants. Yes, it blows our budget for this year but there is no long term commitment there. Then I read the same thing on the internet. Great minds think alike, I guess. But, yes, that appears to be a novel and unique way to get the superstar you want without the long term commitment. Martinez gets more money than any player probably deserves in a year and we get a guy who is a great hitter without having to pay him through his declining years. I know this is just monopoly money to me but REAL money to the owners of the Indians but it is a way to make this team instantly better, better to the point where it might be able to suffer an injury to our big 3 (Ramirez, Lindor, Encarnacion) and still not be devastated. Right now, if one of those guys go down we are screwed as we have no guys in the minors or majors who are likely to be able to take up the slack for such an injury.
So, likely this won't happen but it is a way to make this team instantly better and not destroy the long term budget or set us up with untradeable superstars if we want to blow it up next year.
Now the relievers. Look, fans, we are in a desperate situation here! We need relievers. Here is the projected Indians pitching staff in 2018:
Corey Kluber SP
Carlos Carrasco SP
Trevor Bauer SP
Mike Clevinger SP/RP
Josh Tomlin SP/RP
Danny Salazar SP/RP
Ryan Merritt SP/RP
Cody Allen RP
Andrew Miller RP
Dan Otero RP
Nick Goody RP
Tyler Olsen RP
Zach McAllister RP
That's 13 guys. That's 5 starters and a Francona bullpen (8 guys). And, to even make this happen, two of the starters would have to take on full-time bullpen roles, something they have NEVER done in their life and NO ONE could get hurt!
There is no margin for error here and, frankly, I am already pretty sure there is something wrong with Corey Kluber.
After those 13 guys we have Adam Plutko, Julian Merryweather and Shawn Morimando on the 40 man roster and NONE of the pitchers we signed to minor league deals has ANY success in the majors as a reliever.
We have lots of relief arms in the minors but none of them look like they are ready now for the majors and, given the nascent stuff that those guys have, it is questionable if they will ever be ready to take over a significant role in the majors, let alone this year.
Basically, we're screwed if ANYONE in the top 13 gets hurt. Plus, even if everyone stays healthy we are still looking at having to add a reliever or two at the deadline to help us down the stretch and into the playoffs. Given what we had to give up for Joe Smith last year (Pannone and Taylor) our farm system can't really afford to make many, if any, more trades like that for relievers who we could have had for pennies in free agency.
And this is where I get ticked off. Even if you eliminate relievers who have gotten multiple year deals, the following relievers (with what they signed for) seem like the type we could have easily fit in our payroll.
Jeff Manship - minor league deal
Sergion Romo - $2 million
Dustin McGowan - minors
Frankie Rodriguez - minors
Seung Hwan Oh - $2.75 million
Blaine Boyer - minors
Bruce Rondon - minors
Jeanmar Gomez - minors
Tom Koehler - $2 million
Travis Wood - minors
Given what these guys signed for, we could have signed a couple or three as insurance. Now, you can say that given our roster, these guys might have seen the Indians as not needing anyone. However, these are all seasoned major leaguers with agents. They, even more than us fans, know that with injuries you need more than 8 relievers to get through a season. In fact, I would say that the Indians, as a winning team, would have been attractive to a number of these guys, if they saw that our depth in the bullpen was non-existent, if not a real weakness of this team. Maybe I could be wrong, don't know.
So, where does that leave us? There are still plenty of guys out there but, frankly, I would rather have 2 or three of the guys above rather than any one of them.
Matt Belisle
Trevor Cahill
Tyler Clippard
Jason Grilli
Greg Holland
Francisco Liriano
Jason Motte
Eric O'Flarherty
Oliver Perez
Zach Putnam
Robbie Ross
Trevor Rosenthal
Kevin Segrist
Koji Uehara
Tony Watson
There is still time but a lot of these guys above will take more money than we can spend and the rest may be done as far as being effective major league relievers either due to age or injury. Still, we need to do something because we are flirting with disaster that could make us lose our almost guaranteed playoff spot just because we wouldn't invest a couple of million dollars and a couple of minor league invites to help out our $100+ million payroll achieve what it should achieve.
I am telling you, we are screwed if we don't sign a reliever or two from this list as we will soon be putting out on the mound guys cut after spring training or minor leaguers of questionable talent if we don't do something. That is not what the preemptive favorite in the AL Central should be doing.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
A case study in 'blowing it up' for a rebuild
This is a Cleveland (insert new nickname) baseball blog. But sometimes we have to talk about other things to get back to baseball.
In this case, I want to talk about doing an extreme makeover on the Cavaliers. Also, this could serve as a blueprint for what we might want to do with the Indians in 2020 if that season is not going well.
Now, I am not the biggest Cavs fan in the world, to be sure. But they are my hometown team and I do follow them pretty closely. Anyone who has seen them play this year has one hope: they are just coasting through the season and will turn it on when it counts. Well, what if the likelihood of this happening is very small? Then you have to consider tearing it down and starting again.
Right now the Cavs have one mega trading chip and some questionable other ones. It's not a great situation for a quick re-tool or even a less than quick rebuild.
The point here is that the Cavs have built this roster to win now. They signed guys to extensions to keep the nucleus together. Those extensions, in and of themselves, were made based on the perceived value of those players to the Cavaliers winning the NBA championship (e.g., Thompson, JR Smith, Kyle Korver). However, those contracts make it harder to do a complete tear down as these players were overvalued by their home team compared to what their production would indicate. Plus I don't know if the veterans they have on veteran minimum contracts are tradeable and, if they are, how much would they bring back. So the Cavs really SHOULD tear it down at this point as it appears more and more each day that LeBron is gone after this year. However, the Cavs really can't, unless their GM is a genius and the players on their roster have much more value to other teams than I think they do. So they may have to go for it again this year and that likely will send them deeper into the hole by trading picks and young assets to get veterans they need, which, in turn, will make a rebuild even harder. It becomes a never-ending cycle when LeBron leaving looks more and more like a certainty every moment. So you might have to sell REALLY low and look for a horrible and long rebuild. Frightening for any long-time Cleveland sports fan, I am sure as you might have TWO major franchises in your city that no one cares about.
By 2019 or 2020 the Indians might be in the same position, depending on the luck that they have. The good news is that I don't see a single bloated contract on the Indians. At this point, except for Kipnis, all their marquee players are VERY tradeable. Plus, we are not going out and signing compensation free agents and losing draft picks. All that is good for the Indians. But we need not to follow the Cavs example. If we do, by next year, we might be needing a rebuild or a re-tool and we night not be able to make that happen.
Let's hope the Indians long term plan continues to allow flexibility for a complete rebuild, if necessary. I don't ever want to be in the position the Cavs find themselves right now...let alone in the position the Browns find themselves.
In this case, I want to talk about doing an extreme makeover on the Cavaliers. Also, this could serve as a blueprint for what we might want to do with the Indians in 2020 if that season is not going well.
Now, I am not the biggest Cavs fan in the world, to be sure. But they are my hometown team and I do follow them pretty closely. Anyone who has seen them play this year has one hope: they are just coasting through the season and will turn it on when it counts. Well, what if the likelihood of this happening is very small? Then you have to consider tearing it down and starting again.
Right now the Cavs have one mega trading chip and some questionable other ones. It's not a great situation for a quick re-tool or even a less than quick rebuild.
The point here is that the Cavs have built this roster to win now. They signed guys to extensions to keep the nucleus together. Those extensions, in and of themselves, were made based on the perceived value of those players to the Cavaliers winning the NBA championship (e.g., Thompson, JR Smith, Kyle Korver). However, those contracts make it harder to do a complete tear down as these players were overvalued by their home team compared to what their production would indicate. Plus I don't know if the veterans they have on veteran minimum contracts are tradeable and, if they are, how much would they bring back. So the Cavs really SHOULD tear it down at this point as it appears more and more each day that LeBron is gone after this year. However, the Cavs really can't, unless their GM is a genius and the players on their roster have much more value to other teams than I think they do. So they may have to go for it again this year and that likely will send them deeper into the hole by trading picks and young assets to get veterans they need, which, in turn, will make a rebuild even harder. It becomes a never-ending cycle when LeBron leaving looks more and more like a certainty every moment. So you might have to sell REALLY low and look for a horrible and long rebuild. Frightening for any long-time Cleveland sports fan, I am sure as you might have TWO major franchises in your city that no one cares about.
By 2019 or 2020 the Indians might be in the same position, depending on the luck that they have. The good news is that I don't see a single bloated contract on the Indians. At this point, except for Kipnis, all their marquee players are VERY tradeable. Plus, we are not going out and signing compensation free agents and losing draft picks. All that is good for the Indians. But we need not to follow the Cavs example. If we do, by next year, we might be needing a rebuild or a re-tool and we night not be able to make that happen.
Let's hope the Indians long term plan continues to allow flexibility for a complete rebuild, if necessary. I don't ever want to be in the position the Cavs find themselves right now...let alone in the position the Browns find themselves.
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