Mixed Messages

Let's look at various media reports:

1. The Indians are looking for young players and are willing to trade starting pitching to get it.   Great, trade from your strength.  I get it, especially as a small market club.   The issue for me is if they are trying to get young players, why are they trading away young players like Thomas, Mendoza and Turner for 4A players like Luplow, Moroff and Hu?  I get giving up young players at the deadline to try to make a run at the playoffs.  Still, you have to do it right as a small market team.   The Joe Smith trade sucked.   The Josh Donaldson trade was a great one.   However, the trades we have made over the past two seasons right up to this point have weakened the farm system and removed some viable trade chips for little or no return in performance or, up to now, in potential for the future.

2. The Indians appear to be open to trading Gomes.   Hey, Gomes value has never been higher so if you wanted to trade him now would be the time.   However, he is the glue who holds the starting staff together.   Trading Gomes would, in my opinion, have negative impact on the performance of the strength of this team, the rotation.   This move is the OPPOSITE of what we should be thinking of, considering the strengths of this team.

3. The Indians are looking to shed salary as they are under financial constraints.  Their roster will earn not much different than they did the last two years so I don't get it.

I will say this again and am ready to shout this from the hilltops.   The Indians look, at this moment, like an organization that doesn't know what the hell it is doing.   And, if you want a worse insult, they look like the Indians organizations I grew up with in the 70s and 80s: pathetic and inept.  If any of the above is true, the Indians are quickly moving into Cavalier and Browns territory.

I don't know if anyone is listening but, if they are, hear this.   The Indians are and will continue to be for the next 2-3 years, the only ticket in town worth purchasing.   Why in the hell would their management try to screw that up and, in addition, why in the hell would a small market team do things that would make them less competitive while not improving their future?   Hey, in a vacuum the above three media reports all make sense to some level.   However, in the face of the two trades they have made already, what they are trying to do makes no sense.