Thoughts on an off-day

 Are we really that hard up for cash AND this stupid?  

The Indians play the Mariners this weekend for the last time this year.  Apparently we are so hard up for cash that we traded Jake Bauers to the Mariners just not to have to pay his salary for the rest of the year.   Look, major league players tend to regress to the mean of their ability but any major league player can have a game, or a series or even a longer stretch where they outplay that ability...especially if they are motivated.

So why would we give Jake Bauers the chance to come back to Cleveland to prove the fans and media wrong by having a great series?   Why would we do that?   It is just plain stupid to trade a guy with a chip on his shoulder about the Indians AND their fans AND their media to a team you are going to play an important 3 game series against.

Look, in my opinion Jake Bauers will never be better than his current career numbers.  But, as the song says "I am not as good as I once was.  But I am as good once as I ever was".   

I will never scratch my head with us DFAing him after he screwed up every chance we gave him.   But I am really afraid we all will be scratching our heads over the timing of this move if Bauers has a career series against the Indians this weekend.

Bonehead timing and location of this move.   Just simply no excuse for this...but money."

Current state of the pitching staff

Terry Francona is a good company man.  Thus his silence on how the FO has screwed up the starting pitching this season and his, on the surface, acceptance of this try to win cheap mantra.

Tito Francona is supportive of his players.   Thus the hilarious explanation of Zach Plesac breaking his thumb by aggressively removing his t-shirt.

However, in the end, this is the front office's fault.   And ownership's.   They brought in ZERO even semi-competent veteran minor league pitchers this off-season.  They counted on making it through the season with Biever, Civale, Plesac and McKenzie and that they could find one starting pitcher from what was left.  In essence they:

• Bought into the idea that Cal Quantrill could be a starter.    It is clear the guy is a great reliever.   It is also clear that he may never be a great starter.   Starters need to pace themselves, not ever seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.   Relievers don't need to pace themselves, as they always see the light at the end of the 1- or 2-inning tunnel.    Look, even if spin rates and velocity remain constant when you compare a guy starting or relieving, there is just something about the urgency of being a reliever as compared to the slower pace needed for someone being a starter that means that some guys just can't start.  Just like some guys can't be closers.   The Indians should have gotten that instead of throwing Quantrill against the wall to see if he stuck.
• Counted on McKenzie to be a solid #4. They had a very small sample size last year and they are paying the price of his growing pains this year.
• Counted on one of the rookies, Logan Allen, Scott Moss, Eli Morgan being able to help in an emergency.   Now, that might have actually worked but they didn't account for the fact that these three pitchers, their only realistic minor league starting options, would all get hurt.
• Didn't prepare to have the eventuality that they might need to use an opener.   The bullpen is, except for Quantrill, filled with one inning guys.   Not that I would have kept Plutko.   We saw what he was like on Saturday.   But we should have made plans for the opener thing somehow.  We didn't.
• Didn't prepare for the emergency where all of the above didn't work.  Throwing JC Mejia out there and expecting anything more than Wednesday is really just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping it sticks.   Hail Mary!  You needed a better plan, folks.

Plus, now you are bunring out your young bullpen guys.   How much damage do you think is done to a Kyle Nelson by giving up a 5-spot and watching his ERA balloon up to AAAA player levels?   Not everyone is Phil Maton, Josh Tomlin or Adam Plutko who can take a licking and keep on ticking. 

Giving Up

Now, don't get me wrong.  With Terry Francona and the veterans we have no one on this team will EVER give up...I hope.   But what I see out of our veteran hitters is this:   Once we get behind a number of runs I see an everyone-for-themselves attitude.   Everybody starts swinging for the fences instead of piecing together rallies.  We don't have the keep-the-line moving attitude.   We don't grind out ABs to get the starting pitcher out of the game.   We don't make relievers work.  This results in us making it too easy for teams with the lead to just coast through the last several innings.   Look at yesterday.   Mejia got knocked out because he couldn't put hitters away.   Compare that to our veteran hitters, and then our rookies swing so early in counts and ending up with weak contact.   We just don't seem to want to grind out ABs once we get behind.    Not saying that in this all-or-nothing baseball world the keep-the-line-moving attitude would work much.   But at least it would be better than the swing-for-the-fences-on-the-first-pitch mentality that this team seems to get into once we fall behind...like on Wednesday.   When you have a lot of games like yesterday like this team has had, you have to ask yourself if our play-from-behind strategy needs to change.   I think it does.