Today's win!
Fun win today. You don't have to have dominant starting pitching. Just OK starting pitching, a little luck (Molina's drive) and a good bullpen. Reyes leaving the building in the 2nd was fun.. Four HRs was fun. Last 16 batters going down for the Cardinals was fun. Splitting this series with St. Louis was perfect, having to face Wainwright and Kim.
What was not fun was watching Yu Chang swing at two different 3-0 pitches. When you are hitting .180 your job is to take one for the team (see Bradley Zimmer's approach) not try to fatten your average against struggling pitchers. See Ernie Clement for how baseball is supposed to be played. On top of that, Chang always appears to be laughing. Most of the time it is when he is not going well. Hey, I don't want guys to be tight but, crap, man, break a bat over your thigh once in a while to let us know you really do care about hitting .180. Oh, and stop hitting .180!
Trade Deadline Stock
To level set, we are one game over .500. Look at our lineup and we are weak. Look at the Cardinals lineup and they are not weak. The Cardinals are likely to get Mikolas and Flaherty back before we get Beiber and Civale back. The Cardinals should not be in sell mode. The Indians should be in sell mode. With that in mind, let's take a look at which way each guy's tradability stock is moving.
Moving up
Cesar Hernandez. Not only is he historically solid his stats are trending up right now and he looks comfortable at the plate.
Staying Flat
Eddie Rosario. He is still on the DL so no change there.
Austin Hedges. He is solid but he is a backup catcher. They are simply fungible assets that might get a trade partner make a deal if you pay the remainder of his salary this year. But he isn't worth more than that.
Going Down
Bryan Shaw. Exactly what his trade value didn't need was his Tuesday meltdown. I am pretty sure he will be traded but his value is not what it was a week ago (maybe 75%). Considering that the Cubs got a ML-ready outfielder in Greg Dsichmann and a mnor league throw-in pitcher for Andrew Chafin. That is about the value (and probably the trade) I would have liked to see the Indians make for the two week ago version of Shaw. Now it is questionable if we even get that much for him.
Nick Wittgren. After his 9th inning meltdown over the weekend I just don't see how he has any value. Pity. About two weeks ago I thought he had some decent value in a trade, especially if included with one or more of the above guys. One more thing. Sorry Mr. Wittgren about the haters on the internet. Even those of us mad or disappointed with you for your performance should never make it personal.
Draft signing update
Still waiting to find out whether Jake Miller will sign. A little movement on the draft budget as what was thought to be a slot signing in the later rounds turned out to be $25,000 over slot. This still gives us a $154,800 surplus from our bonus pool. We need to spend that money (hopefully in an effective way) by August 1st or it will go back into the general budget and probably be used to buy paper clicks and pay for the company Christmas party (tongue firmly place in cheek here, but you know what I mean). C'mon guys, impress the fans and your bosses by finding a way to make our farm system better with that money before it evaporates from the draft budget.
General Thoughts
Should I be more excited about 21 year old Gabriel Arias performing well at AAA or 22 year old Jamie Arias Bautista performing well at low A Lynchburg? How about 21 year old Bo Naylor struggling to keep his head above water at AA or 22 year old Yainer Diaz raking at low A? The point here is that age matters and the Indians have agressively moved some guys up the organization this year, much to the detriment of their statistics. So I am taking this year's statistics with a grain of salt and trying to factor in age and level into my thinking. Thus I am not disappointed with Raynel Delgado and guys like that. They struggle but they show flashes.
I can't wait to see what Johnkensy Noel does every night.
Hope Owen Miller figures it out. I think there is about to be an opening at second base on the Indians.
Oh well, time for some minor league baseball tonight
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