Time for a frank discussion about our prospects

 In preparation for my opening day top prospect list, I wanted to have a frank discussion about our prospects.  It is also important as, if I suspect, the Indians are about to go for it and trade a bunch of our prospecdts to bring in a seasoned ML outfielder and a bullpen piece.  So, with that in mind, let's start.

1. GABRIEL ARIAS - Arias is an uber prospect in this organization.   He WILL be a major leaguer and a successful one.  The question is, does he fit what this organization needs going forward.  In my opinion he is going to outgrow shortstop and be a 3rd baseman in the future.  He is already, at 22 years old, listed as 6'1", 207 lbs.  He does not steal bases, he does not walk that often and his strikeouts are on the upper end of what you would want for a good fielding shortstop.    I just don't think he is going to project as a high range, slick fielding shortstop going forward.  To me his future position is third base and that is important.  If I told you that it would take a couple of years but Arias, by 2024, would be Jose Ramirez part deux, would you be willing to let Ramirez go and gamble on Arias>?  That is the key, really.  Will Gabvriel Arias be playing WITH Jose Ramirez or INSTEAD of Jose Ramirez?  If it is the former I am all in with finding him the best position (maybe the OF or even 1B?).  If it is the latter then I say use Arias as trade bait as, being a SS, he looks better than  think he will turn out to be.

2. GEORGE VALERA - One of the most interesting things in spring training is playing Valera in centerfield.  If he can make that adjustment his value goes up.  Bujt that is the key.   Why do we want his value to go up?  He clearly is blocked for years n Cleveland by Myles Straw?  I think they are looking at Valera as trade bait that I don't agree with.  Valera should stay and we ride that hoss until he reaches free agency.   But maybe the Indians coaches and anaylitic people see him as not beng that good as a major leaguer.

3.TYLER FREEMAN - Look, despite the shoulder injury, Tyler Freeman is going to be a major leaguer.   He just hits too well.   Given his lack of power, lsck of plate discipline and lack of speed his ability, based on his offense, to play any position but SS in the major leagues, I think he is currently a tweener.   So with Freeman we have a guy who is currently damaged goods who, even if you don't consider that, might be considered an average major leaguer at best who will only be a good to exceptional major leaguer if his offensive projection includes a big bump in power.   Hey, the guy could turn into Craig Biggio, which is my upside projection for him.  However, his trade value right now, given his tangibles, is much less.  So I keep him and start looking at him solely at 2B and CF (or maybe catcher?!?!).

4. DANIEL ESPINO - Right now Espino is hot.   He might never have much more trade value than he does right now.   When he was drafted there were rumblings that his short frame and arm action might make him a better fit as a reliever, especially with that fastball.  Since then I don't see a lot of change in that and I view him with Clase upside.  As a starter I think he gets hit way too much even with his elite FB.  But, nonetheless, I see him as, far and away, the best prospect in this organization in terms of projecdtability as I see him as an elite closer in the future.  So if I can get elite value for him I definitely consider trading him.  Otherwise, I keep him and start developing him as a reliever.

5. NOLAN JONES - Here is our minor league version of Josh Naylor.   He is a guy who has shown only mediocre stats so far with the projection of more but not the reality.   Jones, to me, is close to being a bust but now has his clock extended by his injury.   He has no many warts to his offensive game that I don't see his value as very high.   He would be window dressing on a trade by a team that wants to do a salary dump or is looking to dump a guy who they know they can't sign long-term.

6. BRAYAN ROCCHIO - I love Rocchio's game.  He has projectability and makes the trading of Arias and/or Freeman more palatable.  I see right now that he has more value to Cleveland than he would in a trade so that is normally my measure if I want to use a guy as trade bait or keep him to see if his value increases this year.

7. OTHER PROSPECTS - We have several prospects who could be trade bait: Jose Tena, Angel Martinez, Gavin Williams, Bo Naylor, Logan T. Allen and others who could be thrown into a trade package.  I am all for these guys being used in trades if we think their current value is higher than their projection.  However, I don't want any more Junior Caminero for Tobias Meyers (who was going to be DFA'd) trades.   Prospects are our lifeblood in Cleveland and if you get value for one you trade him.   However, the Meyers trade is, to me, an example of how a team has an excess of prospects and start to lose respect for a guy based on where he is on THEIR list of prospects instead of where his prospect worth actually is.   So, please.  No stupid trades where we give up more than we get back just because we have an excess of prospects.   The art of the trade is an important part of a team like the Guardians and we need to Guardians of our prospect wealth, spending it only when we make sense.

28-man roster Post #2

The only real changes to the roster or potential roster is that both Arias and Palacios were sent down to the minors and Josh Naylor is actually playing in a major league game.  These new developments will impact the 28-man roster.  Naylor looks like he could be on the 28-man roster and the Arias demotion gives a better chance that Owen Miller will make the roster.  We are seeing Rosario in LF which meshes with players still on our roster.  Miller and Clement have looked good.  Brian Shaw looked good in his first two outings, solidifying at least one spot in the bullpen

Knock on wood, there have been no major injuries, especially to our ML pitching staff, outside of  Cody Morris.   No pitchers expected to make the major league team have been so bad their spots are in jeopardy at this point.  Borderline guys like Tobias Myers and Sam Hentges have looked very rough and Konnor Pilkington has been sent down.  Nick Sandlin might not be ready on opening day.  

In terms of players on the bubble, Zimmer did not help his cause and Mercado did not help his cause significantly, in my opinion.  

So the position player roster, likely to be 13 players, looks like this

Catcher (2): Hedges and Leon

Infielders (6): Ramirez, Bradley, Chang, Gimenez, Miller, Clement

Outfielders (5): Straw, Rosario, Kwan, Naylor, Reyes

As far as our likely-to-be 15 man pitching staff, here is how it looks right now

Starting pitchers (5): Bieber, Civale, Plesac, Quantrill, McKenzie

Relievers (6): Clase, Logan Allen (the elder), Shaw, Gose, Morgan, Stephan, 

Relievers on the bubble who are on the 40-man roster (2): Hentges, Meyers

Relievers on the bubble who are not on the 40 man roster (5): Alex Young, Enyel De Los Santos, Justin Garza, Rober Broom, Nick Mikolajchak

Now comes the difficult part.  Here are the relevant points:

• Mercado and Zimmer should be gone.   Getting rid of them creates two 40-man roster spots
• We need a backup catcher.   Maile will be on the IL.   If he is not on the the 60-day DL we will have to either use Lavastida as the backup or add Leon to the 40-man, meaning one of the 40-man spots we get by removing Zimmer and Mercado will be wasted.   As this is likely to be a short-term replacement, the only option I see is Lavastida.  We will need the two roster spots for relievers.
• Karinchak and Sandlin are unlikely to be on the roster and will likely open the season on the 10-day IL.  

 So we need 4 relievers and we have 2 40-man roster spots to play with.  So we can pick 2 relievers from the non-roster guys if we keep Hentges and Meyers in the majors.   If we want to add any more relievers from non-rostered players Meyers and/or Hentges will have to be DFA'd.   The final thing to consider if the Guardians know that Karinchak and Sandlin will be coming off the IL very soon, the relievers you want to add from the non-rostered players are guys who you aren't afraid to DFA to make room for Karinchak and Sandlin.

The key for this season, with our current 40-man roster situation, is that guys added to the 40-man roster will likely have to result in another guy beng DFA'd in a 1-for-1 basis (e.g., Karinchak comes back and Young gets DFA'd.  Sandlin comes back and maybe Meyers or de los Santos gets removed)  This crunch will be relieved if we make trades where multiple guys from our 40-man roster leave and less guys who have to be the 40-man roster come back to the Guardians.  

Time will tell.

Looking at Kansas City's roster...we're screwed

 In the best scenario there is no way that we can compete offensively with Kansas City.

Whit Merrifield

Bobby Witt, Jr.

Salvador Perez

Andrew Benintendi

Carlos Santana

Hunter Dozier

Aldeberto Mondesi

Michael Taylor

Nicky Lopez

As we can see today this group can hit.

How can we compete when we have a lineup of

Straw

Rosario

Ramirez

Reyes

Bradley

Chang

Gimenez

Kwan

Hedges

There is no way.  When you add that to our bullpen problems and that our starters look shaky with a number of them coming off injury, this is a big concern at this point when you compare us to what is supposed to be the worst team in our division, the Royals.

It is not like the Royals have a flash in the pan offense.   These guys are mostly veterans compared to our guys.   

28-man roster post #1

 OK, so this is probably not the ACTUAL post #1 but let's just draw a line in the sand and say it is. 

Here are the realities of our 28 man roster in light of our 40-man roster.  

• Both Zimmer and Mercado have to be traded or DFA'd.  Neither should be on our 28-man roster.   They are simply not good enough and have not improved at all from recent years.  We need their roster spots to add relief pitchers who can go more than one inning if need be.
• We cannot afford to have guys on the 10-day DL  
• Maile has to be DFA'd if he can't go or we have to brng up Lavastida.  We simply have no room to add Leon if Maile is taking up a 40 man roster spot.
• Having Karnchak and/or Sandlin on the 10 day DL means we have two relievers on our 40- man who are clogging up roster space but are not being part of the team.   We simply can't afford that so we need to look at putting these guys on the 60-day DL if they aren't ready by opening day.
• The above applies for injury situations that arse between now and opening day.  We simply cannot afford to clog a 40-man roster spot who can't go on opening day.
• Amed Rosario has to move to left field now.  We have too many infielders on the 40 man and not enough outfielders.  Kwan and Palacios have to make the opening day roster because they are on the 40-man.  This would give us 4 outfielders: Straw, Kwan, Rosario and Palacios

Plus, none of this touches on how poorly this organization did this winter getting us minor league free agent pitchers or signing more ML free agent relief pitchers or even ML free agent relief pitchers.  

Folks, the problem is not that we had 11 prospects added to our 40-man roster this off-season.  It is that we did not plan well enough to leave roster space for more pitchers and we did not give ourselves enough options in the minors for relief pitching.

I have seen enough! Here are the positions players on our opening day 28-man roster

 The pitching staff will be another story as we clearly don't have enough pitchers to fill out a 15-man pitching staff.

But the position player decisions are, in my mind, done.  We are good to go.  Here's the opening day roster with comments.  Note that this roster can change with injuries or trades?

Catchers (2) - Hedges and Maile (or Leon, if Maile is on the 60-day)

Infielders (6) - Bradley, Chang, Ramirez, Clement, Gimenez, Arias

Outfielders (5) - Straw, Kwan, Palacios, Reyes, Rosario

DL - Naylor and maybe Maile

DFA'd or traded:  Zimmer, Mercado

Sent to the minors: Lavastida, Freeman, Jones, Miller, Noel, Rocchio, Tena, Valera

Comments:  I am done with Zimmer and Mercado.  They look the same.   I would rather have Kwan and Palacios out there.  My roster has Miller in the minors as he doesn't look that strong to me.  I don't particularly like Maile as the backup but he is what he is.   I like Leon better but who cares.   Note that I have Rosario in the outfield.   I can't see doing anything else with all the infielders we have and the outfielders suck.  

Now that this is out of the way let's worry about the pitching staff.

Joc Pederson - Kiss my Warren Spahn glove

I thought the MLBPA association had reached the height of absurdity when Max Scherzer was pushing for a salary floor for teams.  His words gave away his real intent: artificially create a situation where teams would have to pay mediocre players inflated salaries.

3 1/2 months later here comes Joc Pederson, throwing the Guardians, Orioles and Pirates under the bus.  Whereas Scherzer has some street cred based on his ability, Pederson's comments are really self-serving as he IS one of those mediocre players who would be helped by a salary floor.   

But the question to Mr. Pederson is why, if your team sucks, would you waste money on mediocre players who will not really change the narrative of your season.   

I agree that the Indians are not spending money as they should if you look below at the bad position we are currently in relative to our relievers and pitching staff, in general.

However, for a hanger-on like Pederson to make comments like this are embarassingly self-serving and not appropriate.  The Guardians organization has continued to produce winning teams with that low payroll and are near the top in developing prospects.   Have they made mistakes this winter that better spending would have helped?   Yes, absolutely.   But their winning has been accomplished without overspending on mediocre players.

Thoughts for a Thursday morning on the left coast

 First, the Guardians and all teams in the majors will be able to have a 28-person active roster for the month of April.   The issue, if you want to call it an issue, is that this means, in theory, you can have up to 15 pitchers on that roster.   The issue for teams, and this especially applies to the Guardians, is that you have to have two things to make this work:

(1)  15 pitchers on your 40 man roster

(2) 15 pitchers on your 40-man roster who are actually anywhere close to being ready to pitch in the majors.

With the news that the Indians have signed Bryan Shaw also comes the news that to get him on the roster the Indians will put Cody Morris on the 60-day DL.  So, instead of two pitchers who might be available for the ML roster coming out of spring training we have just swapped one for another one.  

So we are still short of pitchers for our major league team coming out of spring training.  Here is a list of our available pitchers with commentary:

1. Logan Allen (the elder):  Looked very shaky in his first outing after a shaky 2021

2. Shane Beiber: Looked very shaky in his first outing after missing most of 2021.

3. Aaron Civale: No negative news here but missed a lot of time in 2021

4. Emmanuel Clase: Only solid reliever available

5. Anthony Gose: Very little ML experience but being counted on to make our pitching staff

6. Sam Hentges: Shaky last year and in his first spring training appearance.  Being counted on to make the bullpen.

7. James Karinchak: Shaky last year and shut down already due to arm problem

8. Triston McKenzie: Healthy and looked good in his first outing

9. Eli Morgan: Looked good in his first outing

10.  Cody Morris: on 60-day DL

11. Tobias Myers: Rookie, never pitched in the majors.  Beng counted on to make the team out of spring training

12.Konnor Pilkington: Rookie, never pitched above AA.

13. Zach Plesac:  Looked OK in his first outing

14. Cal Quantrill

15. Nick Sandlin:  Injured at the end of last year

16. Bryan Shaw: Late to spring training but being counted on in this year's bullpen

16, Trevor Stepha: Being counted on to be in this year's bullpen.

17. Carlos Vargas - On 60 day DL

So, for 15 spots we have 15 pitchers.  Of those only 7 are not looking questionable at this point.

We are in trouble, people and most of the good, inexpensive free agent pitchers have already been signed.  In addition to that there is very little fluff on the 40 man roster if you wanted to DFA someone to add a reliever.   Here are the expendable guys I see:

Logan Allen (the elder)
Owen Miller

Oscar Mercado

Bradley Zimmer

Ernie Clement

Yu Chang

With most of the good major league free agent relievers already signed, who on this group would you cut to bring in a bunch of third and fourth tier relievers.  Frankly, I wouldn't cut or trade any of those guys to clear roster space for any pathetic reliever like Andrew Young, who has looked pathetic this spring, too.

And when the Guardians or their fans say that this is due to having to protect all these prospects from the Rule 5 this winter, tell them that most of the guys on the above list of expendables could have been lost if they signed or traded for a QUALITY reliever.

A hard look at the pitching staff

 Pitchers get hurt.   They come in hurt and don't tell anyone hoping it is just soreness.   They tweak something the first week of spring traning.   They tweak something during the first, bone-chillng month of the season.   Then there is the wear and tear and old injuries flaring up and guys being overextended that leads to later season injuries.   Pitchers get hurt.

The age-old expression is that you can never have too much pitching.  You have to have a next man up mentality but in order to do that you have to have a next man to be up.

The Indians don't have enough of those next men, especially in the bullpen.  Let's examine that.  

Most teams have 20+ pitchers on their 40-man roster.  The Indians have 16 not counting Carlos Vargas who is on the 60-day DL.   Three of those guys (Konnor PIlkington, Cody Morris and Tobias Myers) have zero big league experience.  That leaves 13 guys and most big league pitching staffs carry at least 13 pitchers (5 starters and 8 relievers) and this year if they expand the opening day rosters to 30, you are likely looking at 15 pitchers.

Did I mention that pitchers get hurt?  And like I said, we don't have enough men up.

Even with the next men up that we do have, not all of these guys are relievers.   Eli Morgan is a starter and, as a reliever, is at best a mopup man.  Morris, Pilkington and Myers....who knows.

Plus we have guys coming back from injuries (Sanlin, Beiber), guys who still need to prove themselves (Allen, Hentges, Gose, Karinchak) and, of course, the minor league 3.

Looking at our non-roster invitees, where the Indians normally find 1-2 relievers every year, the pickings are slim.  Any major league pitching staff that has Alex Young on it is a pitching staff short on talent.  Ditto for Enyel De Los Santos, Ian Gibaut and Jake Newell.  These guys are all minor league filler.   None of them is the next Blake Parker let alone a replacement for Brian Shaw.  If the Indians are thinking about going with youth they can look to Robert Broom, Justn Garza or Nick Mikolajchak or one or more of the aforementioned minor league starters (Tully, Scott, McCarty, Battenfield),  Unfortunately none of these guys, to me, are worth removing a guy for our 40-man, which is the next issue.

Plus, when you think about how stacked our 40 man roster is with true major leagues and uber prospects, the only way you increase the pitchers is to jettison guys like Logan Allen (the elder), Oscar Mercado,

Hey, I am not talking about quality here, which is another issue entirely.  I am talking about quantity that has any resemblance to quality.   It doesn't take a baseball savant to see that this pitching staff is in real trouble and the longer we wait to sign somnebody, the less time that veteran has to get ready and the greater the chance that THEY will get hurt and then clog a roster spot and not be helpfu.

The only way this doesn't go south on us is to complete a megatrade with some team (our prospects for their veterans) where we also get 1-2 relievers thrown in from the other team.   

I still think we pull off a deal where we trade multiple prospects on our 40-man for one star veteran (cough, Juan Soto, cough).  Whether we get a relief pitcher back in that trade or sign one or more after the trade  don't know.  

What I do know is that you need pitchers to never have too many pitchers.   Even without injuries the Indians don't have enough right now.  

Life imitates art

 I know someone, somewhere has to have made this connection.  But wasn't today eerily similar to the movie "Draft Day"?   Aside from the fact that Andrew Berry bears no resemblance to Kevin Costner, today was really weird.

I don't know what to think of this move more than what Terry Pluto said: desperation.

Well, all that's left is to trade Mayfield to a team that is looking for an adolescent to be their quarterback.  

And to find a real head coach because my guess is, if you give Stefanski enough weapons he will probably hurt himself with one of them.

Somewhere, Odell Beckham Sr. is laughing his rear end off.

I couldn't wait for the Guardians game today.  I missed baseball.  In a regular exhibition opener you see the starters go an at bat or two and then a bunch of guys who will never play n the majors come in for the last 5 innings or so.   Today we were treated with appearances from most of the prospects we protected on the 40 man roster this year and, for me, it certainly made the later innings more interesting.

If you read the tea leaves with everyone in management for the Guardians imaking such a big deal about all the young guys have chances and need to step up that it makes you KNOW there is going to be a trade, doesn't it.   Let's hope Chernoff doesn't pull and Andrew Berry.   Anything south of Juan Soto/Stephen Strasburg will likely mean a Cleveland team has really overpad again this month.

Good game by Ohio State today.   Good to see them make it to second round.   Really enjoyed the St. Peter's game against Kentucky yesterday.  Glad the Cleveland State women made it to 20 official, non-forfeit wins.   They should have been in the women's NIT.  Love watching this team play.

Can't wait for baseball on Saturday and for the minor league season to start.

Go Lady Buckeyes, lady Vikings.  Let's have another day on Saturday.

Where for art thou, free agents...and trade buddies?

 OK, we have a short spring training and we are not making much headway.

Maybe the smart money lets guys play a few games or waits until the end of ST to see if players are healthy.   I can buy that...I guess, if we are gong to make a trade.

So, as free agent hitter options fly off the board I get it.   We are going to have to make a trade for an outfielder.  Amed Rosario is a good hitter for a SS but would be a below average hitter for a left fielder, a position where you normally want a power hitter.  Josh Naylor, on his best day, is not a right fielder and he is still recovering from last year's bad njury.  I am not sure, at this point, if Naylor is more than a pinch hitter/5th outfielder at this point.  On the other hand, Bradley Zmmer is the perfect 4th outfielder, in my opinion, but nothing more.   So as it doesn't appear that we will even sign a mediocre FA outfielder we have to make a trade and that trade should be for a powerhitting right fielder.

Enter Juan Soto.

But even if that trade can be made without totally gutting our farm system (the Matt Olson trade is NOT a good sign) we still need to do something about the bullpen.

I know we use the "C" word a lot with this team, and I don't mean Cleveland.  But when you see relief pitcher, good and mediocre, healthy and injured, go off the board with one year deals and minor league invites, you have to ask yourself if it is status quo or worse this year with the Guardians bullpen.  

Again, conventional wisdom says that one inning relievers may be a luxury during the early season and we have enough of them anyway.   So maybe we are looking for tandem guys and Eli Morgan, Logan Allen and Cody Morris may be exactly what we need or throwing guys out there like Konnor Pilkington or even Payton Battenfield.   But, at some point, we are going to back to playing normal baseball and we need two veteran righties and a veteran lefty, none of whom we have in camp right now.  

So, each day we proceed in camp I get more and more nervous that Paul Dolan, Mr C word, is planning to take the revenue sharing money and run or maybe just say "F" it and use that money to extend Ramirez, and Biieber and not to improve this team.  

I hope not but, right now, we could be looking at a very young, very cheap roster.   Not that this would be a problem to me but I can't imagine mentally that a guy like Francona could mentally last the whole season with a team in cheap mode.

So  I hope something big is happening.  I hope it involves Juan Soto and maybe Stephen Strasburg and I hope it doesn't totally gut our farm system.  And I hope we get some quality relievers who won't turn quality starts into gut-wrenching losses.

Take your time Guardians and do it right.  No pressure.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Let's talk baseball - Would you make this trade?

 The A's want to trade first baseman Matt Olson who has two years of control left on him before free agency.   They ask for Tyler Freeman, George Valera, Gavin Williams and Richie Palacios.   Would you make that deal?

So that deal is done (or not) and the Reds come to you with an offer.   They will trade you Jesse Winker (reigning all-star, Strong against righties but weak against lefties) who has 2 years of control and Eugenio Suarez (he of the .198 BA and 31 HRs last year with 3 years and $34 million left on his contract) and they want Gavin Williams, Bradley Zimmer and Eli Morgan.    We would eat all the salaries.  Would you make that deal?

Well, I don't know that I would make the first deal as that is a lot of prospects when I have a guy at that position who then I have to dump, Bobby Bradley.  So think about adding Bradley to that deal above and you have 5 solid ML prospects.  I hold out to make a big free agent splash or trade these guys for Juan Soto and take Stephen Strasburg off their hands and eat his salary, if necessary.  If I could get Soto for the above 4 guys and leave Bradley at 1B.

The second deal I make in a heartbeat.  This is a salary dump and we fill a need without giving up a lot.

No way the Indans couldn't have outbid the Mariners for these guys.  Yes, Suarez may in fact be done, based on his last 2 years.   But who knows.  Winker is what we needed and he would have come cheap in terms of prospects.

Again, more relievers coming off the board today and the Indians do nothing.

They have enough to compete if they add a good power hitting outfielder and a couple of good relievers.

Why are they letting teams just run past them without getting better?

Thoughts for a Sunday

 NON-ROSTER INVITEES

I have said this before and I am saying it again:  The Guardians made a big mistake in not signing more veteran minor league free agents during the early days of the lockout.   There was some information that guys like that would be locked out of spring training, too.   Well, seeing Sandy Leon in spring training shows that this is not true.   Other teams have, all along, been adding these guys.   Generally they are just AAA filler players, a few of whom likely will wind up on your roster at the beginning of the season but many will languish in AAA and even AA for the entire year.

However, this year imagine heading into your pre-season with a month of spring training already under your belt.  These veterans could have a huge impact in the first month of the season when the returning major leaguers are still shaking off the rust.  Whoever plays this signing game right could end up with 2-3 more wins in the first month of the season.

Now, you can argue that the Guardians will not have any roster room for these types of guys but wouldn't it be nice to have about a half dozen ML-ready guys stashed in the minors ready to help in that first month before being DFA'd for established guys a little later in the season?

CBA Negotiations

I am constantly amazed how fans think the Rule 5 draft is a good thing because it gives a couple of guys the ability to steal a spot on a ML roster before they are truly ready to play in the majors.  They haven't done the reaearch to show how neffective this draft is while, at the same time, costing teams a lot of money and angst in which prospects to protect.   Imagine if there was not ML Rule 5 draft.  I am pretty sure the Indians 40-man would look a lot different and a lot of the prospects who were added this winter would likely be in spring training right now.

I think an agreement will be reached soon but I don't think all issues will be hammered out by that time.  I think the 14-team playoff decision will be key and I think that will be finalized soon.  

Spring Training

Lots of videos coming out of spring training.   It will be interesting to see how fast the pitchers the Guardians drafted in 2021 progress. Gavin Williams is supposed to be hitting 100 mph.   Will they develop him slowly as a starter or will they send him to the bullpen?  I hope the Rule 5 is cancelled soon so the Cleveland minor leaguers can exhale and get down to serious work.   I am sure it weighs on some of them about who they will be playing for this year.  

Trades after the lockout

I still see the Indians turning some of that prospect capital into a star player after the lockout ends.   I am still hoping for Juan Soto with us taking on Strasburg's contract to keep the prospect loss down to a minimum.  I just hope we don't overpay with prospects for some average or a little better verteran.  We have the prospect capital.  Make a big splash that helps the team this year.

Free Agen Signings

In typical Indians fashion watch for them to sign Shaw and Parker out of the lockout.   Those guys should be in camp right now as mnor league free agents.  As I said above, just hope we don't overpay for free agents who don't really help that much and chew up our resources.

Basketball

Congrats and good luck to the Cleveland State basketball teams.   As a proud alumnus it is enjoyable to see basketball make a comeback at CSU.  The women looked strong in their last 5 quarters of basketball and the men still have so much potential they haven't tapped this year.   Let's hope this coming week brings NCAA tournament bids to their men's and women's teams.

The Cavs are struggling right now.  I hope they right the ship but, with all their injuries, they could easily crash.  Let's hope they get healthy quickly.

I don't know what to make of the OSU men's team.  They look like they could have an early exit from the Big Ten tournament and maybe get aced out of or have another first round exit from the NCAA tournament.   I know he will be retained for next year to see how his 2022 recruiting class pans out but what we see now might be all that we can expect from Holtman.   Then the OSU administration will have to decide if this is acceptable at a football-frst school or if they want a flashy new guy who can take the program to the next level, at least in terms of NCAA tourney performance. All I know is that this is a team kthat I wouldn't want to meet n the NCAAs because, for one game, this team can play with anyone in the country...if they show up.

So here we are!

 Sprng training and the first two series of the regular season are about to become the latest casualties of baseball greed.  

It's been almost two months since I last posted as, frankly, there hasn't been much to say.  

Here are my thoughts on items I would like to see changed

1.  Draft pick compensation - Teams who sign don't forfeit picks but teams who lose free agents get extra draft picks similar to the Type A, Type B, Type C system used prefiously

2.  Arbitration - Do away with it.  After their first season all players get payed on a metrics-based pay scale.  Avoids service time manipulaton.   

3. Expanded playoffs - good with 12 teams but I think first round matchups should be consist of best-of-5 playoffs with the division winners getting 2 ghost wins and having the first two games in their park.   If the visiting (wildcard) team wins the first games played they are rewarded by having the deciding game at home.  This still ends up, in the worst case, being a 3 game playoff series and is set up so a team with 2 dominant starting pitchers can't steal a series from a stronger overall team.

4. International draft - I am opposed to this.  The system works well now.  

5. Revenue sharing - There should be as much if not more revenue sharing in the new CBA but I have a plan for using that money.   Teams that receive revenue sharing should have strict controls put on how they use that money.

a) 70% of it has to go to extend players currently under their control or sign free agents

b) 15% will be added to the team's draft bonus pool

c) 15% will be added to the team's international signing bonus pool

Now b) and c) could be ways for teams to just pocket the money but I think that teams would be foolish to do that as they can get a larger number of talented players without going over and being penalized for going over their bonus pools

6. Anti-tanking measures - I like MLBPA's proposal here

7. Here are some topics that have not been discussed so far:

• Rule 5 draft - I think this should be eliminated
• Age for minor league free agency:
• Players signed before their 19th birthday become free agents after the season in which they are 24 years old
• Players signed after their 19th birthday become free agents after the season of their 25th birthday