Thoughts for a Wednesday Morning: Things Have To Evolve

Reading Various Internet Sites, the angst that exists among Cleveland fans falls, for once, not on Dolan but on the front office and the coaching staff.  

• The preparation for this season was not optimal - We were told that Tyler Freeman was going to be getting outfield practice in spring training and that apparently didn't happen, unless you want to count shagging balls in batting practice because I did not see that he played in a game.  I am not sure that he even played a game in the outfield in Columbus.  Ditto for Rocchio, who played no games at 3B in Columbus but played there in his first game for Cleveland. 
• Francona is making some of the most irritating decisions I have seen during his time as a manager.  The icing on the cake was starting Arias at 3B yesterday.   He had three rookies on the bench (Fry, Freeman and Rocchio) who could have started there but he put Arass in and he went 0-4 with 3 Ks.  
• The front office refuses to pull the trigger on bringing up Bo Naylor.  Now, I know fans tend to want a quicker trigger finger when someone doesn't perform than management does but this team needs a spark.  I don't want to think that we are on the brink of a total collapse but let's just say that we need a spark.   I get not wanting to move on from Zunino and his $6 million contract.  I get not wanting to get rid of your security blanket in Gallagher, but Bo Naylor needs to be called up today.  Arias should be sent down, Naylor should be brought up.  It's not even a no-brainer, it's a mandatory move right now.
• While I agree that trading Shane Beiber is a good idea if we can get value, if you think you want to trade him because he is not as valuable as he used to be, realize that the return on that trade would not be worth as much as you might want.  I do think Beiber's ability will not be higher than it is right now but I don't know if trading him right now would help our team this year or next year.  It would have to bring us a long-term outfielder and a top prospect or two back (Michael Busch, Emmitt Sheehan and Josue De Paula or Dalton Rushing come to mind).  IF you think you could get that return, let's go for it.
• I disagree that we have hoarded our middle infield prospects.  I just don't think we could find a trade where we got equal value back.  Certainly if people around baseball really thought Nolan Jones, our 7th prospect, was only worth Juan Brito, or less, how much would they have valued Jose Tena and Angel Martinez?   Better to let those guys develop and improve their value so we COULD trade them for something than to give them away for nothing like we did with Jones.
• You are in Cleveland.  You can't throw 6 million or 16 million away on a free agent.  We did that with Zunino and Bell.  If Bell continues his upsurge we may get what we payed for.  Zunino looks like more of a waste.  Having the FO make huge gaffes like Zunino is not what you want to do with an owner who is opening the purse strings somewhat over previous years.  
• People have not talked about Will Brennan that much but he is really struggling.  I think, perfonally, he will make a much better major leaguer than Richie Palacios but, right now, I have to seriously start thinking about bringing up Palacios and sendding Brennan down.  Francona is so enamored with defense that I doubt he wants to send Brennan down.  Still, it is this disjointed thinking that allows him to play a bad hitter because he provides better defense.   Like I have said, defensive runs saved is a meaningless stat if you can't score any runs.   Teams today should be built on scoring runs and starting pitching, filling in the bullpen and defense after you have established those two things.  The classic mistake the Browns made was drafting Tim Couch but not drafting and expansion drafting stuff offensive linemen to protect him.  There has to be a similar hierarchy in the majors and that hierarchy CANNOT place defensive runs saved as high as Francona and the FO value them.  
• I think we are in a good place if McKenzie and Civale come back healthy and strong, which I think is a really possibility as they won't have been ground down by the season so far and shortening their season may actually make them fresh down the stretch and in the playoffs, if we get there.  We won't need to bring up Williams unless we trade Beiber and it would then be a no brainer to bring him up.  As I said, if you can get value for Beiber dump him now.  It's not like we don't have options to replace him.