Way down Yonder

Ever since Yonder Alonso came to the majors I wanted to use that line and now I have my chance.  

If you consider the prediction of the structure of the Indians April 25 man roster like an NCAA basketball bracket prediction, well, consider my bracket busted!

This is not to say that I don't like the Alonso contract.   I actually like it.  Not too long, not too short, 3rd year option, not too pricy this year.   Yeah, it looks about right.   Alonso cashes in on his beyond-all-expectations-career-year.  We get a guy who we hope matches last year when the rest of the league

So what's not to like?

Alonso is a lefty hitter who can't hit lefties.   Thus he is a platoon player.  We will need to add another hitter to platoon with him.   Maybe we have options in house (Diaz, Guyer, Mejia) or maybe we go out and get another veteran.   If we do the latter guys like Gio Urshela and Erik Gonzalez are at risk as they are out of options.  Plus, if we added a veteran right hand bat you would have liked him to be a full-time starter like maybe a thirdbaseman instead of just a platoon firstbaseman.

You see the issue.   By adding Alonso you likely will add another veteran, pushing back younger players.

For me, I would have rather just kept Mejia on the roster as the third catcher/DH.  Chisenhall can play some 1B and so can Brantley.  With the guys we have returning, I think that works better than signing Alonso.  Plus we have Yandy Diaz.   I know what they were doing in getting Alonso but I just don't like it.   Young guys get kicked to the curb or jettisoned because they are not Lindoresque and we get little or nothing for them.   A perfect example is Jesus Aguilar, who was out of options last year.   He ended up on waivers and picked up by Milwaukee.   Well, he hit 16 HR last year in Milwaukee.   His LH splits were .303 BA and .889 OPS and he wasn't terrible against RHP, either.   We jettisoned him for nothing because we didn't have room for him when, if we would have kept him, we could have used him to help, in a platoon situation, to replace Santana this year.  To me that would have made as much sense as signing Alonso as we wouldn't have to look for another FA signing to platoon with Alonso and it would have been MUCH cheaper.

Hey, I am OK with signing certain veterans when needed.    However, the last two years we have made moves that gave away young players for little return.   Signing Alonso might cause us to do the same again.   I just don't like that when we are in a weak division and all that our in-house options may need is just need a chance to be successful.  Filling your roster with veterans really doesn't give the young players that opportunity and, as I said, you wind up throwing away for nothing prospects just because they are not the next coming of Francisco Lindor.   Bad business for a small market team, in my opinion.