Thoughts for a Saturday night

 Just a few more pitches

Francona has, since he started managing the Indians, had this annoying habit of leaving his starters in too long.  However, in the last week it has really gotten bad.

Twice he left his starter in into the 5th inning even though these guys had struggled with traffic on the bases and pitch counts to get through the 4th.   Once it was into the 6th, pulling his starter after one batter only to have that runner score and today, leaving Mejia in into the 7th, even though he was decent through the 6th.   Again, one batter, Mejia is pulled, reliever comes in to give up that run. In all of these cases he had to go to the bullpen to finish the inning.

The question is, why is he burying these kids.   He claims he doesn't want to put players in a position that will harm their development.  Yet he does this with his pitchers.  AND IT NEVER WORKS OUT. 

I just don't get it.  It is one of his few Achilles heels as a manager.  He needs to clean that up.   When I can watch a game and see this is going to happen, he should, too.

Excess draft pool money and what to do with it

Right now we have, on paper, almost $104,000 unspent draft bonus money.   Assuming that we don't use it all to sign Jake Miller or haven't already used it to sign a few of the 11-20 round guys we don't have bonus numbers for, here are a couple of guys who went undrafted that we might want to think about signing:

Jonathon Cooper, RHP, Georgia - probably out of our price range but wanted to lead with him.

Will Frisch RHP Oregon State - Again, I don't know if $225,000 would do it but you never know

There are probably a number of JUCO guys or guys playing in Cape Cod or other summer leagues who may be interested in signing for 9th round money.   Too tired to look for them but, if we have excess, they may be out there.

The Jake Bauers effect

Guys gettting on our nerves who keep hanging on with a good performance or two.   This applies to both Oscar Mercado and Daniel Johnson.  They just keeping doing just enough to make you think they are about to bust out.  You don't want those guys doing good things after you release them, so you give them too many chances.   Really hits home when you are playing Tampa and Joey Wendle and Yandy Diaz and Louis Head are beating your brains out.  I get it.   But, damn, can't those guys just perform here so we don't have to play bad players or watch our bad players get good somewhere else?