Thoughts for a Thursday Night - Pre Texas Rangers Visit Version

• Congratulations to Kole Calhoun on getting to 10 years of service.  I am pretty sure that raised his pension by $5000 a year over us having DFA'd him a week ago and bringing up a prospect.   Now that he has reached this milestone, though, it is ridiculous that he is still on this roster. 

• As a reminder, if we do not roster Jonathon Rodriguez before the end of the minor league season he is, technically, a 6-year minor league free agent immediately.  This is what happened to Oscar Gonzalez a couple of years ago and we re-signed him pretty quickly but that is NOT guaranteed.  I think the stats and the open roster positions we will have this winter means that rostering Rodriguez is a no-brainer. He should be up here now and Ramon Laureano should be DFA'd

• In fact, with the off-day today we should have DFA'd Laureano, Calhoun and Gallagher.  We should have brought up Rodriguez, Noel and Lavastida.  There is nothing to be gained by playing AAAA guys the rest of the way and there is nothing to be lost by bringing these 3 guys up.   The problem I see is if Antonetti is leaving as is rumored (see below) I think he could just be mailing it in the last two weeks or so and trying to avoid doing anything (like dissing AAAA veterans) that will screw up his ability to sign free agents at his next job.  If he, in fact, knows he is leaving, why would he give a crap about what was best for the future of this franchise?  

• Rumors are starting to circulate that Antonetti is going to desert the sinking ship that he created and run off for more money and a larger salary budget than what he has here.  If he was leaving a healthy situation (majors and minors) behind I would hate that he was leaving but be OK with it.  But between him and Chernoff they have squandered a lot of assets.  Hey, guys get traded all the time but their record, since the Clevinger trade, has really hurt our organization's viability.  They have traded away so many guys for so little return and have had two really bad drafts in the last two years, all of which will hamstring this organization for years to come.  You don't just get to walk away from this pathetic mess that was 100% your fault for greener pastures.  You stay and clean up the mess until you are told to get the hell out if you can't or have brought the organization back to health.  And, believe me, if Antonetti can't clean up the mess he has created there is much less likelihood that the next person hired or promoted will be able to do it.  We were extremely lucky that Shapiro built a strong organization from which to pick his successor.  My sense is that Antonetti, among his other shortcomings, has not done the same thing.  So, Chris, don't take the coward's way out, stay and clean up your mess.

• Both McKenzie and Bieber looked stronger than I expected in their rehab outings (See Spencer Turnbull tonight for Toledo as a representation of how I thought their rehab starts would go).  I am still concerned that these guys will have to undergo surgery either this off-season or next spring that would put them out all of next year but there is nothing any of us can do about that except to hope that their arms hold together and we can have them both at their career bests for all of 2024.

• On an upbeat note, both Manzardo (HR) and DeLauter (2-run single) had key hits tonight against lefties.  It is crucially important to the future of this franchise that these two are NOT just platoon players.  Heaven knows, we likely have too many of those guys in Cleveland and the minors already.

• I saw somebody write that Tena should play more the last couple of weeks.  Hey, he is here to get experience.  Next year Rocchio or Arias should be the starting SS and the other one should be a utility player.  Tena should spend all year next year at AAA.  The reason, as I have posited before, that he is up instead of Rocchio is that they don't want to exhaust Rocchio's rookie eligibility for player control and PPI reasons.  In the meantime, Arias should be getting all the reps at SS that Freeman isn't getting.  In reality, Tena should not even be in Cleveland with how bad his season at AA was going before a hot streak that led to his promotion.  

• I will have a whole article about this coming up but looking back over the Guardian's history and looking at our history with Francona, there is no reason to believe that no other manager we could have hired here would have had anywhere near the success we had.  I mean, it is entirely possible that we could have looking at some KC and Detroit-type records over the past 10 years instead of what we had with Francona.  Most people just don't realize how bad it likely would have been without him.  Replacing him with someone who can do so much with so little is almost beyond the realm of reasonableness.  Hopefully it is not outside the realm of possibility.

• Even though we hopefully get Bieber and McKenzie back before the end of the year, all we have to do is look at Joey Cantillo's performance today to see how bare the cupboard is in terms of next-man-up starters in the minors.  While he struck out 8 guys he also gave up 4 hits, including two bombs to just OK prospect Ryan Kriedler, and 4 walks in 5.2 innings.  Hey, the stuff is there and with a little more polishing he might be ready by next July but he ain't ready right now.  After Cantillo, as you scroll down the Guardians top 30 prospects on MLB Pipeline, the next one you come to is Parker Messick at #17, and Messick is not really a prospect in my opinion.  Yes, you have Daniel Espino but his return is still questionable in terms of both timing and whether he will be the pitcher he was before his latest injury.  There are also journeymen types like Hunter Gaddis and future jouneymen like Will Dion, Tanner Burns and maybe Tommy Mace, Doug Nikhazy and Justin Campbell.  But, really, there are no other real pitching prospects in this organization.  We tapped that out when we brought up Bibee, Williams and Logan Allen in the same year.  With the loss of Civale, we are razor thin where one injury or trade would make us to the point that we would be having Gaddis or Curry, guys who are unproven to be ML starters, as the next men up starting next April.  That is not a good place to be in terms of pitching depth.

• Just to clarify, I don't think Richie Palacios will ever be a ML starter.  I just question how much better Will Brennan will be than Palacios.  Is Palacios' current stretch for St. Louis an aberration?  Likely so, but that doesn't mean Brennan is any better and the fact that, even in an aberrational stretch, Palacios can, in 45 AB almost match Brennan's 400 AB HR total, is really a red flag, especially with Brennan's poor walk rate.  I mean we have dumped Nolan Jones, Will Benson and Palacios because we thought some combination of Brennan and Oscar Gonzalez was going to be the answer in RF.  Unless some major changes occur in their games before or during next year we are looking at the next coming of Oscar Mercado for these two while Jones, Benson and Palacios go on the have successful ML careers.  You just can't continue to do crap like that and have a successful small market club.

• Lucas Giolito on the bump Friday.  Let's hope he either figures it out or has another disastrous start so we can dump him.  It is just too embarrassing to have to have a veteran like this guy pitch like crap when I could give the innings to Gaddis or even just give Cantillo a cup of coffee even thought I know he isn't ready.   No need to embarrass this franchise by throwing Gioloto out there and watch him get shelled.  He doesn't seem to have any motivation to succeed right now which, like Syndergaard, doesn't make any sense in a FA season.