(1) ...sometimes change for the sake of change is OK. We have given guys such long leashes on this team over the last couple of years that there is no incentive to fix any problems these guys have. Arias has had plenty of chances and looks lost at the plate and in the field and like he is giving the laziest of efforts. Send him out. Rocchio looks anything BUT like 'the professor' he was claimed to be vis-a-vis his baseball IQ. In fact, it looks like he is just going off of instinct as guys who hit .200 should not be swinging at 2-0 or 3-0 pitches out of the zone and running over their teammates. DFA'd Laureano and Florial and sent JRod out. Send out Rocchio and Arias and bring up Tena and Noel. Get Brito ready in the wings as Brennan, to me, is on a short leash, too.
(2)...your starting pitching is your starting pitching. Look, Cleveland may be one of the few teams in baseball who has NOT sent out an Opener over the past two years. Maybe that's inaccurate but it seems like Cleveland is at least trying. I think letting go of Quantrill and Civale really exposed them as did inactivity in the free agent market. That being said, Kent, Avila, Parsons...they're all DFA possibilities if you need roster spots. Even Strzelecki and Curry are DFA possibilities if you have to dig deeper into your roster (don't think you will). But the bottom line here is unless a great deal incredibly drops in your lap, you go with what you have. I don't like it and I would love to do something but the time is really end of July to make a trade and when we make the trade we should be trading from a position of strength, not panic. A heck of a lot would have to improve on this team for us to make a deep run in the playoffs. No panic required.
(3)...draft Bazzana. Nothing that has happened recently tells me we should go another way. But this does teach us one thing: if you stack your farm system with LH slap hitters it does give you pause to take the best player available if he, too, hits LHed. Your farm system should never be so unbalanced that you talk yourself out of a guy like Bazzana. They should be looking at who is available at 36 and 48
(4) ...keep up the promotions. Kayfus, Genao following on the heels of Wilkinson is a good sign this organization is being aggressive with their promotions. For this organization an aggressive promotion has, in the past, been right after a league all-star break at 50% of games played. More usually it was when only 40% of games or less, were left in the league a guy was promoted to. Now you are at roughly 60% of games left in the league these guys are promoted to. Nice to see Furman promoted, too. A normal development pathway for a real prospect would have had him starting this season in AA. Next I would like to see Messick to AA, Nikhazy and Mace to AAA, Denholm and Peterson to AA. Let's start stressing those SP and get the pipeline moving.
(5) ...it's time to keep the good vibes going and extend Josh Naylor. In reality, if you can't extend him then you should trade him and his brother Bo. I think that might kill the vibes and none of us know if it is Cleveland or Naylor and his representatives or both groups who are not allowing an extension to be done. But, right now, one way to keep the good vibes going is to extend Josh Naylor.
There are a lot of other things that we could talk about but these are the things that I think of that are in the forefront right now. Go Guards!.
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