Mangini, Truth, Death and Taxes
December 28, 2010Browns Lose Virtually to Ravens 80-7
December 28, 2010With all the negative sports stories coming from Cleveland this year, I thought I’d run down my five favorite Cleveland sports stories of 2010. They may not be the ‘top stories’ from the year, but they are the ones that resonate with me the most. Each day this week you can read my take and chime in with your own memory of the events. Today we come with #4:
Carlos Santana Makes Things Fun Again.
I don’t have to go through the list do I? The massive Indians disappointment list? How about the short version? The ’07 team that dominated with starting pitching with Cliff Lee OFF THE ROSTER, gets disassembled. Sold piece by piece. Back to back Cy Young winners traded away. Then the stomach punch. Victor Martinez, the one guy I almost believed when he said he never wanted to leave Cleveland is thrown to the wolves. Well the Red Sox anyways.
Baseball at the Jake hasn’t been much fun since. In fact, it was so un-fun, that they even changed the stinking name.
The Indians did their best to build expectations for the young catching phenom. They waited until June 11th to call him up. He made an immediate impact. Here’s a snippet from a piece I wrote about him-
Here’s another reason Santana passes the eye test. He doesn’t seem fazed at all by what’s happening. Here is the most prized prospect in the system, making his quite anticipated debut, and in the number 3 spot of the order to boot- and he just steps in the box like he’s done it a thousand times before. And against Strasburg, with all the hype and circumstance Santana looked like there was no place else he’d rather be than in the batter’s box. He wasn’t fidgeting with his gloves, he wasn’t stepping out of the box and exhaling deeply like other Tribe hitters. He didn’t seem confused or like he was guessing what pitch was coming next. He stepped in and took his cuts. He WANTED to hit against the phenom. He has just a little swagger about him.In that regard, he reminds me of a young Manny Ramirez. Of course in Manny’s rookie season he hit 6th or 7th, not at the top of the order like Carlos.
For a while during the summer, his at bats became must watch tv for me. It’s been a while since I could say that about a Tribe player. My heart sank when I saw that collision at the plate.
But I choose to think positive about Santana and his injury. I choose to believe that he is going to fully recover. Baseball in Cleveland is just more fun when Carlos Santana is playing for the Tribe.
I already know that some of you are going to criticize my order, putting the Santana story ahead of Hillis. I’m ok with that. It’s my list. As great as Peyton has been this year, I see more potential in Santana. That’s why I listed them the way I did.
7 Comments
id love to get behind this but who would really be surprised if he and Grady are traded mid season?
I would agree with you about the Peyton Hillis and Carlos Santana comparison. We’ve had players on the Browns that have had great seasons and then never accomplish anything for us after that season, Derek Anderson comes to mind as an obvious example. I’m not saying that Hillis can’t be as good next year as he was this year, but I think that Santana has way more potential in the long run.
sad that even one of the “best” moments of the year reminds me of one of the worst (collision @ home)
hoping for the best, watching out for falling anvils, as usual
cle,
You’ve got to be kidding me. Sizemore I can understand but when has the FO ever even considered trading someone who was still in the prearbitration years?
The FO has its wart but some people get rediculous with this.
You’re right, this is an awesome story, and one of the best of the year for us.
But rather than be too excited about the individual player, (who let’s face it, is almost guaranteed to play a large chunk of his career in a uniform other than the tribe’s unless something changes drastically about the MLB system), I think we should be very excited about the system that turned Casey Blake into Carlos Santana.
While it sure will be fun to watch Carlos play over the next few years, if we allow him to become the reason we watch the Tribe, then we will only be disappointed when we have to get rid of him. Instead, lets take joy in the system the team has created to be successful in this current MLB environment, because the system doesn’t have to be traded.
@Tommy
That system (of lower market teams getting great prospects for middling players) is almost dead. When we were trading Victor Martinez, we asked for Clay Bucholz straight up. Boston responded by saying sure, just give us Santana instead of Martinez. The days of large market teams not valuing their farm system are over.
@Strawman
You mean like when San Diego traded Adrian Gonzalez for 3 of Boston’s top prospects a few weeks ago?
Or when Kansas City traded Grienke to Milwaukee for 3 of their top prospects last week?
Also, the “system” I was referring to, is not just the ability to acquire young talent through trades of established major leaguers, but the organizations ability to use all resources efficiently and establish a constant flow of upcoming young,cheap talent that we can win with.