Varejao’s Injury Changes Cavs Outlook
February 12, 2012While We’re Waiting… Chisenhall’s Spot, Ferrell for All-Star and Misfit Cavaliers
February 13, 2012The Cleveland Indians are apparently looking to corner the market on soft-throwing, location-based right handers as the team is reportedly in the mix for veteran starting pitcher Jon Garland.
Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reports that the Indians are “working on” a deal for Garland, 32, with apparent hopes of providing another inning-eating starter on a relative discount. The 10th-overall selection in the 1997 amateur draft, Garland spent the bulk of his career with the Chicago White Sox (making the All-Star game in 2005) before bouncing around the West Coast over the last three seasons.
If signed, Garland would provide additional depth in the wake of the Fausto Carmona/Roberto Hernandez Heredia arrest. The Indians have recently acquired the right-handed Kevin Slowey in a trade with the Colorado Rockies.
Garland underwent season-ending shoulder surgery this past July with a recovery time slated for approximately six months. Over his 12 seasons in the majors, Garland has a record of 132-119 and an ERA of 4.32, totaling at least 190 innings in nine of his last 10 seasons. He possesses a career mark of 1.31 ground balls to every fly ball.
It is assumed that, like other deals consumated by the Indians this offseason, Garland’s contract will be of the minor league variety with plenty of incentives built in. If healthy, he could ultimately rival David Huff and Jeanmar Gomez for a rotation spot.
[Related: Setting the Lines for the 2012 Indians]
(Source: Ken Rosenthal)
13 Comments
more competition for SP5. not a bad thing.
The words “shoulder surgery” are the big red flag. Elbow problems are fixable; shoulder problems are much more difficult.
The words ‘Jon Garland’ were the first ‘big red flags’ that caught my eye…
Agreed, and Garland was never that good to begin with. Mediocre, at best.
I mean, I guess I’ll take him though if the price is cheap.
Who is this Fausto guy I keep hearing about?
According to yahoo this is a done deal. Signed him to a minor league contract
The perfect kind of signing for the Cleveland Indians.
I would love to see them flip Gomez, Macallister, or even Tomlin for a young 1B or OF after stock piling all of this veteran depth this offseason. I hope that’s their thinking anyway. Logan Morrison anybody?
You can never have too much pitching. Not sure how much this helps, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Careful. Among Garland’s most similar pitchers on Baseball Reference is our beloved Charles Nagy.
Yes, it isn’t a bad thing, but bringing in a BUNCH of below average players (Spilborghs, Lewis, Pie, Canzler, Hernandez, Cunningham, Lopez, LaRoche, Kotchman, Lowe, Slowey, Ray, Tejada, Wheeler, Accardo ) isn’t going to win this division. I know that some of these signings are necessary, for depth purposes, but to contend for a title, these cannot be the headlines. It’s almost like how the Cavs will hold onto Sessions because having a good bench is necessary to contend, even though they are short a few good starters away from seeing the playoffs.
I really wonder what happened to that trade Antonetti was talking about…
I’ve been hoping the whole time that the reason they have been adding arms to the rotation and BP was to make a trade for a power bat.
this is a player who signed a minor league deal. every team signs a bunch of flier guys like this in february.
“to contend for a title” depends more on Masterson, Ubaldo, Santana, Asdrubel, Brantley, Kipnis and Chisenhall all taking steps forward than it would have signing any one “headliner”