While We’re Waiting… Ch-ch-changes coming?

While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.

Making the case FOR trading Asdrubal– “The Indians didn’t acquire Mike Aviles over the weekend in order to trade Asdrubal Cabrera. In fact, when asked if he still envisioned Cabrera as his starting shortstop on Opening Day 2013, this was general manager Chris Antonetti’s precise, plain-as-day reply: “Yes.”

Hmm. Not a whole lot of room for shades of gray there. But heading into an awfully interesting and important winter for the Indians’ organization, Antonetti has the option to be a little bit more open-minded about his shortstop situation. Because while he has multiple trade chips he can dangle the next few months, as the Tribe figures out how best to surround its championship-caliber new manager with a championship-caliber ballclub, none, in this moment, is more attractive and more ready to reap an impactful return than Cabrera.” [Castrovince/MLB.com]

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Analyzing the snap counts- “I guess this means that Josh Gordon is officially the team’s No. 1 receiver on the depth chart. This is the third week in a row he has seen more snaps than Greg Little, but it’s the first time that Little’s snaps have been this low. Mohamed Massaquoi’s return game was a bust; he only caught one pass and then took himself out of the game late, possibly because he re-aggravated his hamstring injury. It would’ve been nice to have a security blanket like Josh Cooper yesterday on a day where Brandon Weeden was clearly out of rhythm.” [Pokorny/Dawgs by Nature]

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“Considering where Ohio State sat a year ago, the transformation is remarkable. The Buckeyes finished 6-7, tied for the most losses in school history. In the throes of a scandal that paralyzed the football program for a year, there was uncertainty about the short- and long-term future of Ohio State football. “Obviously last year wasn’t the year we wanted to have,” wide receiver Corey Brown said. “Our record is just a credit to what we did in the offseason. All that hard work is now paying off. We know we have a big week coming with Wisconsin. We will grind through this week, and then grind through the next and keep the momentum going.” [Rowland/Eleven Warriors]

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Perspective? “That’s to say: People who work in sports like to consider sports somehow cleansing in times like this. But I think they’re just saying that so they feel better about working in a field that doesn’t really matter or change the world. We could have all been out on Friday or Saturday night distributing food and clothing throughout Red Hook and Staten Island, or at the very least packing up some of our own items to bring to the various drop-off locations around the city. But we weren’t. We were watching a basketball game. That we were there and able to do so, rather than trying to reconstruct a world recently devastated, said all we needed to about how “helpful” we were.

I mean this as less of an indictment, less guilt-tripping, than it perhaps is coming off as. I just mean that because sports don’t matter, and yet we all spend so much time obsessing over them anyway, we all have a tendency to inflate it into something it isn’t. And we’re especially bad about it when faced with circumstances like Sandy, in which what does matter is so violently thrust in front of us. The worst example of this remains the 2001 World Series, a thrilling back-and-forth series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees that Major League Baseball and the sporting media continue to try to insist was somehow heroic. (Just because there were some cops within camera shot doesn’t mean you were actually doing anything helpful.)” [Leitch/Sports on Earth]

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Finally, predictions for the rest of the season- “Two coaches lose theirs before the season ends, but their names are not Andy Reid or Norv Turner. Instead, I think it’ll be two less prominent coaches — Chan Gailey of Buffalo and Pat Shurmur of Cleveland. Both are locally unpopular offensive gurus who haven’t led a good offense in years (or ever) and who have struggled to develop their quarterback of choice into very much. Shurmur’s the pick of an old ownership and management team, making him basically irrelevant, and Gailey’s the one who will be scapegoated for the dismal Mario Williams signing and how it failed to strike up the Buffalo defense. Other coaches will be fired, too, but I don’t expect Shurmur or Gailey to make it through the season.” [Barnwell/Grantland]