May 24, 2013

How good of a starting prospect is Danny Salazar?

May 9, 2013 by 22 Comments

danny salazarThe Cleveland Indians must have seen something in Danny Salazar before everyone else — and their early belief has paid off in a big way.

After the 2011 season, Cleveland’s organization surprised a lot of people by placing the 21-year-old right-hander on the official 40-man roster. Salazar actually had only made 15 starts in the previous two years because of Tommy John surgery and still hadn’t made it past the Single-A Midwest League with Lake County.

Yet, nearly 18 months after being protected from possible Rule 5 poaching, Salazar is rewarding the Tribe with the hottest start of any pitcher in professional baseball. In fact, following his fourth straight magnificent performance for Double-A Akron on Monday, he announced his own promotion to Triple-A Columbus on Twitter. And now, it’s time to wonder if he might be the best home-grown Cleveland pitching prospect in years. [Read more...]

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Sunday Indians Notes: Beau Mills, the rotation and prospects

April 21, 2013 by 1 Comment

beau mills and tuve

Beau Mills and his bucking bulls: The Indians scoring 19 runs was not the strangest news I saw yesterday. No, not even close. It began with a pair of tweets from @Indians (here and here) sharing pictures of a young bucking bull named Tuve (after Astros infielder Jose Altuve) that happens to be owned by Indians third-base coach Brad Mills and his son Beau, Cleveland’s 1st-round pick in 2007.

I couldn’t believe it. The Mills family just owns a bull, named it after a Houston player and had it in front of Minute Maid Park on Saturday? So I Googled. And found the Plain Dealer‘s Paul Hoynes’ report from Friday night: It was true. Mills, the 26-year-old first baseman who the Indians pitched away to Cincinnati in June 2012, officially has retired from baseball and is raising several young bulls for a living. [Read more...]

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Sunday Indians Notes: Bullpen depth, backups and prospects

March 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Chris PerezSpring Training is finally on its final leg and the MLB season begins for the Cleveland Indians in just nine short days. It certainly has been an exciting offseason, for once, in Cleveland, so Opening Day at Progressive Field another six days later should be a delight.

In typical Sunday fashion, I’ll break down a handful of items that have been on my mind recently when it comes to Tribe talk. In a fitting sense, none of the three items are that sexy, but could mean quite a lot to the 2013 Tribe. Let’s start with a much-hyped strength:

– The stout bullpen: Quick trivia question — Out of the 30 MLB teams from 2011-2012, where did the Indians bullpen rank in ERA? How about out of the 14 American League teams? One would normally think that with the impressive back-end of Chris Perez, Vinnie Pestano and Joe Smith, that the Indians would logically rank fairly high. Wrong. [Read more...]

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Trevor Bauer, and the Indians’ starting pitching outlook

December 13, 2012 by 9 Comments

Trevor Bauer is a game-changer. Yes, the new Cleveland wunderkind is only 21 (he turns 22 in January) and has just 4 (bad) games of MLB experience under his belt, but his sheer presence drastically changes the starting pitching algorithm for the Cleveland Indians going forward.

Obviously, there’s a certain amount of risk associated with Bauer. I’d be amiss if I didn’t address that. According to all the reports out there, he’s eccentric, stubborn, abnormally intelligent, a bad rapper, practically revolutionary and thus, seemingly was at odds with Arizona’s upper management, which is why the No. 3 overall pick in 2011 was on the trade block at all. He could not become the star many expect him to be. That’s possible, and you always have to address that fact when dealing with a very limited MLB sample size.

But, undoubtedly, the UCLA product has more upside and MLB-readiness by far than any other starter in the entire Indians system. He could immediately slot into the starting rotation from day one — but it’s not exactly certain if that will be the case. Either way, with the Indians owning his rights through 2018 (at least), and the fact he’s dominated AA/AAA batters, he’s the bright future of the Indians pitching outlook for many years to come. [Read more...]

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