May 22, 2013

Former Indians comment on Michael Bourn signing

February 12, 2013 by 21 Comments

This season the Indians have committed (we use the term loosely as the Tribe could always flip these deals) $117 million dollars to free agents. The past three off-seasons, Cleveland has spent just over $11 million total to free agents. This fact was not lost on players, current and former.

That’s why Michael Bourn’s deal was a big surprise to Cleveland fans, as well as some former Indians-

Anthony Castrovince tweeted about his conversation with former catcher Victor Martinez, now with the Tigers-

“I broke the Michael Bourn news to Victor Martinez. “Wow,” he said. “I guess they want to win now, huh? How ’bout that?” #Indians”

The sentiment was shared by former Cy Young winner with the Tribe C.C. Sabathia, who was quoted by CBS Sports’ Danny Knobler-

“CC Sabathia on Bourn signing: “I never got a free agent like that when I was there. Good for them.”

[Related: On Michael Bourn: The Terry Francona Effect Continues To Pay Dividends]

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Prince in Detroit – The Games Aren’t Played on Paper

January 25, 2012 by 21 Comments

I spent all of yesterday on the road, going in an out of meetings. I emerged from a two and a half hour ordeal in a good place. We got a lot out of this customer visit. Little did I know how quickly my mood would change. As I looked down at my phone, I saw an email from a friend of mine with the subject “Prince?” I open the email and it simply reads “Prince to the Tigers…This can’t be true. Tell me this can’t be true.”

I had seen on Twitter earlier in the day that the top prize of the baseball free agent class (sorry Albert Pujols), Prince Fielder, could be considering large money, one-year deals and that the Tigers and Dodgers could then enter the fray if this happened. The thought of this one year with Fielder as a Tiger had me very concerned. That was just a one-year deal I was worried about. So I began to open the series of emails that are bandied about all day by the WFNY crew. I came to find out my nightmare was even worse than I thought. [Read more...]

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Report: Prince Fielder to the AL Central, Inks 9-Year, $214 Million Deal

January 24, 2012 by 69 Comments

Not long after catching wind that they will be without catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez thanks to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, the Detroit Tigers opted to add highly-coveted first baseman Prince Fielder for the reported cost of $214 million over the course of nine seasons.

Originally reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown, the Tigers apparently jumped into the bidding war for the slugging 27-year-old and immediately came out the victors – no pun intended. The Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers were also rumored to be in the mix.

In 2011, Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 home runs and 120 RBI in 162 games last year for the Milwaukee Brewers. In 998 career games, Fielder has amassed a .282 career batting average, 230 home runs and 656 runs batted in.

Miguel Cabrera, the team’s first baseman last season – hitting .344 with 30 home runs and 105 runs batted in – is expected to slide over to designated hitter. The two men will likely provide the biggest one-two punch in the American League Central.

The Cleveland Indians are rumored to be looking for an upgrade at first base. It is largely anticipated that, with the most-coveted free agent now signed, the rest of the chips are will to fall into place.

[Related: Pena to the Rays: So Now What, Tribe Fans?]

(Source: Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports)

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Tigers 8, Indians 6: Victor Caps a Tigers Three-Game Sweep

September 8, 2011 by 7 Comments

This one was supposed to be a matchup of aces. The Justins, Verlander and Masterson, have owned the mound most of the year. Verlander is a lock to win the AL Cy Young award while Masterson would be in the conversation if the Indians ever gave him any sort of run support. Well for once, that actually happened, and against the best pitcher in the AL no less.

For the second time in five days, Shelley Duncan homered twice in a game. Making the feat even that much more amazing, was the fact that both of Wednesday’s jacks were against Verlander. He had only allowed two homers in a game once before this season, interestingly it was also done by one player, Chicago’s Carlos Quentin. Duncan seemed to have his number in this one, crushing two, two-run shots to the plaza in left field in the second and fourth innings.

Both times, it put the Tribe ahead by two. Outside of the two Duncan jacks, the Tribe could only muster one other hit off of Verlander, a Jim Thome fourth inning double. [Read more...]

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Tigers or Indians: Stronger Roster Going Forward?

June 14, 2011 by 18 Comments

I would be lying if I said that I saw what transpired in New York this weekend coming.  It’s hard to predict something that awful and impotent.  Unless of course you’re talking about this man.

But I did think there was a good chance that we’d enter our game this evening in a virtual lock with the Detroit Tigers.  We were going up against the best offense in baseball while the Tigers got to beat up on the Seattle Mariners.  It seemed that we’d likely lose our slight lead over Detroit that we had going into the Yankees series, shifting a new sort of focus on the competition between the Indians and Tigers—competition that seemed silly to discuss just four weeks ago.

Which, in some ways, is really exciting.  This series is hopefully going to be the beginning of a season-long back-and-forth between two good (yet flawed) teams. [Read more...]

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What the Big Three Trades Have Meant to the 2011 Indians

June 3, 2011 by 18 Comments

In 2008, the front office started the long and arduous process of ripping my heart out.

In July of that year, they admitted what I wasn’t ready to: the team wasn’t good anymore.  Whether it was due to injury, poor luck, or simple regression didn’t matter.  Only that the team wasn’t good enough to win the division, and that it wasn’t likely to get better before we lost our biggest pieces to free agency.

Once that was established, the front office worked to cut costs, ship out talent, and roll the dice on the trade market.  This process culminated with Victor (and me) crying on an otherwise beautiful July afternoon in 2009.  For me, that was the most devastating sports loss of my life: watching a guy that wanted nothing more than to play for my team, a guy I loved watching and rooting for without condition, a guy who was everything that was right about caring about sports, be sold for parts, chop-shop style. [Read more...]

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#PositiveVibes Fuels Tribe Comeback on Twitter

April 21, 2011 by 15 Comments

That’s what I tweeted at 9:19 PM EST last night while watching the Tribe game with all my closest Twitter friends.  Much to my surprise everyone responded exactly as I hoped.  People were giving me non-sarcastic, non-snarky things that they actually liked.  From Twix bars, bubble baths, lifting weights, and puppies all the way to various parts of the female anatomy including the “small of a woman’s back” came flooding in.  People listed alcohol, restaurants, Indians players, celebrities and music that they really like.  I didn’t actually expect it to work or anything, but it just seemed like everyone on Twitter was overly negative as the Indians were being perfect-gamed by the Royals’ scraggly bearded Luke Hochevar.  Then magic.  At 9:27 PM a mere eight minutes after my first tweet and with the positive vibes still flowing on my feed, Michael Brantley singled to center field. [Read more...]

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The Truth About Trades

April 15, 2011 by 23 Comments

Justin Masterson takes the mound tonight for the Indians, looking to improve his record to 3-0. He has given up just 2 runs in over 13 innings of work this season, for a 1.35 ERA, with a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Carlos Carrasco bounced back from a bad first start, and has pitched well enough to win his last 2 starts, even though his defense let him down against the Angels. He is second on the team with 13 strikeouts. Michael Brantley will be leading off and playing centerfield, with a .311 batting average and an OPS of .773. Matt LaPorta has struggled to begin the season. He has struck out more times (9) than he has had a base hit (7).

Why bring those players up? Because they were of course the centerpieces to the deals that sent Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez out of town. Their performance on the field will determine if the deals made were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Regardless of contract status, public perception of the trades necessitate that these players turn into shadows of Sabathia, Lee and Martinez and lead the Indians to the World Series.

I say it has to be a World Series, because I believe the trades of Victor, Cliff and CC will never be viewed as ‘good trades’ otherwise. I think that sports fans are conditioned to believe that the only ‘good trade’ is the type where my team fleeces your team. [Read more...]

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Are the Indians Suffering From a LeBron Hangover Too?

April 6, 2011 by 47 Comments

One of the worst parts about LeBron James leaving Cleveland was for season ticket holders.  As everyone knows, Cleveland Cavaliers fans needed to be speculators and try to guess if LeBron was going to come back or not and make a decision whether to re-up before free agency completed.  I’ll give Cavs fans credit. For such a raw deal, I haven’t heard a ton of complaining.  Make no mistake though, it was a raw deal in terms of value.  Many of those fans who dutifully trudged to the Q this year to watch the Cavs will make or have made their decision whether to keep supporting the Cavs with season tickets next year.  Has their bad experience with Cavs tickets ended up costing the Indians as well?

Don’t think for a second that this is one of those “LeBron James is responsible for every negative thing in the world” types of posts. I want to look at this more like a scientist.  The fact remains that other than the Browns who are immune to everything, the Cleveland sports fan landscape is inter-related.  As a community of sports fans there is tons of crossover between Cavs fans and Indians fans.

When I lived in Boston it was different.  You had some sports fans who were religious about all the teams like any other city.  At the same time there were fans who were definitely Bruins fans first.  In fact, before Tom Brady became one of the best quarterbacks of this generation there weren’t really that many Patriots fans other than the die-hards.  The town had enough fans to have almost distinct die-hard fan-bases for each individual sport and then the people who were fans of all the sports filled it out. [Read more...]

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The Cleveland Indians’ Leadership Vacuum

February 17, 2011 by 9 Comments

Victor Martinez was my favorite player when he was traded, so I was going to be angry and disappointed no matter what. After the emotional response though, I was really afraid for the prospects for the Cleveland Indians because Victor was a true team leader. Out of all the trades the Indians made, I felt Victor’s was one of the more questionable ones just because he had a reasonable option year at $7.1 million. Boston picked that up a year ago before watching Victor leave. At 31 years of age this off-season, Martinez signed a 4-year $50 million deal with Detroit, but there is no telling what he would have agreed to play for in Cleveland. We are talking about a guy who cried in the locker room with his son when he was traded. Regardless, it put a big hole in the roster in terms of team leadership. Here we are heading into another season, and I am concerned that the Indians still haven’t replaced that leadership that they exported to Boston in the fire sale.

So who could the Indians’ leader be? [Read more...]

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While We’re Waiting… Dirty Sanchez, Skyenga and Tribe of Yester-year

January 24, 2011 by 6 Comments

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.

Because it’s gross and the twitter world exploded when it happened last night- Sanchez wipes booger on Mark Brunell. [Hugging Harold Reynolds]

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Christian Skyenga steadily climbing the ladder of Cavalier all-time points leaders. Up to #231 already- “Despite all that the Cavaliers lost again and Skyenga will have to wait a few more days for his first career W. On the glass is half full side, he passed four more ex-Cavaliers and it now sitting pretty at 231st all-time.” [Wooley/Stepien Rules] [Read more...]

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Acquiring Young Talent through Trades—Part One: The Pitchers

January 6, 2011 by 26 Comments

On Tuesday I tried to make you feel good about the 2011 Indians.  I told you how if things go just right, this team can compete in the AL Central.  It was a shiny, happy day.  Today I might end up making you feel sort of crummy about the 2007 Indians.  Yes, it’s a weird exercise, but bear with me.

Let’s start with the sell-off that was precipitated by those 2007 Indians underperforming in 2008, taking a team from within one game of the World Series to competing with the Royals for last place.  By and large, there seemed to be two major reactions to the moves of CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, and Victor Martinez.

The first reaction was one of alienation from MLB as a whole and the Indians in particular.  Any system that encourages the sort of talent-exodus that took place in Cleveland cannot and should not be supported, or so the argument went.  [Read more...]

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Get Your Parade Floats Waxed: Victor’s Comin’ HOME!!!

November 23, 2010 by 16 Comments

To the AL Central, that is.

It’s being reported by Ignacio Serrano from ESPN Deportes (no relation to Pedro) that Victor Martinez is on the verge of accepting a four-year, $50 million contract from the Detroit Tigers.  For you non-polyglots out there, here’s the story in English.

Perhaps Detroit’s crumbling infrastructure and corrupt politicians just remind these guys of where they cut their teeth, but Victor would be the second former Indian to end up signing with the Tigers in the past few weeks.*  Jhonny Peralta (after his option was declined) signed a two-year, $11.5 million contract earlier this month.

*There were some grumblings about Shin-Soo Choo wanting to play for the Tigers eventually as well, but I’ve written several times why that won’t be an option for him anytime soon, and frankly, I’m tired of the story.  But for the record, those comments were reported not by Choo, but by Peralta who, I can only assume either now speaks fluent Korean, or was having a conversation in English in which neither participant was particularly well-versed.  I’m going for the latter. [Read more...]

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The Free Agent Ex’s

November 11, 2010 by 12 Comments

Ah, the 2007 Indians. So close to winning a World Series. If only CC and Fausto hadn’t wet themselves in Games five and six. If only Joel Skinner didn’t hold up the stop sign on Kenny Lofton. If only Casey Blake hadn’t hit the next pitch for a 5-4-3 tailor made double play….

UGH!!!!

I promise I will get over it one of these days, but that team seemed to be the one who was finally going to put us out of our decades of misery here in Cleveland. Looking back to the core of that team, its become a who’s who of the free agent market over the past few seasons. Lets check in on the best of the best from a team one game away from the World Series. [Read more...]

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Aeros Reliever Nick Hagadone Re-Adjusting to Familiar Role

August 7, 2010 by 1 Comment

Before the 2010 season started, Baseball America named Nick Hagadone the third-best prospect in the Cleveland Indians system. A dominating presence on the mound at 6’5″, 230-lbs and a left-hander, it made perfect sense for the publication to view him in such a fashion.

He was arguably the player with the most upside acquired from Boston in last year’s Victor Martinez deal alongside Justin Masterson and current teammate Bryan Price. The Red Sox clearly viewed him as a top prospect earlier as well, selecting him as the 55th overall pick (supplemental first round) in the June 2007 Draft after a successful career at the University of Washington.

Unfortunately, June 2008 Tommy John surgery on his left elbow limited his development process. He resumed pitching last season but remained on a strict pitch count up through this year as well. Struggling to find his consistency in his few innings as a starter, it then made a ton of sense for the Indians to decide to shift Hagadone into a more natural role as a reliever last month.
[Read more...]

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Be Careful What You Wish For

July 30, 2010 by 21 Comments

Rebuilding isn’t really all that fun as a Tribe fan.  How many of you thought that our “window” would be somewhere in the neighborhood of five years after a rebuild?  I did.  So, on second thought, how does two years sound to you?  Instead of a great big picture window in the front of our house, as a Cleveland Indians fan it feels like we replaced the mail slot with the tiniest little pane of glass which is our window to compete.  In some ways this year’s Indians team is exactly the one I clamored for over the last decade.  I am sure that makes me sound absolutely insane to a lot of you.  Well, just so you know, it makes me feel insane to the point that I am wondering if there is any philosophy that a fan can have with the Cleveland Indians that will make sense most of the time.

My philosophy was a well-reasoned reaction to history.  The Indians went from competing at a top level every single season with almost no economic realities in play to constantly playing catch-up while coming to grips with the size of the market that Cleveland truly is.  I could deal with that.  Or so I thought.  After watching Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome walk out the door for giant dollars, I vowed that the Indians should never do that again.  They should always trade players like that so they could replenish the farm system.  That is exactly what Mark Shapiro did over the last two years.  Maybe it is even working.  The Indians do seem to have a lot of younger players who might eventually allow the Indians to compete at a high level again.  For whatever reason, though, even when I said that is what the Indians should do, I haven’t had the patience or maturity to really deal with the process.   [Read more...]

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SABR-Toothed Triber: Why Not Carlos?

July 1, 2010 by 25 Comments

Last week I examined the Indians’ All-Star candidates, and concluded that Shin-Soo Choo, in all likelihood, would be the Indians’ representative.

As if on cue, Choo put together a monster stretch of baseball: since June 23, Choo’s hit 5 HR, knocked in 10 RBI, raised his slugging percentage by 36 points, and contributed to the team’s recent four-game winning streak.

But someone else has had a hand in the recent offensive output.  In fact, near the end of the piece referenced above, I suggested that Carlos Santana might deserve to make the All-Star team as well.  Sure, it was sort of a joke: Santana made his MLB debut June 11—giving him barely a month before the game in Anaheim.  Like I said then, it’s a long-shot.

Even still, let’s look at Santana’s numbers to see where he ranks.  [Read more...]

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Updates on Cleveland’s Recently Acquired Minor League Pitchers

June 15, 2010 by 21 Comments

Over the past few years, the Indians have made several trades to stock-pile on young pitchers in their minor league system. Among the notable fan favorites no longer in the red and blue are Victor Martinez, C.C. Sabathia, Casey Blake, Mark DeRosa, Cliff Lee, Rafael Betancourt and others.

But in the meantime, these young pitchers have continued developing up and down the Cleveland organization. From Lake County down to Kinston and back up to Akron and Columbus, these new pitchers have helped the entire Player Development System ranked second overall with 154 total wins this season.

Last year around the trade deadline, I wrote several extended features previewing the various pieces joining the Indians and their farm teams. Now with the majority of these trades over 10 months ago, it is time to re-hash how all of these prospects are doing and map out their hopeful and eventual road to playing in Cleveland.

[Read more...]

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SABR-Toothed Triber: Santana Leads the Indians in…EVERYTHING?

June 11, 2010 by 21 Comments

A few months back, I looked at Carlos Santana’s Minor League Equivalency numbers (MLEs).  Basically, MLEs convert a minor leaguer’s performance to the majors, adjusting for level of competition and home ballpark.  In honor of Santana’s callup to the majors tonight, I thought we’d take one more look at his MLEs for this year, to see where he’d rate among the current team in hitting categories.

Just a reminder: MLEs are translations, not predictions.  They tell us how a player’s numbers would be deflated by stiffer competition (i.e. Major League competition).  So the numbers we’re going to look below are not projections for what Santana will do, but rather adjustments to what he has done to this point in the season if he had been with the Indians all year and performed at the level he performed in AAA.

With that out of the way, here are Santana’s current AAA numbers: [Read more...]

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Red Sox 4 Indians 1: Victor-y For the Sox

June 8, 2010 by 10 Comments

This one is gonna be short. Last night’s 4-1 Indians loss to the Boston Red Sox was about as exciting as listening to a Ben Stein speech on economics. The difference in the state of these two teams is night and day. While the Sox are perhaps the hottest team in baseball despite being without Jacoby Ellsbury, Josh Beckett, and Mike Cameron, the Indians are one of the worst teams in the game with a lineup mixed with retreads (Mike Redmond, Russell Branyan, Austin Kearns), under-achieveres (Travis Hafner, Jhonny Peralta), and youth (Jason Donald, Luis Valbuena, Trevor Crowe). Only Shin-Soo Choo rates as a quality, entering his peak type player.

The talk of the night was the return of the prodigal son, Victor Martinez who made his first appearance in Cleveland since last summer’s white flag trade. As always, Vic The Stik was a class act, meeting with many of his friends before the game and discussing his love for the Cleveland. “I didn’t leave this city because I wanted to. This city was great for me and my family,” he said. [Read more...]

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