Catching up time:

6-2-08:

Recalled RHP Tom Mastny from Buffalo (AAA)

Optioned 1B Michael Aubrey to Buffalo (AAA)

Released RHP Jorge Julio (DFAd on 5-28-08)

Even with Travis Hafner going on the DL, Aubrey wasn't going to get any playing time, and even if he did, it would probably be at the expense of Andy Marte. Besides, the Indians needed the extra arm because Jake Westbrook had just come down with a sore elbow.

Jorge Julio, who was DFAd to make room for Jake Westbrook when he originally came off the DL, sealed his fate with his outing against the Rangers on May 23rd (1.2 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 1 SO). Mark Shapiro had gone through  this  before, and he understood that if a reliever isn't good and it's the end of May, you cut bait without a second thought.

6-3-08:

Placed RHP Jake Westbrook on the 15-Day Disabled List (right elbow)

Recalled RHP Jensen Lewis from Buffalo (AAA)

As we later found out, that elbow injury will require Tommy John surgery, sidelining Westbrook until at least June of next year. Realistically, the Indians aren't probably going to get Jake at full strength until the end of the 2009 season. It's a big blow to this year's chances, and it creates another 2009 rotation spot to fill.

6-4-08:

Recalled RHP Brian Slocum from Buffalo (AAA)

Purchased the Contract of RHP Rick Bauer (AAA)

Optioned RHP Jensen Lewis and RHP Tom Mastny to Buffalo (AAA)

This was in the midst of the Texas series, and the day after Tom Mastny's 1.1 inning start. The Indians had to use four other relievers, two of which had to go more than two innings. As we'll see shortly, Slocum didn't last long in Cleveland, though Bauer has stuck around to the present day.

Rick Bauer has been in the majors on and off since 2001, when he broke in with Baltimore. After pitching 71 innings for Texas in 2006, he was released by the Rangers at the end of Spring Training of the following year. He split 2007 between the Phillies and Dodgers organizations, and didn't do much to deserve a trip back to the majors during the season. But, as he was healthy and had a history of tolerable major-league relief work, he got a Spring Training invite with the Indians. He started the season as Buffalo's closer, and cut down on his walks, his major weakness.

But Bauer hasn't carried over his success with the Bisons to Cleveland. He's given up 6 runs in 4 innings of work, unfortunately par for the course for this year's bullpen. As soon as another minor-league reliever catches the front offices' attention, he'll be gone.

6-7-08

Signed LHP John Halama to a minor-league contract; Assigned him to Buffalo (AAA)

Last seen in the majors mopping up games for Baltimore in 2006, Halama was pitching in the Atlantic League when the Indians signed him. He's AAA roster filler.

6-8-08

Recalled LHP Jeremy Sowers from Buffalo (AAA)

Optioned RHP Brian Slocum to Buffalo (AAA)

The Indians couldn't bring Sowers up to pitch in Westbrook's spot the start before since he had just started a game in Buffalo. He'll be in the rotation until Fausto Carmona comes off the Disabled List. 

6-9-08

Recalled 2B Josh Barfield from Buffalo (AAA)

Optioned 2B/SS Asdrubal Cabrera to Buffalo (AAA)

This was more about Cabrera than Barfield. Asdrubal had certainly defended well enough, but the Indians' lineup couldn't carry a .184/.282/.247 in the lineup, not with everyone else struggling. This was also supposed to be an opportunity for Barfield to try to win back his starting job at second, but...

6-12-08

Placed 2B Josh Barfield on the 15-Day Disabled List (finger)

Placed C Victor Martinez on the 15-Day Disabled List (right elbow)

Transferred Jake Westbrook to the 60-day Disabled List (right elbow)

Purchased the Contracts of C Yamid Haad and IF Jorge Velandia from Buffalo (AAA)

Designed RHP Oneli Perez for Assignment

Victor Martinez had been trying to push through despite a bad hamstring, which explained his Tyner-like power, but the elbow injury finally forced the Indians to shelve Martinez. Apparently he had first injured the elbow a month before, but tried to play through it. An MRI revealed loose bodies in his elbow, which meant surgery and at best six weeks on the DL.

Barfield also had to have surgery, and also will be out for while. Josh strained a ligament in his middle left finger as he checked his swing. Like Martinez, his timetable for return will be 6-8 weeks. It was a really bad time for Josh to go down, since the Indians were committed to having Asdrubal Cabrera spend some time in Buffalo. By the time he returns, the Indians may have traded for a second baseman.

Haad didn't play an inning, as Kelly Shoppach has started every day since his callup, and today was designated for assignment. Velandia has fared slightly better; he's gotten one at-bat. The middle infielder has bounced between the majors and the minors for the last 11 seasons, with all his major-league stints being short. Like with Haad, he's probably here until the Indians can find someone better. Hopefully that won't take long. 

6-17-08

Signed 1B/3B Morgan Ensberg to a minor-league contract; Assigned him to Buffalo (AAA)

Ensberg was dreadful with Yankees, even with getting regular playing time while Alex Rodriguez was on the DL. The signing is a nice gamble for the Indians; at the very least, he'll make the Bisons a better team. Ensberg as late as 2006 hit .235/.396/.463, which would have been one of the best offensive lines on this year's club.

6-19-08

Traded a PTBNL to the Atlanta Braves for The 'Stache

Designated C Yamid Haad for Assignment

With Victor Martinez out until at least late July, the Indians were looking for a better backup because Wyatt Toregas hasn't hit (he was recently demoted to Akron). So they traded a PTBNL (probably nothing or cash) for Sal Fasano, a journeyman backup who should at very least provide the young Indians with the secrets of '70s facial hair.

The series:  Visited the White Sox (loss, loss, loss) and hosted the Rangers (loss, win, loss).

The big story:  We sucked.  After climbing to the top of the division in the middle of last week, the Indians went 1-8.  The pitching snapped back to reality, while the hitters produced the same 19 runs this week that they had over the previous six games, only more poorly distributed.  In response, Wedge fumed, while Francisco and Aubrey added to the idea of slump by contagion, hitting far better in Cleveland than they ever have in Buffalo, seemingly immune to the rest of the team's two-month struggle.

The Indians are the worst-hitting team in the league this season, and they have also been, by far, the worst-hitting team in the majors in the month of May, more than a full run below the major-league average, and nearly a half-run per game worse than the worst team in the National League — again, that's the league where the pitchers are batting maybe three times a game.  The offense has occasionally broken out for a big game, but that has only obscured how bad the offense really has been — the average is 3.4  runs per game, but the median is a solid 3.0.  Week-long power outages have been the most notable feature of the 2008 season:

• April 3-9, 20 runs in seven games, 2.9 average, 2-5 record
• April 24-29, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 1-8, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 12-25, 41 runs in 14 games, 2.9 average, 5-9 record

We actually have a better than expected record in those games, of course, because our starting pitching has been so outstanding over most of those weeks.  Incredibly, our Pythagorean record is actually 27-23 despite the awful hitting, but a half-dozen ninth-inning blowups have us at 23-27 instead.

The biggest tragedy here is the missed opportunities within the division, which directly impact our ability to make the playoffs and cannot be recouped.  The Indians have been 32 runs better than the Tigers but have only a two-game edge to show for it rather than six or seven — should both teams have any kind of bounce back after this point, those games will make a difference.

Worse yet, the Indians surrendered three straight games to the White Sox, who may well turn out to be the only other team who can over 85 wins in a deeply disappointing division.  Head-to-head records and BIP luck were the entire difference between these two clubs in 2005, when they ended the season with 99 and 93 wins respectively, and so far, history is repeating.

In other news:  Fausto Carmona went to the Disabled List with a hip injury and is expected to miss a full month — yet nobody panicked, as Jake Westbrook was completing a successful run of rehab starts in Akron even as Carmona's season was getting ruptured.  Westbrook was already scheduled to return on the exact day of Carmona's next would-be start, and even if he weren't, the Indians have other fine options waiting in Buffalo.

The Indians shuffled up the bullpen part of the roster pretty good, returning Joe Borowski to his old closer job late in the week and demoting Jensen Lewis, in the hopes that he can regain his old velocity in Buffalo.  The team put rarely used lefty Craig Breslow on waivers while claiming Oneli Perez, a talented but struggling young reliever, from the White Sox and sending him to Buffalo.  Scott Elarton and Ed Mujica were promoted from Buffalo to fill out the staff.

Post of the week:  AngG gets her Rick James on (or is it her Wayne Brady?) as part of a hilarious sequence of rants.  Other nominess: jhon (summing up Wedge disgust nicely),  mjschaefer (replying to zempf),  gte619n (replying to supermarioelia), drerikbrady (tremendous attention to detail), jakesinger777 (expanding on Cisco's Buckner moment).

Who fed it:  C.C. Sabathia and Ben Francisco led a very slim list of candidates for this week, both of them continuing strong runs.  Sabathia gave up three runs, all on solo-shots, over 14 innings, striking out 13 with three walks.  He has a 1.63 ERA (and RA) over his past seven starts, averaging 8 strikeouts and 1.6 walks in 7.2 innings.  Francisco pounded out five doubles and a home run while batting .320, and in playing every inning of the team's last 11 games, he's put up a stunning line of .395/.422/.721 — contributing more than 25% of the total bases and less than 8% of the outs.  Rafael Betancourt bounced back from three horrendous weeks (16.20 ERA) with three scoreless innings, all in the 8th, although he did allow an inherited run.  Absolute Best:  Francisco.  Relative Best:  Francisco.

Who fed it breakdown:  Relief pitchers are hard to evaluate based on box scores, considering the incredibly blunt instruments used to assign earned runs.  Masa Kobayashi gave up an earned run, an unearned run and an inherited run this week but actually pitched pretty well.   In the first game, he relieved Laffey with no outs and a man on first, facing the top of the Chicago lineup.  He got a strikeout and a deep flyout, with a very speedy pinch-runner advancing to second base.   He then allowed a single on the ground through the gaping Blake/Peralta hole, scoring the inherited runner, and finally his only earned run of the week on the only legit line-drive hit.  In the second game, he faced the Rangers' 2-thru-5 hitters, getting a strikeout and two groundouts, allowing just a single on the ground to Josh Hamilton — a damned fine inning.  In the third game, he faced the Rangers' 3-thru-1 hitters, and he got three groundouts including a double-play, plus a strikeout and a flyout.  He allowed only a walk, a single on the ground and one line-drive single.  Had that one line-drive not followed the walk, or had there not been two outs, or had the ball not rolled under the right fielder's legs, we're looking at another fine shutout inning.  So while it may seem like Masa had a bad week, I'm not so sure.

Who ate it:  Where to even begin?  Blake, back to playing every inning, responded by slugging .143 — over the last two weeks, he's had one great game (2-4, 6 TB), four decent games (4-14, 0 TB) and eight awful ones (0-25, 0 TB).  Dellucci continued his atrocious month, using his 14 PA to generate just 3 total bases, against three double-plays, three strikeouts, and at least three awful throws from left field — his May OPS is just 444, and even worse, it's just 482 against lefties alone.  The Platoon Of Despair®, meanwhile, crushed any hopes we might have had for them last week, combining for .156/.282/.188, and yes, that's a 470 OPS, and yes, they are slugging a combined .361 for the season — thanks for asking!  Not to be outdone, catchers Martinez and Shoppach combined for an empty 3-for-23 with a 297 OPS.  Jensen Lewis gave up three runs on three walks, three singles, two doubles and one HBP, en route to Buffalo.  Jorge Julio stepped into two budding trainwrecks (from Byrd and Carmona) and made both of them much worse (more below).  Absolute Worst:  Julio.  Relative Worst:  Considering positional OPS differences, it's just too close to call among Martinez (267), Blake (360), Dellucci (445) and Hafner (459).

Who ate it breakdown:  Unlike Masa, Jorge Julio's bad week was even worse than it appeared — and with an 18.00 ERA, it appeared pretty bad.  In the first game, Julio relieved Byrd with men on first and second and one out.  The run expectancy here is 0.97, but Julio was facing the bottom third of Chicago's lineup and had the platoon edge on two of the three.  He gave up a deep flyball double to the righty Crede, scoring one inherited runner and advancing the other to third base with only one out.  He walked the lefty Swisher intentionally, then gave up a long sac-fly to righty Alexei Ramirez, who just-by-the-way is terrible, scoring that other inherited run, then got the leadoff hitter Cabrera to ground out to end the inning.  He started the next inning with strikeouts to Chicago's 2-3 hitters, then the home run to Jermaine Dye — Julio's first earned run allowed in five weeks — at which point he was pulled.  So against five right-handers in that game, he got a strikeout and a groundout but also three very hard-hit deep flies, each of which drove in one run.

Of course, that game was just a warmup for the major gas-can emptying he would do two nights later.  Relieving a struggling and injured Carmona in the 3rd, with men on first and third and no outs — but again, he's facing the bottom of the lineup, so he really should get out of this with minimal damage.  The sequence:  walk, walk, grand slam, line-drive double, line-drive double — so already, that's six runs, two inherited and four earned, and there's still no outs.  Julio finally gets a groundball, but it goes for an infield single, then a strikeout.  The inning ends with two more deep flies that get caught — but the adventure wasn't over!  Julio starts the next inning by allowing two more scorching line drives, but it's just his good fortune that the second one is hit straight at Peralta, who catches it and then doubles off the first guy — so that's two outs, bases empty, despite not one batter really beaten by Julio.  Next it's a walk, and then a double on a groundball to right, and at that point, he gets pulled with men on second and third, two outs.

So even though his ERA for the week was 18.00, it doesn't begin to describe how bad he really was.  Outside of those earned runs, he allowed all four inherited runners to score, while the two runners he left behind did not score.  And while he did get some legit outs, he also pitched into some very good luck, and he totally failed to keep the ball in the infield, even with the platoon edge against the other team's worst hitters.  He was, all things considered, about as bad as a pitcher can possibly be while getting nine outs — charged with just 6 ER, he pitched badly enough to allow 12.

Placed RHP Fausto Carmona on the 15-day Disabled List (hip)

Although Carmona is expected to miss four weeks, his injury is not considered serious in a long-term sense and may ultimately be a blessing in disguise, keeping his workload down in 2008 after a big jump in innings in 2007.   It also basically fits his hypothetical mechanical struggles, either as cause or effect, which fit both his oddly inflated walk totals and Will Carroll's pre-season prediction:

Carmona has never had to come back from a 200-inning workload before, and there's almost always a price to pay for that. I'd expect Carmona to have something happen like did with Westbrook last year at midseason—a minor injury that causes him to miss a month, but that he comes back from strong and actually winds up getting saved from another big jump in IP by the time off.

For any other team, having a starter of Carmona's caliber go down would be seen as catastrophic, but at least on this site, Indians fans hardly registered any alarm at all — perhaps in part because of a learned confidence in the team's ability to heal young pitchers and keep them healthy over the long haul.

But the real confidence is in the Indians' incomparable rotation depth.  Jake Westbrook is scheduled to come off the Disabled List just in time to make Carmona's next would-be start, and even if he weren't, the Indians have at least two other starters ready to step in and already on the 40-man roster in Jeremy Sowers and Adam Miller.  (It's an odd twist considering that last May, Westbrook went on the DL just in time for Cliff Lee to return, which allowed Carmona to stay and further establish himself in the big-league rotation.)

Its main effect on the team might be to spare everyone the agony of sending a highly effective Aaron Laffey to the minors to make room for Westbrook, a topic which had already started to sprout hourly calls for Paul Byrd to be traded.

Depth is good, and another point this drives home is that it's easier for a team to leverage its depth in the event of injury, rather than in the event of poor performances.  With struggling players (e.g., most of the lineup), we have the depth to replace the poorly performing parts but nowhere on any roster to stash them — we're not going to just cut Hafner or Blake, even though we have the depth to replace them.  With an injury, you just put the guy on the DL and leverage your depth right away.  It's just easier.

Designated LHP Craig Breslow for Assignment

Claimed RHP Oneli Perez from Chicago White Sox and Assigned him to Buffalo (AAA)

Six transactions over two days involving just six spots on the active roster, i.e., the bullpen — there should be no doubt, the Indians are as concerned about the bullpen as the fans are about the offense.  And in this sense they're right:  The offense should fix itself, and if it doesn't, there isn't much you could do with one or two moves, and major moves rarely happen overnight.  The bullpen, on the other hand, seems to be more like ending up with the right hand, and if you can reshuffle the deck every other day to get a new hand, why not keep making moves until you're satisfied?

It also points up the essential hairiness of acquiring, deploying and discarding relievers, an area in which the sample sizes are so scarce that it's worth asking whether any statistics are worth looking at, even over a whole season, let alone the murderer's row of dumb stats we always use for pitchers:  "wins," "losses," ERA, holds, saves, blown saves — not a useful stat among them when it comes to relievers.  And unlike position players, you can't just throw a guy in there for a while and see what happens, because the results are too costly.  A hitter can have a miserable set of three or four games and ultimately not cost the team even one win; offense is a collective effort, and even your best hitters will fail 60 percent of the time anyway.  A struggling reliever, however, can torch multiple games in a row, so even if it is a case of bad luck, small sample or an easily recovered-from dry spell, a team just can't take that chance for anyone but the most established performers.

So the team faces a dilemma with a guy like Breslow, who presents plenty to like but an uncertain projection, on a team that feels it doesn't have the margin for error to let him try to develop some consistency.   A guy like Rick Bauer is doing exactly that in the minors, but Breslow can't be sent to the minors.  Ultimately, the team decided it couldn't be tantalized by his raw ability and favorable contract status.  Breslow was passed over by 28 teams on waivers back in March, so we may get to keep him.  Bottom line, though, a team like the Indians needs a guy like Breslow to work it out in the minors, and the fact that they might lose him in the process doesn't change that.  More than assets, we need options, and Breslow doesn't have any.

Oneli Perez, on the other hand, does have options.  He's given up the same 18 runs and five home runs in 2008 that he did in 2007, the difference being the innings:  93 last year, 17 this year.  I don't know what went wrong with him in Triple-A this season, all I do know is that he spent more than a full season at Double-A and racked up a 1.84 ERA, while striking out 109 guys in 93 innings — seriously, where do I sign up?  He'll turn 25 tomorrow, and he has one option year remaining in addition to the current season. That gives the Indians all of this season and next to turn him around and into a big-league reliever, but given his Double-A numbers, don't be surprised if he ends up contributing in Cleveland this year.

Reinstated RHP Joe Borowski from the 15-day Disabled List (ability)

Funny thing about Borowski is that we all seemed to have blocked him out of our minds, as though his cataclysmic last appearance and subsequent trip to the DL meant that we weren't going to have to suffer him any longer.  Like, you know, our long national nightmare is over.  Since it isn't, might as well try to look at the bright side, like, no more mind-numbing "closer controversy," as we're spared the otherwise inevitable and inevitably dumb columns about the evils of closer-by-committee.

Borowski does have a small upside, at least compared to the disasters we're all intuitively expecting.  He was effective overall last season, and while his ERA reflected real mediocrity, it also reflected a little genuinely bad luck on balls in play, .335 BABIP for a guy whose career mark is .296. Some days — too many days — he just doesn't have it, but he never seems to choke, and he never gives it away.   When he's getting beat, it's only because he simply isn't all that good, and if he's a bum, at least he's a bum that Cleveland can get behind.

Optioned RHP Jensen Lewis to Buffalo (AAA)

Recalled RHP Ed Mujica from Buffalo (AAA)

Purchased the Contract of RHP Scott Elarton and Recalled him from Buffalo (AAA)

Confused?  Don't be.  These moves actually make sense.  With Lewis, the Indians reached essentially the same conclusion that they did with Breslow, i.e., that he's not going to work himself into the pitcher the Indians want him to be while in the majors, so down he goes.  It makes sense to see this as a win-later move, as the Indians send down a reasonably effective reliever for a few weeks in the hopes of having him make the kind of big impact late in 2008 that he had late in 2007.  This is Lewis' first optional assignment, so if there's a price to be paid in terms of the option clock, it won't be until 2011 at the earliest.

Mujica has been Buffalo's most dominant reliever for the last month-plus, and yes, I'm including Bauer.  Mujica has only allowed two runs in his last 13 games, spanning 17+ innings, but he had a rough first half of April and gave up seven runs in one appearance on April 6, permanently crapping up his overall numbers.  Mujica first emerged as a star prospect back in 2005, in Kinston and Akron at age 21, and in 2006, he went more than three months and nearly 50 innings before giving up a single run in Akron, Buffalo and Cleveland, eventually allowing one in his fourth big-league game on July 14.  He struggled with injuries and control in 2007, doing little with the big-league club other than making blowouts into bigger blowouts.

Bauer, for those who must compare, has a track record that is almost shocking in its lack of anything impressive over a 12-year pro career.  He had two pretty good seasons in the high minors, at ages 24 and 27, and two solid but unspectacular seasons in the majors, at ages 25 and 29, a lot of mediocre and horrible seasons, even at advanced ages in the minors, and a lot of injuries.  He's put up tremendous numbers in Buffalo this year at age 31, but the Indians would be right to suspect that this is just the luckiest run of a long and undistinguished career, right to let him put in more steady work, and right to want to see a lot more before giving him a bigger shot.

Elarton had earned his shot over the past two months in Buffalo, and he brings with him a strong reputation as a positive influence in the clubhouse, which may have factored into this move, given the team's persistent struggles.  Fans focused on Elarton's past mediocrity might be interested to note his career numbers as a reliever, which include a 2.54 ERA, 553 OPS-against, 1.01 WHIP and 9.64 K/9.  Granted, this was ten years ago, and Elarton doesn't have that kind of velocity anymore, but at least he's done it before, and relieving is just plain easier than starting.  It will be interesting to see what kinds of situations Elarton is put into.

There are plenty of candidates to get removed from the 25-man on Wednesday when Westbrook returns, but it's a safe bet that it won't be Elarton, and it's likely the Indians will go back to a six-man bullpen as long as there's no blowout in the next few days.  Mujica is now the only active reliever who can be sent to the minors, but there's a decent chance the Indians will opt to DFA Jorge Julio instead.  He spent three weeks creeping up to the Circle of Trust, but he just didn't do so well once he got there.

via www.fangraphs.com

Jeremy Sowers gave up the first earned runs by a Cleveland starter in almost a week, three runs in the first three innings. But he stuck around long enough to give the Indians reasonable shot of winning the game. Three runs is a lot for this offense to make up, but at least it was in the realm of possibility. Five runs would have been totally out of reach.

Johnny Cueto only allowed one base runner in his first five innings of work (he walked Jeremy Sowers, naturally), and looked like he was going to go the distance, if not accomplish even higher feats. But he fell apart in the sixth, giving three home runs to the first four batters he faced. To give credit, though, he kept the game tied after the Indians got two more baserunners on after the three home runs.

The Indians also had  an opportunity in the seventh after Casey Blake doubled with one out. After Franklin Gutierrez hit a broken-bat liner to second, Grady Sizemore was walked, and a Joey Votto error loaded the bases. But David Dellucci grounded out to second to end the inning. In hindsight, perhaps holding Gutierrez back would have kept Jared Burton in the game; instead, the Reds brought in Jeremy Affeldt to face Dellucci.

The Reds took the lead in the eighth without a hard-hit ball. Jensen Lewis walked Brandon Phillips to start the inning, and then Joey Votto hit a very catchable fly ball down the left field line. Unfortunately, with David Dellucci playing no-doubles defense, he had no shot of a catching a ball he normally can get to. Lewis did the rest, walking both Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Dunn to bring in the winning run.

The series:  Hosted the Mariners (loss, win, win) and the Royals (loss, loss).

The big story:  The lineup suffered a massive power outage from every player except Sizemore, as our other 12 "hitters" combined for zero home runs, zero triples and just nine doubles over 145 at-bats — and incidentally only 11 walks over 163 plate appearances — for a .262 slugging percentage.  (The major league average last season was .422.)  Our middle infielders produced just one single in 30 at-bats.  Blake and Hafner combined for just four hits, though all were doubles, in 29 at-bats.  The other four regulars (Martinez, Garko, Gutierrez and Dellucci) went the "empty batting average" route, hitting a solid .294 but combining for just three doubles and three walks between them.

The team's curious response was to jettison Jason Michaels in favor of Ben Francisco.  Curious, because after a horrendous 3-for-33 start in the team's first 15 games, Michaels had posted an 880 OPS over the past 16 games and was not part of the team's problems in any visible way.  Curious, because Michaels has a very team-friendly contract.  Curious, because Francisco had gotten off to an equally slow start in Buffalo and had made less of a rebound.  Curious, because the two players bring a very similar mix of skills to the roster.  Curious, because most in the industry expect Francisco to be a role-player or fringe everyday player, just like Michaels.

Curious, in sum, because it's not clear the Indians have done anything at all except replace one face with another, and usually, that kind of superficial move is reserved for the manager's job.  But, you know, they say you can't start a fire without a spark.  I guess.  Whatever.

In other news:  The rest of the rotation also continued to dominate, allowing just one earned run all week before the 7th inning, capped off by Aaron Laffey, who tossed an even better Sunday gem than he did last week, making the Indians look smart for not taking an easy chance to skip his turn in the rotation.  Paul Byrd continued a totally unpublicized four-game tear in which he's given up four home runs but only six runs total, and just one walk total, averaging 6.6 IP with a 1.71 ERA.  Garko more or less broke out of a hellacious 0-for-24 slump.  Wedge seethed a lot.  Betancourt was less than inspiring, failing to record a scoreless appearance in three tries.

Meanwhile, over on the Bizarro Planet, Cliff Lee was untouchable for six more innings before finally ending his un-scored-upon streak at 28 innings — giving up a three-run bomb, reducing his outing to a mere quality start, and ballooning his ERA all the way up to 0.96, still easily the best in the majors this season.  Like two regressions passing in the night, Sabathia's start was eerily similar to Lee's, beginning with six scoreless innings and ending with three straight hits to start the 7th.  Sabathia pitched well overall but still owns the league's worst ERA at 7.51.

Post of the week:  Maybe I need to rethink this.

Who fed it:  Byrd pitched the best game of the week, allowing just four singles and one walk.  Two of those five baserunners were erased trying to steal second, and none of them ever reached second.  Byrd retired the leadoff batter in all eight innings, and only two batters reached base with less than two outs.  Laffey was nearly as good in his start, allowing just one unearned run on four singles and two walks.  Sizemore busted out a 1311 OPS, including as many extra bases (nine) as the rest of the roster combined, and as many walks (five) as the four corner positions plus DH and catcher.  Perez had an odd but successful week, at one point earning a "Hold" without facing a single batter; he faced four batters over three other games, producing three groundballs and one flyball, resulting in a single and three outs.  Jensen Lewis allowed no hits and one walk over 4.1 innings, and Tom Mastny struck out one guy and allowed another to reach on a groundball error, the only two batters he's faced in the last 19 days. Absolute Best:  Sizemore.  Relative Best:  Byrd.

Honorable mention:  in his final start as an Indian (and only start of the week), Jason Michaels hit a double and a sac fly.  The next day, he scored the 11th inning game-winner as a pinch-runner in his final game here.  Not as dramatic as a farewell home run, but a fitting send-off for a role player who always seemed to be working his ass off out there.

Who ate it:  It's been feast-or-famine almost every week for Peralta, and this week, it was an all-out 0-for-13 famine.  Cabrera was nearly as bad at 1-for-16.  Blake's strikeouts (six) were double his times on base (three); he's played every inning of the last nine games, producing a line of .100/.206/.167.  Betancourt, filling in capably for Borowski, yielded two home runs and four singles while retiring only five batters.  Hafner hit two doubles in one game but went 0-for-10 in three others; he's struck out 14 times in his last 56 trips to the plate, hitting just four singles and four doubles and drawing only five walks for a line of .167/.250/.250.  Breslow totally crapped the bed in his only appearance in the last 19 days.  Absolute Worst:  Peralta.  Relative Worst:  Betancourt.

The other guys:    The Twins surged while the White Sox struggled and the Tigers scuffled.  The division more than ever looks like it will go to any team that can manage anything close to 90 wins, as the Tigers' pitching and the Indians' hitting look no more likely to come together than the White Sox or Twins going on a big flukey run.

False alarms:

• Not one single hitter having a good year by his own standards.
  
• Betancourt, terrible.
• Roger Clemens, apologizing for something.
• Not one formidable opponent in the AL Central.

Open questions:

• Can the starters walk on water long enough for the lineup to regroup and win a few games?
  
• Is there something fundamentally wrong with the organizational approach to hitting, and how long can Derek Shelton keep his job?
  
• When Cliff Lee returns to reality, what will that look like?
  
• Which teams are really in the AL Central race, anyway?
• Just how bad will the game have to be going before we see Mastny or Breslow again, and how bad will they be after a 15-day layoff?
• Too soon to write Laffey's name into our starting rotation plans, 2009-2013?
  
• Can Betancourt regain anything remotely resembling his 2007 dominance for any amount of time, or will he scuffle back-and-forth all season as he did in 2006?
• Is Jensen Lewis back on track, sort of?
• How many relievers would have to be failing completely for Adam Miller to get the call to the big-league bullpen?  Do we even want to see him there?
• Could Sowers be on the block soon?
• Could the Indians really consider Marte more or less expendable and Blake more or less untouchable?
• Really?

The series:  Hosted the Red Sox (loss, loss) and Tigers (loss, win) and visited the Twins (win, loss, loss).

The big story:  We got six quality starts out of seven, but our offense got exactly one win out of those six quality starts.  These weren't borderline quality starts, either – in each of the six, the starter either made it into the 7th inning or gave up less than 2 runs, and in three out of six, he did both.  Five regulars put up averages under .170 while only one hit better than .250 – but they maddeningly continued to draw walks, drawing the fifth-most this week in the AL despite apparently not being able to hit.  The Indians were only outscored by five runs on the week but managed to distribute their runs badly, winning two games by 14 runs and losing five games by 19 runs.  The net result is that the Indians missed an opportunity to get a little distance in the standings from the Tigers, joining them in the cellar instead, and fans are forced to start wondering just how inevitable a crash is for first-place Chicago.

In other news:  Sabathia and Borowski, nominally our #1 starter and reliever respectively, further bombed out.  Already the worst starter in baseball entering the week, Sabathia gave up his second nine-spot in a week's time, one of just two pitchers to give up more than six runs in a game, twice, in 2008 – and his co-honoree Tom Gorzellany has an ERA more than four runs lower.  Borowski, meanwhile, failed in such spectacular and obvious fashion – struggling to throw a  fastball over 80 mph – that many felt relieved to see such his agonizing career as Indians closer end swiftly (at least for the moment) by a trip to the DL for "noodle-like symptoms."  It turned out that Borowski's giddyup deficit was well known to the staff, which raised questions as to why he was allowed to attempt to close four games.  Sabathia and Borowski's struggles led directly to five of our 12 losses this season, and we survived Sabathia's Opening Day blowout and nearly overcame another on April 11.  So it's not wishful thinking to believe that even with all the team's other problems, we'd probably be 11-8 right now had these two pitchers not failed so profoundly.

Lee continued his improbable run as the game's most effective pitcher, leading the majors in RA, ERA and FIP.   Byrd made a more or less unheralded return to form this week with two very fine starts, while Carmona quieted fears following last week's  nine-walk adventure.  Hafner hit a game-winning home run but otherwise struggled to keep his OPS over 700, as Indians fans start to wonder if we haven't even seen him hit rock-bottom yet.   Perez bounced back from a shellacking the previous weekend to pitch effectively in four games, but he was finally touched for a run on his 11th batter of the game yesterday, his first game facing more than 9 batters since moving out of long relief last June.  Despite being tagged with a loss yesterday, he actually made great strides toward re-asserting himself as an 8th-inning ace.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it:  Byrd pitched far better than your typical #5 starter, giving up just one run over 13 IP in two starts.  Lee put up eight innings of two-hit, shutout ball and fans looked on in disbelief.  Victor surged back with a 12-for-27 week, but his searing .444 average was a little empty, accompanied by just one walk and one extra-base hit, a double.  Carroll continued to perform well in a supporting role, supplementing his .200 average with a beefy .500 secondary average and his usual fine defensive play.  Perez was unlucky on base hits but overall very effective over four games and 4.2 IP, allowing just one walk and no extra-base hits to go with 6 K's – 11 groundballs, 3 flyballs and just one line drive.  Absolute Best:  Lee.  Relative Best:  Byrd. 

Who ate it:  Sabathia and Borowski were complete disasters – although in fairness, Sabathia's ERA for the week (20.25) was twice as good as Borowski's (40.50) .  While many hitters were terrible, nothing was more awful than Peralta's slugging average of .136, or more disappointing than Sizemore's overall line of .160/.300/.240, or more troubling than Hafner's overall line of .167/.259/.333.  Stomp Lewis had two miserable outings out of two, lucky to give up only two runs to Boston after allowing two doubles and two walks in the two-run loss, and allowing two walks before getting just one out a few nights later.  Absolute Worst:  Peralta.  Relative Worst:  Borowski.

The other guys:  Indians pitchers got mugged pretty good by Manny, Lugo and Pedroia for the Red Sox, as well as Renteria, Cabrera and Inge for the Tigers, but nobody inflicted as much damage as Youkilis, who collected a walk, a single, three doubles and a home run in just two games, good for a 2075 OPS.   Ortiz produced an empty 3-for-10, 600 OPS, and needed some luck even to do that well.  Pudge went 0-for-6, stranding ten, in a game where his teammates were teeing off on Indians pitchers to the tune of 11 runs.  Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez, both 22-year-olds acquired in the offseason, combined for just one single and one walk in 23 AB.  On the other side, the Indians dispatched Verlander, Lester and Liriano handily only to get manhandled by the utterly unheralded Armanda Galarraga and Nick Blackburn, plus the somewhat heralded Scott Baker.  The Indians put up a five-spot on Detroit's Zach Miner to seal their one strong offensive game, but against Boston, Papelbon and Okajima each sealed a two-run victory with a two-strikeout perfect final frame.

False alarms:

• Paul Byrd as an excellent starter.
  
• Sabathia being the worst pitcher in the game.
• Borowski being sent in to close a game.
  
• Perez looking rough.
  

Open questions:

• Can we turn it around quickly enough that we don't dig a 2006-sized hole for ourselves in the standings?
  
• Since any blogger writing in his/her parents' basement in his/her underwear can speculate on whether C.C.'s contract situation is distracting him, what exactly do we need newspaper columnists for?
• Too soon to start the Cy watch for Cliff Lee?
• How long can Byrd keep it together?
• How long can Sabathia keep it apart?
• What kind of production will the team consider acceptable from AbaCab? 
  
• Why are the Indians so strangely unwilling to play Blake in LF or RF, which would allow them to give Marte playing time in lieu of Micheals and sometimes Gutierrez?
• Is there anything more to the lack of playing time for Marte, other than his just being low-man on the totem pole to start the season?
  
• How much playing time will Carroll siphon from Peralta and especially AbaCab, and will his performance hold up given more exposure?
  
• Will Borowski ever return to the active roster, and if so, in what role?
• Kobayashi, Breslow, Julio – seriously, can these guys pitch?
  

via www.fangraphs.com

Different night, same late-inning collapse, but with a bit less vitriol. Unfortunately, a loss is still a loss.

Again, the Indians' starter did much better than expected. Again, the Indians' offense had opportunities to break the game open but failed, and again a Tribe reliever committed the cardinal sin of relieverdom, the 9th inning home run.

The seeds for tonight's loss were sown yesterday. For after Rafael Betancourt threw 1.2 innings on Monday, he wasn't going to be available tonight. Which normally wouldn't be that big a deal, but after Joe Borowski was shunted to the Disabled List, the Indians were left with a thin back end of the bullpen. And because Paul Byrd rarely goes deep into games even when pitching well, Eric Wedge was going to have to steal an inning or two with guys not inducted into the Circle of Trust.

Fortunately, Paul Byrd pitched as good a game as he's capable of, allowing 6 base runners in 6 innings. The obvious change from his first couple outings was the command of his pitches. Byrd always has a definite plan to get hitters out, but those plans require intricate placement of pitches. Tonight he stayed on the corners or just off, and fooled Boston's lineup for six innings.

Meanwhile, the offense wasn't helping much, though they didn't lack for opportunities. They left a runner on third in the second, runners on the corners in the third, and runners on first and second in the fourth. They finally got that big hit in the fifth, when Victor Martinez drove home two runs, the culmination of an excellent at-bat. But true to form, Jhonny Peralta ended the inning by grounding into a double play.

So when Paul Byrd left the game, it was just a 2-1 contest, meaning that the Indians' depleted bullpen would have to hold Boston scoreless for the next three innings. Wedge tried to sneak in Jorge Julio in the seventh, as the Red Sox had up the bottom half of their order, but Julio couldn't hit the strike zone, and was removed after walking the first two hitters he faced. Rafael Perez limited the damage, but again, this left a gap in the relief coverage for the rest of the game. Jason Varitek was the sixth batter Jensen Lewis faced.

My real prediction:  Another long season for Tigers fans.

I learned something from my post yesterday, from the way it not only didn't provoke much discussion, it actually seemed to chill discussion everywhere on the site.  It just seemed to trigger the latent resignation that flows in our veins as Cleveland fans.  Maybe I've should have known better, maybe I thought your intelligence would kick in, maybe I owe you an apology.

But people ... how could you fall for that?

Have you forgotten who and what this team really is?

The guys who went 96-66, the best record in baseball.

The guys who played through snow-outs, who played three home openers and won all three.

The guys who set the tone early by sweeping the Tigers in Detroit.

The guys with the best and deepest rotation, the most dominant 1-2 punch, the Cobra, the best big three, and the goddam Cy Young winner.

The guys who beat the best pitcher in the game five times in one season, when no other team had ever beat him three times.

These guys.

The guys who stalled out in June and July but never collapsed, and the guys who charged back to dominate down the stretch.

The guys who took a surging Twins team, coming off a 9-3 run and threatening to get back in the race, and swept them both home and way, six wins over ten days , to end their season.

The guys who unceremoniously booted the Tigers out of the race with yet another sweep, sending them 7.5 games back when they could have been 1.5 games back.  That's the photo at the top, the first game of that series, Casey Blake with the walkoff in the 11th.

The guys who delivered a vicious beatdown to the Yankees in the playoffs, chilling and silencing a Yankee Stadium crowd.  The guys who – let's just put it out there – nearly sent the best team in the game home early.

The guys with the fists.

The guys with the grit.

And the clutch.

And yes, the guys who know all about pi ... and all about pie.

(Purely as an aside, when you do an image search for Chris Antonetti, one of the first results to pop up is this, which I take as just further proof that people must really, really love being a part of the Indians organization.)

Yeah, that's right ... those guys.  You love those guys, remember?  And they're more or less awesome, remember?

Those guys are back.  Those guys have gotten better.

Those guys are going to win this year, and this is why.

1. Pure talent.  Seriously, did you really think the Tigers had more pure talent than the Indians?  Sure, the Tigers had some injuries, but they had a bunch of fluke seasons, and all it got them was 88 wins.  They had to import Miguel Cabrera just to try to close the gap.
   
   Let me tell you about a difference in talent.  On our club, we make Cliff Lee fight and practically grovel for the last spot in the rotation.  On their club, they trade for "the Cliff Lee of the NL" and hand him the #3 starter job.  When your #7 starter is about as good as their #3, that isn't just us having depth, it's them being in trouble.
   
   People ... half our roster was born in the 80's.  We aren't on the wrong side of 30, we're on the right side of 28.  Our roster is younger, less injury prone, and full of guys who could take small or large steps forward.  Garko or even Peralta could hit 30 home runs, and Sizemore could make a run at an MVP.  Our catcher created 109 runs last season, theirs only 59 – and our guy is 29, while theirs is 36.
   
   The Indians won 96 games last season, and our players as a group are on the rise.  The Tigers won 88 games last season, and their players on the whole are in decline.  MIguel Cabrera isn't enough to close that gap, and they traded most of their best young talent to get him.  The Tigers may have a hair more raw talent than the Indians on their roster, but too much of that talent is old and breaking down.
   
   
2. Regression is a bitch ... for the other guys.  It's the most clear-cut, powerful and undeniable force in baseball – stronger than the age curve and more reliable than platoon splits.  The Tigers may seem poised to bounce back from a down year, but their 88 wins were propped up by a number of flukey career seasons, while our 96 wins by and large were not.
   
   Just look at the BABIP for the two teams' regulars.  The bottom of the list is Sheffield, who wasn't so much unlucky as he was playing hurt.  Then there's Hafner, who definitely suffered some bad luck even if that wasn't his only problem.  Then there's Inge, who won't be a factor, and Victor, who will.  Check it out:  Victor put up downballot-MVP type numbers despite hitting into some of the worst luck on either team.  It would be hard to bet on him improving on 2007, but his luck probably will.
   
   Now look at the top of the list – Ordoñez at .381, Granderson at .360, Polanco at .346, compared with their career marks of .314, .344 and .314.   And not even listed there – Renteria at .375, against a career mark of .322.  The snapback to reality on these guys is going to be enormous – PECOTA is mean-projecting a 56-run drop in production from Ordoñez alone – essentially negating the upgrade from Inge to Cabrera – to go with a 40-run drop for Granderson and a 30-run drop for Renteria.
   
   In fairness, PECOTA predicts every player to drop after a good season, but this is an extreme case.  Granderson production rate is not expected to fall off much – he will be 27 after all – but then again, Sizemore's high-looking .333 BABIP is actually below his career average, meaning he too was slightly unlucky, and Hafner also is a good bet to improve at least somewhat on 2007.  As for the Tigers, their best bounceback candidate is a 39-year-old who's missed 150 games over the past two seasons.
   
   So regression is a bitch for the TIgers, who won't score 900 runs this season, let alone 1000.  But for the Indians, regression helps our lineup and work out about even in the rotation, where stellar seasons from Sabathia and Carmona were evenly matched by trainwrecks from Lee, Sowers and Westbrook.
   
   And you know who else is due for some good luck with the balls in play?  Joe Borowski.
   
   
3. Stellar depth.  Another one I can't believe you fell for.  How many teams have Josh Barfield as their 4th middle infielder, or Ben Francisco as their 6th outfielder, or Andy Marte as a backup third baseman, or Jeremy Sowers as their 7th starter, or Tom Mastny as their 9th reliever?  I'll tell you how many, none.  Every one of those guys would be playing in many other teams' lineups, rotations and bullpens.  It's totally ridiculous, and it's a great advantage, and it will absolutely matter this year, as it matters every year for almost every team.
   
   
4. Stellar youth.  Of course young players are inconsistent, but they improve more often than they decline.  Our youngest and least experienced key players will start at 2B and RF this season.  Any risk there is strongly mitigated by the fact that for both players, much of their value is in their exceptional defense, which is far more predictable.  And besides, the bar is incredibly low for each – the chance that we'll get less production out of those two positions in 2008 than we did in 2007 is practically nil.
   
   
5. Babied arms.  We have the best medical staff in the game, and they know how to protect pitchers.  Case in point:  Westbrook has never been more effective than in the second half last season, and this Spring he looked even better.  Carmona is going to be fine, he breezed economically through almost every start last year, hardly ever pitching under stress.  C.C. may show a little wear, but it won't break us.  And as for the other guys, who cares?  Our guys break down less than on any other team, and besides, we've got that stellar depth, too.
   
   
6. Wacky bullpens – not a problem.  You don't ever really know about bullpens.  Some years they collapse, some years they're stellar.  Here's the thing though ... last year, our bullpen collapsed and was stellar.  Just look at the body count:  Foulke, Oldberto, Matt Miler, J.D., Fernando – and most of the flame-outs were happening while Sowers, Lee and Westbrook were struggling to get into the 4th inning.
   
   That's enough to break most teams' bullpens, which in turn is enough to break most teams – but not the Indians.  They planned ahead, stocked up.  Spent most of the decade acquiring and developing arms, then picked up four veterans in the offseason – and they took good care of Rafael Betancourt.  That gave them a full boat of experienced guys in Cleveland, plus 4-5 young guys on the brink in Buffalo – plus Jensen Lewis in Akron.
   
   So despite all the flame-outs, the Indians finished with the 6th best bullpen ERA in the majors – not only didn't the bullpen sink the Indians, it was actually a strength.  The Indians keep 21 pitchers on the 40-man roster for just 12 big-league jobs, and this is the reason why.
   
   And now they've done it again, picking up Kobayashi, Julio, and Breslow to replace Oldberto, Miller and Fultz.  And this year, we've got Perez and Lewis taking the place of two multi-year head-scratchers.  And young'uns Mastny, Mujica, Santos and Stevens in Buffalo.  And who's to say we won't have another surprise breakout like Lewis' last year – Scott Lewis?  J.D. Martin?  Tony Sipp?  Adam Mller?  It's not that any one of these guys is likely to contribute, but the Indians have a ton of pitchers in various states of development and repair, and they basically never trade any.  At some point, it becomes more likely than not that one or more will contribute, even from the rehab bin.
   
   The Indians start off with a strong bullpen, full of guys with strong track records and hard-to-hit stuff, and it's considerably more stocked than Detroit's .  But more than that, the Indians are very well prepared for the inevitable struggles, injuries and flame-outs, and the Tigers are not prepared at all.  Wacky bullpens can sink almost any team, but they'll have a lot of trouble sinking these Indians.
   
   
7. Good timing.  Wedge finally figured out how to beat Pythagoras last season, so we're all good now.
   
   
8. That guy, finally.  It's an even-numbered year, and that can only mean one thing:  Miller Time.  I don't know if it'll be in the bullpen or the rotation, but Atom Miller will be healthy this year, and that means a bunch of big-league hitters are going to be striking out.
   
   
9. Lack of Vizquel, Thome, Manny, Millwood, and soon Sabathia, too.  It may be strange to say that losing Sabathia is part of why we'll win, but it is.  This team, as much or as any team in professional sports, is run by grownups.  They respect players, and their affection is palpable, but when it comes to making decisions, they leave their sentimentality at the door.  They don't kid themselves – they know you can find great insights in statistical analysis, but they know it doesn't have all the answers.  They're rigorous.  They're pros.  They've avoided the Big Mistake that sinks the season – or multiple seasons.  And they've never, ever made decisions based on trying to save face with the fans.
   
   They've built a great team with that approach, and I'll tell you just one more thing about them ...
   
   
10. Grit.  Dammit, I'm telling you these guys got a lot of grit.  Victor's got grit.  Shoppach is brimming with grit.  Sizemore will be diving in the outfield when he's 50.  Stomp Lewis has to take medication just to keep his grit under control.  Borowski has nothing but grit, but he'd never complain about that, because he's so damned gritty.  Betancourt, he's got all that and a bag of grit.
    
    And our much-maligned left field platoon, Dellucci and Michaels, those guys've got more grit than most entire rosters.  You people should be worshipping at their gritty, clutchy, diving, ass-slapping feet.
    
    And what I'm trying to tell you here, and I don't even know if it's right or natural or legal, but ... Diamondview's got grit.  I don't know how they did it, but they got grit into the Diamondview somehow, and now it's spitting out chemistry and intangibles and That Elusive It Factor along with the usual performance projections and market undervaluations.  We've never seen anything like it, but I'm telling you ... Diamondview's got grit.
    
    And by the way ... Scott Elarton?  Tom Mastny?  Ben Francisco?  That's right, even our depth has grit, which means that even our grit has depth.  If somebody gritty were to go down – and they often do, because that comes with playing the game the right way, you know – we've got someone else ready to step in and play just as gritty – someone gritty enough to start on most teams.  It's totally out of control.  It's enough to make Darin Erstad retire and Joe Morgan's head explode.

So let me sum it up for you.  We've got the talent, the timing, the grit, the smarts, the chemistry and the momentum.  We've got everything worth having on a ballclub, and the only question to be settled is whether we're the best team in the game or merely the best in our division.

It's our year.  And it starts today.

Yes, the glorious day has finally arrived.  After a 20-month hiatus, I'm finally excavating and updating my ramshackle prospect ranking system, formerly known as the Exciting Prospects Standard and now redubbed with the more apt (but no more humble) moniker, Prospects That Matter.  Actually, it's not really a ranking system, it's actually a separating-the-men-from-the-boys system; the specific rankings are secondary, and frankly, I don't give them a great deal of thought.  It is perhaps best described as a way of organizing the way we look at our young talent.

Why the new name?  Well, my friends, I'm older now, and wiser, or perhaps more tolerant, or perhaps just lazier.  If you really find Chris Gimenez exciting, I'm not going to argue with you about it.  If, on the other hand, you want to tell me that Chris Gimenez should actually matter to an Indians fan, well, then, you might just have a fight on your hands.  The aim of the system remains the same, and that is, for a diehard Indians fan who doesn't follow the minors closely, to identify those prospects that are really worth knowing about -- and not to bother that fan with guys who are merely over-hyped or over-drafted.

PTM attempts to identify:  Which guys are the most likely to contribute to the Indians winning a pennant?  Which guys are going to contribute the most, and which guys are going to contribute the soonest?  To that end, the PTM player must meet one of these criteria:

• In Triple-A: succeeding at age 25, solid at 24, or younger.
• In Double-A: succeeding at age 23, solid at 22, or younger.
• In High-A: succeeding at age 21, solid at 20, or younger.
  
• In Low-A: succeeding at age 19, solid at 18, or younger.
• In short-season leagues: solid at age 17 or younger.

Triple-A players making this list are major-league-ready or nearly so and basically just waiting for an opportunity, while the High-A players on the list generally will be fairly high ceiling, and their success at such a young age makes them fairly likely to be a good major leaguer.  The Double-A players are a nice mix of readiness and likely success.  "Successful" generally means that he performed well enough to be promoted, and I try to take a nuanced view of a player's stats.  I start with basic productivity but keep a careful eye on peripherals, and particularly on K rates for pitchers.

Statements from team officials may also be considered, but ultimately the choice to promote or not to promote a player is more credible than any verbal statement.  Scouting reports are taken into account, but mostly with an eye toward projecting a player's defensive skills and likely role in the majors, which affects how good his bat will have to be in order to make it – in other words, in terms of pure hitting skills, the bar is lower for a standout defender like Brad Snyder than it is for a merely solid guy like Ben Francisco.  Injuries are always considered a negative factor, and in the PTM context, I never consider injuries a mitigating factor for a mediocre performance.

In 2006, PTM stubbornly championed guys like Carmona, AstroCab and Lofgren before they were fashionable, Adam Miller even when he was injured, solid successes like Garko and frustrating cases like Ferd and Marte – the system is fundamentally better at predicting who will earn a shot in the majors than who will succeed there, though it may be no worse than other systems in that regard.  Recent draft picks without track record and over-21 types dominating in the low minors were excluded without mercy, a tendency of PTM that irritated some fans in 2006 and will continue to irritate in 2008.  PTM preaches patience, not only at the plate but in our prospect rankings.  There are some guys I don't like leaving certain guys off the list any more than you do, but if the performance is there, those guys will jump on the list soon enough.

A note about the ages listed – it's their "seasonal age" for 2007, not 2008, listed that way because it's based on that age that we're evaluating their achievements so far.  I also pay little mind to "official" rules as to what makes a prospect.  If a player is 25 or younger and not a fully established major leaguer, he's a prospect in every way that actually matters to a team, or to a fan.

Prospects That Really, Really Matter — players who've met PTM criteria at an excessively young age.

1. Asdrubal Cabrera – 21, SS-2B, thrived in Double-A and was solid in the majors.  As if you didn't know.
2. Aaron Laffey – 22, RHP, not a lot of strikeouts but also not a lot of walks, performed  well and "equivalently" from Akron to Cleveland.
   
3. Adam Miller – 22, RHP, struggled with injuries but way ahead of the curve in Triple-A.  Still very much a potential ace.
   
4. Jensen Lewis – 23, RHP, unusual to rank a reliever this high, but Lewis truly dominated in Akron, and then Buffalo, and then Cleveland, and then against the Yankees in the playoffs, with an ERA under 2.00 and K rate over 10.  Frankly, this ranking might not be high enough — no other Indians prospect performed at this high of a level in 2007.
   
5. Andy Marte – 23, 3B, and you don't have to like it.  For one thing, once a guy has made the list, he only graduates by getting too old or succeeding in the majors.  Try to imagine 2007 was Marte's first season in Triple-A — 766 OPS, 23-year-old third baseman, it's actually pretty good.  But of course, his actual first season in Triple-A was at age 21.  His three-year total, ages 21-22-23, are .268/.337/.473.
6. Chuck Lofgren – 21, LHP, those who were disapointed by his season in Akron were forgetting how young he is to be an above-average pitcher at this level.  Lofgren will spend his age-22 season in Double-A, and he's a lefty with better stuff than Laffey or Sowers.

Prospects That Really Matter — those who beat the PTM criteria with room to spare.

7. Jeremy Sowers – 24, LHP, and like Marte, he would make the list based only on his age and 2007 numbers alone, but the high ranking is for his dazzling 2006 performance at age 23.
   
8. Sean Smith – 23, RHP, not turning any heads but had a very solid season in Triple-A.
   
9. Shin-Soo Choo – 24, OF, obviously slowed by injuries, but as with Sowers, we'd do well not to forget what he did at age 23.
   
10. Eddie Mujica — 23, RHP, also slowed by injuries, and also more impressive in 2006 than in 2007, but check out the great K/BB rates.  Still a potential impact reliever if he's healthy.
    

Prospects That Matter — others who've cleared the bar.

11. Nick "Weglarz!" Weglarz – 19, OF, bounced back from injury to make a stellar full-season debut.
    
12. Ben Francisco – 25, OF, improved on his age-24 numbers and made a solid debut in the majors.
    
13. Jordan Brown – 23, 1B, a knee injury reportedly sapped his power, but he still hit .333, and it will be interesting to see how his power develops this season.
14. Jeanmar Gomez – 18, RHP, suffocated Dominican Summer League hitters at 16 (2005) and dominated the Gulf Coast League at 17 (2006), although a bit reminiscent of Carmona, you have to wonder how a guy manages a 2.50 ERA with just 5.92 K/9.  His full-season debut was merely decent, and he's going to have to show more strikeouts and fewer home runs as he progresses, but he improved in both areas as the season progressed.  He'll be starting his age-19 season at High-A, something nobody else on this list has done or will do – youth and progress, that's what we're looking for here.  Somebody really needs to do a scouting report on this guy.
15. Jeff Stevens – 23, RHP, eye-popping K rates in Double-A and apparently not content to be a footnote, he may well hit the  Cleveland bullpen in 2008.
    
16. Carlos Rivero – 19, SS, marginal overall numbers, but a plus defender with a solid walk rate, and a decent amount of pop for a teenage middle infielder.
    
17. John Drennen – 20, CF, not unlike Lofgren, his struggles caused some to:: forget that he was one of the youngest players in his league.
18. Hector Rondon – 19, RHP, pitched better than Gomez at Lake County but is a year older, will also start the season in the Kinston rotation.
    

A few themes emerge on this year's list.  For one thing, it's huge, which either means I'm getting more lenient, or the criteria are letting in certain types of players too easily, or  that the Indians are justified in their strong confidence about the depth of their farm system, defying most "organizational talent" rankings.  A small core of players has been promoted to the advanced-A Kinston club to start the year at age 19 or 20, and it's a happy mix of two pitchers, one skill position player and one power-hitting Canadian.  This complements well the small core of college draftees who will converge on Akron in 2008 (with a good shot to make next year's list).

The other theme is guys succeeding in Triple-A at very young ages – not just at 25 but at 22 – but then possibly being stuck there, possibly because of a limited ceiling, possibly because that last jump to majors is the hardest.  Spots 5-10 are fairly dominated by a sense of, "Don't give up on me, I'm still young, I still matter!"  They all reached Buffalo by 22, and not one of them is 25 yet.

It may be that a future refinement of PTM should raise the bar in some way for Triple-A pitchers in particular, but then again, maybe the bar is just fine.  Part of the premise of the system is that a guy who reaches Triple-A at 22 may have the same stats as a low-ceiling 25-year-old, but he's got three whole seasons to figure out how to make that last jump.  Some research suggests that unlike a hitter's raw tools, a pitcher's stuff doesn't really improve after age 23, but it takes pretty good stuff just to get this far, and there's more to pitching than just stuff.  Something to ponder going forward.

More lists after the jump.

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First thing is, we're not going to lose, and there will be a companion article to this one explaining why we're not going to lose.  But let's face the facts here, baseball is crazy, and the most likely scenario is that we face a tight race with the Tigers.  We might lose.  And if we lose, it will probably be for some combination of these reasons.

1. Pure talent.  The Indians have more healthy key players, more talented depth players, and fewer players who stand to regress back from having had career seasons in 2007.  But on the whole, the Tigers have more talented key players, and if guys like Sheffield and Guillen can stay healthy, then their lack of decent depth players won't make much difference.
   
   PECOTA projects the Tigers to score only 15 more runs than the Indians, but that's a weighted-mean projection that significantly factors in the chance of losing key players to injury.  If the Tigers generally stay healthy, the offensive difference likely will be far greater.
   
   The Indians meanwhile are at significant risk for below-average production at three out of four corner positions, and several of our key players are over 30 (Dellucci, Michaels, Hafner, Borowski, Byrd, Kobayashi) and, as a group, not likely to get more healthy or more productive than they were in 2007.
   
   And despite a reputation for starter depth, not one of the four guys slated to man the last two rotation spots (Byrd, Lee, Laffey and Sowers) is a solid bet to post a league-average ERA this season.
   
   
2. Sketchy defense.  Two of our best three starters are extreme groundballers, and both are righthanded.  That means a significant part of our fate will rest in the disposition of groundballs headed toward the left side of the infield, where we will be starting two guys who could fall off a cliff defensively at any time.  Both Peralta and Blake have had moments in their careers where their defense was actually praiseworthy, but they've also both been atrocious over an entire season at least once.
   
   Moving Asdrubal to shortstop probably won't be a serious option, as that would replace Peralta's bat in the lineup with Carroll's or Barfield's.  As for playing Marte at third, even if we take the charitable view that all he needs is a good month or so to settle in as a big-leaguer, exactly how many balls get booted while he's doing that?
   
   
3. Troubled youth.  Much of our 2007 success was due to unexpected performances from rookies, but we don't really know how Asdrubal or Gutierrez will look after more exposure to major league pitching.  It would not be surprising if both of them struggled, and of course Marte has never really performed well in the majors.  Add in Perez and Lewis -- and arguably Carmona -- and you're looking at a significant chunk of the roster in the unpredictably youthful column.
   
   Moreover, we're unlikely to get big contributions from four rookies again in 2008, or in any season, or even from two rookies.
   
   
4. Wacky bullpens.  It just wouldn't be surprising if four or five of our relievers just could not get their acts together this season -- these things happen, bullpens are just like that.  Borowski, Lewis, Kobayashi, Breslow, Julio -- all those guys could tank, and Betancourt has been known to hit the DL now and again.
   
   Even leaving out the pessimism, we simply can't expect Betancourt to have the most impact of any reliever in the game again, and we can't expect to get major contributions from two guys who aren't even on the Opening Day roster, as we got last year.  The Indians 2007 success overall was not particularly flukey, but it was in this area.
   
   
5. Tired arms.  This one has been beat to death already, but that doesn't mean it isn't a significant concern.  Carmona at 24 is out of the notorious "injury nexus," and people tend to ignore the fact that he threw 174  innings at age 21 with no ill effect, so throwing 215 at age 23 is not necessarily that big of a deal.
   
   Sabathia, however, threw 256 innings, which is a lot for any pitcher of any age or experience, and often threw under more stress than Carmona faced.  Thta's 58 more innings than he'd thrown in any season except 2002, and even that year, he only threw 210.  Let's not forget, Sabathia loses three starts or so to injury in most seasons anyway, so how can he be likely to stay healthy following a 30% jump in workload?  He can't be.
   
   
6. Lack of quality depth.  I'm serious.  On our 40-man roster, we've got nine warm bodies for four corner spots -- Garko, Gutierrez, Dellucci, Michaels, Blake, Marte, Choo, Francisco, Aubrey and Snyder -- but only one of them (Garko of course) is a really solid bet to post above-average production in 2008.
   
   In the bullpen, we started 2007 with at least four rookies waiting in Buffalo -- Perez, Mujica, Lara and Slocum -- young, talented, live-armed dudes who'd already gotten their feet wet in 2006.  We don't have the same caliber of reinforcements to start 2008.  It's basically Elarton, Mastny and a diminished Mujica.
   
   
7. That guy, still not helping.  Adam Miller sure could help in a number of these areas, and yet he sure can't be counted on to help in any of them.
   
   
8. Bad timing.  Just as anything can happen in a short series, two evenly matched teams can produce just about any result in a 19-game season series.  The Indians could outplay the Tigers by 6 games against all other teams and outscore them head-to-head with a few blowouts mixed in, but if they lose the season series 13-6, it won't matter.  At the same time, while the schedule is very closely balanced for any two teams in the same division, facing a certain team in May isn't always the same as facing them in August.
   
   
9. Lack of pie.  Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.  Gritty, clutchy, leadership pie -- the kind of pie Trot Nixon knew how to make.  Trot's gone, and we don't know if Dellucci or anyone else can pick up the slack.
   
   
10. Lack of Vizquel, Thome, Millwood, Colavito.  No, not really.  Geez, man, get a life.  Maybe you didn't hear, last year, we won 96 games without those guys, and all of their teams sucked.  Yes, even Colavito's.
    

So that's the bad news.  Of course it's always possible that the Indians will find some other, more bizarre or unpredictable way to tank their season, something nobody could have or would have ever predicted.  Just ask Travis Hafner.