Blast From the Past

On this page, it shows these two paragraphs for July 12, 2003:

Indians purchased the contract of RHP Jake Westbrook from Triple-A Buffalo. Indians designated LHP Jason Stanford for assignment.

Indians purchased the contract of RHP Rafael Betancourt from Triple-A Buffalo. Indians designated RHP Jose Santiago for assignment.

Each paragraph is a balancing pair of transactions -- one guy gets his contract "purchased" (he's added to the 40-man) while another guy gets DFA'ed (he's removed from it).  The second paragraph is correct, but the first one is just wrong.

Westbrook wasn't added to the 40-man that day, he was already on the 40-man, so he was just recalled from Buffalo.  And Stanford didn't need to be removed to make removed from it, and he wasn't -- he was optioned to Buffalo.  And there's his elusive first option (for a total of three).

The July 5 entry is also wrong.  Stanford was not just "recalled" that day, which would mean that he'd already been on the 40-man roster.  It should say that his contract was purchased that day.

And how do I know the MLB.com archive is wrong?  First, because its chain of transactions doesn't even make internal sense, either for Stanford or for Westbrook.  And second, because I found a more complete archive of transactions for that season, one that does make sense internally.

And where is that page from?  Ironically ... it's from Ryan's old, old Indians site, which he had before he started his old blog, which itself was before he arrived here.  So nice work, Year 2003 Ryan ... your site is more accurate than the official MLB site.

You're just letting nostalgia overwhelm you almost entirely.

With the exception of 1994 Grady is Lofton's superior in nearly every possible offensive way at a considerably younger age. And the defense thing is all subjective. In 15 years people are going to sit around and talk about Grady's defense being among the best ever, barring injury. Will it be true? I dunno but people will say it because he's fast as hell, athletic, and dives a lot. Like Kenny Lofton.

Similarly, Hafner's OPS+ now, in his down year, is better than any OPS+ Murray ever posted with the Indians.

Besides, all you have to do to get Hafner in the lineup is have Murray/Hafner split time at DH and first. If we're going to time travel players we might as well assume Hafner can play a little first.

I'm not going to get into the Peralta thing because I'm the only Indians fan of all time who isn't obsessed with Omar Vizquel. All I will say is that the statement:
you can make a very good case that Peralta would play now instead of Omar.

cannot possibly be what you mean. There is zero, zilch, absolutely no case to play the current version of 2007 Vizquel over 2007 Peralta. I'm not sure there is any GM, ever, in the history of baseball, who would take the Vizquel side of 2007 Vizquel-2007 Peralta.  

I'm not sure if you're talking about the 94-95 incarantion or the 1997 one. The 1997 one is even easier to slot guys into. Sizemore obviously plays instead of Grissom, you put Justice in left and let Hafner DH, Peralta can play third instead of Matt Williams, and Victor is still the C. Also, Barfield probably plays second instead of the unforgettable Tony Fernandez. Or, you can play Peralta at second and Casey Blake at third, b/c he's also better than 1997 Matt Williams.

It happens to everybody. Things look different when you're looking backwards.

For instance, I am convinced Christian Laetener is the best college basketball player of all time.