Fultz to be DFAd; Lee the fifth starter

W/r/t Fultz, this means that if somebody else keeps him on their major league roster this year, they pay him the minimum for his service time, and the Indians are responsible for the balance of his contract, right? Anybody know what the minimum is for a guy with 8 years service time? I'm guessing it's like $550k or something like that. So Shapiro just blew around a million dollars to have a look at Fultz in ST. Oh well, not my money.

The Fultz DFA will open up a spot for Jorge Julio or Scott Elarton

seems like one thing keeps leading to the next.  i think jay's right about elarton heading to buffalo and julio to the 25-man.  mastny gets featured, regular work in buffalo a phone call away.

Have to take a bit of issue with the phrasing. The spot for Julio has been there since the Lara move, Fultz's spot just went straight to Breslow.

Fultz's numbers obviously sucked this Spring, but I'm assuming this also means the coaching staff felt his "stuff" sucked too...

Biggest news of Spring Training!

yay! Not happy about Lee in the rotation, but Fultz being gone is nice.

Jay,

What are your thoughts on this? I remember you vehemently supporting Fultz from others who wanted to dump him earlier.

Lee= one of the least likeable dudes in the game

how terrible was his salute to the crowd last year, followed by his untruthful quotes about it

amazingly, he's also southern

Says more about the Orioles than the Indians, but announcers announce that Guthrie is Opening Day starter for the Orioles.

Am I the only one who hopes that Elarton is the final arm in the pen?  He's not a bad guy to have around and he seemed to overachieve in the past with the Tribe.  

As for Fultz, I'm kinda glad to see him go.  I've been rather 'meh' on him for quite a while now, as I think many have been.  He's never annoyed like some other players, and I wish him well as a waiver wire pickup someplace else, but...  It's a good thing to free up the space.

And as for Lee making the team, I just hope this is some sort of ruse to up his value so we can trade him.  He's just standing in the way of promising arms.

He has been just brutally bad since the latter part of 2007. I attended the Tribe game in Kansas City this past season when Fultz walked in the winning run. I'm glad to see him go. He's worse than Danny Graves (well maybe not that bad) but still...

You know, I think the Tribe determined that Fultz was in a big time decline and didn't feel like waiting around to double check.

Jay showed convincingly that Fultz wasn't as brutal as we all remember him being; however, I still like the "upside" of a real LOOGY in game situations vs. Fultz projected decline.

Nice, subtle, FO move that will probably come in handy. Vintage Shapiro.

I mentioned it in the game thread, but during the broadcast today they showed a clip from the Shapiro news conference explaining the Fultz move. The one thing he stressed was that Fultz hadn't really been the same pitcher since his injury last season. All of our breakdowns on this site have looked at last season as one large body of work that may not look too shabby, his stats after being out for the month of July are pretty grotesque.

If the FO truly does see Fultz never having recovered physically/mentally/stuff-wise from that injury, his August/September stats plus his horrendous spring certainly gave them ample reason to cut ties with him. I was certainly of the opinion that it was a tad premature to let him go right now, but presented in the context of post-injury struggles, I have to consider myself converted.

Emil Brown is not a good baseball player.  That is all...

I can't believe our FO thinks that a bullpen's second lefty is some kind of interchangeable part. So disappointing - my Fultz jersey is worthless now.