I assume they ask for starters or bullpen help, which doesn’t seem to be a fit. But I’m intrigued by Weeks.

That was pretty brusque.

I thought Peralta’s D at SS wasn’t near as bad as everyone wants to make it out to be. To say he is no glove is not doing him justice. Not that he is any wizard out there

Another thing about Peralta at 3B: I think he has a chance to be an above-average defensive 3B, thereby actually increasing his value. Playing him at 3B maximizes his strengths (arm) and minimizing his weakness (range). I’m gonna change my initial feelings from “slightly cynical but cautiously interested” to cautiously optimistic.

You’re seriously underestimating the defensive capabilities of Ellis and (to a slightly lesser extent) Hudson.

FWIW, here’s Mark Ellis’ salary under his current contract:

06:$2.25M, 07:$3.5M, 08:$5M club option

That’s mega-cheap. In 2007 we gave Trot Nixon $3M. Wouldn’t the yearly money we get from Progressive to put their name on the field cover $3M? Anything extra we have to pay him is barely a drop in the bucket, and we’ve still got a bunch of money left over to throw at an upgrade at 1B, or SP, or whatever. I’m not sure Ellis could command $5M on the open market, but I’d be fine paying that.

Not among 3B free agents, there aren’t (the list, again, is Crede, Blake, Ensberg, Koskie, Norton). Maybe you get a nice upgrade in a trade.

If they were available for purchase, I’d legitimately spend about 20 minutes debating whether I should buy the Chootierrez or Shoptinez player t-shirt.

Of course we should, and will, TRY to get better. But I can definitely see how the organization might view $15 MM or whatever as being more valuable than Mark Ellis, especially in light of the reality that its success in 2009 depends on lot of things outside, or at least peripheral to, its control.

I agree with the first two sentences here. Those are two of the key questions. We also need to ask how does this affect our options elsewhere. I’m not an expert on the Indians’ salary situation, but I estimated they’re committed to about 54 million to 10 guys (Fausto, Hafner, Westbrook, Martinez, Lee, Dellucci, Sizemore, Masa, Jhonny, and Betancourt) for next year. If they renew other guys (Reyes, Lewis, Garko, Francisco, Perez, Gutierrez, Shoppach, Cabrera, Choo) at basically the same salary as this year (and they may decide to pay some of these guys to keep them longer-term), that’s another 3.6 million or so. Then, there’s Carroll’s option (2.5 million). We’re at 60 million or so. If the team doesn’t increase the budget significantly, that means we have around 18 million to spend on other contracts — free agents, extensions for guys we already have, etc. We need a starter and relief help; signing Ellis at his current salary ($5 milion) would significantly reduce that and take us completely out of the market for the best closers. If he were cheap, then maybe the marginal improvement is worth it (I don’t think so, personally; I’d rather spend the money on 1B). But, if I’m Shapiro, I’m going to try hard to strengthen the back of the bullpen and acquire a starter before I spend money on positions where I have a good option already.

I’m not suggesting that this means we should go out and sign Ellis, because there’s the possibilty that our resources could be better allocated elsewhere.

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but are you suggesting that signing Mark Ellis handcuffs us to make other moves?

It isn’t misleading to say we’re finishing 6th in runs scored this year, because, well, we’re finishing 6th in runs scored this year. But I think it is somewhat misleading to imbue that fact with predictive value. We’d like to believe that this team’s “real” offense is more like the August 2008 offense than the May 2008 offense, but my sense is that it’s somewhere in between the two.

Anyway, I’ve now spent a lot of words explaining why I don’t care if we sign Mark Ellis, which seems to me the very definition of counter-productive.

Or, most relevant to our case, the pitchers could improve.

That may be because most people (and the media) underrate defense. Much of what is judged as pitching is actually defense.

False.

My very inexperienced (and probably misleading) eyes suggest that his problem is more overall quickness. However, I trust the Indians to make the correct judgment. I think it is still unlikely that Peralta will be worse than Blake at third, and much more likely that Peralta would be at least somewhat above average.

Arm strength is hardly ever an issue, actually, because the shortstop generally plays somewhat deeper, thus basically about the same distance from first base.

Hmm… good point.

“I’d like him in the lineup, but we’ve gotta get this guy off Short”
Probably means one of three things:

-He fields well, but his arm is weak. He becomes a natural 2b. The LF / CF are also options.
-He isn’t very sure with grounders at all, or his arm is very erratic: move him to the OF. The Soriano route, if you will. Most 2B and 3B originate as SS. Ryan Braun was drafted as a SS. Yikes! So was Barfield, who should probably be an outfielder… oh, wait.
-He has a good arm, and he’s OK at fielding Short, but for one reason or another it is desirable to move him. Good positional value could be had from this guy playing either 2nd or 3rd, and of course they can play in the OF (just about everybody in the majors who isn’t exclusively a 1B/DH or a C is capable of playing in the OF). I happen to think that Peralta falls into this category. Since he’s made it this far, I have confidence in his ability to field any IF or OF spot—including SS.

Yeah. If the Indians really want to get a lot better at first, they’d have to play Vic there consistently or go outside the organization. I can see Peralta playing first more easily than I can third, but you’re right about his limits as a hitter.

The suggestion was that he could become a 35 homer guy. I don’t think he will, but it could happen.