Game 160: Tigers 14, Indians 0

The silver lining, if we lose the final game and only finish 80-82 (which is still higher than most predicted us to finish when the season started, as well as finishing no worse than a tie in 2nd, which is also higher than virtually everyone thought when the season started), is the following:

If we finish 80-82, and Chicago wins to tie us at 80-82, we get the higher draft pick because Chicago finished with 88 wins last season, while we “only” finished with 69 wins.

I just thought of this an hour ago, as an added silver lining, if Chicago does win to improve to 80-82, the team they beat Toronto, will also fall to 80-82, and, that’s right, we would get the higher draft pick over them as well, as they finished with 85 wins in 2010, compared to our 69.

Therefore, I’m not suggesting we just go out and lose to Detroit; provided Texas wins tonight against the Angels (Texas is now leading 8-2 in the 5th, and the Angels were eliminated from postseason contention Monday night with their loss to Texas), the Indians could hand the Rangers the #2 seed with a win against the Tigers before their game with LA is completed – they start an hour later than we do), but if we do fall tomorrow night and don’t reach .500, Chicago winning and tying us may not be the worse thing in the world – we’re still 2nd, even if we have to share it, plus we jump up 2 draft spots. And, keep in mind, we improved from 69 wins to 80 wins (if we lose), while Chicago and Toronto both fell from their 2010 win totals (Chicago from 88 to 80 if they win, Toronto from 85 to 80 if they lose).

If we lose again, it’s not the worse thing in the world, though like I said, I’d like to finish the season on a winning note, or at least, put up more of a fight where Detroit doesn’t jump out to an early lead on us like they have the first 2 games – it’s been too easy for them over the last 10 games or so we’ve faced them, as they’ve gotten out to early leads in at least 6-7 of those games, maybe even 8 of them (the two in Cleveland that we narrowly lost, I think those two, we stayed with them throughout the whole game, but otherwise, it’s been pretty much one-sided affairs lately, especially compared to the early part of the season when we took 6 of 8 from them).

At this rate, there aren’t many teams that are going to want him for a long-term deal. So the price might be great to do it now.

Depends on how long the extension would be for – if it’s an additional 1-3 years, that would still allow him to sign a FA deal at 30-32 – he would still likely get a good deal amount of money then IF he pitches well now.

The advantage of him signing now is, he would be sure to get extra money (and still a pretty good amount of money now) in the event that he doesn’t reach near that level he did in early 2010 (let’s hope though that he does and puts himself in that position at age 30-32 if the Indians are able to extend him now).

I understand that we don’t extend Ubaldo because we traded for him. But one of the reasons I hate that trade, aside from the concept that SP was an “area of depth,” is the fact that the best-case scenario showed us already looking to deal Ubaldo in more or less one year. But looking back on the trade, assuming we can extend, we will have gotten more years out of the asset we acquired – more asset.

I think we blame the player. Peralta made no secret out of the fact that he didn’t want to play third. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Peralta was just phoning it in on losing teams. Pure speculation of course, but it’s hard to imagine that coaching can make that huge of a difference.

I’d say the Wedge regime shares some blame in that debacle, it was weird (but not really) that Peralta bared the brunt of the “in the media” tongue lashings from Wedge, he was targeted because he didn’t fit into Wedge’s system. Of course, he didn’t play very well at all either.