Tribe News and Notes, 10/18/12

Players' offseason plans, plus speculation on player and coach reunions for Terry Francona. Plus, postseason baseball trudges on, weather permitting.

Let's get it out of the way first - there is still baseball being played:

The Cardinals took a 2-1 lead over the Giants with a 3-1 win last night in St. Louis behind Kyle Lohse. And, really, when Kyle Lohse was stinking up the joint in Minnesota, did anyone anywhere see this version of Kyle Lohse coming?
The Motor City Kitties versus the Evil Empire got rained out. That only took the circus off the field, with wild speculation swirling over a potential A-Rod deal in the offseason to the Marlins. The Yankees have, of course, denied it.

And now, in news about your Cleveland Indians:

Reunions in the offing for Terry Francona? Speculation has begun on Kevin Youkilis coming to play for his former skipper and Brad Mills being part of Francona's coaching staff.
Since they're not playing baseball, the offseason has started early for the team. TribeVibe blog interviews several players about their offseason plans in a two-part article: Part 1 | Part 2

Finally, Bastian does a post-mortem on the performance of the starting pitching staff, throwing out the awful numbers, including the following:

• Tribe starters allowed 13.94 baserunners per nine innings, which was the eighth-highest rate in a season for the team, dating to 1921. Cleveland's left-on-base percentage of 65.5 was its lowest average since 1936 (64.3).

• Cleveland allowed 108 stolen bases, marking the most by the team since 1979 (114) and the fourth-most in a season in club history. The 81.2-percent success rate for basestealers was the highest against any Indians rotation.

• The Indians established a new record with 14 games in which their starter allowed at least eight runs. The previous mark was 11 such games in both 1925 and 1936. Cleveland tied a club record (1925) with 25 games in which the starter gave up at least seven runs.