The series:  Visited the Royals (win, win, win) and hosted the Yankees (win, win, loss, loss).

The big story:  There were several, and perhaps the biggest was simply that we had a strong week, winning five of seven to move into second place.   But the most significant development for the 2008 season going forward was C.C. Sabathia's total U-turn from trainwreck to dominant starter.  Sabathia gave up just one run over 14 innings, striking out 11 hapless Royals in the first game and tossing an 8-inning gem in which only five Yankees reached base in the second.  This pair of consecutive starts was one of the best of Sabathia's career, surpassed in 2007 only by his back-to-back shutouts in June.  At the same time, his first four starts were so horrendous (13.50 ERA) that even after the extreme two-start bounce-back, his ERA is still the worst in the majors at 7.88 – even worse than Barry Zito's.  Sabathia's excellence ended up being of no real immediate consequence, as the Indians turned the first one into a 15-1 rout, then handed Sabathia a tough 1-0 loss in the second.

In other news:  Jake Westbrook unexpectedly went on the Disabled List with a lower-back muscle strain.  Initially expected to miss only a few starts, he's now expected to be out for a full month after his symptoms persisted for a full week.  His injury, combined with a rain-delay-induced double-header, resulted in a flurry of call-ups and send-downs as the Indians played with an extra outfielder for a few days (Ben Francisco), swapped out for a spot starter (Jeremy Sowers) on Saturday, swapped out for another extra outfielder (Brad Snyder) on Sunday, and finally on Monday swapped out for Aaron Laffey, who will join the rotation at least for the following week.  Both starters made fine 2008 debuts against the Yankees, with Laffey looking significantly stronger than Sowers even though the box scores will claim the opposite.

Lee deepened his improbable run as the game's most effective pitcher with a complete game shutout, as the national media joined Indians fans in collectively dropping their jaws.  The lineup blew up for 24 runs in the first two games but then fizzled with just 14 runs in the next five, a trend led by Casey Blake, who posted a 2125 OPS in two games against the Royals but just a 350 OPS starting all four games against the Yankees.  The post-Borowski bullpen started to come together as Kobayashi asserted himself with a few strong setup performances while Betancourt breezed through his first two Save opportunities, making the closer's job look suspiciously un-different from his old setup-man gig.

Adam Miller finally made his official 2008 debut in Buffalo, following a few weeks rehabbing a blister and a few weeks in extended spring training.  Miller pitched nine scoreless innings in two starts while continuing to build up his pitch count, and his velocity was intact even if his peripherals weren't.  Miller's return, coupled with Brian Slocum's solid start, suggests that the Indians remain an absurd eight-deep in big-league-ready starting pitchers, even after putting Westbrook on the DL and shipping Sean Smith off to Colorado.  At the same time, David Huff, 39th overall draft pick in 2006, overcame a rocky first two starts to pitch his third straight gem for the Akron Aeros, allowing just one run (on a solo shot) and 13 baserunners against 19 strikeouts over the three games, and he picked off a couple guys, too.  If Huff continues to emerge, that may further tempt the Indians to move Miller into the big-league bullpen.

Post of the week:  Now taking nominations.

Who fed it: Sabathia dominated in two starts while Lee was near-spotless in his one.  Julio excelled in two low-leverage outings, while Kobayashi and Betancourt settled into their new roles; the three relievers faced 32 batters and got 29 outs, including two erased on double-plays, and allowed no one past first base.  Blake had the best all-around numbers of any hitter on the week but was abysmal against the Yankees.  Victor batted .375, achieving a 902 OPS on the week with (once again) no home runs.  Dellucci and Peralta each combined a solid average with a pair of home runs.  Seemingly competing for at bats, Michaels and Gutierrez both accounted for a major chunk of our otherwise anemic offense against the Yankees, the former batting .400 while the latter slugged .600, and they looked damned good in the field, too.  Special mention must be given to Aaron Laffey, who no-hit the Yankees for five innings and, through sheer horrendous luck alone, gave up four runs in the 6th when he deserved to give up, at most, one. Absolute Best:  Sabathia.  Relative Best:  Lee.

Who ate it:  It's hard to say what the worst part of Ryan Garko's week was, the .042 average, the .115 OBP or the .083 slugging.  I'm going with the .042 average, because he was just one walk short of decent walk rate, and hey, his isolated power is almost 2.0!  Unfortunately, even those minimal contributions were mostly confined to last Tuesday's game, and Garko's line for the last five games was .000/.048/.000.  Aside from Garko, the rest of the Indians put up a more-than-respectable .302/.360/.451 line for the week.  Hafner continued his harrowing march to the bottom, with week-by-week OPS totals of 824, 761, 592 and (this week) 512 — or, if you prefer, he has a 559 OPS over his last 17 games.  Absolute Worst:  Garko.  Relative Worst:  Garko.  Twenty Other Kinds Of Worst:  Garko.  And Yet The Guy Who Really Makes Me Suicidal Is Still:  Hafner.

The other guys:  We made Wang look like Bob Gibson.  The rest of it, pretty fuzzy, maybe I'll fill it in later, does anybody really care about this section?

False alarms:

• Cliff Lee, greatest pitcher in the universe.
  
• Chien-Ming Wang, second greatest.
• C.C. Sabathia, third greatest (he's actually about tenth).
• Ben Francisco in a Cleveland uniform.
  
• Ryan Garko, worst hitter ever.
• Jhonny Peralta on web gems last night.
• J-Mike, serviceable big-league hitter.

Open questions:

• How long will Jake be out, and once he returns, will he be totally awesome, or merely awesome?
• How long can Chicago stay at the top of the standings?
  
• Since any blogger writing in his/her parents' basement in his/her underwear can notice when a reliever's velocity is down 3-5 mph, and might actually write about it without the team's permission, what exactly do we need newspaper columnists for?
• Too soon to start panicking about losing Cliff Lee after 2010?
• When the hell is Slider's birthday, anyway?
  
• Can Kobayashi confuse hitters with his deathballs all season like Okajima did?
• Can Julio be useful?
• How long will we keep marching Stomp Lewis out there with reduced velocity?
• Just how bad will the game have to be going before we see Mastny or Breslow again, and how bad will they be after a 15-day layoff?
• Has anyone noticed that Eddie Mujica is in his last option year?  Does anyone care?
• How much better can Laffey be than he was last year?  Is his ceiling is higher than we think?
• Can Steel Rafi get settled and find some semblance of his 2007 consistency?
• How many relievers would have to be failing completely for Adam Miller to get the call to the big-league bullpen?  Do we even want to see him there?
• Could Sowers be on the block soon?
• Is it really possible for Marte to spend 120 more days on the roster than Ben Francisco this season, and yet still get fewer at bats?
  
• Is Wedge basically just testing Marte to see how long it takes him to get an obviously bad attitude, at which point they ship him out?
• Will Shapiro fall for this kind of nonsense again?

With Jake headed to the DL, the Indians will need to call up a starter from Triple-A to take his spot in the rotation.  Only two starts need to be covered if Jake's stay lasts only the minimum 15 days, which is likely.

To avoid starting anyone on short rest, the Indians will need a spot start by Saturday the 26th at the latest.  Westbrook's turn comes up on Friday the 25th, but Byrd could start a day early, Friday rather than Saturday, and still be on the usual four days of rest.

Fortunately, the Indians have four Triple-A starters who could be used without disrupting their normal routines too much.

Aaron Laffey looks like the odds-on favorite, and he could start Friday, in Westbrook's usual spot, with just one extra day of rest.  He's got a 3.13 ERA in four starts and is coming off five scoreless innings with 5 K and 2 BB.

Jeremy Sowers is a close second choice, with overall numbers that are very similar to Laffey's but are just slightly lesser.  His K:BB are 16:8 rather than 18:6, and his BIP aren't quite as grounded.  He could start Saturday on regular rest, with Byrd moving up his start to Friday.

Sean Smith makes an intriguing option and could start on regular rest Friday or with one extra day on Saturday.  He got roughed up two starts ago but is carrying a heavy 10 K/9, something neither Laffey or Sowers is every likely to do.  Smith is not on the 40-man roster, however, so another player would have to be released, traded for a minor leaguer, or moved to the 60-day DL in order to add him.  Further, with four other Triple-A starters already on the 40-man, there's no reason to think adding Smith now would turn out to be useful later in the season.

Atom Miller makes for the most interesting choice of all, however unlikely.  Miller finished rehabbing weeks ago and has been in extended Spring Training ever since, preparing to start his season tomorrow night in Buffalo.  The Indians certainly could have Miller throw a bullpen session tomorrow rather than making his scheduled start, which would have him set up to start a game on Friday or Saturday.  I don't think they'd do that considering how (justifiably) careful they've been with Miller ... but you never know.

Scott Elarton and Brian Slocum will not be considered, in Slocum's case because he pitched tonight and so could not step into the Indians rotation on regular rest, and in Elarton's case because he's been used out of the bullpen all season and hasn't faced more than 14 batters in any game – in the majors, minors or Spring Training – since last June.

Yes, the glorious day has finally arrived.  After a 20-month hiatus, I'm finally excavating and updating my ramshackle prospect ranking system, formerly known as the Exciting Prospects Standard and now redubbed with the more apt (but no more humble) moniker, Prospects That Matter.  Actually, it's not really a ranking system, it's actually a separating-the-men-from-the-boys system; the specific rankings are secondary, and frankly, I don't give them a great deal of thought.  It is perhaps best described as a way of organizing the way we look at our young talent.

Why the new name?  Well, my friends, I'm older now, and wiser, or perhaps more tolerant, or perhaps just lazier.  If you really find Chris Gimenez exciting, I'm not going to argue with you about it.  If, on the other hand, you want to tell me that Chris Gimenez should actually matter to an Indians fan, well, then, you might just have a fight on your hands.  The aim of the system remains the same, and that is, for a diehard Indians fan who doesn't follow the minors closely, to identify those prospects that are really worth knowing about -- and not to bother that fan with guys who are merely over-hyped or over-drafted.

PTM attempts to identify:  Which guys are the most likely to contribute to the Indians winning a pennant?  Which guys are going to contribute the most, and which guys are going to contribute the soonest?  To that end, the PTM player must meet one of these criteria:

• In Triple-A: succeeding at age 25, solid at 24, or younger.
• In Double-A: succeeding at age 23, solid at 22, or younger.
• In High-A: succeeding at age 21, solid at 20, or younger.
  
• In Low-A: succeeding at age 19, solid at 18, or younger.
• In short-season leagues: solid at age 17 or younger.

Triple-A players making this list are major-league-ready or nearly so and basically just waiting for an opportunity, while the High-A players on the list generally will be fairly high ceiling, and their success at such a young age makes them fairly likely to be a good major leaguer.  The Double-A players are a nice mix of readiness and likely success.  "Successful" generally means that he performed well enough to be promoted, and I try to take a nuanced view of a player's stats.  I start with basic productivity but keep a careful eye on peripherals, and particularly on K rates for pitchers.

Statements from team officials may also be considered, but ultimately the choice to promote or not to promote a player is more credible than any verbal statement.  Scouting reports are taken into account, but mostly with an eye toward projecting a player's defensive skills and likely role in the majors, which affects how good his bat will have to be in order to make it – in other words, in terms of pure hitting skills, the bar is lower for a standout defender like Brad Snyder than it is for a merely solid guy like Ben Francisco.  Injuries are always considered a negative factor, and in the PTM context, I never consider injuries a mitigating factor for a mediocre performance.

In 2006, PTM stubbornly championed guys like Carmona, AstroCab and Lofgren before they were fashionable, Adam Miller even when he was injured, solid successes like Garko and frustrating cases like Ferd and Marte – the system is fundamentally better at predicting who will earn a shot in the majors than who will succeed there, though it may be no worse than other systems in that regard.  Recent draft picks without track record and over-21 types dominating in the low minors were excluded without mercy, a tendency of PTM that irritated some fans in 2006 and will continue to irritate in 2008.  PTM preaches patience, not only at the plate but in our prospect rankings.  There are some guys I don't like leaving certain guys off the list any more than you do, but if the performance is there, those guys will jump on the list soon enough.

A note about the ages listed – it's their "seasonal age" for 2007, not 2008, listed that way because it's based on that age that we're evaluating their achievements so far.  I also pay little mind to "official" rules as to what makes a prospect.  If a player is 25 or younger and not a fully established major leaguer, he's a prospect in every way that actually matters to a team, or to a fan.

Prospects That Really, Really Matter — players who've met PTM criteria at an excessively young age.

1. Asdrubal Cabrera – 21, SS-2B, thrived in Double-A and was solid in the majors.  As if you didn't know.
2. Aaron Laffey – 22, RHP, not a lot of strikeouts but also not a lot of walks, performed  well and "equivalently" from Akron to Cleveland.
   
3. Adam Miller – 22, RHP, struggled with injuries but way ahead of the curve in Triple-A.  Still very much a potential ace.
   
4. Jensen Lewis – 23, RHP, unusual to rank a reliever this high, but Lewis truly dominated in Akron, and then Buffalo, and then Cleveland, and then against the Yankees in the playoffs, with an ERA under 2.00 and K rate over 10.  Frankly, this ranking might not be high enough — no other Indians prospect performed at this high of a level in 2007.
   
5. Andy Marte – 23, 3B, and you don't have to like it.  For one thing, once a guy has made the list, he only graduates by getting too old or succeeding in the majors.  Try to imagine 2007 was Marte's first season in Triple-A — 766 OPS, 23-year-old third baseman, it's actually pretty good.  But of course, his actual first season in Triple-A was at age 21.  His three-year total, ages 21-22-23, are .268/.337/.473.
6. Chuck Lofgren – 21, LHP, those who were disapointed by his season in Akron were forgetting how young he is to be an above-average pitcher at this level.  Lofgren will spend his age-22 season in Double-A, and he's a lefty with better stuff than Laffey or Sowers.

Prospects That Really Matter — those who beat the PTM criteria with room to spare.

7. Jeremy Sowers – 24, LHP, and like Marte, he would make the list based only on his age and 2007 numbers alone, but the high ranking is for his dazzling 2006 performance at age 23.
   
8. Sean Smith – 23, RHP, not turning any heads but had a very solid season in Triple-A.
   
9. Shin-Soo Choo – 24, OF, obviously slowed by injuries, but as with Sowers, we'd do well not to forget what he did at age 23.
   
10. Eddie Mujica — 23, RHP, also slowed by injuries, and also more impressive in 2006 than in 2007, but check out the great K/BB rates.  Still a potential impact reliever if he's healthy.
    

Prospects That Matter — others who've cleared the bar.

11. Nick "Weglarz!" Weglarz – 19, OF, bounced back from injury to make a stellar full-season debut.
    
12. Ben Francisco – 25, OF, improved on his age-24 numbers and made a solid debut in the majors.
    
13. Jordan Brown – 23, 1B, a knee injury reportedly sapped his power, but he still hit .333, and it will be interesting to see how his power develops this season.
14. Jeanmar Gomez – 18, RHP, suffocated Dominican Summer League hitters at 16 (2005) and dominated the Gulf Coast League at 17 (2006), although a bit reminiscent of Carmona, you have to wonder how a guy manages a 2.50 ERA with just 5.92 K/9.  His full-season debut was merely decent, and he's going to have to show more strikeouts and fewer home runs as he progresses, but he improved in both areas as the season progressed.  He'll be starting his age-19 season at High-A, something nobody else on this list has done or will do – youth and progress, that's what we're looking for here.  Somebody really needs to do a scouting report on this guy.
15. Jeff Stevens – 23, RHP, eye-popping K rates in Double-A and apparently not content to be a footnote, he may well hit the  Cleveland bullpen in 2008.
    
16. Carlos Rivero – 19, SS, marginal overall numbers, but a plus defender with a solid walk rate, and a decent amount of pop for a teenage middle infielder.
    
17. John Drennen – 20, CF, not unlike Lofgren, his struggles caused some to:: forget that he was one of the youngest players in his league.
18. Hector Rondon – 19, RHP, pitched better than Gomez at Lake County but is a year older, will also start the season in the Kinston rotation.
    

A few themes emerge on this year's list.  For one thing, it's huge, which either means I'm getting more lenient, or the criteria are letting in certain types of players too easily, or  that the Indians are justified in their strong confidence about the depth of their farm system, defying most "organizational talent" rankings.  A small core of players has been promoted to the advanced-A Kinston club to start the year at age 19 or 20, and it's a happy mix of two pitchers, one skill position player and one power-hitting Canadian.  This complements well the small core of college draftees who will converge on Akron in 2008 (with a good shot to make next year's list).

The other theme is guys succeeding in Triple-A at very young ages – not just at 25 but at 22 – but then possibly being stuck there, possibly because of a limited ceiling, possibly because that last jump to majors is the hardest.  Spots 5-10 are fairly dominated by a sense of, "Don't give up on me, I'm still young, I still matter!"  They all reached Buffalo by 22, and not one of them is 25 yet.

It may be that a future refinement of PTM should raise the bar in some way for Triple-A pitchers in particular, but then again, maybe the bar is just fine.  Part of the premise of the system is that a guy who reaches Triple-A at 22 may have the same stats as a low-ceiling 25-year-old, but he's got three whole seasons to figure out how to make that last jump.  Some research suggests that unlike a hitter's raw tools, a pitcher's stuff doesn't really improve after age 23, but it takes pretty good stuff just to get this far, and there's more to pitching than just stuff.  Something to ponder going forward.

More lists after the jump.

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