We've given much attention, deservedly so, to the implications of trading CC Sabathia. And the final decision to trade Sabathia seemed clear-cut, as the talent, especially if you consider proximity to the majors, the Indians received back from Milwaukee far exceeds the talent the Indians would have gotten from 2009 compensatory draft picks.

But for the Indians' other pending free agents, the trade-offs are murkier.

Casey Blake. I'm assuming that the Indians don't know if they'll make an effort to bring Blake back - if they do, then ignore whatever follows. As much as we like to rag on Blake (though it's really more about how he's been used than his abilities), he's been a nice player for the Indians. You could even make the argument that he's the best signing Mark Shapiro's made in his tenure as General Manager; for roughly $10M, the Indians have gotten six seasons of mostly above-average offense along with positional flexibility. And to top it off, if a couple things fall correctly, the Indians could get two high draft picks to boot.

Based on last year's Elias Rankings, Casey's a good bet to be a Type A free agent; he was rated the top Type B player in his position grouping (2B, SS, 3B) last November. That means if the Indians offer Blake arbitration, he refuses, and then signs with another team, the Indians will be getting a first round pick (with restrictions) and a sandwich pick in next year's draft. What we don't know is whether the Indians want to keep Blake or not, though how Andy Marte does the rest of this year should have a lot to say about that.

But while these internal discussions take place, teams will be interested in trading for Blake, if not as a starting third baseman, then as a first baseman, outfielder, or a combination of the three. Enough value where "giving up" the draft picks may be palatable. The trade would free up third base for Andy Marte the rest of the season, something that should be very high on the Indians' list of goals for the rest of 2008. If the trade value doesn't reach that imaginary tipping point, then the Indians should keep Blake around, but move him to the outfield if need be so that the requisite infield auditions can take place.

Paul Byrd. Byrd looks like a borderline Type B free agent, which means that the Indians would receive a sandwich pick if certain things happen. The Indians probably aren't bringing him back at market rate, so if someone offers Cleveland a decent prospect and picks up his salary, he'll be dealt. Dealing him would make the rotation even shakier, but unfortunately short-term success isn't a priority now.

Jamey Carroll. The Indians have a $2.5M club option on him, which I wouldn't recommend picking up. But the option could be useful to entice someone to give up a low-level prospect for him. At some point the Indians are going to bring back Asdrubal Cabrera, and Josh Barfield should be off the DL sometime in August. Again, unless the Indians think that spending $2.5M on a backup second baseman is a good deal, they should actively try to trade him.

Scott Elarton, Sal Fasano. No trade value.

The series:  Visited Texas (win, loss, win, loss) and Detroit (win, loss, loss, win), hosted Minnesota (win, loss, win) and San Diego (win, loss, win).

But first, an editorial note:  This piece and the two that will follow pick up the threads of the Week In Review series that ran here for the first nine weeks of the season.  Since the last installment on June 2, the season has changed dramatically.  I never lost interest in keeping up with Week In Review, but I had to put it on hold because of other significant demands on my time.  I love this format, but it is frankly a bit time-consuming to put these together  Going back to do piecemeal recaps at this point may seem like an odd idea, but it's something I've decided to do for all the same reasons I started doing the Week In Review — to give the season a little more clarity and structure, to put it into chapters.

At any given moment, we tend to be viewing the season mostly in two timeframes — the first being the last 48 hours, today's game and maybe yesterday's, and the whole season cumulatively from the beginning.  The most accessible stats we look at reinforce this point of view — all the main stat pages are showing season-to-date, and we check out the box score to see what happened.  In doing so, we miss a lot of the ebb and flow of the season for the team, and especially for individual players.  We patch together vague narratives later on, much of it from inaccurate memories — "Peralta was blocked by Cora," "Francisco was amazing last year" — only occasionally making note of anything in a context larger than a day or two, and missing many in-season developments entirely.

I starting writing these Reviews to see better the season that was developing for each individual player, and I'm as interested as ever in doing that.   The first nine installments focused not so much on an exact week as on two series, or six to eight days.  This installment and the next will each focus on a two-week, four-series period.  The one after that will cover three series, ending at the All-Star break, today.  I believe I will go with the three-series format for the second half of the season; in general, the format has seemed still a little too micro to really see trends well.  We'll see how it develops — and I apologize in advance if the dissection is depressing.

The big story:  The Indians' injury problems went from bad to worse, led by the startling news on June 2 that Jake Westbrook would be returning to the DL just days after making a solid return to the rotation.   By June 7, the news got much worse — Westbrook would undergo Tommy John surgery, missing not only the rest of the 2008 season but as much as half of the 2009 season as well.  Westbrook had signed a three-year contract extension in March 2007, at $33 million the largest contract ever awarded by the Indians at the time.  He ran into injury problems almost immediately but returned last July with a huge flourish, finishing with the fifth-most innings pitched and seventh-lowest ERA in the league in the second half.  Coming into 2008, we were regaled with reports of a new pitch and improved velocity, and scouts wondered aloud if the sinkerballer might take his game to a higher level at age 30.  Westbrook did pitch well in April, but his injury dashed completely all those raised expectations, and the Indians have now lost his services for solidly half of that new contract's three years.

In other news:  Asdrubal Cabrera mercifully and belatedly was demoted to Triple-A, where he probably should have started the season, and where he almost certainly would have started the season had he not gone an improbable tear after being promoted into the heat of the 2007 pennant race.  His demotion created an opportunity for Josh Barfield — our erstwhile and bored/untalented second baseman, who certainly had not been forcing the club's hand with his Triple-A performance (.255/.297/.382, 4.7% walk rate).  Barfield responded by going 0-for-6 — he put the ball in play all six times, so you could argue he was just unlucky — before breaking his finger, giving him a very well-paid trip to the big-league DL.

That same day, Victor Martinez was also put on the DL — also mercifully and also belatedly, in that he'd been hitting terribly for nearly six weeks and (let's all say it together) hadn't hit a home run all season.  Three role players emerged and not only filled the shoes of the injured players, but far exceeded the production we'd been getting from those players before they went on the DL.  Shoppach, Carroll and the newly healthy Shin-Soo Choo — essentially taking over playing time from Martinez, Cabrera/Barfield and Hafner — each posted an OPS of 1000 or better over these 14 games.  Reliever Rick Bauer, catcher Yamid Haad and infielder Jorge Velandia, previously known to Indians fans as guys they'd never heard of, joined the big-league roster to play dominoes with Marte.

We drafted some guys with really interesting names — Chisenhall and Cord,  "Jeremie Tice" and "David Roberts" — and though our first three picks were age 19, 17 and 20 on draft day, some people still screamed that the Indians were being "too safe" or "wrong" or "not adhering to Baseball America rankings" — or something or other.  Experts, experts everywhere, whatever are we to make of all of this expertise?

Back in the majors, in general, the pitching slumped and was uncharacteristically carried by the offense in these series.  So while the pitchers posted a 5.68 ERA, including a few critical late-inning blowups by the bullpen, the hitters amazingly posted the feel-good, Garko-in-a-good-year line of .294/.364/.468.  That 1,088-run pace allowed the team to tread water over a period in which the rest of the AL Central was essentially doing the same — Minnesota and KC dropped a few games but held their places in the standings, while the other three clubs each won eight.  The AL Central was still very winnable, and if you squinted enough, you could still see a bruised-but-not-beaten Indians club actually winning it.

(Who fed it and Who ate it are after the jump.)

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The series:  Visited the White Sox (loss, loss, loss) and hosted the Rangers (loss, win, loss).

The big story:  We sucked.  After climbing to the top of the division in the middle of last week, the Indians went 1-8.  The pitching snapped back to reality, while the hitters produced the same 19 runs this week that they had over the previous six games, only more poorly distributed.  In response, Wedge fumed, while Francisco and Aubrey added to the idea of slump by contagion, hitting far better in Cleveland than they ever have in Buffalo, seemingly immune to the rest of the team's two-month struggle.

The Indians are the worst-hitting team in the league this season, and they have also been, by far, the worst-hitting team in the majors in the month of May, more than a full run below the major-league average, and nearly a half-run per game worse than the worst team in the National League — again, that's the league where the pitchers are batting maybe three times a game.  The offense has occasionally broken out for a big game, but that has only obscured how bad the offense really has been — the average is 3.4  runs per game, but the median is a solid 3.0.  Week-long power outages have been the most notable feature of the 2008 season:

• April 3-9, 20 runs in seven games, 2.9 average, 2-5 record
• April 24-29, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 1-8, 16 runs in six games, 2.7 average, 3-3 record
• May 12-25, 41 runs in 14 games, 2.9 average, 5-9 record

We actually have a better than expected record in those games, of course, because our starting pitching has been so outstanding over most of those weeks.  Incredibly, our Pythagorean record is actually 27-23 despite the awful hitting, but a half-dozen ninth-inning blowups have us at 23-27 instead.

The biggest tragedy here is the missed opportunities within the division, which directly impact our ability to make the playoffs and cannot be recouped.  The Indians have been 32 runs better than the Tigers but have only a two-game edge to show for it rather than six or seven — should both teams have any kind of bounce back after this point, those games will make a difference.

Worse yet, the Indians surrendered three straight games to the White Sox, who may well turn out to be the only other team who can over 85 wins in a deeply disappointing division.  Head-to-head records and BIP luck were the entire difference between these two clubs in 2005, when they ended the season with 99 and 93 wins respectively, and so far, history is repeating.

In other news:  Fausto Carmona went to the Disabled List with a hip injury and is expected to miss a full month — yet nobody panicked, as Jake Westbrook was completing a successful run of rehab starts in Akron even as Carmona's season was getting ruptured.  Westbrook was already scheduled to return on the exact day of Carmona's next would-be start, and even if he weren't, the Indians have other fine options waiting in Buffalo.

The Indians shuffled up the bullpen part of the roster pretty good, returning Joe Borowski to his old closer job late in the week and demoting Jensen Lewis, in the hopes that he can regain his old velocity in Buffalo.  The team put rarely used lefty Craig Breslow on waivers while claiming Oneli Perez, a talented but struggling young reliever, from the White Sox and sending him to Buffalo.  Scott Elarton and Ed Mujica were promoted from Buffalo to fill out the staff.

Post of the week:  AngG gets her Rick James on (or is it her Wayne Brady?) as part of a hilarious sequence of rants.  Other nominess: jhon (summing up Wedge disgust nicely),  mjschaefer (replying to zempf),  gte619n (replying to supermarioelia), drerikbrady (tremendous attention to detail), jakesinger777 (expanding on Cisco's Buckner moment).

Who fed it:  C.C. Sabathia and Ben Francisco led a very slim list of candidates for this week, both of them continuing strong runs.  Sabathia gave up three runs, all on solo-shots, over 14 innings, striking out 13 with three walks.  He has a 1.63 ERA (and RA) over his past seven starts, averaging 8 strikeouts and 1.6 walks in 7.2 innings.  Francisco pounded out five doubles and a home run while batting .320, and in playing every inning of the team's last 11 games, he's put up a stunning line of .395/.422/.721 — contributing more than 25% of the total bases and less than 8% of the outs.  Rafael Betancourt bounced back from three horrendous weeks (16.20 ERA) with three scoreless innings, all in the 8th, although he did allow an inherited run.  Absolute Best:  Francisco.  Relative Best:  Francisco.

Who fed it breakdown:  Relief pitchers are hard to evaluate based on box scores, considering the incredibly blunt instruments used to assign earned runs.  Masa Kobayashi gave up an earned run, an unearned run and an inherited run this week but actually pitched pretty well.   In the first game, he relieved Laffey with no outs and a man on first, facing the top of the Chicago lineup.  He got a strikeout and a deep flyout, with a very speedy pinch-runner advancing to second base.   He then allowed a single on the ground through the gaping Blake/Peralta hole, scoring the inherited runner, and finally his only earned run of the week on the only legit line-drive hit.  In the second game, he faced the Rangers' 2-thru-5 hitters, getting a strikeout and two groundouts, allowing just a single on the ground to Josh Hamilton — a damned fine inning.  In the third game, he faced the Rangers' 3-thru-1 hitters, and he got three groundouts including a double-play, plus a strikeout and a flyout.  He allowed only a walk, a single on the ground and one line-drive single.  Had that one line-drive not followed the walk, or had there not been two outs, or had the ball not rolled under the right fielder's legs, we're looking at another fine shutout inning.  So while it may seem like Masa had a bad week, I'm not so sure.

Who ate it:  Where to even begin?  Blake, back to playing every inning, responded by slugging .143 — over the last two weeks, he's had one great game (2-4, 6 TB), four decent games (4-14, 0 TB) and eight awful ones (0-25, 0 TB).  Dellucci continued his atrocious month, using his 14 PA to generate just 3 total bases, against three double-plays, three strikeouts, and at least three awful throws from left field — his May OPS is just 444, and even worse, it's just 482 against lefties alone.  The Platoon Of Despair®, meanwhile, crushed any hopes we might have had for them last week, combining for .156/.282/.188, and yes, that's a 470 OPS, and yes, they are slugging a combined .361 for the season — thanks for asking!  Not to be outdone, catchers Martinez and Shoppach combined for an empty 3-for-23 with a 297 OPS.  Jensen Lewis gave up three runs on three walks, three singles, two doubles and one HBP, en route to Buffalo.  Jorge Julio stepped into two budding trainwrecks (from Byrd and Carmona) and made both of them much worse (more below).  Absolute Worst:  Julio.  Relative Worst:  Considering positional OPS differences, it's just too close to call among Martinez (267), Blake (360), Dellucci (445) and Hafner (459).

Who ate it breakdown:  Unlike Masa, Jorge Julio's bad week was even worse than it appeared — and with an 18.00 ERA, it appeared pretty bad.  In the first game, Julio relieved Byrd with men on first and second and one out.  The run expectancy here is 0.97, but Julio was facing the bottom third of Chicago's lineup and had the platoon edge on two of the three.  He gave up a deep flyball double to the righty Crede, scoring one inherited runner and advancing the other to third base with only one out.  He walked the lefty Swisher intentionally, then gave up a long sac-fly to righty Alexei Ramirez, who just-by-the-way is terrible, scoring that other inherited run, then got the leadoff hitter Cabrera to ground out to end the inning.  He started the next inning with strikeouts to Chicago's 2-3 hitters, then the home run to Jermaine Dye — Julio's first earned run allowed in five weeks — at which point he was pulled.  So against five right-handers in that game, he got a strikeout and a groundout but also three very hard-hit deep flies, each of which drove in one run.

Of course, that game was just a warmup for the major gas-can emptying he would do two nights later.  Relieving a struggling and injured Carmona in the 3rd, with men on first and third and no outs — but again, he's facing the bottom of the lineup, so he really should get out of this with minimal damage.  The sequence:  walk, walk, grand slam, line-drive double, line-drive double — so already, that's six runs, two inherited and four earned, and there's still no outs.  Julio finally gets a groundball, but it goes for an infield single, then a strikeout.  The inning ends with two more deep flies that get caught — but the adventure wasn't over!  Julio starts the next inning by allowing two more scorching line drives, but it's just his good fortune that the second one is hit straight at Peralta, who catches it and then doubles off the first guy — so that's two outs, bases empty, despite not one batter really beaten by Julio.  Next it's a walk, and then a double on a groundball to right, and at that point, he gets pulled with men on second and third, two outs.

So even though his ERA for the week was 18.00, it doesn't begin to describe how bad he really was.  Outside of those earned runs, he allowed all four inherited runners to score, while the two runners he left behind did not score.  And while he did get some legit outs, he also pitched into some very good luck, and he totally failed to keep the ball in the infield, even with the platoon edge against the other team's worst hitters.  He was, all things considered, about as bad as a pitcher can possibly be while getting nine outs — charged with just 6 ER, he pitched badly enough to allow 12.

Placed RHP Fausto Carmona on the 15-day Disabled List (hip)

Although Carmona is expected to miss four weeks, his injury is not considered serious in a long-term sense and may ultimately be a blessing in disguise, keeping his workload down in 2008 after a big jump in innings in 2007.   It also basically fits his hypothetical mechanical struggles, either as cause or effect, which fit both his oddly inflated walk totals and Will Carroll's pre-season prediction:

Carmona has never had to come back from a 200-inning workload before, and there's almost always a price to pay for that. I'd expect Carmona to have something happen like did with Westbrook last year at midseason—a minor injury that causes him to miss a month, but that he comes back from strong and actually winds up getting saved from another big jump in IP by the time off.

For any other team, having a starter of Carmona's caliber go down would be seen as catastrophic, but at least on this site, Indians fans hardly registered any alarm at all — perhaps in part because of a learned confidence in the team's ability to heal young pitchers and keep them healthy over the long haul.

But the real confidence is in the Indians' incomparable rotation depth.  Jake Westbrook is scheduled to come off the Disabled List just in time to make Carmona's next would-be start, and even if he weren't, the Indians have at least two other starters ready to step in and already on the 40-man roster in Jeremy Sowers and Adam Miller.  (It's an odd twist considering that last May, Westbrook went on the DL just in time for Cliff Lee to return, which allowed Carmona to stay and further establish himself in the big-league rotation.)

Its main effect on the team might be to spare everyone the agony of sending a highly effective Aaron Laffey to the minors to make room for Westbrook, a topic which had already started to sprout hourly calls for Paul Byrd to be traded.

Depth is good, and another point this drives home is that it's easier for a team to leverage its depth in the event of injury, rather than in the event of poor performances.  With struggling players (e.g., most of the lineup), we have the depth to replace the poorly performing parts but nowhere on any roster to stash them — we're not going to just cut Hafner or Blake, even though we have the depth to replace them.  With an injury, you just put the guy on the DL and leverage your depth right away.  It's just easier.

Designated LHP Craig Breslow for Assignment

Claimed RHP Oneli Perez from Chicago White Sox and Assigned him to Buffalo (AAA)

Six transactions over two days involving just six spots on the active roster, i.e., the bullpen — there should be no doubt, the Indians are as concerned about the bullpen as the fans are about the offense.  And in this sense they're right:  The offense should fix itself, and if it doesn't, there isn't much you could do with one or two moves, and major moves rarely happen overnight.  The bullpen, on the other hand, seems to be more like ending up with the right hand, and if you can reshuffle the deck every other day to get a new hand, why not keep making moves until you're satisfied?

It also points up the essential hairiness of acquiring, deploying and discarding relievers, an area in which the sample sizes are so scarce that it's worth asking whether any statistics are worth looking at, even over a whole season, let alone the murderer's row of dumb stats we always use for pitchers:  "wins," "losses," ERA, holds, saves, blown saves — not a useful stat among them when it comes to relievers.  And unlike position players, you can't just throw a guy in there for a while and see what happens, because the results are too costly.  A hitter can have a miserable set of three or four games and ultimately not cost the team even one win; offense is a collective effort, and even your best hitters will fail 60 percent of the time anyway.  A struggling reliever, however, can torch multiple games in a row, so even if it is a case of bad luck, small sample or an easily recovered-from dry spell, a team just can't take that chance for anyone but the most established performers.

So the team faces a dilemma with a guy like Breslow, who presents plenty to like but an uncertain projection, on a team that feels it doesn't have the margin for error to let him try to develop some consistency.   A guy like Rick Bauer is doing exactly that in the minors, but Breslow can't be sent to the minors.  Ultimately, the team decided it couldn't be tantalized by his raw ability and favorable contract status.  Breslow was passed over by 28 teams on waivers back in March, so we may get to keep him.  Bottom line, though, a team like the Indians needs a guy like Breslow to work it out in the minors, and the fact that they might lose him in the process doesn't change that.  More than assets, we need options, and Breslow doesn't have any.

Oneli Perez, on the other hand, does have options.  He's given up the same 18 runs and five home runs in 2008 that he did in 2007, the difference being the innings:  93 last year, 17 this year.  I don't know what went wrong with him in Triple-A this season, all I do know is that he spent more than a full season at Double-A and racked up a 1.84 ERA, while striking out 109 guys in 93 innings — seriously, where do I sign up?  He'll turn 25 tomorrow, and he has one option year remaining in addition to the current season. That gives the Indians all of this season and next to turn him around and into a big-league reliever, but given his Double-A numbers, don't be surprised if he ends up contributing in Cleveland this year.

Reinstated RHP Joe Borowski from the 15-day Disabled List (ability)

Funny thing about Borowski is that we all seemed to have blocked him out of our minds, as though his cataclysmic last appearance and subsequent trip to the DL meant that we weren't going to have to suffer him any longer.  Like, you know, our long national nightmare is over.  Since it isn't, might as well try to look at the bright side, like, no more mind-numbing "closer controversy," as we're spared the otherwise inevitable and inevitably dumb columns about the evils of closer-by-committee.

Borowski does have a small upside, at least compared to the disasters we're all intuitively expecting.  He was effective overall last season, and while his ERA reflected real mediocrity, it also reflected a little genuinely bad luck on balls in play, .335 BABIP for a guy whose career mark is .296. Some days — too many days — he just doesn't have it, but he never seems to choke, and he never gives it away.   When he's getting beat, it's only because he simply isn't all that good, and if he's a bum, at least he's a bum that Cleveland can get behind.

Optioned RHP Jensen Lewis to Buffalo (AAA)

Recalled RHP Ed Mujica from Buffalo (AAA)

Purchased the Contract of RHP Scott Elarton and Recalled him from Buffalo (AAA)

Confused?  Don't be.  These moves actually make sense.  With Lewis, the Indians reached essentially the same conclusion that they did with Breslow, i.e., that he's not going to work himself into the pitcher the Indians want him to be while in the majors, so down he goes.  It makes sense to see this as a win-later move, as the Indians send down a reasonably effective reliever for a few weeks in the hopes of having him make the kind of big impact late in 2008 that he had late in 2007.  This is Lewis' first optional assignment, so if there's a price to be paid in terms of the option clock, it won't be until 2011 at the earliest.

Mujica has been Buffalo's most dominant reliever for the last month-plus, and yes, I'm including Bauer.  Mujica has only allowed two runs in his last 13 games, spanning 17+ innings, but he had a rough first half of April and gave up seven runs in one appearance on April 6, permanently crapping up his overall numbers.  Mujica first emerged as a star prospect back in 2005, in Kinston and Akron at age 21, and in 2006, he went more than three months and nearly 50 innings before giving up a single run in Akron, Buffalo and Cleveland, eventually allowing one in his fourth big-league game on July 14.  He struggled with injuries and control in 2007, doing little with the big-league club other than making blowouts into bigger blowouts.

Bauer, for those who must compare, has a track record that is almost shocking in its lack of anything impressive over a 12-year pro career.  He had two pretty good seasons in the high minors, at ages 24 and 27, and two solid but unspectacular seasons in the majors, at ages 25 and 29, a lot of mediocre and horrible seasons, even at advanced ages in the minors, and a lot of injuries.  He's put up tremendous numbers in Buffalo this year at age 31, but the Indians would be right to suspect that this is just the luckiest run of a long and undistinguished career, right to let him put in more steady work, and right to want to see a lot more before giving him a bigger shot.

Elarton had earned his shot over the past two months in Buffalo, and he brings with him a strong reputation as a positive influence in the clubhouse, which may have factored into this move, given the team's persistent struggles.  Fans focused on Elarton's past mediocrity might be interested to note his career numbers as a reliever, which include a 2.54 ERA, 553 OPS-against, 1.01 WHIP and 9.64 K/9.  Granted, this was ten years ago, and Elarton doesn't have that kind of velocity anymore, but at least he's done it before, and relieving is just plain easier than starting.  It will be interesting to see what kinds of situations Elarton is put into.

There are plenty of candidates to get removed from the 25-man on Wednesday when Westbrook returns, but it's a safe bet that it won't be Elarton, and it's likely the Indians will go back to a six-man bullpen as long as there's no blowout in the next few days.  Mujica is now the only active reliever who can be sent to the minors, but there's a decent chance the Indians will opt to DFA Jorge Julio instead.  He spent three weeks creeping up to the Circle of Trust, but he just didn't do so well once he got there.

My real prediction:  Another long season for Tigers fans.

I learned something from my post yesterday, from the way it not only didn't provoke much discussion, it actually seemed to chill discussion everywhere on the site.  It just seemed to trigger the latent resignation that flows in our veins as Cleveland fans.  Maybe I've should have known better, maybe I thought your intelligence would kick in, maybe I owe you an apology.

But people ... how could you fall for that?

Have you forgotten who and what this team really is?

The guys who went 96-66, the best record in baseball.

The guys who played through snow-outs, who played three home openers and won all three.

The guys who set the tone early by sweeping the Tigers in Detroit.

The guys with the best and deepest rotation, the most dominant 1-2 punch, the Cobra, the best big three, and the goddam Cy Young winner.

The guys who beat the best pitcher in the game five times in one season, when no other team had ever beat him three times.

These guys.

The guys who stalled out in June and July but never collapsed, and the guys who charged back to dominate down the stretch.

The guys who took a surging Twins team, coming off a 9-3 run and threatening to get back in the race, and swept them both home and way, six wins over ten days , to end their season.

The guys who unceremoniously booted the Tigers out of the race with yet another sweep, sending them 7.5 games back when they could have been 1.5 games back.  That's the photo at the top, the first game of that series, Casey Blake with the walkoff in the 11th.

The guys who delivered a vicious beatdown to the Yankees in the playoffs, chilling and silencing a Yankee Stadium crowd.  The guys who – let's just put it out there – nearly sent the best team in the game home early.

The guys with the fists.

The guys with the grit.

And the clutch.

And yes, the guys who know all about pi ... and all about pie.

(Purely as an aside, when you do an image search for Chris Antonetti, one of the first results to pop up is this, which I take as just further proof that people must really, really love being a part of the Indians organization.)

Yeah, that's right ... those guys.  You love those guys, remember?  And they're more or less awesome, remember?

Those guys are back.  Those guys have gotten better.

Those guys are going to win this year, and this is why.

1. Pure talent.  Seriously, did you really think the Tigers had more pure talent than the Indians?  Sure, the Tigers had some injuries, but they had a bunch of fluke seasons, and all it got them was 88 wins.  They had to import Miguel Cabrera just to try to close the gap.
   
   Let me tell you about a difference in talent.  On our club, we make Cliff Lee fight and practically grovel for the last spot in the rotation.  On their club, they trade for "the Cliff Lee of the NL" and hand him the #3 starter job.  When your #7 starter is about as good as their #3, that isn't just us having depth, it's them being in trouble.
   
   People ... half our roster was born in the 80's.  We aren't on the wrong side of 30, we're on the right side of 28.  Our roster is younger, less injury prone, and full of guys who could take small or large steps forward.  Garko or even Peralta could hit 30 home runs, and Sizemore could make a run at an MVP.  Our catcher created 109 runs last season, theirs only 59 – and our guy is 29, while theirs is 36.
   
   The Indians won 96 games last season, and our players as a group are on the rise.  The Tigers won 88 games last season, and their players on the whole are in decline.  MIguel Cabrera isn't enough to close that gap, and they traded most of their best young talent to get him.  The Tigers may have a hair more raw talent than the Indians on their roster, but too much of that talent is old and breaking down.
   
   
2. Regression is a bitch ... for the other guys.  It's the most clear-cut, powerful and undeniable force in baseball – stronger than the age curve and more reliable than platoon splits.  The Tigers may seem poised to bounce back from a down year, but their 88 wins were propped up by a number of flukey career seasons, while our 96 wins by and large were not.
   
   Just look at the BABIP for the two teams' regulars.  The bottom of the list is Sheffield, who wasn't so much unlucky as he was playing hurt.  Then there's Hafner, who definitely suffered some bad luck even if that wasn't his only problem.  Then there's Inge, who won't be a factor, and Victor, who will.  Check it out:  Victor put up downballot-MVP type numbers despite hitting into some of the worst luck on either team.  It would be hard to bet on him improving on 2007, but his luck probably will.
   
   Now look at the top of the list – Ordoñez at .381, Granderson at .360, Polanco at .346, compared with their career marks of .314, .344 and .314.   And not even listed there – Renteria at .375, against a career mark of .322.  The snapback to reality on these guys is going to be enormous – PECOTA is mean-projecting a 56-run drop in production from Ordoñez alone – essentially negating the upgrade from Inge to Cabrera – to go with a 40-run drop for Granderson and a 30-run drop for Renteria.
   
   In fairness, PECOTA predicts every player to drop after a good season, but this is an extreme case.  Granderson production rate is not expected to fall off much – he will be 27 after all – but then again, Sizemore's high-looking .333 BABIP is actually below his career average, meaning he too was slightly unlucky, and Hafner also is a good bet to improve at least somewhat on 2007.  As for the Tigers, their best bounceback candidate is a 39-year-old who's missed 150 games over the past two seasons.
   
   So regression is a bitch for the TIgers, who won't score 900 runs this season, let alone 1000.  But for the Indians, regression helps our lineup and work out about even in the rotation, where stellar seasons from Sabathia and Carmona were evenly matched by trainwrecks from Lee, Sowers and Westbrook.
   
   And you know who else is due for some good luck with the balls in play?  Joe Borowski.
   
   
3. Stellar depth.  Another one I can't believe you fell for.  How many teams have Josh Barfield as their 4th middle infielder, or Ben Francisco as their 6th outfielder, or Andy Marte as a backup third baseman, or Jeremy Sowers as their 7th starter, or Tom Mastny as their 9th reliever?  I'll tell you how many, none.  Every one of those guys would be playing in many other teams' lineups, rotations and bullpens.  It's totally ridiculous, and it's a great advantage, and it will absolutely matter this year, as it matters every year for almost every team.
   
   
4. Stellar youth.  Of course young players are inconsistent, but they improve more often than they decline.  Our youngest and least experienced key players will start at 2B and RF this season.  Any risk there is strongly mitigated by the fact that for both players, much of their value is in their exceptional defense, which is far more predictable.  And besides, the bar is incredibly low for each – the chance that we'll get less production out of those two positions in 2008 than we did in 2007 is practically nil.
   
   
5. Babied arms.  We have the best medical staff in the game, and they know how to protect pitchers.  Case in point:  Westbrook has never been more effective than in the second half last season, and this Spring he looked even better.  Carmona is going to be fine, he breezed economically through almost every start last year, hardly ever pitching under stress.  C.C. may show a little wear, but it won't break us.  And as for the other guys, who cares?  Our guys break down less than on any other team, and besides, we've got that stellar depth, too.
   
   
6. Wacky bullpens – not a problem.  You don't ever really know about bullpens.  Some years they collapse, some years they're stellar.  Here's the thing though ... last year, our bullpen collapsed and was stellar.  Just look at the body count:  Foulke, Oldberto, Matt Miler, J.D., Fernando – and most of the flame-outs were happening while Sowers, Lee and Westbrook were struggling to get into the 4th inning.
   
   That's enough to break most teams' bullpens, which in turn is enough to break most teams – but not the Indians.  They planned ahead, stocked up.  Spent most of the decade acquiring and developing arms, then picked up four veterans in the offseason – and they took good care of Rafael Betancourt.  That gave them a full boat of experienced guys in Cleveland, plus 4-5 young guys on the brink in Buffalo – plus Jensen Lewis in Akron.
   
   So despite all the flame-outs, the Indians finished with the 6th best bullpen ERA in the majors – not only didn't the bullpen sink the Indians, it was actually a strength.  The Indians keep 21 pitchers on the 40-man roster for just 12 big-league jobs, and this is the reason why.
   
   And now they've done it again, picking up Kobayashi, Julio, and Breslow to replace Oldberto, Miller and Fultz.  And this year, we've got Perez and Lewis taking the place of two multi-year head-scratchers.  And young'uns Mastny, Mujica, Santos and Stevens in Buffalo.  And who's to say we won't have another surprise breakout like Lewis' last year – Scott Lewis?  J.D. Martin?  Tony Sipp?  Adam Mller?  It's not that any one of these guys is likely to contribute, but the Indians have a ton of pitchers in various states of development and repair, and they basically never trade any.  At some point, it becomes more likely than not that one or more will contribute, even from the rehab bin.
   
   The Indians start off with a strong bullpen, full of guys with strong track records and hard-to-hit stuff, and it's considerably more stocked than Detroit's .  But more than that, the Indians are very well prepared for the inevitable struggles, injuries and flame-outs, and the Tigers are not prepared at all.  Wacky bullpens can sink almost any team, but they'll have a lot of trouble sinking these Indians.
   
   
7. Good timing.  Wedge finally figured out how to beat Pythagoras last season, so we're all good now.
   
   
8. That guy, finally.  It's an even-numbered year, and that can only mean one thing:  Miller Time.  I don't know if it'll be in the bullpen or the rotation, but Atom Miller will be healthy this year, and that means a bunch of big-league hitters are going to be striking out.
   
   
9. Lack of Vizquel, Thome, Manny, Millwood, and soon Sabathia, too.  It may be strange to say that losing Sabathia is part of why we'll win, but it is.  This team, as much or as any team in professional sports, is run by grownups.  They respect players, and their affection is palpable, but when it comes to making decisions, they leave their sentimentality at the door.  They don't kid themselves – they know you can find great insights in statistical analysis, but they know it doesn't have all the answers.  They're rigorous.  They're pros.  They've avoided the Big Mistake that sinks the season – or multiple seasons.  And they've never, ever made decisions based on trying to save face with the fans.
   
   They've built a great team with that approach, and I'll tell you just one more thing about them ...
   
   
10. Grit.  Dammit, I'm telling you these guys got a lot of grit.  Victor's got grit.  Shoppach is brimming with grit.  Sizemore will be diving in the outfield when he's 50.  Stomp Lewis has to take medication just to keep his grit under control.  Borowski has nothing but grit, but he'd never complain about that, because he's so damned gritty.  Betancourt, he's got all that and a bag of grit.
    
    And our much-maligned left field platoon, Dellucci and Michaels, those guys've got more grit than most entire rosters.  You people should be worshipping at their gritty, clutchy, diving, ass-slapping feet.
    
    And what I'm trying to tell you here, and I don't even know if it's right or natural or legal, but ... Diamondview's got grit.  I don't know how they did it, but they got grit into the Diamondview somehow, and now it's spitting out chemistry and intangibles and That Elusive It Factor along with the usual performance projections and market undervaluations.  We've never seen anything like it, but I'm telling you ... Diamondview's got grit.
    
    And by the way ... Scott Elarton?  Tom Mastny?  Ben Francisco?  That's right, even our depth has grit, which means that even our grit has depth.  If somebody gritty were to go down – and they often do, because that comes with playing the game the right way, you know – we've got someone else ready to step in and play just as gritty – someone gritty enough to start on most teams.  It's totally out of control.  It's enough to make Darin Erstad retire and Joe Morgan's head explode.

So let me sum it up for you.  We've got the talent, the timing, the grit, the smarts, the chemistry and the momentum.  We've got everything worth having on a ballclub, and the only question to be settled is whether we're the best team in the game or merely the best in our division.

It's our year.  And it starts today.

Link

Recently acquired Craig Breslow will get the first opportunity to replace Fultz as the second left-hander in the bullpen. The Fultz DFA will open up a spot for Jorge Julio or Scott Elarton if the Indians choose either for the last spot in the bullpen.

Catching up on the minor-league FAs/NRIs:

Signed RHP Scott Elarton to a minor-league contract; Invited him to Spring Training

After pitching well for the Indians in 2005, Elarton signed a lucrative 2-year deal with Kansas City. 20 starts into the contract, he ended up on the DL with shoulder problems. He returned last season, but was cut after just 9 appearances. The Indians signed him to a minor-league deal and shipped him to Buffalo. After apparently not getting any substantive offers from other clubs, the Indians have given Scott an NRI so that he can showcase himself in Spring Training to other clubs.

Signed Brendan Donnelly to a minor-league contract; Invited him to Spring Training

Another guy who has zero shot of making the major-league roster. Donnelly underwent Tommy John surgery last August, which means that it's unlikely he'll contribute much at all this season.    

Donnelly made his major-league debut with the Angels at the age of 30 in 2002, and was a key part of Greater California's championship run, striking out 54 in 49.2 innings. His best season came in 2003, where he made 63 appearances (74 innings), allowing 55 hits and just 2 home runs. He leveled off after that, but still remained a good reliever until his injury. Boston non-tendered him after this past season, not wanting go to arbitration with someone that probably won't pitch in the majors until 2009.

If everything works out, Donnelly will spend the year rehabbing, sign back with the Indians next season, and Cleveland will get a nice reliever at less than market value.

Signed RHP Matt Ginter, RHP Jeff Harris, and LHP Rich Rundles to minor-league contracts; Invited them to Spring Training

All of these guys were Bisons last year, and will likely return to Buffalo this season.

Invited RHP JD Martin to Spring Training

The Indians outrighted Martin after they acquired Jamey Carroll. Martin has plenty of talent, but hasn't been able to stay healthy; he hasn't pitched 100 innings in a season since 2004.

Invited C Armando Camacaro, C Chris Gimenez, C Yamid Haad, and C David Wallace to Spring Training

Signed IF Andy Gonzalez, 2B/3B Aaron Herr, and IF Danny Sandoval to minor-league contracts: Invited them to Spring Training

Gonzalez is probably the most interesting of the bunch; he's just 26, can play shortstop and second, and isn't horrible offensively. Herr played both second and third in the minors, but his strikeout/walk ratio doesn't bode well for major-league success. Sandoval hit .244/.266/.301 in 365 AAA at-bats last year, so I don't think we'll see much of him.