Baseball's free agency has in past years been a hierarchical process, with money frozen up until the premium players sign. Thus we wait for CC Sabathia to choose the Yankees or a West Coast team; that decision will trigger concrete offers for the next tier of top free agents, as the principals in the Sabathia sweepstakes obviously can't spend on Mark Teixeira or Francisco Rodriguez and hope to sign Sabathia at the same time. Well, except for the Yankees.  

As far as the Indians are concerned, their first major action is probably in the closer market, which in a welcome change from offseasons' past seems to have more closers than serious suitors. That's a good thing, for the Indians need to improve several other areas on their club, particularly the infield. The Indians should get a pretty good closer, and they should be able to get one through free agency, not normally an avenue the Indians have used to get their major contributors.

So who's available? There are four free-agent closers that I consider good bets to be effective next season (in no particular order):

Rodriguez and Fuentes are probably the best long-term bets, but the Indians have no chance at Rodriguez (asking for a 5/$75M contract), and signing Fuentes at his asking price of 3/$30M would fill a large portion of their offseason budget. That leaves Wood and Hoffman as the two options left that would allow the Indians to also make major improvements elsewhere on their roster. Signing Hoffman to a one-year contract, for instance, wouldn't affect their ability to sign Orlando Hudson.

The trade market is also out there (Street, Valverde, Putz, etc), but again, if you can sign Wood or Hoffman to a decent short-term deal, why bother trading your prospects for at best marginal improvement? In this instance, the trade route should only be a backup plan.

So far, it's been quiet for Cleveland this offseason, though I think we all expect this winter to be eventful. We know that the Indians will acquire an infielder, a significant reliever, and possibly a another starter. With only one arbitration case on the roster and no significant free agents to try to retain, the Indians should be aggressive in both free agency and the trade market.

Anthony Castrovince previews the Indians' offseason with the type of story we've seen for the past six years:

The Indians have the needs.

But as tends to be the case for small- and mid-market teams in the high-priced and high-risk world of free agency, they don't have the dollars.

Free agency is a very inefficient way to get decent talent if you don't have a lot of payroll to work with. And even if you are a GM with a large payroll, building your team from the bottom up with free agents isn't a great idea. It's much better to go just for the stars and fill in around them with your farm system. And if you can't make a play for the Sabathias or the Teixeiras of the market, you're left with the second-tier free agents, who are even more expensive if you consider the value you're getting.

Therefore, Shapiro and his staff will prioritize their needs, which include an infielder at third base, second base or shortstop, back-end relief help (preferably in the closer's role) and a third starter.

 Three seasons ago, the Indians signed Paul Byrd to replace Kevin Millwood in the rotation. And as free agent pickups go, Byrd was a pretty good deal, starting over 80 unspectacular but effective games for the Indians. He cost the Indians roughly $21M; for Cleveland to get a starting pitcher with a similar profile is probably going to cost them at least $2-3M more a season. The rub is this: the Indians are already paying Jake Westbrook quasi-market value, and he won't pitch until mid-season. And this offseason is the time to get an extension done with Cliff Lee. So between the rising cost of the current rotation and other priorities, I don't see the Indians spending a lot of dollars or talent to land a starter.

So how about the infielder? Second base would be the choice if you want to improve your defense, but Mark Ellis just re-signed with Oakland, leaving just Orlando Hudson as a good fit (in other words, better than Jamey Carroll). The legitimate third base options consist of creaky Joe Crede and Casey Blake, part deux. I think Hudson makes a lot of sense considering the current roster and lineup; if the Indians are going to spend on anyone this winter, it should be him. Brian Roberts would be an option if Baltimore lowers their demands significantly.

Though the Indians won't have a chance of landing Francisco Rodriguez (sigh of relief) or even Brian Fuentes, I think they'll get someone. The Padres aren't bringing Trevor Hoffman back, so he's an option, especially since he came close to signing with the Indians the last time he was a free agent. I think a trade would make more sense here, especially Huston Street (if he's not in the Holliday deal).

So I've been thinking it over for the last hour, and it comes down to this.

Grady Sizemore's team isn't going anywhere — the Indians are long-shots to finish as high as third place in their own division and will fare no better in the Wild Card race.  And Grady Sizemore himself isn't going anywhere — his youth, talent and long contract all made it extraordinarily unlikely he'd be traded by the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and beyond unthinkable after that date.

That being the case, is there really any good reason that Grady Sizemore wasn't competing in the Olympics?

LINEUP		ROTATION		BENCH		BULLPEN
2B Brian Roberts		Jake Peavy		IF Ian Kinsler		Trevor Hoffman
CF Grady Sizemore		Cliff Lee		IF Brandon Phillips		Brandon Morrow
RF Josh Hamilton		Tim Lincecum		OF Nick Markakis		Mike Adams
1B Lance Berkman		Justin Duchscherer		OF Nate McLouth		Jeremy Affeldt
DH Raul Ibañez				C Kurt Suzuki		Brad Ziegler
3B Ty Wigginton
LF Brian Giles
C Kelly Shoppach
SS Michael Young

IOC President Jacques Rogge came right out and said it today; without major leaguers, there would be no point in bringing baseball back to the Olympics:

"We have Federer, Nadal in tennis, LeBron James in basketball.  We have the best cyclists. Ronaldinho is here in football.  We want these guys at the Games.  We're not saying it should be an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics."

This raises the important question, "Who is Ronaldinho?"  And also other questions, like:

• Do we really need to hold back from the Olympics every last one of the 1,200 players on the 40-man rosters of all thirty major league teams?
• Would it really be so bad if some players who aren't competing for the playoffs took a little break to compete in the Olympics, August 13-23?
• If there are sixty All-Stars every year, couldn't we put together a hell of a 23-man roster for Team USA, even while excluding players still competing for playoff spots?
• By the time the Olympics start in mid-August, don't we already know which players are still competing for playoff spots, and which ones clearly aren't?

Yes, there are logistical issues, contractual issues, lots of little details to work out.  There's the messy matter of officially declaring a team's season lost before it's officially eliminated.  There are incentive clauses in player contracts that would be affected, downstream roster and service time and options affected, and eligibility for batting and pitching titles.  There are all the issues that already make the WBC messy.

I submit to you that these things could all be worked out without too much trouble.  I submit to you that the players would want it.  I submit to you that the owners wouldn't lose any significant amount of money, and they all stand to gain immensely by expanding the international marketing of their sport, their Major League, and their players.  I submit to you that in a lost season, Indians fans would rather see Grady Sizemore trouncing the Netherlands in the Olympics for two weeks, even if it means that he'll play in only 140 Indians games that season.

So let's set some reasonable ground rules.

1. Team selections take place on August 1, after the non-waiver trade deadline, and players report sometime August 5-10.  All eight Olympic qualifying countries would be allowed to substitute major leaguers on their rosters, of course.
   
2. Any team within 10 games of a playoff spot can exempt any or all of their players.
3. Any team can exempt any player who's been on the DL this season.
4. Any team can exempt one additional player just because they want to.
5. Any player can exempt himself, of course.
6. As an incentive to the teams to send players, any player sent to the Olympics can be traded without passing through waivers, within 24 hours of that player's final Olympic game.

Take a look at the standings as of the morning of August 1, and you'll find that fully twelve teams out of 30 were more than 10 games out of a playoff spot, and three others were also genuinely hopeless.

AL:  Orioles, Royals, Indians, Rangers, A's, Mariners.

NL:  Nationals, Reds, Astros, Pirates, Giants, Padres.

Also hopeless:  Blue Jays, Braves, Rockies.  (They can exempt their whole rosters, but we might just sweet-talk them out of Halladay and Holliday.)

Of course by August, Sabathia had already gone to the Brewers, and Bay to the Red Sox, and so on, but literally dozens of great players remained on non-contending teams.  The Indians would have exempted Carmona due to his injuries and taken Paul Byrd as their one general exemption, since they would have expected to move him in a waiver deal, and other clubs would have made similar exemptions.  Could we still have built an impressive Team USA out of those teams' healthy players?  Hell, yes.

We'd need four starters for seven games in the preliminary round,  and then two for the medal round.  (You'd probably start your #1 guy in Games 1 and 5 and the Gold Medal game, but you'd probalby hold back your #2 guy to Game 4, so he could start the winner-take-all semifinal on full rest.  The other games aren't as crucial.)  Of course we'd need nine starting everyday players (including a DH), and I imagine we'd go with five bench players and five relievers — with absolutely no roster substitutions, better at least consider a third catcher.

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