The Indians announced an hour ago that tonight's game has been postponed, and no makeup date has been announced.  While you might expect the teams to double-up tomorrow or Sunday to make up the game, as these same two teams did just last Thursday, Anthony Castrovince speculates that August 18 might be the date.  That's a common off-day for the two teams, immediately preceding a scheduled three-game set between the two at the Prog, but it would also create a 25-day span with no off-days for the Indians.  Both teams might prefer to do a double-header on Saturday, September 13, after rosters have expanded to 40.

Both teams have announced that tonight's scheduled starters (Sabathia and Hochevar) will go on Saturday, with Saturday's original pair (Laffey and Meche) going on Sunday.  With a scheduled off-day on Monday, however, if only two games are played this weekend, the Indians could opt to skip Laffey's turn, starting Sabathia and Carmona against the Royals this weekend and then Lee-Byrd-Sabathia as originally scheduled against the Yankees, all on regular rest

They could in fact send Laffey down tomorrow and keep an extra player on the roster for those five games, recalling Jeremy Sowers to make starts on May 9 and 14.  It was the first rainout, after all, that forced the Indians to bump Sowers back to Buffalo in favor of Laffey.  Neither Ben Francisco nor Brad Snyder is eligible to be recalled this weekend, but the Indians could supplement the bullpen with Ed Mujica, or give a first cup-of-coffee to Wyatt Toregas or Michael Aubrey.  Francisco could be recalled in time to start the Yankees series.

Of course, none of this will matter if the teams instead play a double-header on Saturday or Sunday,  in which case the Indians rotation will move forward as originally planned.

Tonight's postponement also postpones our first look at Wedge's reshuffling of yesterday's reshuffled lineup — lineup 2.0.1 if you will — in which Casey Blake returns to the #8 spot while Franklin Gutierrez ascends to the all-important two-hole.  Blake struggled mightily in the past two series (458 OPS) while Gutierrez thrived (943).  Neither man has put up significant power numbers, and Blake has walked more, but I don't think Wedge is just acting in ignorance of BIP variance here.  You can see the difference in ther body language at the plate, while the numbers show that Blake struck out 11 times in just 24 at-bats.

As I write this, the Twins are pummeling the TIgers 8-1 after seven innings, poised to move just a half-game back of the White Sox, who lost hours ago, while shoving the Tigers into 3rd place, 1.5 games back.  (Tough loss today for Buerhle, who pitched an eight-inning complete game and allowed just two un-earned runs, no walks, four singles and a double.)  The Indians are now just one game back of the White Sox for the division lead.

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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Coming into this season, the Indians had one of baseball's deepest collection of major-league starters. Cue the injuries:

Adam Miller has been battling a blister, though it appears all is clear now.

With Trot Nixon taking his true grit to Arizona, the Indians are a bit short in the intangibles department this spring. But don't worry...the club's busy developing a new crop of grinders:

As for that other Indians player who's often injured, I won't mention his name this spring for his own safety.