Hey, as long as the automated scheduler calls it Jacobs Field, I'm fine with that.

Welcome to the 108th season of Blues/Bronchos/Naps/Indians baseball! If this game is played, it will be the first regular-season game played at home in the month of March in franchise history. It's also the first season opener to be played at home since 2001.

With those useless factoids out of the way, let's concentrate on today's opponent, the Chicago White Sox. Chicago made several major trades over the offseason:

11-19-07: Traded RHP Jon Garland to LA/Anaheim for SS Orlando Cabrera

12-3-07: Traded 1B Chris Carter to Arizona for OF Carlos Quentin

1-3-08: Traded LHP Gio Gonzalez, et al, to Oakland for OF Nick Swisher

They also signed two free agent relievers: Scott Linebrink (4 yrs, $19M), and Octavio Dotel (2 yrs, $11M)

Joe Crede is still the starting third baseman, though the White Sox would like to trade him. Juan Uribe has moved over to second base, replacing Tadahito Iguchi.

Chicago scored only 693 runs last despite hitting 190 home runs. Jermaine Dye and Joe Crede had injury-marred seasons, and the White Sox got little production from left and center field. On top of that, they finished 12th in ERA; that poor showing was due to a bad bullpen and a poor back of the rotation. Hence all the money spent in shoring up the bullpen, and the acquisition of the two young outfielders. Their rotation looks weaker than it was last year, with Gavin Floyd replacing Jon Garland in the rotation.

But today the Indians are facing Mark Buerhle,  Chicago's ace. Buerhle  has thrown 200 innings each of the last seven seasons, and posted an ERA+ of over 110 in all but one of them. In recent years the Indians have fared very well against Buerhle; they collectively hit .313/.345/.438 against him last year.

And it continues ...

For my next player profile, I've decided to go with one of the several relievers on the 40-man roster without options next spring. To help decide the particular pitcher to write up, I'm going to rely on your help. The leader as of Tuesday night will be my next subject.

Bob Feller: Ace of the Greatest Generation (2005)

By John Sickels

So why did it take this long for a biography of Feller to appear? There are a couple of autobiographies out there, most recently Now Pitching: Bob Feller, published in 2002. But Sickels' is the first true biography to appear. As most of you know, John Sickels is the author of a series of prospect books and also maintains minorleagueball.com, a prospect blog here at SportsBlogs.

Feller's upbringing in Iowa is well-known: Bob's father Bill recognized his talent, nudged him towards the pitching mound, and managed his young career until Indians superscout Cyril "Cy" Slapnicka noticed him. Sickels takes the time early in the biography to set up the relationship between Bob and his father, which was a key component in his development into a pitching phenom.

Next Sickels takes on the controversy surrounding the signing of Feller, and how the Indians eased him into the majors as a teenager. Ossie Vitt and the "Crybabies" of 1940 are also examined in-depth. By 1941, Feller was at the top of his game, having lead the league in strikeouts for four straight seasons. He was just 23 years old when World War II broke out.

Feller's stint in the Navy cost him three season at his peak. His time away from baseball also affected him personally; he seemed more open and honest after returning from the Pacific. This frankness would get him in trouble down the road, and is one of the major aspects of Feller that Sickels examines. His well-publicized war of words with Jackie Robinson, his outspoken opinions on baseball labor relations, and many other subjects made Feller both a target for criticism and a highly-public figure in sports. Sickels deftly examines both sides of Feller's controversies, maintaining a neutrality and even-handedness throughout.

Finally, Feller's career statistics are examined using present-day metrics. And suffice to say, his numbers adjusted for era aremind-boggling. For example, Feller pitched in an era where strikeouts were harder to come by for pitchers; his 250 strikeouts in 1941 would translate to 452 in today's game.

Baseball has been blessed with a tremendous accompanying literature, from books profiling its great players, books about the strategy of the sport, as well as books describing its rich history.

Being a baseball bibliophile, one of my long-desired projects was to create a compendium of book reviews about baseball. Given the magnitude of the output of the genre, I'm certainly not going to limit the reviews to myself; there's simply too much out there for me to get to. That's why I'd like the readers of this site to get into the act. Do you have a baseball book and want to review it? Simply post the review in a diary, and I'll transfer it to the front page.

If you want to, you can use this thread to give suggestions for future reviews, as well as simply discussing baseball books in general.

Biography

Bob Feller: Ace of the Greatest Generation
By: John Sickels
Review Date: 12 March 2005
Review by: Ryan

The Glory of Their Times (1966)
By Lawrence S. Ritter
Review Date: Forthcoming
Review By: Ryan

Strategy/Statistics

Baseball Between The Numbers
By: Jonah Keri and the editors of Baseball Prospectus
Review Date: 19 Feb 2006
Review By: mkwng

Dealing
By: Terry Pluto
Review Date: 14 June 2006
Review By: DixonCayne

The Last Nine Innings (2006)
By: Charles Euchner
Review Date: 27 March 2006
Review By: Ryan

Prospects

Minor League Baseball Analyst (2006)
By: Deric McKamey
Review Date: 31 Jan 2006
Review By: dgcambridge

Indians History

Opening Day: Cleveland, the Indians, and a New Beginning
By: Jonathan Knight
Review Date: 9 Feb 2005
Review By: Ryan

The Pitch That Killed (1989)
By: Mike Sowell
Review Date: 20 Feb 2005
Review By: Ryan

Steroids

Game of Shadows (2006)
By Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
Review Date: 3 April 2006
Review By: Buzz

Sports Writing

The View From Pluto (2002)
By: Terry Pluto
Review Date: 12 April 2006
Review By: Ryan

This was the lineup on Opening Day against the Anaheim Angels:

(Source: Retrosheet)

The rotation looked like this:

The bench was made up of Brady Anderson, John McDonald, Wil Cordero, and Eddie Perez. The bullpen looked like this:

And on the disabled list:

You know what? This roster won. For the first 12 games of the season. On Saturday, April 13th, the Indians were 11-1, scoring more than 5 runs in 11 of the first 12 games. Sunday's game against the Royals was rained out, and after that, the winning run was over in more ways than one. The Indians dropped 12 out of their next 14, thanks in large part to an anemic offense.

The first casualty of the losing streak was Wil Cordero:

4-22: Purchased the Contract of 3B Earl Snyder; Designated IF Wil Cordero for Assignment

Cordero was making $4.167M in 2002, one of John Hart's legacies (PD, 4/23):

5-21: Released OF Brady Anderson; Recalled OF Chris Magruder from Buffalo (AAA)

Anderson hit .162/.327/.250 in 80 at-bats, a year after he hit .202/.311/.300 in 430 at-bats. He was done.

Cordero's departure allowed Russ Branyan to get more at-bats in left field. Unfortunately for Russ, he was the next one to go:

6-7: Traded 3B/OF Russ Branyan to the Cincinnati Reds for 1B Ben Broussard

Branyan hit .205/.278/.379 in 2002 with the Indians. Broussard was widely seen at the time as Thome's replacement should he leave after the season. Hoynes' take on the trade (PD, 6-8):

The problem for the Indians is that they didn't have much in the minors beyond AAAA guys like Chad Allen, Todd Dunwoody, Bruce Aven, Bill Selby, and Chris Magruder, all of whom saw time in the outfield at one time or another.

Adding to the offensive difficulties was a rash of injuries. At one time or another, Ricky Gutierrez, Paul Shuey, Bob Wickman, Charles Nagy, Milton Bradley, Matt Lawton, Einar Diaz, and Travis Fryman were on the 15-day Disabled List.

On June 26, this was the lineup against the Boston Red Sox:

The team was a total mess. The Indians' best hitter would be a free agent at the end of the season, they had a weak farm system, and little financial wherewithal to add players thanks to some bad contracts. Even though the team was still only 5 games under .500, they were already 7.5 games behind first-place Minnesota. And to even have that record was fortunate, given their -62 run differential. Only Tampa Bay (297) and Detroit (282) had scored less runs than the Indians' 300.

The time had come to rebuild.

John Sickels' The Baseball Prospect Book 2006 is now available for pre-order. I get both Sickels' book as well as Baseball America's Prospect Handbook, and both are great resources.

Joe Hamrahi of Talking Chop has posted the third and final portion of his interview with Braves GM John Schuerholz. It's a great read. Here's Part I and Part II of the interview.

Most of you are probably coming from my old blog, but for those who are reading me for the first time, let me briefly introduce myself.

My name is Ryan Richards, and I'm taking over for Mike. My old blog was called The Indians Compendium, a home-brewed blog which I've been tinkering with for the past 2.5 years. I'm excited to make the jump to this new venue, although the content will remain largely the same; you'll get my take on transactions within the organization, statistics and what they mean, prospect commentary, and my feelings on other matters related to the Cleveland Indians.

Please make use of the diaries to your right if you want to comment on something I haven't covered. You do have to register, but it's quick and painless. I welcome feedback (and I do read the comments), so feel free to comment on the new blog below.

We have Cliff Lee going against Zach Greinke tonite. We like the Zach kid, wish we had him. Before the game starts tonite at 8, lets give the Wedger a tip, STAY AWAY FROM SWEENEY! Don't give him anything to hit Cliff! I swear Sweeney kills us everytime he plays us.