Vicious Rumors, Idle Speculation and Questionable Decision-Making

I'm pretty sure he and Garko played at Stanford together.

I think what Keri is calling a "minor reliever" is probably going to be a big deal to us, as fans of the team. Obviously, we're not going to go get Dunn today, but if we get somebody like Rauch or Damasao Marte, that's not minor in our world.

Also, I would enforce a one-year moratorium on FO complaints if we attained Carlos Quentin.

Link

He says Dotel is done but held up until the Teixera deal is completed-everyone must complete physicals. Also, he says Dayton might be taking a lower offer because he's familiar with Davies and believes he knows something the stats don't show.

Says Pirates price on Marte is high b/c he took a lower dollar deal. Implies Pittsburgh will again not trade anyone.

I don't know what to think of that.

Link

I have separate tabs at the top of my screen opened to this site, Jayson Stark's insider, MLB Trade Rumors, Ken Rosenthal, and Cleveland.com (for whatever reason).  Every couple of minutes I refresh each one.

4 PM can't come quickly enough.

Split? WTF?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/07/31/gagne.redsox/index.html

Kinda weird, why would the best bullpen in the league go after such a pricy (in prospects, I mean) set-up guy?  Maybe they'll prep Papelbon to start again?

Dubious about taking pitchers from NL.

JoeTom

Shap: Hey Brian, I'll give you Francisco and Miller for A-Rod.

Ca$hman: No.

I mean, how formal/informal are the conversations between GMs?

Or something like this.

We weren't forced to trade away anyone of value in the organization (except Max. Ramirez)

Things I'm not happy about:

We weren't able to swing any of our organizational slough for something useful at the major-league level

The idea of having to keep him in the pen for the stretch run makes the mop up part of my brain hurt. That was the main thing I was hoping for, getting a decent reliever and including Cabrera in the package, so we could actually use the full roster.

I personally believe we have a glaring weakness in the bullpen (lack of depth) and there were some parts out there that could have helped fix it.  There were 3-4 guys out there who could seriously help, and no those guys weren't the much talked about 'difference makers' that the national media focused on.  The talk for the entire season, here and on other Tribe sites, that we have a great offense, good solid pitching, OK defense and a thin bullpen.  The only move we make is to pick up an offensive/defensive player?

Don't get me wrong - getting Kenny back was great and I honestly believe it'll help us this season.  The thing is, it doesn't do anything towards fixing our biggest weakness.  Yes, we'll get a couple of arms back in Fultz and Miller (if he ever gets called up) - but when you have an opportunity to improve you team for this season you do it.  John Hart got that and we usually saw trades this time of the year with his teams.

I'm not trying to live in the past, I'm just using him as an example.  When you have an open window to the playoffs you do everything you can to get through that window.  You temper this with plans for the future, but you make a move when it's there.  This is the third year in a row that the Tribe is a "good team".  Good teams don't always make the playoffs.  I really think we're at a juncture where we could be either another good team or a playoff team.

This is not a negative "the sky is falling" post.  I like our team, we are definitely a playoff contending team - and should remain so for the rest of the season (and probably for 3 or so years to come).  Now I don't know what happened behind closed doors this past week.  There's no way to know what was being discussed.  To me, though, the question is did we do anything to increase our chances of making the playoffs?  Was there some things we could have done?  Are we a better team tonight than we were this morning for this season?

Like I said, I'm just disappointed.

• The Red Sox, bolstered by Gagne, have seven games left vs the Yankees, seven vs the Angels, and three vs the Mariners -- zero vs. the Indians.
  
• The Rangers, now without Teixeira and Gagne, have three games left vs the Indians, six vs the Mariners -- zero vs. the Yankees.
  
• The Royals, now without Dotel, have nine games left vs the Indians, seven vs the Mariners -- zero vs. the Yankees.

So at least indirectly, these trades should help us a little with the Wild Card race.

"Having been a part of the Ricardo Rincon-for-Brian Giles trade, I swore I'd never trade an everyday player for a reliever," said Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro.