A TV commercial shows two Coke employees trying to sue another department in their own company. Silly, but funny.

The commercial caused me to think about an internal "trade" that would not literally happen, but might be fun to speculate about.

Would you "trade" David Dellucci, Trot Nixon, and Jason Michaels for Ben Francisco, Shin-soo Choo and Franky Gutz?

My case for keeping the current three is that they are experienced major league hitters (albeit somewhat mediocore careers)who may be more helpful in a race to the playoffs than less proven talent.

My case for making the "trade" is the addition of speed and more defensive coverage in the OF. Plus, the hitting could be better with the new guys (it's not like the current three have been making major contributions to the latest victories).

So, would you make such a trade now? Secondly, would you make such a "trade" in August, if we are out of contention?

Well, the Tribe isn't doing too well right now, but I've spent many years finding optimism in the minors (especially in the 70s and 80s).

Today, there was plenty of optimism in BA's prospect hot sheet. Three of the 10 spots were tribe members: #1 Sowers, #4 Kouzmanoff, #9 Crowe. Then, of the 15 more "in the team photo," we had two: John Drennen and Scott Lewis.

It seems likely we will see Sowers in the majors soon. I also continue to think that the tribe should jump Kouzmanoff from AA to the majors to see what he can do. He's older and hotter than Marte right now. Perhaps he can learn another position than 3B, if Marte develops and Kouz proves he can hit major-league pitching anywhere close to the way he hits in the minors.

Maybe there is a super star outfielder in the Tribe system. With three HRs today, Ryan Goleski extended his HR and RBI leads in the Carolina league and his .327 avg gets him near the top in that category also.

He may be a bit old at 24 for the A+ level and he still strikes out too much, but he's a slugger. Since Cleveland has a wealth of center field players, a power hitting guy in left field would be nice.

A couple of bitter-sweet items:

The Indian's team batting average (.323) is now leading the AL, as the Tribe moved past Toronto by getting 14 hits last night.

Also, Casey Blake moved into the lead for the batting crown (at .447) by not playing last night. Like I've always said, Casey is the right man for right field - just don't check my pre-season posts to verify that :-)

Baseball America's daily report today called Joe Ness at Kinston "The Untouchable."

Ness did not make BA's top 25 for the Tribe, so I'm wondering if Ness is as good as the untouchable label would indicate (of course, I hope he is).

Cleveland has a nice list of starter prospects (Sowers, Miller, Sipp, Carmona, Lofgren, Smith, Pesco, Perez). It would be nice if Ness can rise up to join that group.