Why does this World Cup seem Weak?

According to FIFA Rankings the 2014 World Cup should be the toughest World Cup since the tournament in expanding to 32 teams in 1998. If the rankings say it's the strongest its been in 5 go arounds, why does it feel like a very weak tournament?

First things first FIFA Rankings are a mess, they always have been and they will be until they figure out a way to weigh results differently. Don't believe me, I'll give you an example from the past four World Cups

Year	Host	Over ranked	Under ranked	Why?	What happened?
1998	France	USA #12 Japan #14	France 18th	The host team doesn’t need to qualify, so they don’t play the amount of meaningful point earning matches.	France won the WC, Japan and US finished 31st and 32nd respectively (though not all that respectively if you know what I mean
2002	South Korea/Japan	France #1 Argentina #3 Portugal #5	Turkey #22 South Korea #40	France were coming off a Confederation Cup in in 2001 and a World Cup win in 1998. Portugal was coming off an undefeated run in qualifying. And Argentina had won COMNEBOL, beating one of the worst Brazilian teams of the past 20 years.	Turkey and South Korea played for 3rd place, France, Argentina and Portugal failed to advance
2006	Germany	#2 Czech Republic USA #5	#48 Ghana	No fricken clue	A group of USA, Italy, Ghana and Czehc Republic saw the two lower ranked teams advance.
2010	South Africa	The ones that lost	The ones that won.	Three teams entered South Africa with FIFA rankings lower than 75. The firs time ever.	5 of 16 teams in the knockout were ranked 30 or lower.  And of course Spain, the heavy favorites actually won.

So FIFA rankings are goofed up in the first place, but the rankings for the 2014 World Cup show that the highest ranked teams that will be missing out are Ukraine at 17, Scotland at 22 and Denmark at 23. In 2002, three teams in the Top 10 all missed out (Columbia, Netherlands and Yugoslavia).

This is the first year the Top 15 in the final rankings before the tournament begins have all made the World Cup. In fact it's the first year since expansion to 32 teams that the entire Top 10 will be competing. But it still feels like a very weak set of 32 teams. Why is that?

I have three theories, the pumping up/pimping of the South American teams (partially due to playing at home and also due to not having to qualify against Brazil). In past years all the teams in CONMEBOL had to play Brazil twice in qualifying, this year that didn’t happen, over the past two cycles Brazil had lost 4 of 36 qualifiers. Not to mention with 4.5 of the 9 teams qualifying, all you had to do was go .500 to make it to the World Cup.  In Europe going .500 gets you third or fourth place. I’m not buying Colombia especially with their best player Radamel Falcao, out. Though their defense was strong, CONMBEOL was the 2^nd lowest scoring confederation in qualifying this cycle. And if I’m not a believer in Colombia, than it becomes even harder to believe in Chile or Ecuador. Six of Chile’s 9 wins were against the 4 teams that didn’t advance, While Ecuador didn’t win a game outside of Quito the entire qualification process.  

It could also be age. In 2010, there were 180 players over 30. This year there are also 180 players over 30. Though the numbers say otherwise, it seems like more teams are going to be relying on 30+ year olds, rather than using them as experienced veterans. Players aged 26-29 are typically at their best, many of them are playing in their second World Cup, while players under 26 are likely in their first. In 2010 players ages 26-29 scores 68 goals, players 25 or under scored 51 and players over 30 scored 33 (9 of them coming from Miroslav Klose and Diego Forlan). That next group of 26-29 year old (with the exceptions of Messi, Ronaldo and Rooney) have yet to arrive and many teams will be relying on players outside that golden range. Of course players don’t just hit 30 and stop being able to produce, but when you are looking to a 33 year old Samuel Eto’o or 34 year old Tim Cahill as your main source of goals it doesn’t make for much excitement. England might start Lampard and Gerrard next to eachother, which could be ugly but for the fact that all the other midfielders in Group D are old as well. France will likely have Bacary Sagna and Patrice Evra on the wings but won’t have to face any great wingers that will execute against them in the Group Stage. There may be a lot of young talent under 23 talent this year, 

The third reason, is the draw just didn't produce intriguing matchups. Many of these games don’t get me excited and in turn it leads me to believe the field is weak. Due to the asinine process of seeding and pots, Switzerland and Colombia earned seeds which meant teams like England, Netherlands, France and Portugal were left in the Europe pot. I’ve still yet to figure out how Colombia, a team that didn’t qualify for the past three World Cups had enough points to get seeded. But Switzerland’s road to Pot A is pretty ridiculous as well. Having to beat the likes of Iceland, Slovenia, Norway, Albania and Cyprus, quite possibly the easiest group in the entire qualifying process throughout the world, to advance (Belgium is for real, by the way totally deserving of their seed). With two teams (and the possibility of a Luis Suarez-less Uruguay side making three, though you can't predict injuries in the draw) that I consider to be very mediocre winning seeds, it simply makes a couple groups extremely dull. Take out Columbia and Switzerland from Pot A and toss in Italy and Netherlands (the next two teams).  The draw might have led to a few more exciting games. Personally there isn’t a game in Group C that remotely interests me. But I’d be glued to the TV for an Ivory Coast/Italy match. In 2010, I watched almost every game. I wanted to cheer for underdogs like New Zealand, I loved seeing North Korea give Brazil everything they could handle. This year the stories aren’t there, it doesn’t feel like there is drama outside of being an American cheering for the US, in a spot where nobody gives them a chance.

This World Cup has 5 or 6 very good teams, 20 mediocre teams and 6-7 teams that are just happy to be there.  When you pair all three of the above theories together it comes down to a lot of ok teams playing against eachother. When average teams from South America or Europe beat other average teams from South America or Europe they get better points than when pretty good African teams beat average African teams, and the FIFA Rankings kind of screw that up. The fact that the 26-29 year old age range, doesn’t seem to really be on display this go around, leads me to believe we’ve got a bunch of teams with old guys and young guys which leads to tactical soccer that might not be all that eye catching. And the simple fact that Switzerland and Columbia were seeded go to show that many other teams didn’t take advantage of opportunities and found themselves in situations they may not have expected. In March Madness parity is awesome, because there are 48 games in 4 days, if two teams are shooting 17% at halftime and the score is 15-11 you can watch another game. The World Cup doesn’t work like that, you commit 2 hours to each game. There are great 0-0 games but there are some really dull 3-1 games as well. Two average soccer teams playing each other, might produce drama but it isn’t always dramatic and often times can be very unexciting.

But it’s the World Cup, so ignore everything I just said and enjoy!

Finding Market Inefficiencies (cont.) - AAApril

If you are here you likely read yesterday’s post and you want to see what happens when 13 relievers try to pitch as one collective stat. If you missed yesterday’s post you can read it here.

There are a couple rules that I have to point out before we can continue. Due to ths April’s post will be a bit longer than the other months but if you’ve come this far I don’t need to ask you to bare with me, because you already are.

-                    I only simulate games. I do not partake in any part of the on field action. I only look at the box score.

-                   At any time I may adjust my pitching rotation, the 5 guys in position as starters, the guy who is called the closer and anything else for that matter.

-                   The lineup, position on the field and in the batting order is entirely decided by a computer version of Bud Black

-                   With the exception of who starts a game Computer Bud Black (CBB) has control of pitching decision.

-                   If 5 or more of my pitchers have a fatigue rating under 10% I may call up a starter from Triple A for one game, I have to send down a hitter and keep all pitchers active.

-                   I can make trades as I see fit, however I may not acquire a starting pitcher in any trade. And I can’t force any trades.

-                   The game forces me to stay under budget, unlike real baseball I can’t take Alfonso Soriano’s contract onto my team with a goofy prospect trade in July, unless I have the money to do so.

-                   I am writing these notes immediately following the end of a month. So there is no hindsight only looking forward and developing ideas to change our progress.

And now for the results. And this guy just because he looks cool. 

April saw my staff pitch to a 3.11 ERA; 5^th best in the Majors, and the 2^nd best K/9 in the league.  Despite one of the best pitching staffs in the league the lineup has been no better than a Triple A team of replacement players. Scoring 93 runs in 26 games with a team batting average of .227, the crap offense has been sparked by Jay Bruce, AJ Pierzynski and Edwin Encarnacion combining to hit .194 with 8 home runs. . Through April the “new-look” Padres are 14-12. Knowing that my pitchers are going to fatigue and be more susceptible to injury in August and September, I felt we needed to be better in April. The hitting will come around, my focus is on the pitching.

The Golden Sombrero; 4 k's in one game.
It's almost like a promotional night throughout April,
how many can this offense complete.

My real baseball theory isn’t working nearly as well as I had hoped. Computer Bud Black isn’t playing match-ups he’s just using guys until they are exhausted and then changing them. My theory was that the starter would pitch the first two innings and it’s matchups the rest of the way. So I have to many instances of 3 guys pitching 3 innings rather than 2 guys pitching 2 and 5 guys pitching 1. In the Season Opener Charlie Furbush pitched 2.1 perfect innings and then gave up 5 runs before recording another out. Jake McGee came in and gave up 6 more in 1 inning of work.

Despite my ineffectiveness as a GM the pitching staff did record 4 shutouts, which is pretty darn good. My ineffectiveness comes from my 13 man staff having 8 lefties and 5 righties. Which would likely explain why Jake McGee (8.59 ERA, 2.20 WHIP) Tim Collins (6.06 ERA, 1.90 WHIP) and Sean Doolittle (5.06 ERA, 1.75 WHIP) all had rough April’s. In fact the five worst April ERAs were all lefties. They were forced to pitch in situations they shouldn’t have been because they are perceived by the video game as LOOGYs (lefty one out guys). I have since traded Jake McGee and a prospect for Drew Storen and Tim Collins and a prospect for Bobby Parnell. We now sit at 6 lefties and 7 righties, which should make things much easier for Computer Bud Black.

I can't put WILTON Lopez into a game without thinking
he might have a MELTdown.

With 26 games you may be wondering who started what games. It was entirely random and I wouldn’t have been able to answer you in game. It was not until I looked at stats that I knew. My theory entering each game was that the guy in the closer role should not have a fatigue under 90. And the four most tired guys would be in the starting rotation as the “next four starters.” Typically I took the guy who was not tired with the hopes he could get me three innings (since CBB isn’t managing the way I had envisioned). However, I realized this would then leave him tired for three days and essentially make him unavailable untilt the next time he would arguably start. So I fixed that. But Nate Jones started 4 games and came out with an ERA of 1.45, he’s thrown 18.2 innings. Ryan Cook and Robbie Ross didn’t start any games, so we’ll make sure they have a few in May. Wilton Lopez pitched 16 innings of .56 ERA ball, leading to the awful pun in the caption above and Tony Watson picked up 2 saves. As a team we were 7 of 8 in save chances, and I don’t know if that was a 9^th inning blown save or a middle relief blown save (and in this strategy middle relief is the 4^th-8^th inning. 


We’ll see what May has in store for us.

Moneyball and Finding Market Inefficiencies

I asked myself the question last week after reading about relievers being the new money ball. Could a team win enough games to make the playoffs, let and possibly win a World Series and not spend anymoney on a Starting Pitcher; in theory, a 13 man bullpen that played match-ups on a game-to-game basis. The whole point of “moneyball” was/is to find market inefficiencies and do things nobody else was doing. The concept is surely something nobody else is doing.

The average wins needed to win a division, not the number that the team won but just one game better than the 2^nd place team in baseball over the past 5 seasons is 89.56. Is 90 wins doable without a starting pitcher. Baseball strategy would tell you absolutely not, however market inefficiencies might say otherwise.

Take the NL West for example, the average wins needed to win the division over the past 5 years is 88, and using current baseball strategy a team like the Padres is never going to get to 88 wins when LA has a payroll nearly 300% of theirs. 

The Padres $66 million payroll makes signing star players very tough. Anyone who signs a deal worth more than $10 million is making at least 15% of their total budget. Good luck finding an Ace for that kind of money, heck could luck finding a decent #3 starter for $10 million. So when they invested almost $14 million on Josh Johnson, they were essentially saying we are happy with an outfield of Alexei Amarista, Mark Kotsay, Kyle Blanks and maybe 50 games of Carlos Quentin. 

In a system of 13 relievers all playing the part of a “pitching staff, “ Josh Johnson doesn’t do you any good. In fact spending more than $3 million on any pitcher doesn’t do much good. The Padres have close to $36 million dollars locked up on 5 pitchers. If that $36 million were to be spread amongst 5 relievers at $2.5 million dollars each, they would have had $23.5 million to spend on Shin Soo Choo.

I know what you’re thinking where are they going to find 13 good relievers to make this work. Well, I took it into my own hands and set up a Franchise with the San Diego Padres on MLB2K13. My starting budget was 70.14 million dollars. I identified 13 relief pitchers that were NOT the current closer of their team (based on 2012 season, remember) and traded for all of them. For the record every trade was accepted there were no forced trades.

I entered the fictional 2013 season with a pitching staff of Charlie Furbush, Nate Jones, Aaron Crow, Tony Watson, Kelvin Herrera, Robbie Ross, Wilton Lopez, Tom Collins, Jake McGee, Ryan Cook, Sean Doolittle, Antonio Bastardo and Johnny Venters. My pitching staff cost me $6,264,000. Leaving me with $63,876,000 to assemble this lineup, and still have 8 million left.

CF: Norichikai Aoki

2B: Dustin Pedroia

LF: Alex Gordon

1B: Edwin Encarnacion

RF: Jay Bruce

SS: Ben Zobrist

C: AJ Pierzynski

3B: Brett Lawrie

BENCH: Omar Infante, Adam Eaton, Will Nieves, Cody Ransom

Each day for the next week I’ll release what happened during the month.

Tuesday – April

Wednesday – May

Thursday – June

Friday- July

Saturday – August

Sunday – September, October and a season wrap-up.

What Your Opening Day Attire Says About You

Pitchers and catchers report in 10 days, and I’m quite happy about that. We Cleveland fans know that our sports teams are going to struggle but the Browns are a joke and the Cavs aren’t even fun to watch. It means it’s time to move on to baseball season.

25 guys will break camp from the Indians and for he most part we can predict who 22 of them are going to be, harder though is to predict what players will still be Indians 3 years after you buy a jersey with their name on it.

So in a couple months when you head to Progressive Field for the Home Opener as people all shapes and sizes enter the stadium in their one size fits all replica promotion jersey, you will undoubtedly see the following.

Girl in a Nick Swisher jersey – She never watched a baseball game until 2013 when all of a sudden she became an Indians fan, her boyfriend bought it for her or else it would be pink.

Get this excrescence out of my ballpark.

Guy in THE Ben Francisco jersey – I know what you’re thinking this guy can’t exist? But he exist And it is THE Ben Francisco jersey not A Ben Francisco jersey , takin right off his back in the last of his 800 Indians ABs.

Rick Vaughn, Pedro Cerrano or Roger Dorn jersey – You are hilarious and quite honestly none of those guys are ever changing teams, so at least you won’t be the Ben Francisco guy.… until the 4^th movie comes out and Wild Thing signs a minor league deal with the Rays and is traded to Indians mid-season for Matt LaPorta. By the way if your jersey says “Wild Thing” on the back you’re not even trying. A. Subtlety goes a long way, by wearing that jersey you are saying; look at me I don’t get it. B. That never happened in the movies.

Anybody in a LaPorta jersey – Its hard to tell if this person is trying to be ironic or just doesn’t pay attention.  Until that trade to the Rays, then he’s going to go off.

Bob Feller, Larry Doby – Ahh yes the baseball historians, those who hold on to tradition and honor the best of the best, rather than ironically wearing a Jake Taylor uni.

Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, Justin Masterson and Carlos Santana – These guys say I’m an Indians fan and I’m a fan through the good and the bad, but I’m also smart enough and fiscally responsible enough not to buy a Ben Broussard jersey. He realizes that these four guys are the core talent of the team and desperately hope they stay in Cleveland.

Corey Kluber, Yan Gomes, Zach McAllister – Sabremetricians know better than to buy jerseys, players are just assets not humans. You can’t become attached.

People in Under-Armour and t-shirts – Wear a coat you dumbass, I know you want people to see what team you’re cheering for but you can do that with a hat.

The goatee era

Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, and Sandy Alomar – We got that jersey for Christmas or Chanukah when we were 9 and have worn it for every game since, be it at the ballpark or just to watch at the bar. Stay true to yourself millennials our time will come.

Oh yeah and for the record that Group of 8 cougars in the bleachers with Grady Sizemore jerseys and v-neck shirts is a Bachelorette party that was supposed to happen 5 years ago but she got pregnant and he kept drinking. But now she's celebrating independence with all 7 of her friends.

Riddle: What fits behind a coffee mug and hasn't been used since 2008? 

Welcome to Cleveland, Please Don't Decline Immediately

The Indians' newest signing, Michel Bourn, steals a base

 

The Indians have made another splash this offseason. They signed a guy a lot of Fantasy Baseball players have heard of and never watched play. It has long been said that you can't teach speed. And if speed is your one tool, you better make use of it early because you won't have it for long.

Out of 1,465 MLB outfielders since 1977, only 21 have averaged 3.86 PAs per game as well as 1 steal every 16 PAs (which equates to 40 steals in a 625 PA season).

Of those 21, three have less than 2 full seasons of experience. The infamous Quinn Mack who played 5 games for the Mariners in 1994 and stole 2 bases. And two guys you've probably heard of Mike Trout and Starling Marte. Trout and Marte may be great base stealers but with less than 250 games between the two, making a judgement now would be unfair to the others.

Out of 1,465 MLB outfielders we have left ourselves with 19 who have shown consistency over numerous years to be considered elite base stealers. Veterans such as Kenny Lofton, Vince Coleman and some guy named Rickey Henderson make the list, along with a few current players like Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford. 

***Apologies to Joe Morgan, who never played outfield and Lou Brock whose career was pretty much over by the time 1977 came around.

Most importantly one of the names on this list is Michael Bourn, the newest Cleveland Indian. 3.86 wasn't just an arbitrary number, it is the number of plate appearance per game that the recently turned 30 year old has averaged for his career.

The Indians just paid Michael Bourn, 48 million over the next 4 years, working out to about 12 million a season. Many have declared it a great move, but I'm not so eager to jump on the bandwagon. He also just turned 30.

Why look at these 19 base-burglars? Is there a correlation to a decline in stolen bases after the turning 29 a second time?  Now that we've put that out there, thanks for playing Jacoby Ellsbury and Ben Revere (Marte and trout would have been out here anyway), you're not old enough we'll see you in a couple years. Now we've got it down to 17.

Taveras stole 68 bases for the Rockie

Of course there are some guys who are older than 30 now, but aren't still playing. Like Alex Sanchez who stole 56 bases as a 26 year old, 19 and 8 in his next two seasons and never played again. Or Willy Taveras who led the NL in steals in 2008 with 68, as a 26 year old. He stole 26 over the next two years and hasn't played since. Chuck Carr was out of the league before he turned 30, after stealing 58 bases as a 25 year old. Alan Wiggins stole 133 bases from 84-85, and stole no more than 30 over the next three years; he was out of the league at 29. There are four players with 703 steals between them (a steal every 12.5 PA's) who never saw a day in the league past 30.

Michael Bourn's birthday cake from 2008.

In case you didn't catch on, now 30 years old Michael Bourn, will hit at the top of the Indians line-up. 30 isn't old in baseball, 30 really isn't that old in any sport except gymnastics. But when your career is based on being really fast, 30 IS old. The good news is he's still in the league at 30... the bad news is he hasn't yet played a game as a 30 year old, so there's still time. It does put him in the company of 13 other very good (not all great) base stealers.

Those 13 left are, Willie Wilson, Scott Podsednik, Omar Moreno, Time Raines, Juan Pierre, Chone Figgins, Carl Crawford, Kenny Lofton, Rickey Henderson, Vince Coleman, and Ron LeFlore.

Starting with the 4 guys from this generation, Kenny Lofton did play in the 2000s but I consider him to be earlier, so we'll get to him later.

Figgins makes a play. NOT

Figgins stole 4 bases last season as a 34 year old; he stole 11 the season before as a 33 year old. He did steal 34, 42 and 42 in his 30-32 seasons, but at the cost of 40 points of batting average from 29-34. He's also widely considered one of the worst free agent signings of the past 10 years.

Podsednik stole 70 bases as a 28 year old. He stole 59 as a 29 year old. He even stole 40 as a 30 year old. Then he got hurt as a 31 year old and again as a 32 year old. Came back as a 33 year old and stole 30 bags. at a clip of about 5 extra PAs per steal. When you're talking 3.68 PAs per game that’s an extra game per steal.

Pierre specifically keeps getting contracts because he steals bases he stole 68 in 2010 as a 32 year old. But in 5 seasons since turning 30 has seen less than 400 at bats in 3 of them. BTW, those of you who think Pierre is a phenomenal base stealer he gets thrown out 25% of the time for his career. And since turning 30 that number leaps to 32%

And Carl Crawford, you know that guy that the Red Sox gave $142 million dollars over 7 years to as a 29 year old and for some reason the Dodgers bailed them out? He played 30 games last year. We'll see about him, but I don't think he's ever stealing 50 bases again.

The list continues on with the leaders in stolen bases from '77 on. Stats before 1977 do not qualify.

LeFlore was the rare athlete, whose speed got better as he aged.

Ron LeFlore began his career in '74 he stole 23, 28 and 58 bases. He's the only player in the group to average more stolen bases AFTER turning 30 then he did before turning 30. In fact LeFlore was a significantly better base stealer after turning 30.

Omar Moreno also began his career before the beginning of this data chart but was not a full-time player until '77 spending most of his career with the Pirates. Stealing 400+ bases between the ages of 24-29 one per every 9.67 plate appearance. From 30 on he'd only play four more seasons and steal 75 bases, taking twice as many plate appearances per steal.

There will never be an Indians outfielder even close to Lofton defensively.

Kenny Lofton played until he was 40, so to take an entire average of his steals after turning 30 wouldn't be quite right. He still stole 23 bases as a 40 year old, but Michael Bourn isn't going to be here at 40. Lofton became a full time player at 25, and averaged 65 steals a season until he turned 30. From 30-34 he still was an every-day center fielder, but he stole only 30 bases a year. In fact after stealing 75 as a 29 year-old, he only stole more than 35 one more time in his career.

Willie Wilson was 20 when he got his debut, but didn't see significant at bats until he turned 23. In 15 years with the Royals, Wilson stole 612 bases. But like Lofton, Wilson averaged 55 a year between 23-29, but from 30-33 he averaged just 38, and didn't see full-time at bats the rest of his career.

Coleman stole 100 bases or more for three straight seasons. He was stealing a base every 6 times he stepped to the plate. Then he turned 26 an ONLY stole 81. He turned 28 and ONLY stole 77. And though he was still stealing a base one out of every 10-plate appearance, he never saw 500 at bats after turning 28.

Raines's in his first full time season at 21 stole 71 bases. For those 9 years until he turned 30 he averaged 64 steals a season. Like Lofton, Baines played until he was in his 40s when he had no business stealing any bases. He could still hit .280 which made him a valuable DH or 4th OF. His steal decline could be attributed to injury when he was 28, but from 30-34 Raines only stole an average of 36 bases a year.

Comparing anyone to Rickey Henderson is really a waste of time because nobody will ever do what he did on the base paths. But even Henderson saw a decline after he turned 30. Yes, he still stole 50+ bases 4 times after turning 30. But when you are accustomed to a guy stealing 80 in a bad year, all of a sudden 58 doesn't looks that special. From his age 21-29 seasons, Henderson averaged 85 steals a year (1 steal per 7.23 PAs) From his 30-34 years he averaged only 60 (1 steal per 9.8 PAs). Even when his career had past him by he was still stealing a base ever 14 at bats, but it was only 30 a season. 

Even the greatest base stealer of all time, Rickey Henderson, saw a decrease in steals and speed as he got older.

Is 30 the true age of decline? Probably not, it seems more likely to be 32 or 33, however, the Indians signed on for 4 years of Bourn. And he'll be here making $12 million dollars at the true age of decline either way.

What did the Trade Deadline mean for the Tribe?

The Indians needed a starter, they needed a right handed bat and they also needed a bullpen arm that could keep them in games when they don’t have a lead.

Lars Anderson is none of those things. Brent Lillibridge isn’t either. But maybe some of these guys at Triple A are???

I will accept the argument that they didn’t have the prospects needed to get Hunter Pence or Shane Victorino. They also didn’t have what was needed to get Zach Greinke . But, I won’t accept the argument that they did not have the players to make any deals. 1B and OF Gaby Sanchez was traded to the Pirates for Gorkys Hernandez, basically the 6^th best outfielder in their Farm System and a pitcher who doesn’t show up anywhere in their Top 20 prospects. Sanchez could have been had for Thomas Neal (acquired for Orlando Cabrera last season) and the same guy they traded for Lars Anderson. And the Indians would have lost what? Nothing.

I will accept the argument that one player can’t turn a team around. But I won’t accept that the right role players can help make a playoff push.  The AL Central will come down to whether or not Kevin Youkilis, Francisco Liriano and Brett Myers are better than Anibal Sanchez  and Omar Infante. In 45 service years those 5 players have combined for 5 All-Star appearances, yet those 5 players were good enough for the other two teams competing.

I will accept the argument that Chris Antonetti is handcuffed by a cheap owner. But I won’t accept that the Indians couldn’t have improved this team without adding money to the payroll.  Once again we visit Gaby Sanchez. He is up for arbitration this season but his .200 BA isn’t going to help him much there, he’s making about 500K for 2012. 

Was Gaby Sanchez going to make the Indians a playoff team, who knows. But Gaby Sanchez is a right handed bat with 20 homer pop. Instead the Indians picked up another left handed 1B that will do nothing other than block Matt LaPorta from ever getting called up.

This really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. When the team traded for Lillibridge we should have realized the move was strictly made to keep the wear and tear off of Kipnis, Brantley and Cabrera, which is the 2013 core. The moves the Indians made, allowed them to be sellers in the quietest way possible. The door is open for a lot of waiver deals. Kotchman, Damon, Lopez, Lowe and anyone in the bullpen who’s last name doesn’t start with a P.

The Tribe front office took the easy way out, rather than calling themselves sellers and alienating an already alienated fan base or risking prospects they just did nothing of consequence. Much easier to explain in two weeks when they are 8 games out and fighting for 3^rd.