As we discussed the recent trades of the beloved Indians and the plight of the small and mid-market clubs, I was curious to see how the current teams records stacked up against their MLB salary.  The table below details this information as of 7/30/09:

There are many different ways to measure a teams performance, but if salary vs winning percentage is used, some quick observations are that Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Texas, Florida, and St. Louis have exceeded expectations while the New York Mets have totally under achieved.  With the disparity in salary even within each division, it really makes winning the division difficult for lower salaried teams and trades of superstar talent for multiple prospects more understandable.
 

Mark your calendars for the Sox vs. Indians finale in Chicago. 

Assuming the Chicago White Sox can maintain their season winning percentage of .571 heading into that last weekend, they will have won 91 games.

Assuming the Cleveland Indians can maintain their winning percentage over the past 10 games, heading into that last weekend, the Tribe will have won 92 games.

That's right...if we win our next 27 straight games we'll have a shot at repeating in the Central.  How sweet it is!

On a serious note, I will be very satisfied if we can simply play spoiler to the White Sox that weekend.  Especially after Ozzie made the comment that the Sox were at a disadvantage to Minnesota since they only to get play Cleveland six times in the second half.

So what is management’s goal for 2009?   I have not heard or have missed the familiar "we expect to compete for the central division in 2009" from Shapiro.   The cupboard is being restocked as we speak - which is exciting, but save several impact players all emerging from the minors at the same time, and 2008 second-half  breakthroughs by Marte, Caberra, Garko, Gut, and a starting pitcher, it looks like we will not be in contention again until 2010.  Is this the general expectation or am I missing something.

If that is the expectation, how many more players become trade bait by Thursday in order to build the core for 2010 and beyond?

Unless we can put together a Colorado Rockie-esque 2007 winning streak, we have moved into the unfortunate "Take Stock, Move Inventory, and Reload" phase of the 2008 season.

I have seen a lot of chatter on this site about trading for sluggers to improve the offense in 2009 (Matt LaPorta is my favorite of these, but perhaps more of a 2010 fix), but there has not been, or I have missed, any discussion about what I think might be the most pressing need of the 2009 season and beyond: a dominant closer.

Looking at the first 84 games of this year, we have converted 14 of 27 save opportunities.   If we had a decent closer (assume an 80% save rate), we would have already won 8 more games this year, and would find ourselves 4 games out of first. 

In all fairness, Borowski does have an 80% career save rate, and he has not been given many opportunites to save games in the past month.  However, it appears his age is finally getting the better of him as his ERA and arm have begun to give out.

So what's the arm-chair GM move to make ?  Go for a closer or go for a bat?  Or just go for value and hope for the best?

My dream scenario is to get both by trading CC plus a reliever to Milwaukee for:

 AA Matt LaPorta: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Matt%20LaPorta&pos=RF&sid=t559&t=p_pbp&pid=453181 

AAA Luis Pena: http://www.nashvillesounds.com/clubhouse/Default.asp?playerId=204

It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the next few weeks.

 “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” – Red, Shawshank Redemption

But here we are, towards the third of week of June, still grasping on to hope.  From a pure mathematical sense, the season is lost.  Almost 30% of our total payroll is on the DL, we are six games out of first, our farm system lacks any MLB ready talent and management has to make a decision on CC by July 31st. Yet we cling to the notion that AAA ballers and journey-man pine riders can put together a winning streak and hold on long enough for our key personnel to get healthy and their bats to get hot.  We hope our bullpen that currently serves up more runs than a bowl of Texas-chili will revert to their hitless forms, and that somehow JoeBro’s deal with Satan hasn’t expired.  On a statistical basis, there is probably a better chance that Paris, Lindsay, and Britney all wear underwear this week than we have of winning the division.

However, hope lingers on, in part because of what transpired last year.  Last year was like getting a date with the homecoming queen, and then after the dance the two of you sneaking into her bedroom, only to get busted by her dad right before any fun happened.  Then she moved to Boston and you found out she hooked up with a townie.  Screw Boston.

We hope that maybe she’ll move back and give us another chance.  The only problem is that we just had multiple elbow surgeries, cortisones shots for our shoulders, bad hips, and now sprained fingers. Everyone knows there is no way to get to third base with sprained fingers….  But alas, we can’t help but hope that she overlooks our faults and comes back, no matter what the odds.  And after all, grasping on to hope is better than being Kansas City.

What would it take to get LaPorta or Gamel from Milwaukee?  Their big league club is loaded with bats, but needs pitchers.  Both LaPorta and Gamel have demonstrated ridiculous power and LaPorta has been sending balls yard since his college days.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=t_ros&cid=559&stn=true&sid=t559

Obviously this doesn't fix our problems this year, and it would probably be half way through 2009 before one of these guys made it up...at the earliest.  Is this a possibility for the Tribe, or am I smoking from Eric Wedges crack pipe?