In advance of tomorrow's pitching matchup, I was thinking about Cy Young winners who pitched for the Tribe.  We all know that three Indians pitchers have won the award, but other Cy Young winners have hurled for the Tribe, either ante- or post-award (or both, in one case).

As I thought about it, the list kept going on.  And on.  Until it reached 11.  So as far as I can tell, fourteen Cy Young winners have pitched for the Indians.  Maybe I'm even missing somebody.

I thought we could do a group exercise and name the other eleven.  They are an interesting aggregation.  So how about one name per person until we identify them all.  Then I may pose a bonus question about a former Tribe farmhand.  

Then I'll delete the post so we don't have to look at it for two months.

(For whatever it's worth, I doubt any other team can match this number.  I can think of seven Dodgers who have won Cy Youngs, but they would still need seven more to reach fourteen, and all I get off the top of my head is Bob Welch.  So maybe the Indians are the cradle/graveyard of Cy Young winners.  Or something.)

Edit: As FredOx and emd2k3 posted below, Don Newcombe, the inaugural Cy Young winner, closed out his career with a brief stint in Cleveland in 1960.  So there are fifteen.

October!  When a Tribe fan's fancy turns to.........spring training.

So I stopped into Goodyear, land of strip malls, big boxes and gated residential developments, to see how the facility was going and to maybe catch the final Fall Instructional game of the year.  The ST park can be summed up in a single word: Construction.  Everywhere.  Can't get near the place.  If it's not ready by February 12, it will not be for lack of effort.

Major league park, viewed from the parking lot at the development complex:

The minor league and development area, where the game was played, looks pretty much complete.  Some new construction is beginning on the Reds' facilities.  But the big action is all around the major league park.

As for the game, the Dodger farm hands took out their organizational frustration on the young Tribesters, 10-1.  I think the Indians managed 4 hits.  Nathan Recknagel looked especially overmatched.  Darling Read smacked a hard double his first time up, then was thrown out at third on a ground ball to short (hence the name, instructional league).

Curtis "Trey" Haley started and showed nothing, except wildness.  He seemed to throw nothing but fastballs, which fooled no one.  When he did find the strike zone, the hitters tended to find the gaps and the outfield walls.  Curtis got a good workout backing up home plate.  He didn't record the third out in any of the three innings he pitched.

How so?  There seems to be some kind of voluntary mercy rule.  Three times, including in the first two innings, the Dodgers' 3B coach (Shoemaker) at some point yelled "let's roll up this inning," and everyone walked off the field.  He did it in the 1st after Haley hit a batter to load the bases with only one run in.  He did it in the second with Haley getting his brains bashed in.  Trey was finally lifted during another bloodbath in the third, surrendering, officially and mercifully, only seven runs.

Another oddity:  The Indians used a ten-man batting order.  There was no PA, so I just wrote down every name and number as the batters came up, then tried to match them with their positions in the field.  The Indians used ten batters, two of whom did not play a position. They went through this ten-man lineup three times, (with some subs, as noted).

Starting lineup:

Trent Baker  CF  (Timothy Fedroff)
Lonnie Chisenhall  SS
Number 79 (no name)  3B  (Jeremie Tice)
Abner Abreu  RF  (Adam Abraham)
Nathan Recknagel  1B
Darling Read  DH1
Tim Palincsar  LF
Kevin Rucker  DH2
Rolando Petit  C  (Roberto Perez)
Jose Camargo  2B

Curtis Haley  P  (Eric Berger, Francisco Valera, David Roberts)

But a good reporter has to go where the story is, and I think the story isn't the facility or the game score, but the mysterious Number 79, the only Indian not wearing a name.  There was just something about this guy.

Maybe someone can help identify this deep prospect, flying into Goodyear under the radar.  (The complex borders an airport, BTW.)

Here is his first AB:

Note the distinctive batting stance, eerily reminiscent of, um,.....well, somehow reminiscent of something.

Here he is in the field, chatting with the great Lonnie Chisenhall:

Bonus coverage of The Chiz, doubles machine, hitting a hard drive the other way, which landed just foul:

The Mysterious One in the field:

Handling a routine play:

Third AB:

Checking his swing on called strike three:

He played five innings before being replaced by Jeremie Tice.  For the record, he was not pinch hit for, nor was he called upon to sacrifice.

I wonder if we'll see him in an Indians uniform again.  Or did his Tribe career end with a low whimper, called out on strikes in the instructional league?

I realize Bartolomania is sweeping LGT.  But I wonder if a better model for the Sabathia situation may be the Rick Sutcliffe trade of 1984  Mainly, of course, there is the issue of contraction, which immediately makes the Colon trade non-replicable.  But I see some other similarities.

For one, Sutcliffe was also in his walk year (he re-signed with the Cubs after the season) and he was about the same age as CC (27, about to turn 28 at the time of the trade).

Also, and this could be significant, Sutcliffe departed the Tribe as part of a package.  And I don't mean with Tim Drew.  George Frazier, despite the infamy imposed on him in the 1981 World Series, was a pretty decent reliever.  And Ron Hassey was a productive player everywhere he went in his long career.  I have a feeling that the best CC deals out there could involve a larger package, if for no other reason than to protect the acquiring team if CC bolts.

Finally, the Indians were not a bad team in 1984, or at least they had a nucleus of solid players and some prospects on the brink.  After all, the Indian Uprising was right around the corner.  It wasn't a blow-up situation like 2002.  And this can be seen in the incoming players.  Sutcliffe, et. al. didn't bring in prospects that were due to blossom 2-4 years later.  Mel Hall was already a regular in the majors.  Carter had gotten some playing time and would become a regular in 1985 and a star a year later.  I think that's what we're looking for now, a chance to cash in on our nucleus in 2009-2010, rather than an attempt to reload for 2011 and beyond.

I'm not very good at putting together mock trades.  But my conjecture is that we're looking less at Sizemore-Lee-Phillips and more at something along the lines of Hall-Carter.  And it will be for CC plus somebody and somebody else.  (Hassey notwithstanding, I don't think Shoppach is going anywhere.)

When the trade is done, we should know what Shap really thinks of this team.  If we get deep prospects, that means he has given up on the core and we can expect to see Peralta and Garko and Gutz and the like heading out of town.  If he brings in players like Hall and Carter (circa 1984), then he is still committed to the near future.

As much as I despise inter-league play, here it comes.  I know I am not the only recovering Reds fan here, so I self-indulgently put together an all-time team of players who plied their trades at both ends of the Buckeye State.

Please feel free to criticize or remind me of obvious choices I left out.  This mostly comes from memory and unsystematic searching.

My ideal here was to find players who did reasonably well for both teams.  This is not always possible at each position.  In difficult cases, I went with the overall best player.

In any case, a stroll down memory lane.

Continue reading this post »

Maybe others here know more about Chris O'Leary, or have opinions of his work.  But I found this link about his analysis of the mechanics of 20 top young pitchers, as identified in a recent SI piece.

http://www.chrisoleary.com/projects/Baseball/Pitching/RethinkingPitching/Essays/BaseballsTop20YoungP itchers2008.html

Since predicting Fausto's future is a cottage industry here and elsewhere, I thought I'd pass along O'Leary's take:

"2. Fausto Carmona: Carmona's a gangly guy whose mechanics are a bit hard to read as a result (which always makes me cautious). I like the hip/shoulder separation. However, he's showing the ball to Center Field (which is bad for the elbow), his PAS elbow is a little high, and his timing is a bit suspect. Notice how his GS foot is about to plant but his PAS arm isn't vertical. My gut won't let me be very positive about such a flailing, gangly guy. Yes, Bob Gibson flailed around, but after he release the ball."

So you don't have to waste time reading Eric Mack's power rankings like I did, I'll summarize the top four:

1. New York Yankees
They are the YANKEES!  How awesome!  I think I'm in love!

2. Cleveland Indians
Okay, I'll acknowledge they must have had a good year because I just noticed they have the best record in baseball.  But all they did was beat the other Midwestern teams out there in the cornfields.  They are in over their heads against real playoff teams, like the Yankees or Red Sox.

3. Boston Red Sox
Sure, they are a mess right now, but they are the Red Sox and can only be beaten by the Yankees.

4. Los Angeles Angels
You may think they can beat the Yankees, but they can't.  You may even think you remember them beating the Yankees in the post-season, but that is impossible.

I am really looking forward to the actual games.

Thanks, Ryan.

Thanks, Jay.

Bye all, see ya (maybe) next year.  Better things to do now.  There was some promise to this season.  Last year was way cool.  This year, well, the last week won't mean so much.

Mark:  Think about the bullpen, okay?

Say hi to Markos, too.  Viva Las Vegas!  Viva la Stratosphere!