Now [Perez] has regressed to playing catch and isn't eligible to be activated until late June. General Manager Chris Antonetti was asked if Perez had had a setback.

"Our focus is to try and get him back to build his arm strength and progress back to throwing off the mound," said Antonetti. "Now that we have some extra time, we can make sure he's fully ready to go when his DL stay is over."

The Atlantic League is losing its star power.

One day after Felix Pie left to join the Braves’ Triple-A club, Ryan Garko signed a minor league deal with the Rays on Monday.

The 31-year-old Garko was leading the Atlantic League with a 1.219 OPS this season, hitting .450/.535/.683 with four homers and 16 RBI.

Garko was last seen in the majors briefly in 2010, going 3-for-33 with the Rangers. He spent last year in Korea. He had his best season with the Indians in 2007, hitting .289/.359/.483 with 21 homers in 484 at-bats.

On Wednesday, the Cleveland Indians officially placed pitcher Fausto Carmona on the restricted list, which is often used by teams for players who have violated the terms of their contract.

According to Major League Baseball, players that are added to the restricted list do not count towards the team's 25-man roster, but are unable to sign with another team. Players on the restricted list also do not get paid by their team while on the list.

The Tigers are "very close" to a nine-year deal with Prince Fielder, Yahoo's Tim Brown tweets.

Maybe David Stern can step in and stop this deal ...

[Headline edited. Deal is done, per everyone on Twitter.]

One of those good news/bad news type of things.

Tom Hamilton signed a multi-year extension prior to his 23rd (!) season of broadcasting the Indians games.

Perfect.

Cardinals right fielder Lance Berkman has agreed to a one-year contract extension, the team announced on Thursday.

Berkman, 35, has been a standout for the Cardinals this season, ranking among National League leaders in home runs (31), slugging percentage (.555), on-base percentage (.412) and batting average (.300), while playing a solid outfield.

sadface

Klaw put himself in the news lately by trashing the upcoming Moneyball movie. Barbs from the interested parties went back and forth. One of which, was calling Keith a hypocrite for defending traditional scouting. This compelled Keith to share a lot about his time in Toronto and how his mindset has evolved. I found it interesting.

Relevant to Indians fans interests:

About two years, two-and-a-half years after that-- so 2004, 2005-- it became pretty clear to me that we were failing. And this was one of the major reasons I left Toronto. There were a couple-- that's a topic for another day-- but, it wasn't working. The stat-heavy approach was... we were basically two steps behind. What we were trying to do was what Oakland had been doing around 2000 or so, and the Red Sox and the Cardinals and the Padres and one or two other clubs-- Cleveland-- they were pretty clearly adopting some of these same methods. And we were left in the situation-- kind of a similar situation to where we were before we even got there, which was that we weren't innovating fast enough, and the market had become too competitive for the limited type of player we were going for.

It really became apparent to me in the draft room. I remember Tony LaCava-- who is still there, who is Alex Anthopoulos's right-hand man in Toronto-- independently had realized the same thing, which was we were killing ourselves, especially in the draft, because we would only take college players with "acceptable" stats. And that's such a narrow pool, especially when five or six teams are all going for the same type of player. You get to the third or fourth round and you're done. There's nobody on the board you think could even be an average regular in the big leagues.

::bow:: ::bow::

Sal has won the manager of the year in his first year managing at the Double-A level for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Toronto).

I'd love to see Sal manage a team in the MLB one day. Great guy.

Not really news, but it's an off day and I guess this is the official kickoff of the trade season..

Rodriguez has a contract clause that guarantees him $17.5 million in 2012 if he finishes 55 games this year. K-Rod is currently on a pace to finish more than 60, though he may not get ample chances to do that with the Brewers.

Chalk up another closer that gets screwed by the 'games finished' clause.

Somewhere Craig Breslow is smiling.

Some scientists ran studies to determine the effect of certain conditions on the flight of a baseball.

1. Corking a bat has no noticeable effect on increasing the flight of a ball. Although it may help a hitter make contact more often.

2. They took balls from many different seasons and there was no definitive proof of any being 'juiced'

3. Humidity (or using a Humidor to store balls) can have a significant effect on the flight of a ball. Even a small increase in humidity (30 percent to 50 percent) can shorten the total length of a batted ball.

Pretty interesting article about the best contact hitters in baseball history. One of which is a former Indian.

2 - Joe Sewell (62.56 AB)

As a member of the Cleveland Indians from 1920 to 1931, Sewell proved to be one of the toughest batters in baseball to strike out. He never struck out more than 20 times in a season, and recorded double-digit strikeouts only four times in his career (1921-1924). Although they marked the two lowest batting averages seasons in his career (.272 and .273, respectively), the final two years of his career were remarkable from a contact hitters perspective. As a member of the New York Yankees, Sewell made 1,182 plate appearances (1,027 AB) in 1932 and 1933, during which he only struck out seven times. During that two-year stretch, Sewell's at-bat to strike out ratio was an amazing 147-to-1. Sewell was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as a member of the class of 1977.

Also interesting that the best current player is Juan Pierre.

Nothing terribly new or interesting, but something to read if you are bored.

Here's an additional feature about Tim Belcher in my local paper: Belcher gives steady hand to young pitchers

A really great recap of the 1986 season and how it may have saved our franchise. I wasn't a fan of the Tribe in the 80's (grew up a Pete Rose fan), so this was a bit of a revelation to me.

Might come in handy for you down the road. Would be nice if it allowed you to hotlink to certain results.

Barely news. Looks like a domestic issue.

- Compressed schedule
- 7 game series for first round
- adding wildcard teams

Other notes:

Players will seek changes in the arbitration process (especially concerning Super 2 status)

Maybe you are tired of these types of articles that attempts to dissect the psyche of our tragic little sports town, but I think this will be one of the best you have ever read on the topic.

Andy Marte is back and Matt LaPorta is headed to Class AAA Columbus.

The Indians announced today that infielder Marte has been activated from the disabled list. He was placed on the disabled list on May 15 with an infected ingrown hair on his stomach.

LaPorta was hitting .218 (26-119) with four doubles, one homer and seven RBI in 35 games. He was coming of surgery on his left big toe and left hip in the offseason.

This off-season, the broadcast-tech company Sportvision will install a new player-tracking four-camera system into ballparks that could finally help produce accurate defensive statistics.

I like BS and xBS the best.

* Arrive at the ballpark no later than one hour prior to the scheduled start time;
* Double-check and verify all pre-game information: rosters, umpires, weather conditions, etc.;
* During the game, enter the results of every pitch and game event (plays, substitutions, etc.) using our proprietary software and coding language;
* Work closely with our game-night support staff (via AOL Instant Messenger) to ensure proper scoring of all game events and accuracy of data;
* After the game, enter all post-game information: winning and losing pitcher, saves, holds, time and attendance
* Validate all stats in software box score against the official box score provided by the Official Scorer, and print out a final box score and game text for the club PR staff

Qualifications include:

* Previous experience (including pressbox exposure) with a professional or college sports team, preferably baseball;
* Exceptional (and demonstrable) knowledge of baseball and how to score a baseball game;
* Strong computer proficiency (Windows OS and Windows-based software) and the ability to quickly learn and operate new software;
* Regular availability to attend games in-person as required by the schedule: weekdays, nights and weekends;
* A "team player" with a great attitude, including but not limited to a willingness to make and learn from mistakes and the ability to work closely and cooperatively (and take direction from) our game-night staff;
* Professionalism. It's a fun job and we pay people to watch baseball, but it's also an important job and we want people who will take the responsibility seriously.

If I wasn't busy being a neurosurgeon, I would totally jump on this.

C: Joe Mauer, Twins
1B: Mark Teixeira, Yankees
2B: Placido Polanco, Tigers
3B: Evan Longoria, Rays
SS: Derek Jeter, Yankees
OF: Torii Hunter, Angels
OF: Adam Jones, Orioles
OF: Ichiro Suzuki, Mariners
P: Mark Buehrle, White Sox

Gosling, Romero, and Scott Lewis were outrighted. Click the link for more details.