The wonderful Tony Lastoria has been putting up his "winter haven diaries" over at theclevelandfan.com, and in addition to mentioning that Weglarz was finally in camp with Olympic baseball qualifying over -- USA gets an automatic berth, in case anybody was wondering, and Canada finished first in the qualifying -- he posted this wonderful video of a near brawl between the Japanese Taiwanese and Canadian Olympic qualifying teams:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeBOk-UxX5U&feature=related

Weglarz is #33, and you can glimpse him a couple times right there in the middle of the fracas. Watching this, I can't believe how big he is already. The kid just turned 20, and in the few highlights I saw of him last year he still looked like a teenager, but in this video he's practically Thome-sized. He's going to be a freaking monster.

Oh, and I didn't even mention that he led all hitters in HR (3) and SLG (.950(!)) in the qualifying.

In-laws out of town, kid safely past her birthday, and hopefully no crises between now and 7pm that will keep me from going out and finally meeting up with you guys.

I suggested Toons in the last Chicago diary, how's everybody feel about that?

...And to fill out the diary, how about some statistically likely fake band names?

Mercury Prefab
Your Oar
Time Limits
Turkey Count
Berry Monkey
Thump Buffer
Glazer
Liege Axis Cocky
Cropper Scholastic
Manufacturing Congressman
Glossary Neurosis
Promoter Vile
Drapery Disband
Merchants Lithograph
Reworking Mossy
Abominable Quadratic
Lambert Derby
Shiners
Braid Amphibian
Balsam Blazers Irregulars
Surround
Minefield Boo
Pervert Ink
Both Terminologies
King
Blushing Agency
Hologram
Mongoose Reap
Abatement Extravagant
Design Needles
Messiest Jostle
Soluble Conference

Stephanie Storm, in a post on her blog, speculates that the reason for Laffey's continued unknown whereabouts is that the Indians are simply waiting to see if Fernando Cabrera clears waivers:

So what's taking so long? If the Indians didn't start the process with Cabrerra until Monday, they have to wait until the end of Wednesday to see if he was claimed or can be sent to Buffalo to begin the rebuilding process.

Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? It could be that the FO figured Cabrera would be claimed right away, but it didn't happen, and now they simply have to wait out the full 48 or 72 hours (I forget how long the waiver period is) before they make the move.

Note also that this could actually be happening with Stanford, not Cabrera, as they're both in the same situation (IE, out of options and not really making themselves useful on the 25-man).

The hidden good news here could be that we get to keep whichever of those pitchers is on waivers, which I think we all thought we'd lose.

Abdominal strains : Indians :: Staph infections : Browns.

This time it's Cliff Lee. AC just mentions it in passing so hopefully it's not a big deal (last paragraph):

http://mlb.mlb.com/content/printer_friendly/cle/y2007/m03/d01/c1821265.jsp

Hopefully not related to the sports hernia Cliff had a few years ago.

The last few months local and national press have really been talking up the Indians medical staff, and they've definitely done a great job with the pitchers, but on the other hand we seem to get 2 or 3 of these a year. CC, Blake, and Crowe all had one last year, IIRC.

On the other hand the "abdominal strain" might just be the new "flu-like symptoms", and Cliff maybe just went on a bender.

ABJ article:

Center fielder Trevor Crowe's left ankle was being tended to in the trainer's room, after the Tribe's No. 1 pick (14th overall) in the 2005 draft was carried off the field after sliding awkwardly into second on a stolen base.

So our three best hitters at Akron (Aubrey, Kouzmanoff, Crowe) all appear to be made of glass. Perfect.

I think Peralta's defense has exposed a pretty serious shortcoming in the front office's strategy.

Just anecdotally, even apart from last night's error, you can see that Peralta is simply not a good defensive shortstop -- maybe not even an average one. And that obviously prompted the deal for AstroCab, who by all accounts is a plus-plus defender at either MI position, although he is at least a year, maybe two, away from the big-league roster.

Additionally, Marte is clearly a subpar defender at 3rd. I have not had a chance to watch him and I know error totals are far, far from the whole story, but he's making an error about once every four games. That's bad, folks.

A left side of the infield featuring Marte and Peralta would be a disaster defensively.

So what do you do? The only other position Peralta has played with any regularity besides SS is 3B. Move him to 3B, where he is at least less of a liability than he is at SS, and where do you put Marte? 1B being Garko's spot next season (I believe he's earned it, and they're both RH batters, and from what I've read Garko would be a better glove at first), the only real option is LF.

So now you've at least minimized the defensive problems in the infield, but that leaves two gaping holes at SS and 2B. I believe starting in 2008 AstroCab and Eider Torres could make a pretty nice MI combo (with the gloves at least, I doubt either will hit much at the major league level) but it would take some serious dealing by Shapiro to fill the middle infield for next year.

So what is the problem with the FO's strategy that I mentioned above? They have, at every opportunity, placed a premium on finding the best offense possible at each position, while almost completely ignoring defense. We have heard this argument in defense (so to speak) of keeping Martinez, Peralta, and Marte at their positions, even to the point of giving up a plus defender in Crisp to obtain Marte. Yes, Martinez's bat at C probably outweighs the cost of the steals he gives up, and yes, Peralta's offense (which I am not worried about in the long run) makes him a valuable shortstop.

But the problem with this analysis is that it looks at each of these cases on an individual basis, and what we're seeing is that defensive problems at multiple positions can combine and multiply and amplify each other -- and can clearly have adverse effects on our pitching, as we've seen recently with CC, Byrd, and last night, Lee.

So Shapiro has backed himself into a corner with this roster, and he needs to find a way to add some defensive prowess to it for next year. The only obviously open spot to do this is 2B, and I am sure they are hoping AstroCab's bat is good enough that they can carry him in this position. But even if that works out, the left side of the infield is still another defensive disaster waiting to happen unless he gets creative.