The AP is reporting that the Indians have picked up the options on Paul Bryd ($7.5M), Joe Borowski ($4M), and Aaron Fultz ($1.5M).

Byrd still hasn't met with MLB officials about his HGH use, but it's expected that this will happen soon.

Link

From the AP:

BOSTON (AP) -- That's Fausto, like oust-o.

And like one of their supposed aces, the Cleveland Indians could soon be kicked out of the postseason.

Maybe they should be. Because the pitiful-playing squad that showed up Saturday night for Game 6 of the AL championship series at Fenway Park doesn't deserve to go anywhere else this October but home.

Fausto Carmona, Cleveland's No. 1A starter, couldn't get past the third inning and the Indians, once in control of this series, missed their second chance at securing a spot in the World Series with a 12-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night.

The Indians were bad, and then some. Instead of clinching a sixth trip to the Series -- and first since 1997 -- they looked more like the fictional version of themselves from the film Major League.

Was that Willie Mays Hayes and Roger Dorn out there?

By the third inning, Aaron Laffey was on the mound for Cleveland.

Laffey. For the Red Sox it was.

The Indians made two errors -- on consecutive plays -- and Travis Hafner went 0-for-4 and is now batting .130 (3-for-23) with 10 strikeouts, eight in the past three games. The way Hafner's flailing, you'd think Cleveland's DH was covered with those infamous midges off Lake Erie.

Just like fellow 19-game winner C.C. Sabathia in Game 5, Carmona failed to get the job done, and now the Indians need Jake Westbrook to bail them out in Game 7 or they'll join that long list of Cleveland sports teams who collapsed with a championship at their fingertips.

Is it me or does this seem unusually harsh?

I was at the game tonight. Sat behind three guys from New York. They were pumped about Joba, couldn't stop talking about him in fact. It was pretty annoying and they eventually they shut up (albeit begrudgingly) but not before I learned two facts I thought I should pass along.

After seeing his first 14 innings the Baseball Writers Association of America held a secret meeting and voted Joba into the Hall of Fame. He keeps keeps his acceptance letter in his back pocket when he pitches.

Joba is so intense when he pitches that he craps diamonds afterwards. These diamonds are stored in a satchel made from the hides of his strikeout victims. The diamonds are going to finance A-Rod's new contract.

Anyone else hear anything about Joba?  
 

I was browsing the ESPN.com page for the Indians-Yankees series tonight when I saw a sidebar for scouting reports from Inside Edge. I followed the link and found myself in a world of player profiles with things like "Chase % of non-competitive pitches" and "Strikeout % of PAs that reach two strikes". There are also breakdowns of pitching performances.

I'm not going to vouch for the validity of the information, but the service is free (as far as I can tell) and it's a fun way to spend a few minutes. Maybe people have seen the site before and this is old news, but I hadn't seen it and figured it would be worth passing along.

The data is only from this year and there is nothing that indicates an archive of previous seasons.

Update [2007-10-2 10:33:39 by osoc13]: In order to access the site for free I think you must enter it through ESPN, so here's the link to that page. Look under Scouting Reports -> Inside Edge http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2007/series?series=nyycle

Also, in Kurkjian's preview of the series he has the Yankees winning in five. In the box with all the baseball writers' picks he has the Indians winning in five. Way to cover all your bases there, Kurkjian.

SI.com just broke the story. Apparently between September 2003 and May 2004 Troy Glaus received numerous shipments of steroids to his house in California.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/09/07/drug.probe/index.html

This just a few hours after reports that Rick Ankiel used HGH. Not exactly the best day in baseball.

In a diary a few months ago I brought up this idea. But since the influx of new visitors to this site, as well as the addition of a new player who will likely be platooning the rest of the season, I figured I'd raise the idea again.

Why not platoon the lineup?

I offer a full explanation of what this means here:

http://disappointmentzone.wordpress.com

But for those who may remember the last time I brought this up, what I've written on my blog is a more detailed, better reasoned, version of what I wrote here.

Cheers.

As has been pointed out elsewhere on this site, through three games with Minnesota the Indians have scored 10 runs, eight of which are the result of home runs. For a rough explaination as to why this is a horrible sign for the Indians with respect to how often they win (assuming the organization cares about such things anymore), check out my blog:

http://disappointmentzone.wordpress.com

The post is short and direct, but if you don't feel like reading it, here is the conclusion: If we played like this all season we'd be half as bad as the Royals and by far one of the worst teams in history.

Go Tribe!

I just spent the past hour looking over the this season and last season. In particular, the margins of victory and defeat. A lot of people have jumped on the Indians pitching staff and, for the most part, this is reasonable. But further analysis of the numbers reveals some interesting findings, which I get into in a bit of detail over at my webpage

http://disappointmentzone.wordpress.com/

The post is too long to put here but I can say this much: Last season's problem winning very close games hasn't disappeared, it's just been hidden under a profound layer of terrible losses. If you are interested, check it out. Cheers.

Although it's going to kill my fantasy team, Pujols is expected to go on the for a while with a strained oblique muscle, according to ESPN.com. It also means that when the Indians play the Cardnals in a few weeks, they could be without the best hitter in baseball. Which would certainly help our prospects of, you know, winning a game or two.

In the meantime, it's probably worth getting our best hitter ready to play in that series. St. Louis without Pujols will be nothing if we don't have Hafner.

The Indians lost a nail-biter today against division rival Chicago, 11-0. Jim Thome had two home runs and the entire Indians lineup had two hits. Good times.

Let's look at the facts. Through 50 games the Indians have a record of 24-26, and since starting the season 6-1 they are 18-25. The Indians trail the White Sox by nine games and the Tigers by 10.5 games and, if the Twins win tonight, will be tied for fourth place in the AL Central. The longest winning streak of the season is six games, which happened once. The next longest streak is four games, which happened once. Five times this season the Indians have lost three games in a row. Only twice have the Indians won three games in a row.

Here are some more facts: Our home run leader, Travis Hafner, has 14 home runs and bats fourth. The next two guys on the team home run leader board, Grady Sizemore and Casey Blake, each have nine homers. But Sizemore bats exclusively in the first hole and Blake bats almost exclusively at the bottom of the order, so Sizemore and Blake are in a position to drive in the bottom of our order, which routinely features some combination of Belliard (batting .273), Boone (batting .278), and Blake (batting .335). One might say that first base platoon of Broussard and Perez, who have a combined 12 home runs, are actually our second leading home run hitters, which is a fair assessment. This platoon usually bats sixth.

The spacing of our top home run hitters in the lineup is curious. The two biggest threats bat fourth and sixth. The next two biggest threats bat first and somewhere between seventh and ninth. And unusual as it may sound, our four home run threats (Broussard and Perez counting as one) are also our leading hitters with respect to average and on-base percentage.

Traditionally the powerful section of a lineup (the `meat of the order') is the third through fifth batters. But only one of our power bats hits in one of these spots.

Even more unusual is our third hitter, Jhonny Peralta, since the third spot is often reserved for a team's best hitter. Jhonny Peralta is the worst hitter of any starter, by a considerable margin. Batting Peralta third every game is, well, bizarre.

What would be a better lineup? Here is one man's suggestion (again, free of charge for Eric Wedge), for left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers (stats against handedness of pitcher).

Against lefties:

1. Aaron Boone--Has speed and a good eye at the plate. Hits lefties fairly well. .343/.418/.500
   
2. Jhonny Peralta-- Can only hit lefties, and more powerful than Michaels. .289/.365/.395
   
3. Victor Martinez--Switch-hitter who hits left-handed pitchers best. .320/.407/.493
   
4. Travis Hafner--Self-evident. Power and surprisingly good against lefties. .321/.439/.642
   
5. Eduardo Perez--Best regular player against lefties. .343/.375/.761
   
6. Jason Michaels--Was brought in to hit lefties and is fairly adept at it. .282/.341/.462
   
7. Grady Sizemore--Batted .245 against lefties last season and this season is worse. .238/.287/.400
   
8. Casey Blake--Below-average hitter against lefties. .263/.382/.509
   
9. Ronnie Belliard--Has the fewest strikeouts (17) of any starter, which means that he's able to make contact and move a runner over, which is about all one should expect from a ninth hitter. .234/.258/.344

Against righties:

1. Ronnie Belliard--Belliard is like Blake in that he hits righties better than lefties. Plus he doesn't strike out much. .296/.356/.352
   
2. Casey Blake--Only Broussard hits righties better than Blake. .373/.440/.618
   
3. Grady Sizemore--He's the best left-handed hitter against righties. .336/.409/.595
   
4. Travis Hafner--Really, this guy should only hit cleanup. .308/.448/.615
   
5. Ben Broussard--Best hitter against righties, plus can be taken out for Perez should the opposing team put in a leftie. .400/.440/.610
   
6. Victor Martinez--Doesn't hit righties well but can switch-hit, which is valuable. .276/.333/.439
   
7. Jason Michaels--Batting seventh is about right for a player like Michaels. .269/.327/.298
   
8. Aaron Boone--Can barely hit lefties. .250/.312/.320
   
9. Jhonny Peralta--Can't hit lefties. .229/.324/.347

It is the knowledgeable and adaptable manager who is willing to recognize that where a player should bat in a lineup should be mostly a function of the handedness of the starting pitcher, the power of the batter, and the ability of the lineup to adjust if the handedness of the pitcher changes during the game--in that order.

Right now our lineup addresses these factors--if at all--in something approximating reverse order. The top of our order goes left, right, right, left, switch, switch. This is a good construction if your focus is on how your lineup is suited to face relief pitching. I've already explained how our lineup is constructed almost without regard for the power of our hitters. And since Eric Wedge (like most managers) relies on one lineup with a few movable pieces, there is practically no consideration for the handedness of the starting pitcher (Sizemore always bats first, Peralta always bats third, etc).

Our lineup should reflect the handedness of the best pitchers we'll face as well as the handedness of the pitchers we'll most likely face. Since starters are the best pitchers (usually) and since starters pitch most of the innings, we should adjust our lineup according to the handedness of the starting pitcher.

Pitchers have the upper hand by a considerable margin (only elite hitters can dream that they'll get on base close to half of the time they come to bat; the rest fail surprisingly often) over batters. A manager shouldn't try to dictate his lineup to the pitcher. He should construct a lineup that best suits his team for the pitcher they are facing.

The Indians have a great offense, so this post might be met with skepticism, but consider that the Indians have scored three or fewer runs 14 times this season and have gone 5-9 in those games, and that we have only one starting pitcher with an ERA below 5. We are scoring a lot of runs, but that doesn't mean we can't score more runs. And with our pitching staff, scoring more runs might be the only way the Indians will win game.

http://jwitmer.googlepages.com/disappointmentzone

I've started a blog for all of those tired of seeing Jeff Datz screw up and who want to see him gone.

How many more runners are we going to leave dangling under the guidance of Jeff Datz?

How many more outs are we going to give to opposing pitchers?

How many more RBIs are we going to deny our hitters?

This can't stand. Please, come take a look and contribute. We need each other in these tough times.

http://firejeffdatz.blogspot.com/