Clevelander17

I was a cautious Weeden supporter last year. I now feel confident in saying that he is not "The Guy." This team is no more "doomed" now than they were before the season started. The defense is solid and the offense has some individual bright points, so they're going to win some more games in spite of Weeden. I just think he's a liability and if we really thought that this team could sneak into the playoffs by winning a weaker than expect AFC North, he'll play a role in preventing that from happening.

I think some of the above posters (KJP, 8Titles) nailed it. We know what Weeden can do and in my opinion this team will be luck to get to 7 wins with him now. We don't know what Hoyer could have done, but I would have liked to have seen him get his shot for a full season. Even if the team did worse with him at the helm, the franchise could move on. I think that's why many fans were frustrated to hear that he is out for the season.

Nationally, some will probably write off last night's win as an unnecessary close call, but Northwestern is legit and only going to get better as long as FitzGerald is coaching them. And Ohio State could see them again in Indianapolis in December.

I'm not incredibly optimistic about "next season," particularly considering the uncertainty surrounding the roster and tightwad Dolan who still can't/won't spend like Illitch does in Detroit. Then of course there's Bill James (father of Sabermetrics) and one of his oldest rules: "When a team improves sharply one season they will almost always decline in the next." That describes the Indians almost perfectly right now (and in fact it's precisely what happened with this franchise in 2006 and 2008).

If this were the NBA or NFL and our team were just sneaking in to the postseason, I'd be less optimistic. However baseball is different, especially considering MLB's asinine playoff format. Teams like the Tribe have almost as good a shot at winning it all as teams that played better during the regular season...it's the old crapshoot theory, and it's worth getting excited over.

Beides Detroit barely scraping by to win the AL Central, the other thing that frustrates me about how this has played out is that the Indians wouldn't even have to go through Tampa Bay a few years back when winning the Wild Card meant not having to play a silly play-in game (which is what this is, no matter what they want to call it).

The Bengals were favored to win the AFC North and the Browns just beat them today...making them look fairly mediocre in the process. I know it's still early and maybe I'm still high from what the Indians have done, but this division looks like it's wide open and the Browns look like they could really make a run. There is not a complete/dominant team in the division.

This is sort of good news for MLB. If this game were in Tampa (which seemed likely just a few days ago), there would be about 10,000 fans in attendance...and half of them would be wearing Boston Red Sox gear.

I probably shouldn't mention this because we're all excited now, but Detroit lost today meaning if the Indians beat Minnesota the Tigers will win the AL Central by...1 game. Maybe Detroit rolled over a bit down the stretch, but either way with how the Tribe have played in the past few weeks it really is a shame that they couldn't have been more competitive in their head-to-head series with the Tigers.

Scenarios where Indians go straight home to host wildcard game on Wednesday: -Indians win, Rangers win, Rays win (~12.5%) -Indians lose, Rangers lose, Rays lose (~12.5%) -Indians win, Rangers lose, Rays lose (~12.5%) -Indians win, Rangers win, Rays lose (~12.5%) -Indians lose, Rangers win, Rays lose (~12.5%) -Indians win, Rangers lose, Rays win (~12.5%) Three-way tie scenario: -Indians lose, Rangers win, Rays win (~12.5%) Scenario where Indians head to straight to Tampa for wildcard game on Wednesday: -Indians lose, Rangers lose, Rays win (~12.5%) Obviously I made up those percentages, so they're somewhat meaningless because of differences due to starting pitcher strength, location of game, and actual variations in team strength (i.e. the Rays are truly a better team than the Jays). However I think these numbers are in the ballpark, especially if you believe like I do that any single MLB game is pretty much a coin-flip. The situation is this: Of the 8 possible outcomes in the various win-loss scenarios today, 6 of them (about 75%, assuming the coin-flip principle) lead to the Indians hosting the wildcard game on Wednesday directly without playing any games between now and then.

Funny, I was kind of thinking the same thing. Unfortunately because there are so many possible combinations for what might happen it's hard to say what would be the best decision to make without seeing the probabilities. Maybe if I'm bored later I'll try to figure out. I think there is roughly a 60-65% chance that Indians will get to host Wednesday's wildcard game without playing any other games in between. I don't think that starting someone other than Ubaldo today changes that equation much. The difference is this: Win today and you clinch that scenario and hosting the wildcard game, but lose today and you run the reasonable risk of having to go on the road for that Wednesday game, PLUS possibly having to play another game between then and now.

It's technically considered the playoffs, I believe...but as far as I'm concerned the playoffs start Friday in Boston. I just hope the Indians are there to play the Red Sox.

Yes, this whole system is pretty confusing, but what the Tribe clinched today is a guarantee of playing a 163rd game.

I actually really like the idea of using Masterson out of the pen as a "bullpen ace," coming in in tight situations to give the team up two or three innings. He gives them much more value than your typical closer in that type of a role. This is probably not the time or place to start this discussion, but the traditional, by-the-book closer's role is incredibly overrated and really not getting the most out of a good arm if you have one. If Francona is going to put Masterson in the bullpen from here on out, then there's no reason why he can't be used as needed before the ninth inning if necessary and for multiple innings if necessary.

There has been talk in recent years of splitting D-III because the division is gigantic and a chunk of the schools (the UWs, for instance, I believe) stress athletic success more than others. The other problem that exists, as I've heard it from those affiliated with D-III schools, is that certain schools lower their entrance standards for football players and are very creative in how they dole out financial aid. I won't mention any names, but one of the schools I've been told about that does this is located in Ohio. ;) But when this is happening, it destroys parity even further, particularly when most D-III schools legitimately are in the division because they have de-emphasized athletics.

Jason Futhermucking Giambi!

Look, this area is a mess, one of the most blighted areas of Cleveland Heights. I don't know what the long-term plan is or should be, but CH (and EC, which has bigger fish to fry) has let it go for far too long. Here's another radical idea if CH/EC can get rid a significant portion of those buildings: Close off Superior north of Mayfield and extend the park/recreation area west. There are a lot of advantages to this idea.

If it devalues an "achievement" by teams that had, at best, the third and fourth best regular season records in their respective leagues, I think that's a good thing. These teams should consider themselves fortunate--there was a time when that type of a regular season record would earn them nothing more than a great seat on the couch watching the postseason on television. All expanded playoff schemes since 1994, including these best-of-one and -five game nonsense series, have devalued the importance of MLB's regular season.

I hope not, but my guess would be that some of them may be on the list because of decay and vacancy. I believe Hts121 gave us a bit of history on these apartments a few months back and pointed out that these buildings are actually of lower quality than some of the other older apartment buildings around Cleveland Heights. They may not be salvageable at this point.

All of those expansion teams have had success...heck two of them have won championships more recently than our Tribe. That said, for a variety of reasons, MLB's expansion into Florida has been bumpy to say the least. Maybe they need to move one of the franchises elsewhere and just leave one team for Florida that rotates home games between Miami, Tampa, and perhaps Orlando. Another idea would be to move one of those teams to San Juan or Havana (pretending politics don't matter or won't matter soon). Maybe there really aren't enough cities to logistically spread 32 MLB teams around North America. I'm just kind of daydreaming here because I really don't like the current setup.

I hope he can siphon off some votes from Kasich, but I'm skeptical.

So the release says that 60 properties will be demolished...can anyone estimate about how many total properties exist in that Triangle? I've previously said that I'd like to see the entire area flattened and redeveloped. I don't have any specific ideas, but I have to believe that something decent (mixed-use?) could be put in if that area were given a fresh start. The proximity to University Circle and Coventry has to be an attractive asset, right? Or if that's a pipe dream, then the old adage of "addition by subtraction" seems applicable here, because for Cleveland Heights, that is one of its biggest trouble spots.

It was actually only a five game series for the divisional round. In reality, the postseason series that MLB plays to determine which team is "superior" are far too short for a sport like baseball...it's completely incongruent with the nature of the game and the length of the regular season.

The Indians have been to the playoffs six times since the new division format was introduced in 1994, each time as AL Central Champions. I think they're going to make their first postseason appearance as a Wild Card this year with the way the last games set up for all teams involved. I guess at this point we need to hope that they can get that top spot and make sure that one-off game is played at The Jake. FYI, I'm not opposed to having a playoff amongst Wild Card winners, I just don't like it being only one game. In reality, I'd like to see MLB expand by two teams (Charlotte? Mexico City? Portland? Indianapolis?) and go to two 16 team leagues (four divisions of four teams each). Give each division champion a playoff spot and have two wild card spots in each league. Then have the two wild card teams play the two division winners in each league with the worst records in a best-of-three game series. I think that would be better than the current odd setup that they have.

Yep. The Tribe's schedule down the stretch is far and away the easiest of any team fighting for the last wild card spot.