The guy barely gets on base.....Wow.  You proved your baseball knowledge w/that statement. 

Maybe Strap and gotribe should manage the tribe.  Let's make changes to a squad thats 30 - 16 with two of our best players on the DL.  SMART. 

I just wasted 5 minutes of my life checking on statistics of all 2B in mlb. OC rates in the middle to the top of the lower third in pretty much every offensive category. I think the bottom line is he is certainly a slightly below average 2B, but I think the thought he is "killing us" in any way is a pretty big reach. And while its obviously a position that needs upgrading, I think adding another 22 year old player to such a young team when they are competing for a playoff spot probably isn't the best answer. We certainly need a veteran or two on this club. No doubt phelps or kipinis will be manning that position next year. But I'll be pretty surprised (though I wouldn't say shocked) if they made a move this year.

Yeah, i know it's just armchair managing (no harm in that!), but stay tuned, because I'm guessing there will be some changes in the not too distant future...

 

The guy barely gets on base.....Wow.  You proved your baseball knowledge w/that statement. 

 

OBP below .300 is really, really bad.  Taking walks is an integral part of scoring runs.

I spent a little while defending O-Cab on this thread a couple weeks ago.  Since then, his bat has been completely missing.  He was batting around .280 at that time.  What is he now, down to around .260 (just checked, .263)?  And his OBP is atrocious (.290, worst on the team for starting players...only Travis Buck and Shelly Duncan are worse), so I'd say it's fair to say he barely gets on base.  His slugging percentage is not good, either.

of the 22 "regular" 2b in mlb, he ranks 16 in OBP which is his lowest category. He's average to just below average in every other category... except for rbi in which he is 6th out of 22. I think expecting someone getting their first taste of the big leagues would be hard pressed to do as well as OC. I mean, Santana is one of the best hitting prospects to come through our system in about 15 years and look at how hard the transition has been for him. very few rookies come up and just rake. hardly any. He is easily our best option for a contending team right now.

 

Add: this doesn't mean I am a huge fan of him... just that he's not "that" bad and no way do I want another rookie on this club right now. And I don't think f*cking with the team chemistry for a team that is 30-16 is too wise.

Yeah, i know it's just armchair managing (no harm in that!), but stay tuned, because I'm guessing there will be some changes in the not too distant future...

 

The guy barely gets on base.....Wow.  You proved your baseball knowledge w/that statement. 

 

OBP below .300 is really, really bad.  Taking walks is an integral part of scoring runs.

 

I was just going to say, his OBP is very low.  I never said he is not the best second baseman we have.  But we are very weak in that category.

I am not so concerned about OC's bat though.  Rightfield and 1st base is where you should be concerned if they are not producing at the plate (Choo, Laporta and Santana).  It's just that he appears timid playing 2nd base. 

Not a good start to this game.

Ive been saying all ff season that mitch talbot stinks.  He is a cross between Carl Pavano and Scott Elarton.  He started last year good, but the second half got smacked around.  Alex White should undoubtedly take his spot when healthy.

Ouch that hurt. I went down to lunch at the Flat Iron before the game and we were running a little late so the game had started while we waited for the shuttle. When we got on the bus Ryan the owner who was driving, was like like are you sure you want to go up? it's 7-0. The highlight of the game for me was almost catching a t-shirt and the fact that Matt Fish from Melt was sitting in the next section over. I think that Acta was trying to get out of that mess using as few as pitchers as possible, because that is all you can do at that point. It didn't help that Hermann looked like he was throwing batting practice for 2 innings too. Oh well. That was a weak line up against the BoSox and Talbot was coming off the DL. If they get swept by Tampa then I will be alarmed. We need to get some people healthy and back into the line up.

 

Nice crowd for  a weekday afternoon game even if it was infested with Red Sox fans.....It was hot too. I was sticking to my seat..

of the 22 "regular" 2b in mlb, he ranks 16 in OBP which is his lowest category. He's average to just below average in every other category... except for rbi in which he is 6th out of 22. I think expecting someone getting their first taste of the big leagues would be hard pressed to do as well as OC. I mean, Santana is one of the best hitting prospects to come through our system in about 15 years and look at how hard the transition has been for him. very few rookies come up and just rake. hardly any. He is easily our best option for a contending team right now.

 

Add: this doesn't mean I am a huge fan of him... just that he's not "that" bad and no way do I want another rookie on this club right now. And I don't think f*cking with the team chemistry for a team that is 30-16 is too wise.

 

FWIW, as much as Santana's been struggling, he's been much more productive at the plate than Santana O-Cab, despite their RBI differential.  I readily admit that the Tribe brass knows more than I do about this and there's a reason they are starting O-Cab, but there seems to be buzz by folks who follow this closely that Phelps will be up here soon and will start taking playing time away from O-Cab.  I have nothing personally against O-Cab, but he's below average both at the plate and defensively, so it's only normal to want to upgrade at that position.  Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

 

Will also be interesting to see what kind of leash Talbot is on given how well McAllister's been pitching at Columbus.  I know he was good before today's stinker, but as BelievelanD1 mentioned, Talbot's been showing bad signs since last year...

 

I love this team, I want them to do well, and I'm excited by some of the other kids we have so should be fun to see what happens. 

Sizemore should be returning soon which will be a welcome addition to the lineup.  However this team is going to have to look very hard at adding a right-handed bat before the trading deadline and maybe also a starting pitcher.

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/other/baseball/article434064.ece

Nice article.  I love reading all of these positive write-ups about the Tribe in other city's papers.

Tough game yesterday - especially rough since I was there with my buddy and his out of town family - but what can you do. Sh!t happens.

Boy, when there's no postings in the Indians thread in five days, and the team has played every one of those days, you know it hasn't been a good five days. Hey at least they won one game in there.... But they are 1-5 in their last six games, and 4-7 in their last 11 games.

If you don't mind slowing down the bandwagon, I might want to jump off..... at least until after the all-star break.

Or until Hafner comes back.

This is more like it.  Good pitching and good hitting.

And good defense. It was good to have it back after some poorly played paid games on defense, offense and pitching.

Yeah, Hannahan and Laporta should both make the plays of the week on ESPN (and Hannahan maybe twice).

Hannahan has some ups. That one that he snagged from over his head was pretty impressive.

 

That was a good win from a confidence standpoint. I read the PD write up on it and Acta pointed out if they win tonight they will be .500 on the road trip, which is always good.

Go Tribe.

Wow, the offense is really tearing it up tonight.  They must be happy I bought tickets for Sunday's game about an hour ago.

Those two errors were pretty funny to see, and even more was the crowd erupting in cheer at the catch of the fly ball after the two fly ball errors.

2/3 from the jays - hopefully they are back on track!

times are bad

Ughhhh...well, that's baseball for ya.  This team can suck it up and get back on track, or slink down to the level of play at which all outsiders expect from them.  C'mon Tribe!

suck it up

 

Orlando Cabrera is sure sucking it up.  I am now fully on the "Replace OCab" bandwagon.

^He's in Josh Barfield territory now (minus the speed).  I tend to think "chemistry" is overrated anyway, but now they're not even winning, so the inevitable shake-up can't come fast enough.  Free Cord Phelps!

So Orlando Cabrera is the sole reason the tribe sucks now? Hmmm.  Might as well replace Hannahan, Kearns, Choo, Carmona, and LaPorta while we're at it. 

So Orlando Cabrera is the sole reason the tribe sucks now? Hmmm.  Might as well replace Hannahan, Kearns, Choo, Carmona, and LaPorta while we're at it.

 

I didn't say that he's the sole reason, but he still sucks.  None of those other guys produced 4 outs in their first 2 at bats today.

^^Yeesh, O-Cab isn't the only problem with this team by a long shot, but he's the one most easily replaced with an internal piece likely to do better.

He's also got the lowest upside of anyone on that list (other than maybe Kearns) when playing at his best.  It's time to get Phelps up here.  Not only is he producing better than Kipnis and Chisenhall, but he's been doing it longer at that level and very importantly, he is a switch-hitter, while the other two are lefties (and they don't need anymore lefties in the lineup).

My mom and dad took my wife and I, and my three boys to the season ticket holder appreciation event at the zoo last night. They kept the zoo open for season ticket holders for a few hours after it closed and brought the players and coaches in to sign autographs. It was a very nice event, and even though they said they were capping the lines at 200 most of the players signed way more than that and then just stopped when the time was up.  We managed to get autographs from Choo, Shelly Duncan, Acta, Pronk, C. Perez and a few other random coaches and players. Grady was the only one with a ridiculously long line.

 

Choo was there with his wife and two kids, I think I may have found the root of his slump,, his wife is pregnant again and he will have 3 kids under the age of 5 here shortly. I know what that did to me.... :drunk:

OK, now this is getting silly. Five losses in a row? And a loss to the injury-plagued Twins? Time to shake up the roster.

anyone worried about Santana? I broke my coffee table after he hit into his 2nd DP of the game. 

^Definitely.  He's been pretty tough to watch.  Would be heartbreaking to see him go from "can't miss star" to "decent hitting, poor-fielding catcher," but there's still a good shot he'll turn it on this season.  And even though he's way underperforning, he's still getting on base at a respectable clip so hasn't been completely useless. 

 

This has been a downright depressing stretch.  The pitching and some of the early over-achieving hitters have regressed pretty much as expected, but Choo and Santana haven't done much to make up for it, and the Alex White injury was a really big disappointment.  I'm not giving up on this year, but next year could (should) be a lot more fun with fewer veteran place-holders and more/better young position players.  Kipnis/Chiz/Phelps could struggle at the plate just as much as Hannahan/O-Cab/Kearns, but it's certainly a lot less depressing watching young players with a chance to figure it out than it is to watch aging vets without much upside.  The pitching should only get better too.

Another DP for Santana already, with a runner on 3rd and one out, no less.

Tonight's game didn't exactly settle any concerns about the hitting, but wow, what a start by CarCar.  Granted it was against a line-up about as sad as ours, but still awesome to see.

 

For the record, I don't think any of us expect this to solve all the team's problems, but it appears that Cord Phelps will be a major leaguer as of tomorrow's game :)

 

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2011/06/cleveland_indians_to_promote_i.html

Well, some of you are getting your wish. I heard this am that they're calling up Phelps.

Phelps has to play at second so that one Cabrera (Asdrubal) can keep playing at short and another Cabrera (Orlando) can sit his ass down. Maybe he can come in as a pinch hitter for Hannahan, Kearns or LaPorta and try for 2,000. Or he can be trade bait.

Well, some of you are getting your wish. I heard this am that they're calling up Phelps.

Phelps is in the starting lineup today at 2B.

I fear the O-Cab blow-back when Phelps has 3 Ks and a GDP today...  But I'm still excited for the change.  Speculation by those who seem to know best is that Phelps will play a lot of DH and 2B (especially against RHP, who O-Cab is generally helpless against) and maybe some SS to give A-Cab the occasional day off.  Fingers crossed he hits the ground running.

 

PS: noon start time today, so hope y'all have radios in your office.

Phelps is in the starting lineup today at 2B.

 

There is something very special about a young man making his first start in the majors, no matter how the game turns out for him. I'll bet he didn't sleep at all last night. :-)

 

PS: noon start time today, so hope y'all have radios in your office.

 

I was planning to have a lunch meeting downtown today with an associate, but he forgot the game was at noon. He had game tickets with his wife who thought the game was this evening. So we had to reschedule our lunch meeting! That's OK. It's too frickin' hot today.

Wow, that was just epic suck by the Indians offense on this homestand.  Kind of remarkable, actually.  I believe they went 3 for 42 with runners in scoring position during this stretch. 

 

So, is a four game series in the Bronx going to cure them?  Ha. Oh well, April was fun.

Well, the new Yankee Stadium is a home-run ballpark. Of course that means the Indians would have to actually hit some line drives with some air under them!

Yea when I look at the Indians lineup I don't see those guys turning it on honestly. They traded 2 Cy Young winners in back to back years and have what to show for it so far. And I'm not so sure about Santana, he has no track record yet. The only big suprise is how terrible Choo has been. He has a track record of being a good hitter. The pitching has been decent, but with the offense playing like it has, I don't know how long this team will be able to stay over .500 let alone contend for the division.

The thing with the Cy Young Winners is that Sabathia was on his way out at the end of the year. So at least we got 4 prospects out of him, two of which turned out to be LaPorta and Brantley. We could have probably held on to Lee longer but he was also on his way out.