Larry Hughes - Beta Unit?

Larry Hughes scored 40 points for the Cavs last night against the Magic. He must have been kidnapped by Centauri to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada and replaced by a beta unit that was not programmed properly.

One of these things is not like the others..

Sammy Hagar? Seriously? Didn't he used to RAWK?

Thoughts on Super Bowl XLII

I know I primarily cover baseball, but I am also a fan of the Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Cavaliers, Columbus Crew, Columbus Blue Jackets and Ohio State football and basketball, so I reserve the right to weigh in on some other sports occasionally.

I have to admit that I was conflicted going into the game on who to root for. Really, for the most part, both cities (Boston and New York) and their fan bases are pretty much insufferable, especially for those of us here in "Flyover Territory." Do I root for the Patriots, the bullies of the NFL with their cheating head coach and their tendency to run the score up mercilessly on weaker teams? Or, do I put aside my dislike for Eli Manning and New York fans in general and root for the plucky underdog Giants?

Before I go further, I must declare that I believe Eli Manning to be a Punk. A special kind of Punk, to be precise - a Punk who believes himself bigger than the game. It's a class of Punkitude that lumps him in a group that includes John Elway, JD Drew and Kobe Bryant. You are a punk if, coming out of high school or college, you refuse to play for the team who drafted you because you feel that they are not deserving of your talents:

• Elway played baseball (not very well, I might add), in order to avoid having to play for the Colts.
• Drew refused to sign with the Phillies, instead playing in one of the independent leagues.
• Bryant, well, as a 17-year-old high schooler (high schooler!) declared that his game was so huge that he would only sign with a team from New York or Los Angeles, and to prove his point, held out and forced the Charlotte Hornets to trade him to the Lakers.

Manning, as is well known, refused to play for San Diego, the team which picked him, and pretty much forced them to trade him to New York. This has led me to seriously question his judgment - you're a 21-year-old kid, and you don't want to be the toast of San Diego, make millions of dollars and live year-round where the weather is great and you can party on the beach in the offseason and hand the ball off to LaDainian Tomlinson? You'd rather face the New York media every day? Dude?

So, Manning is a Punk who believes himself bigger than the game. It's hard for me to root for teams led by Punks. And, really, who doesn't want to see the annoying loudmouths from the '72 Dolphins silenced? So, going into the game, I bit the bullet and started the game rooting for the New England Patriots to make history, but not very hard.

As the Giants continued to keep Brady and The Incredible Hulk of Sulk (Randy Moss) in check, forcing him to make bad decision after bad decision, I started to believe that the Giants could actually do it. More importantly, I began to want them to do it. And when Tyree made that amazing catch, I knew that it was over - the Giants were going to be this year's Team O'Destiny.

Despite my personal dislike for Manning's Punkitude, I have to admit that I'm feeling okay with watching the Patriots fall hard, simply because it takes Boston sports and their insufferable fans down a notch. Really, the only people who don't like watching a bully get what's coming to him are the bully and his mother.

And, really what could be more indicative of the Patriots' true colors than Bill Belicheat (see picture below) leaving the sidelines with time left on the clock?

And, in an exclusive scoop, I got a picture of the New England offensive line after the game:

I have to admit to some schadenfreude in watching the New England Patriots fan express their post-game sorrow and pain. Hey, guys and gals, you don't know pain and sorrow and despair. Try being a Cleveland fan for any length of time. I've got a quarter for you to call someone who cares.

And, I have to admit, I'm happy for my Uncle Marc in Hartford, Connecticut, who is a lifelong Giants fan and has been on the waiting list for season tickets for 20 years, and still isn't very close to getting them.

Commercials: generally pretty disappointing. The clear winner was the FedEx commercial with the giant carrier pigeons.

Checking Back In

The latest dishes cooking on the Hot Stove:

• Casey Blake, Super Utility Mountain Man (SUMM), has reached agreement with the Indians on a $6.15 million contract before arbitration. Management keeps repeating that Blake will be the starter at third, while Ande Marte, out of options, will likely moulder on the bench, getting spot starts and likely not getting anything going. Blake's a good guy to have around because of his versatility, but I remain unchanged in the opinion that the Tribe needs to either play Marte or trade him. Free Andy Marte!
• The Indians apparently no longer have Johan Santana to treat as their personal rented mule. While last year's domination of Santana was enjoyable, I suspect it was also a statistical anomaly, and I'm glad to find that the Twins dealt him to the National League and not to the FEDBU, or the FEDBU-lite. Although it would have been nice to watch either of those teams empty their farm system for Santana, I'm fully aware that this has a big impact on the Indians for 2008. Santana might win 25 games while pitching in AAAA for the Mets. It was also extremely smart of the Twins to extend Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer before announcing the Santana trade, if only to placate their fans that they're not completely blowing up the team. How long till the Twins sell high on Joe Nathan?
• The Santana extension has still not happened for the Mets, so CC's price remains unfixed. However, it appears that both CC and Mark Shapiro are saying the right things and keeping negotiations out of the media - in other words, everyone's acting like a grown up so far. Gotta love that about this organization.
• Jorge Julio has been extended an NRI (non-roster invitation) to attend spring training with the Indians. If they can get him to throw quality strikes, and has a great spring, it's a good move - he has closing experience,and he still throws heat.
• Since my last post, the Tribe has also extended Senor Slow. Another fine move to lock up the best of the people you have by Tribe leadership.
• Indians lose Brian Barton (no surprise) and Matt Whitney (big surprise) to Rule 5. I have to believe that Whitney will be back, given the glut at first base of the Nationals. Barton - it would have been nice to have been able to keep Barton, but I find no fault with the guys they did protect instead. It's nice to have so much talent at the upper end of the sytem that you can't protect it all.

I went to the Indians Press Caravan in Columbus last week. It was a zoo. There must have been several hundred people milling about the ballroom at the Columbus Easton Hilton. Some notes from that event:

• It was amusing to see women lined up two deep with cameras to take Grady Sizemore's picture while he talked with the sports talkers from WBNS-AM.
• Tom Hamilton does not believe the Tigers have the pitching to win the AL Central. Neither do I.
• Eric Wedge believes we should just relax in the 9th inning when Joe Knows Closing is on the mound, because it is out of our hands and in the hands of the baseball gods.
• The line for Grady Sizemore's autograph was significantly longer than the line for Scott Lewis' or Jensen Lewis'.
• Eric Wedge radiates confidence and again repeated what we've been hearing from Mark Shapiro about other teams wanting major leaguers on the current roster in trades, rather than prospects, and Wedge was extremely reluctant to give up on anyone on this team.
• According to Wedge, Barfield is almost certain to start the season at Buffalo, specifically to work on his hitting. It seems that The Beaded One is the second baseman next year, period, unless Josh Barfield works some kind of miracle and Cabrera fails to hit.
• When asked about left field, Wedge expressed significant confidence in the Dellucci-Michaels platoon.

In other news:

• Troy Glaus for Scott Rolen? It's hard to believe that the reputations of both of these players have diminished to the point that this deal provokes a yawn on my part.
• Nick Swisher to the Sox - Shapiro is taking a lot of heat on the fan boards for not going hard after Swisher, but it seems to me like Swisher was not available until the White Sox made the A's an offer they couldn't refuse. The White Sox continue to baffle me - they should be blowing this team up and rebuilding, yet they're selling low on their best prospects. It's okay with me if they want to continue to be a 70-win team, but I imagine all 12 Sox fans are puzzlecd by the way their front office is handling this team. Yeah, they're making moves, but it seems like they're making moves just to make moves.
• If the Erik Bedard deal with the O's falls through because Peter Angelos is clueless, then the Tribe should explore trading Sabathia to the M's for a similar package if it seems that CC and management have an unbridgeable negotiating gulf. Adam Jones would look fantastic in left field. Could you imagine an outfield of Adam Jones, Grady Sizemore and Frank the Tank?
• Now that Santana is off the board, it will be interesting to see how the pitching market shapes up for the remaning free agents (Lohse, Livan Hernandez, etc.). Cliff Lee, anyone?
• I have suggested on at least one other forum that, now that the A's are blowing things up, the Indians should make a push for Eric Chavez and Huston Street, with a package built around Marte, and some excess pitching. The A's would have the luxury of playing Marte every day, and the Indians could use a more reliable (albeit injury prone) closer. Blake could back up Chavez when (not if) he gets hurt. Sure, it would be expensive, but it could also help put the Tribe over the top. Chavez is a vacuum cleaner at third, and we have more than our fair share of groundball pitchers.
• The Super Bowl - Yawn.
• Yanks sign Ensberg - do the Yanks really need any more expensive reclamation projects? I guess that's why they're the FEDBU - they can afford to throw bucnhes of guys like Ensberg against the wall in the hopes that one of them will stick, unlike the Indians, who have to be right on every time.
• I'd love to believe Roger Clemens. I just can't. He can trot out as many statistics as he wants, but now he's more than a headhunting punk - he's a headhunting punk on PEDs.
• Mike Hampton is healthy? Heard that before. If you believe that, you'll buy this watch.

So Long Jacobs Field, Hello Progressive Field

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that the Indians have called a press conference today to announce that the naming rights to Jacobs Field have been secured by Cleveland area insurance company Progressive Insurance. The park is expected to be known as Progressive Field.

It was bound to happen.

Few people remember that the Tribe tried to sell the naming rights when the park opened, and couldn't find a corporate taker, so then-owner Richard Jacobs bought the naming rights and named the park after himself. So, really, "Jacobs Field" was just as bought and paid for as Progressive Field or PNC Park - it just didn't sound corporate. These rights expired in 2006 and the Tribe has been looking for a new name sponsor for the last year or so.

It is most likely that Clevelanders will be slow to adjust to the new name, as most Clevelanders still refer to Quicken Loans Arena (aka "The Q") as Gund Arena.

Short nickname? Probably "The Prog," though I propose TAFFKAJ (The Athletic Field Formerly Known as Jacobs).

Grittiness - Quantified

Just in case you were wondering how to statistically quantify grittiness, wonder no more. The fine folks at Flotsam have done it already.

Holiday Hot Stove Review

Some more thoughts about how the off-season is going down:

• A reminder to panicking Indians fans: teams make the deals they make for a variety of reasons. Just because you feel the offer that another team accepted for a player you think the Indians could have used is inferior to what the Indians could have offered does not mean that Shapiro did not make a competitive offer. Maybe the key factor in trading Dan Haren to the Diamondbacks was not necessarily that the Indians' offer was inferior, but that they wanted to trade Haren to the National League so as not to improve the Indians. Maybe the Indians were not willing to overpay to the same extent that Arizona did.
• We tend to overvalue our own team's prospects.
• Which contract would you rather have on your books - Jake Westbrook at $11M per for the next 5 years or Carlos Silva at $12M per for the next 4 years? The M's pitching was so weak that they pretty well had no choice but to pony up the money.
• Josh Hamilton would have looked good in left field for the Indians, and I don't question the Reds for getting pitching for him - but, you just have to wonder why, with the Rangers needing pitching so badly, that they were willing to give up on Volquez, who has been touted as one of their best prospects for several years now. I suspect that the Reds will be underwhelmed by his performance, and they will find that they sold very low on Hamilton.
• The Indians don't have to make many moves to stay competitive. It would be nice to get a power-hitting corner outfielder and move Michaels/Dellucci - but it's not necessary. They could start the season with the platoon in left field, Gutierrez in right and be fine.
• I'm on the Andy Marte bandwagon. Unless there is an overwhelming offer for him in the offseason, give him the starting job out of spring training and let's see what he can do. He may not put up much average at first, but his potential to be the right handed slugger that the Indians need given his minor league track record is undeniable. He has nothing to prove at Buffalo, and he's out of options. Casey Blake becomes the uber-utility guy.
• The Tigers will win a lot of 10-8 games next season unless they do something else to shore up their pitching. If the Tigers have a lot of their old guys miss time due to injury, they will come to regret the wholesale dismantling of their farm system that they've been undergoing for the last couple years in order to win now.
• Cliff Lee is looking more and more like a very attractive consolation prize should the Tribe wish to deal him. His contract is affordable, he's had major league success. He may just need a change of scenery. I believe that we see teams go after Cliff Lee with a little more fervor once the ultimate Santana derby winner is known.
• The problem with trading Lee, Marte, Choo, Sowers, Adam Miller or Dellucci right now is that their value has never been lower and the Tribe would never be able to get anything approaching full value. The other problem is that these are the only guys that many Indians fans would like to see gone, which rather limits the ability of Shapiro to get an appropriate return. We don't want these guys, but we overvalue our ability to get an appropriate return for them.
• Why not take a flier on Mark Prior? The Indians can sell the chance to pitch in the playoffs for a competitive team, as well as one of the best medical staffs in the game to guide his rehab. However, they can't move the team to the west coast for him, which appears to be where he wants to pitch.
• I like the Jamey Carroll signing. It strikes me as the kind of move that really is the signal to another move we don't see coming - maybe trading Peralta and moving AC to shortstop and slotting Carroll at second base while Barfield gets his act together in Buffalo and Casey Blake plays uber-utility guy, spelling guys at second, third and the outfield.
• I like that Andy Marte is getting reps in winter ball at first base - if they do move him, it makes him more versatile.
• I think the Mets will likely end up winning the Johan Santana derby, primarily because the Twins will want to send him to the National League so they don't end up facing him in the playoffs. The Twins are still under the belief that their team just needs some tweaking to remain competitive, and adding some bats like Delmon Young and Mike Lamb will certainly help. But adding Adam Everett will not help them with their main problem - they can't score runs.
• I don't see how the Indians can seriously upgrade at any position on the field this year without giving up one of the following: Asdrubal Cabrera, Franklin Gutierrez, Adam Miller or Aaron Laffey. Those are the trading chips with some value. You have to give value to get value.
• It would have been nice to see the Indians get Alexei Ramirez, but you just know that the White Sox overpaid. They always do.