The Bauer trade

The Twins did not make a trade Tuesday, the last full day before the trading deadline. Cleveland, now three games back of Minnesota, reportedly did -- a complex three-way deal that brought the Tribe bulk players and cost them Trevor Bauer, their most reliable starting pitcher. (Announcement expected today.)

The Trade.
Indians get: Franmil Reyes, Logan Allen, Yasiel Puig, Victor Nova, Scott Moss.

Reds get: Trevor Bauer.

Padres get: Taylor Trammell.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 31, 2019

Puig and Reyes are right-hand hitting outfielders, although calling Reyes an outfielder is apparently a bit generous; the expectation is that Reyes will be mostly a designated hitter for Cleveland. Allen  is a left-handed pitcher who has struggled in his minimal major league time to date but is seen as a potential piece of a starting rotation; it's quite possible he'll be asked to fill the vacated rotation slot. Nova and Moss are minor leaguers who are unlikely to matter this season for Cleveland, alhtough Moss is in Double A.

It's quite obvious what Cleveland did: They traded from their strength -- starting pitching -- to shore up an obvious weakness -- their outfield hasn't hit. Puig and Reyes have combined for 49 homers this season.

Puig is the bigger name, but Reyes is the bigger bat. Puig's OPS+ with Cincinnati this year is 98, meaning that he's been slightly below league average at the dish. Reyes's OPS+ is 121. A good bit of the difference is that Cincinnati is a far better place to hit than is San Diego. But Puig is a good defensive outfielder.

Cleveland deepened its lineup with this trade. The Indians also weakened their rotation. Unless and until Corey Kubler or Carlos Carrasco return to the rotation and to form, Cleveland now has Mike Clevenger and a collection of young (but talented) staters who have never made it through a full season.

Conclusion: Cleveland got more for Bauer than the Blue Jays did for Marcus Stroman. But because they traded from their major league core to get Reyes and Puig, I'm not sure they actually got better for 2019.

Thoughts from the weekend

There was some grumbling on my Twitter feed about the quick hook for Michael Pineda, who worked just four innings, allowing one hit and throwing just 40 pitches, before giving way to Martin Perez.

The complainers generally recognized that the plan coming into the game was four innings from each, in a "piggyback" arrangement designed to keep Perez, destined for a starters role, stretched out, But with Pineda faring so well, their argument went, let Perez do his extra throwing in the bullpen to imaginary hitters and let Pineda go deeper.

Were that game being played in the defunct Metrodome, I might grant that argument. But it was outdoors on a chilly if sunny day, and Pineda is in his second full season after Tommy John surgery. A quick hook for him was justified.

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Three games for the Twins under new skipper Rocco Baldelli, three different starting catchers -- and essentially one batting order, with whoever is catching hitting eighth.

I daresay the three previous Twins skippers, dating back more than two decades, would have made a point of getting everybody on the bench a start in the opening series. Baldelli did not. Ehire Adrianza, Tyler Austin and Jake Cave all got into Sunday's game late, after it was all but decided, and each got an at-bat, and Cave pinch-ran Saturday.

And that's all the action that trio got in the Cleveland series. Each, in my estimate, is on the active roster only because of injury and the rash of off-days. None has a real purpose on the roster.

Plenty of managers -- and Tom Kelly was emphatically of this mindset, Ron Gardenhire less so -- take the approach of: If he's on the roster, I need to find a use for him. Three games in, it appears Baldelli is not interested in crimping the playing time of his regulars to get this trio some at-bats.

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Cleveland was, and doubtless remains, the consensus pick to win the AL Central. I've grown increasingly skeptical of that in recent weeks, partly on the basis of the Tribe's unwillingness/inability to rebuild its outfield.

Cleveland played this series without middle infielders Francisco Lindor and Jason Kipnis, and Lindor's absence in particular took a key piece out of their puzzle. But even when Lindor and Kipnis return, this is a shallow lineup.

Assume that Lindor and Kipnis return as legitimate top-half-of-the-order hitters, something Kipnis hasn't been the past two seasons. We'll assume it as a best-case scenario anyway. That will give Cleveland some order of Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Kipnis and Carlos Santana hitting leadoff through cleanup, and that's not bad at all (again, assuming Kipnis is the Kipnis of 2013-16). But the bottom half of that lineup ... ugh.

Add in the depletion of their bullpen, and it's not pretty. The Indians have genuine strengths -- that's probably the best rotation in the majors -- and there's a force of habit at work prompting people to forget that Terry Francona doesn't have the talent on hand that he's had in the past. But this weekend displayed the Indians' genuine flaws. The Twins are better balanced, and I think they not only can win this division, they should win it.

Give 'em a Hand and they'll Cimber up.

As you may have noticed, I took a few days off for the All-Star break.

And while I was gone, the Cleveland Indians made a trade to address their bullpen problems, acquiring two relief pitchers from the San Diego Padres.

One of them is Brad Hand, Minnesotan (born in Minneapolis, high school in Chaska) and All Star, and he's the obvious big get for the Tribe. He figures to step into the role played by Andrew Miller in the second half of 2016 and almost all of 2017 -- left-handed wipeout reliever called upon at any point in the game by Terry Francona. If Miller were healthy, Cleveland probably isn't that interested in Hand, but he's not, and presumably there's little reason to believe that he will be.

The Tribe also picked up right-hander Adam Cimber in the deal. He's an old rookie (turns 28 in August) who's put up pretty solid numbers out of the Padres bullpen. He's not as big a name as Hand, but in some regards he's been more effective.

Hand and Cimber have thrived with Petco Park as their home grounds, and Petco is a rather pitcher-friendly environment. So we may well wonder how well their numbers will translate to Cleveland and the DH league. But they definitely figure to deepen the Cleveland bullpen, and that has been a problem all year for Francona.

All this matters for the Twins, because to the extent that they still harbor legitinate playoff ambitions, they have to catch Cleveland. The wild card really isn't an option for Minnesota this year. The Indians are better today than they were on Monday.

The complications of history and honor

Joe Posnanski on Monday posted this piece about Eddie Robinson, the sole surviving player from the last Cleveland Indians team to win the World Series. He's 96, and as Posnanski notes, is the one remaining connection to the 1948 champs -- to Bob Feller and Larry Doby and Bob Lemon and Lou Boudreau and Satchel Paige and Joe Gordon (which is just to name the Hall of Famers on that team).

And today's Indians organization is, at least so far, ignoring him. They had a couple of players from their 1990s World Series clubs throw out first pitches (Kenny Lofton and Carlos Baerga).

The speculation is that Robinson is sidelined because when the Indians started introducing black players to its roster in 1947 -- Doby, remember, was the first black in the American League, arriving a few months after Jackie Robinson made his debut with the Dodgers -- Robinson, a Texan, made it obvious that he was against it.

I find the stories of baseball's segregation and integration a fascinating topic -- in no small part because it is a reflection of the larger society. Eddie Robinson was of what we like to call "The Greatest Generation." He spent three years in the Navy during World War II; we fought that war  in Europe against a racist ideology and fought that war in Asia while spewing our own racial invective. And then the soldiers and sailors came home and wrestled with the race question some more.

Eddie Robinson played for seven teams in his 13 years in the American League (missing only the Red Sox). He stayed in baseball for decades in a variety of roles -- scout, coach, farm director, general manager (Texas Rangers 1977-1981). He had a scouting role, according to this SABR biography, with the two Twins World Series champs.

I don't doubt that Eddie Robinson was uncomfortable in 1947 with the idea of being the teammate of a black man, and I don't doubt that he made his opinion known. I do doubt that he could have survived in the game as long as he did without evolving on the topic. Maybe he didn't evolve as far as I would like, but ... who among us is perfect?

Robinson may not be a Cleveland legend, but he is a link -- the link -- to a storied team. If Cub fans can cheer for a questionable personality such as Aroldis Chapman in this series, Cleveland and its fans can afford to embrace Eddie Robinson.

Strictly on Merritt

The Cleveland Indians did what I didn't think they could: They beat the Toronto Blue Jays in a LCS without their second and third best starting pitchers (Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar). They beat the Jays while getting less than an inning from their No. 4 starter, Trevor Bauer.

And kudos to Terry Francona, who probably cemented his Cooperstown credentials with his bullpen mastery in this series. The Jays have a lineup stacked with power, and the Tribe shut them down even when they had to resort to a rookie lefty with one major league start on his resume. Ryan Merritt was pitching in instructional league when the Indians hurriedly added him to the roster for the LCS after learning of Bauer's injury.

If, as is speculated, Salazar will be ready to work in the World Series, Merritt probably won't be on the Series roster. He may not be anyway. Francona didn't let him work deep enough Wednesday night to get credit for the win -- 4.1 innings -- but Merritt should be a piece of Cleveland legend for years to come anyway.

I'm sure that Francona wouldn't have been nearly so quick with the hook in a regular season game. But this wasn't regular season, and he took advantage of the opportunity to close out the Jays and move on to the World Series.

With the Indians headed to the World Series, new Twins Chief Baseball Officer Derek Falvey's start date will be between Oct. 30-Nov. 3.

— Rhett Bollinger (@RhettBollinger) October 19, 2016

Both metro papers this week carried stories on a theme I wrote soon after Derek Falvey was identified as the next baseball ops boss of the Twins, to take the position after the Indians were done with the postseason: Decisions have to be made in October, and not having Falvey on board is something of an impediment.

As I watched Merritt carve up the Toronto lineup with a mediocre fastball, I wondered: How much credit does Falvey deserve for the effectiveness of the Indians pitching? A major part of his duties as assistant general manager in Cleveland is reportedly pitching preparation. Merritt had to make the pitches, and somebody, probably catcher Roberto Perez, called the individual pitches, but Falvey is apparently key in drawing up the plan.

Then the followup question: Even if he does a brilliant job at that, how does that translate into moving into the big job? What he does now, no matter how well, is not what he's going to be doing in Minnesota. I'm not saying he can't succeed as the boss. I do raise the possibility of the Peter Principle (people rise to the level of their incompetence) coming into play.

In Cleveland, Falvey did certain jobs, and presumably did them very well, In Minnesota, he has to find and hire people to do those jobs. There's a difference,

Puffs of white smoke

Word on the interwebs Monday was that the Twins had settled on Derek Falvey, 32-year-old assistant general manager of the Cleveland Indians, as their new president of baseball operations.

The Twins haven't announced such a hire; they haven't even scheduled an announcement. One genuine possibility for delay is that Falvey's current team was in a pennant race. (The Tribe clinched the AL Central title last night.) Another may be that the Twins intend to announce other changes -- such as the new general manager -- at the same time.

Here's Cleveland.com, the online arm of the Plain Dealer, on Falvey's many-faceted role with the Indians. The importance of connecting the work of the analytics people with that of the manager, coaches and players was a major theme of "Big Data Baseball," the 2015 book on the Pittsburgh Pirates, and seems to be a major part of Falvey's duties with the Tribe.

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Derek Falvey's first meeting as new #Twins boss (I hope): "Ok, which one of you thought it would be a good idea to put Miguel Sano in RF?"

— Cory Hepola (@CoryHepola) September 26, 2016

Well, there's an interesting thing about the rise of the Cleveland Indians. In 2014, by the defensive metrics to be found on Baseball Reference, they were an awful defensive team. In 2015 they moved more or less to the middle of the pack, and this year they are at or near the top.

There are a lot of factors involved in that; the arrival of Francisco Lindor at shortstop certainly didn't hurt. But one of them was moving a third baseman, Lonnie Chisenhall, to right field. Another was undoing their own version of the Sano fiasco. in which they attempted to install Carlos Santana at third base. That 2014 experiment lasted about as long as Sano lasted in right field this year.

I won't pretend to know what Falvey's role was in any of those decisions. He probably wasn't an innocent bystander. But the notion that a front office exec coming out of the Cleveland Indians culture is going to be fervently anti-experimentation is simply silly. There may be no operation in the game more willing to try something different than Cleveland.

The rise of the Tribe

Terry Francona and veteran Jason Giambi
celebrate after Giambi's walk-off home run
Tuesday against the Whit Sox.

The Cleveland Indians — 68-94 in 2012, a lousy won-lost record that actually understates how bad they were — are on the verge of claiming a playoff berth.

The Indians certainly behaved during the offseason as if they were on the verge, and it mystified me. They surrendered draft picks to sign borderline Type A free agents (Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher); they enticed Terry Francona out of the broadcast booth to manage; and, yes, they traded for a high-level pitching prospect in Trevor Bauer, the one move of the offseason that made sense from my perspective for a bad team.

It's difficult today to see how some of those moves helped. Swisher hit .245/.341/.417, which is hardly eye-popping production for a first baseman-right fielder-designated hitter. Bourn, a leadoff hitter, saw his on-base percentage drop about 30 points from his established levels and saw his stolen bases essentially halved. Bauer, perhaps stubborn to the point of uncoachability, spent the season undermining himself; it's a lot easier now to understand why Arizona was so ready to discard him. Mark Reynolds, signed to provide power, was released in mid season.

And yet the Tribe has 89 wins already. How'd it happen?

Mainly pitching and defense, and maybe more the latter than the former. Somebody — be it Francona or pitching coach Mickey Callaway or somebody else — unlocked the puzzle of Ubaldo Jimenez, who went from 9-17, 5.40 in 2012 to 12-9, 3.38 in about the same amount of work (31 starts and 176 or so innings each year). The Indians had a take-a-chance reclaimation project pay off: Scott Kazmir has given them 28 starts, 151 innings and a 4.14 ERA. Justin Masterson rebounded well from his 2012 disappointment. Danny Salazar came out of the minors in the second half with power stuff.

And the outfield defense probably had no small part in the pitchers' success. The additions of Bourn and Drew Stubbs gave Francona three legit center fielders (the third being holdover Michael Brantley); the trio didn't hit much, but they didn't give up much either. It's not easy to split the gap against these guys.

Francona got a lot out of his bench, too: Mike Aviles, Ryan Raburn, Jason Giambi and Yan Gomes provided 45 homers in bit roles.

There was some good fortune involved: the Indians are 30-17 in one-run games, 10-2 in extra innings. Those are rather high numbers.

And, not to be churlish about this, but the unbalanced schedule didn't hurt Cleveland much either. They got to feast on the carcasses of the White Sox (17-2) and Twins (10-6 with three games to go); that's 30 percent of Cleveland's wins to date. There may well be better teams in the AL East (Baltimore and New York) who are out of the hunt because the Tribe's schedule was so much softer.

Notes, quotes and comment

Aaron Slegers pitches in the College World Series. The
Twins fifth-round pick is 6-foot-10.

With the College World Series over, the Twins this week have largely wrapped up their draft signings.

Pitchers Ryan Eades (LSU, second round) and Aaron Slegers (Indiana, fifth round) signed shortly after their teams were eliminated in Omaha. Two other Indiana players drafted by the Twins, third baseman Dustin DeMuth (eighth round) and pitcher Ryan Halstead (26th round) have declared their intention to stay in school, but that may be a negotiating ploy.

The signing deadline is July 12.

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What an ugly doubleheader Friday between the Tribe and the White Sox. The first game was 19-10 Cleveland, with the two teams combing for more than 400 pitches total — 112 just to get the first nine outs. The White Sox alone threw 230 pitches in that game, the highest team total for nine innings in the pitch count era.

In the two games, the Indians had 28 runs and 33 hits, the Sox 18 runs and 26 hits. Cleveland pitcher Trevor Bauer, a prime prospect disposed of by Arizona during the offseason largely because the D-backs had tried of dealing with him, was so bizarre in his awful start (he pitched from the stretch throughout, even with no one on, and still paid no attention to the baserunners) that it was seriously suggested that the Tribe would send him back to A ball rather than Triple A.

Of course, things were already hideous on the South Side.  I'll talk more in Sunday's Pic of the Week post about the incredible dropped popup of Tuesday. In Hawk Harrelson's words: "You have got to be bleeping me."

On a different level of "you have got to be bleeping me," White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko reportedly had SIX pain-killer injections in his back the other day. Six. I'm no medico, but that sort of thing scares me.

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Miguel Sano hit a pair of home runs Friday night for New Britain; that gives him six since he moved up to Double A.

He started off slow when he hit Double A less than three weeks ago, and his batting average there is still only .236, but six dingers in 67 plate appearances (plus a double and two triples) ain't bad. It adds up to a .655 slugging percentage after 17 games.

Notes, quotes and comment

When I composed Wednesday's off-the-cuff assessment of the Cleveland Indians, I hadn't seen this item on how Terry Francona intends to deploy his defense.

In a nutshell: Michael Bourn in center, Drew Stubbs in right, Nick Swisher at first, Mark Reynolds as the primary DH and Carlos Santana at catcher.

Francona hasn't seen all that much of Santana behind the plate, and it's possible that once he has, he'll rethink that plan. Or perhaps he's not as concerned about defense from his catcher as predecessor Manny Acta was. Acta found plenty of reasons/opportunity to have Lou Marson catch, with Santana at first base or designated hitter. Francona apparently intends to handle Santana differently.

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Elliot Johnson, one of the two shortstops DFA'd by Tampa Bay, went to the Kansas City Royals as the player-to-be-named in the James Shields deal.

That's an unusual PTN. Usually they're minor leaguers. Seldom are they players with appreciable major league service time. Anyway, one of the two out of the way, one to go.

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Rich Harden, the talented but oft-injured pitcher the Twins signed to a minor league deal this winter, was one of the first to take a bullpen session when camp officially opened Wednesday in Fort Meyers, Fla. He later told the writers that he was at about 80 to 85 percent of his arm strength -- which isn't particularly worrisome, as no pitchers should be ramping it up yet -- and that he hasn't felt this good in six years.

Harden didn't pitch at all in 2012 after extensive shoulder surgery. One wishes to be optimistic about him, but his track record is riddled with injury and disappointment, and shoulder damage is notoriously difficult to come back from. On the plus side, the Twins aren't really counting on him, so anything they get is to the good.

It's too soon to tell if he's going to pay off or add to the medical bills, and too soon to know what role he would play if healthy. I've assumed all along that he's a starting candidate, but there is considerable chatter about a bullpen role for him.

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Crowded camp indeed: The Twins have three extra players in camp -- non roster guys who aren't official invitees, but who are there to get ready for their participation in the World Baseball Classic: Left-handed pitcher Andrew Albers (Canada), right-handed pitcher J.O. Berrios (Puerto Rico) and second baseman/outfielder Eddie Rosario (Puerto Rico).

Rosario's time in camp may be interesting. The Twins, of course, are trying to turn him into a second baseman. He played mainly outfield in winter ball, however, and will be an outfielder for Puerto Rico in the WBC. I wonder if the Twins will try to work him at second while he's with the major league staff, or if they'll let him focus on the outfield he'll be playing in the tournament.

Around the division: Cleveland Indians

Terry Francona is the
new manager of the
Cleveland Indians. Doesn't
he look thrilled?

Cleveland has had an interesting winter after a disappointing 2012. The hiring of Terry Francona as manager suggested that, despite their 68-94 record, the Tribe has a sense it can contend. The Indians followed up on that hiring by surrendering two draft picks to land veteran outfielders Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn in free agency, signing high-strikeout slugger Mark Reynolds and by trading for pitching phenom Trevor Bauer.

This flurry of activity -- the Indians this week also picked up Daisuke Matuzaka and Jason Giambi on minor-league deals -- has some ranking the Indians as the second-best team in the AL Central coming into camp. I'm not so sure.

Here's the deal: Cleveland was really bad last season. They won two more games than the lowly Twins, to be sure, but their stats suggested they should have lost more. They gave up more runs than even Minnesota (845 for Cleveland, 832 for Minnesota) and scored fewer than the Twins (701 for Minnesota, 667 for Cleveland) They started the offseason in a deep hole.

Swisher theoretically replaces Shin-Soo Choo in right field, which is at best a wash and more likely a slight downgrade (Swisher might also see time at first base and DH, with Reynolds also at those spots; a lot depends on how much they want Carlos Santana to catch.) Bourn will provide superb defense in center field and acceptable production as a leadoff hitter -- I don't view him as likely to be worth the $12 million a year the Indians have committed to him over the next four seasons, but he should help.

Let's see: Outfield has Swisher, Bourn, Michael Brantley and Drew Stubbs; infield has Reynolds, Jason Kipnis at second, Lonnie Chisenhall at third and Asdrubal Cabrera at short; Santana catches about half the time, Lou Marson the other half, with Santana at first or DH most of the other half.

Line 'em up:

Bourn CF
Kipnis 2B
Cabrera SS
Santana C/DH/1B
Swisher RF/1B/DH
Reynolds 1B/DH
Brantley LF
Chisenhall 3B
Marson C or Stubbs RF


That's not bad. That lineup shouldn't finish next-to-last in the AL in runs scored, as the Indians did last year. But it's not great either. The middle of that lineup doesn't match up with the middle of some of  the other orders in the AL Central: M. Cabrera-Fielder-V. Martinez, Mauer-Willingham-Morneau, Konerko-Dunn-Rios.

On the plus side, Bourn shoves Brantley from center to left, which should make the outfield defense better. In fact, the more Stubbs plays, the more they figure to have a three-center-fielder outfield, which can make the pitching look a lot better. On the other hand, the more Stubbs plays, the more Santana catches, which might make the pitching worse.

Ah, yes, the pitching. Cleveland went last year with a rotation of heavy sinkerballers -- Jason Masterson, Derek Lowe, Ubaldo Jiminez -- and had little success. (The Cabrera-Kipnis middle infield is better with the bat than with the glove, even if Cabrera is a fixture on Web Gems.) Lowe's gone, but the rest of them are still around.

Bauer strikes me as the key addition, but his 2013 impact may be limited. Arizona lost patience with him, apparently deciding he was essentially uncoachable; he may be a guy who has to take his lumps before agreeing to change his approach. Masterson and Jiminez need to regain their footing, and that's hardly certain.

Cleveland might be the second best team in the division, but they might not, and even if they are, that's not saying much; there's a big gap between the Tigers and everybody else in the AL Central.

Matt Capps, Cleveland Indian (probably)

Matt Capps: 3.68
with 14 saves — and
three months on the
disabled list — in
2012 with the Twins.

Matt Capps finally knows where he'll report when spring training camps open — the much-criticized former closer for the Twins signed a minor league deal with invitation to major-league camp with the Cleveland Indians on Thursday.

So much for the recent blogger speculation that Capps might return to the Twins yet again.

That Capps had to settle for a minor-league deal suggests that his one-game return in late September didn't do much to assure potential employers that he's sound. He made only 29 appearances in 2012 for the Twins.

Presumably he has an out clause in this contract — if he doesn't make the major league roster by Day X, he can opt for his release. He's only 29, and he does have a career ERA of 3.52 and 138 saves. He's not great, but he shouldn't be on the fringe of a roster either.

Assuming, of course, that he's sound.

Cleveland has a closer — Chris Perez, who is a rather Capps-like closer himself (75 saves the past two seasons with a combined 3.45 ERA). There's been speculation that the Tribe would trade Perez this winter, but that hasn't happened.

I would think that Capps would have taken a major-league deal from anybody over a minor-league deal, but that none was available. To the extent that he was picking from comparable minor-league offerings, he may have chosen Cleveland on the theory that the glory job might become available.

AL Central: Going all festival

The Twins weren't the only major league team holding a promotional "fest" last weekend -- with the offweek in the NFL playoffs, it was a good opportunity to get some headlines and remind fans that spring training is just a couple of weeks away.

Around the division's fan fests:

Detroit: Perhaps the biggest question for the Tigers is: Who closes? Jim Leyland, the manager, had an amusing answer and a more sincere one, and the sincere one can be found in the link: Prospect Bruce Rondon is the leading candidate, but Leyland wants to get a sense of his makeup before committing to the kid in the ninth inning.

But I liked this one, from the first day of Tigerfest: This is why I like these forums, so I can think about these things. I don't know what I'm going to do.

Chicago: The ghost of A.J. Pierzynski, who signed with Texas as a free agent, apparently haunted Soxfest. That's understandable: Pierzynski has been a durable, productive catcher who fit well with the South Siders self-image, and nobody really knows what to expect of Tyler Flowers, the heir apparent.

I understand why the Sox let A.J. go. He's in his mid-30s, and he has a lot of mileage on his tires. Catchers typically don't last as long as he has. But I expect the Sox will miss him a great deal. 

Kansas City: Actually held its fanfest the previous week. The Royals, who've been compiling a lineup of talented young position players, were rather aggressive about getting starting pitchers -- Jamie Shields, Jeremy Guthrie, Edwin Santana, Wade Davis -- and the organization obviously wants to make its move up the standings now.

I have the sense that the K.C. fan base isn't fully buying it.

Cleveland: Also held its Tribefest the previous week. Hey: Terry Francona! Nick Swisher! A couple of new names the casual fan knows! 

The offseason move that matters most was probably trading for pitching prospect Trevor Bauer, but that's not the kind of guy who packs the autograph lines.

Around the division: Cleveland Indians

Nick Swisher is coming off four
productive seasons as the Yankees
right fielder -- and four seasons
of poor hitting in the playoffs.

The Cleveland Indians were about as bad as the Minnesota Twins last year -- 68-94 losses, two games ahead of Minnesota in the standings, but with stats that, at least according to Bill James' Pythagorean Theorum, should have put them two games behind the Twins.

Their biggest move of this offseason has been a complex three-way trade (involving the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks) highlighted for the Tribe by the loss outfielder Shin-Soo Choo and the acquisition of pitching prospect Trevor Bauer. They then plugged Choo's spot by signing free-agent outfielder Nick Swisher.

The trade itself is fascinating on several levels. Take Bauer, for example. He was the third overall pick in the loaded 2011 draft. He made it to the majors last season (four starts, which didn't go well). And the D'backs have soured on him. Bauer, 'tis said, insists on following his own training regimen and on calling his own game. Horrors.

Now, I'm not someone who has to deal with Bauer, and maybe he's an insubordinate jerk and impossible to get along with. He's also talented, and as the Twins can attest, true aces don't fall out of trees. I suspect that Bauer's adherence to long-toss and his ideas about what pitches to throw when are things the Diamondbacks would tolerate from a veteran but not a minor-leaguer, even one with his collegiate accomplishments.

Picking up Bauer has a good chance to be a real plus for the Indians.

Then there's Cincy's plans for Choo. Choo, 30, has been a right fielder, and not a notably effective one defensively. But the Reds -- who also sent center fielder Drew Stubbs to Cleveland in the trade -- apparently have him ticketed for center. An outfield of Ryan Ludwick, Choo and Jay Bruce should be prolific at the plate, but it's not likely to do the Reds pitchers many favors.

Swisher, who figures to fill Choo's spot in right (or could be installed at first base), may be testimony to what can happen when a corner outfielder is stretched out of his comfort zone. In his one season with the Chicago White Sox, Swisher played 70 games in center -- and had easily his worst season.

Swisher and Choo are roughly equivalent players. Swisher is a couple years older and pricier -- Choo is still in his arbitration years -- so one would prefer Choo. But for the difference, the Indians have added a potential ace and a usable center fielder.

Around the division: Cleveland Indians

Terry Francona is leaving the ESPN booth for the
dugout in Cleveland.

For a manager with dreams of the Hall of Fame, two World Series wins is borderline, three is a lock.

Terry Francona had one foot in the Hall of Fame — still does, actually — with two World Series titles on his resume. That they came in Boston, where nobody else has won the Series since World War I, is a added selling point.

But he also washed out in Philadelphia, and now he's taken the job in Cleveland, where the Indians barely avoided the worst record in the American League.

It's a family thing, at least in part. Francona's father, Tito, was a standout for the Tribe in the late '50's-early 60s, hitting .363 one season. Terry (also known as Tito) worked briefly in the Cleveland front office between the Philly and Boston jobs and thus has a pre-existing relationship with team president Mark Shapiro and general manager Chris Antonetti.

Still, I'm not sure I see the point for Cleveland in hiring Francona, or for Francona to take the job.

Francona's managerial history — not just in Boston and Philly, but in the minor leagues, where he was the skipper of the Birmingham Barons during the Michael Jordan circus — suggests that his strong suit is dealing with voracious media attention. That's not going to matter much in Cleveland.

I'm not sure where Cleveland's front office and ownership think they are in the cycle. It's a weak division, but it's hardly a set-up-to-win-now situation for Francona, and it's also not a total tear-down in progress.

I would have expected Francona to wait for a better shot at immediate success. I don't think this pairing of man and job is going to work out well for either side.

Notes, quotes and comment

Quick, without looking it up: Which current Twins player is an Olympic medalist?

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Robin Ventura is having a good first season as manager.

The Chicago White Sox left Target Field on Wednesday having won the series — and in first place in the American League Central.

Not a bad season so far for a team whose general manager at one point during the winter used the word "rebuilding" to describe its status and his approach.

There is credit to be spread around, and some of it should go to Robin Ventura, the truly rookie manager of the Pale Hose.

Ventura's selection to succeed Ozzie Guillen raised eyebrows because he had not managed a team on any level. Nor had he been a coach. A successful player, absolutely— Ventura may be the best third baseman in franchise history — but making such a man the dugout boss without an intervening training period has long been regarded as a discredited approach.

I'm not aware of any specific change in on-field strategy or tactics between Guillen and Ventura. There is, however, an obvious difference in public persona. Ventura projects a aura of quiet professionalism. There is nothing quiet about Guillen.

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Manny Acta and the Cleveland Indians have seen
enough of Derek Lowe.

While the White Sox doggedly remain atop the standings, the Cleveland Indians are rapidly fading. And on Wednesday they designated Derek Lowe and his 5.52 ERA for assignment.

Lowe is 39, and this may well be the end of his road; his strikeout rate this year is almost half his career norm, and his walk rate is nearly a career high.

Not many pitchers have led the league (in different seasons) in wins, saves and losses. Lowe has.

Lowe also holds this distinction: In 2004, he was the winning pitcher for the Red Sox in all three postseason series — Game Three of the division series against the Angels, Game Seven of the ALCS against the Yankees, Game Four of the World Series against St. Louis.

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Answer to the Olympian question above: Brian Duensing, who pitched for Team USA in the Beijing Games in 2008. The Americans won the bronze medal in those games, the last with baseball or softball in the mix.

Around the AL Central: Cleveland Indians

Important if true: Cleveland manager Manny Acta
this week described second baseman Jason Kipnis as a
cross between Dustin Pedroia and Chase Utley.

The 2011 Indians had pretty low expectations, but they were sensational for the first half of the season before tailing off and finishing a notch below .500.

It was a young team, and the conventional expectation is that a young team that suddenly emerges will continue to grow into the role of contender. And sometimes, as with the Twins in the early years of the previous decade, that does happen.

More frequently, it's a case of two steps forward, one step back. Which is rather what I expect is going to happen for the Tribe this year.

There are aspects of the Cleveland team that can go better in 2012 than they did in 2011. Shin-Soo Choo is better than he played last year. Carlos Santana's a better hitter than he showed last year. Grady Sizemore keeps on getting injured.

There were also aspects of the Cleveland team in 2011 that, quite frankly, seem rather flukey. Asdrubal Cabrera, as a primary example. Is the shortstop really a 25-homer guy? He's never shown power to be part of his skill set before.

Much of the lineup has question marks like that, or worse. Everybody seems to be either trying to bounce back from something or to be trying to establish that they really are that good.

Same thing with the starting rotation, which may be the key to the Indians' hopes.. We can name the Indians starters -- Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Tomlin, Derek Lowe, Kevin Slowey -- but none of them have a current established level of performance that they can be comfortable about.

Masterson, for example. Wish the Twins had him. But his ERA ballooned about 1.3 runs in the second half last season. Tomlin spent the first half doing a great Brad Radke impersonation, then finished the year on the shelf.  Lowe pretty clearly ain't what he used to be, and Jimenez had an ERA above 5 after coming over from Colorado.

Then there's the whole "pitcher to be named" Fausto Carmona fiasco, in which a starter who has been a centerpiece of the Cleveland rotation for five years turned out to be somebody else entirely. Roberto Hernandez Heredia is not going to readily get a visa after this false identity scam.

Which is why Slowey is getting a shot with the Tribe. The Twins castaway, a fly ball pitcher to the extreme, at least gives Cleveland a different look. Masterson and Lowe throw almost nothing but hard sinkers; that's also Jimenez's best pitch; that was also Carmona/Heredia 's bread and butter.

Cleveland went 80-82 last year with a set of stats that suggest a 75-win team. They might get better; I think they'll regress some.

Thome in Cleveland

A "welcome (T)home" in Cleveland on Friday.

When Jim Thome's plaque goes up in the Hall of Fame, his image will bear a Cleveland Indians logo.

Not the Twins, the White Sox or Phillies. Thome made his mark in Cleveland. He holds that franchise's career records for home runs, walks and strikeouts and is second in RBIs —and remember, it's one of the American League's eight original teams, 111 years old, so it has some serious history.

But he has not been warmly greeted as a visiting player in Cleveland since leaving for free agent riches after the 2002 season.  He had said they'd have to tear the Indians uniform off him for him to leave; all it took was silly money from the Phillies. Many Cleveland fans have not forgiven him for that.

From the Let's Go Tribe blog's piece after the Thome trade went through Thursday:

I've left the most ticklish issue for last: the psychological impact of Thome coming back nine years after leaving in acrimonious fashion on the Cleveland fanbase. Of course another Cleveland athlete has since managed to top Thome in acrimoniousness of a departure, but the events of November 2002 still remains a rather bitter chapter in Indians and Cleveland sports history. Usually at least once a season a columnist, normally from another market, remarks on how Indians fans should put aside their feelings of bitterness and cheer Thome. Of course, it's easy to say those things when you didn't have the emotional investment in him that Cleveland fans did, and feel the despair that came with that hero leaving like Cleveland fans felt. It's easy to tell someone else to forgive when you aren't emotionally involved. Yes, reason says that Thome made the correct financial decision for his family, and he made the decision that gave him a better shot of winning a ring. But we're fans, not philosophers.

So then he returned Friday in an Indians uniform. How was he greeted? Standing ovation.

Which is fitting and proper. Time wounds all heels, and heals all wounds. Big Jim was a big part of the best run the Indians have ever had. How he left doesn't change what he left behind.

Salvaging a split

Luis Valbuena (left) and Ezekial Carrera demonstrate how
not to converge on a fly ball in the gap.

Wednesday's wasn't a particularly crisply played game by either team, but the bumbling and miscues pretty much canceled each other out.

The Twins gave away at least one run when Ben Revere dropped a fly ball and another when Drew Butera inexplicably hesitated to throw home on a passed ball.  Cleveland reciprocated with an Alphonse-and-Gaston routine in left-center that was no small part of the Twins' winning rally.

Luis Valbuena is not a particularly gifted defensive infielder who was pressed into duty as a left fielder the last two days because (a) Michael Brantley had a heat-related illness and (b) Travis Buck took a Francisco Liriano fastball to the noggin. The ball seemed to find Valbuena at the right times for the Twins in the late innings Tuesday and Wednesday.

(Buck was said Wednesday to have a headache, but the Indians insisted that he had no concussion. I'm not a doctor, but something doesn't smell right to me.)

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Ron Gardenhire often talks about "piecing together" innings from his bullpen. Wednesday was prime example of it: Alex Burnett opened the seventh without much success, He left with men on second and third and one out. Jose Mijares, the master of ball one, entered — and got out of the inning on five pitches, all of them strikes.

I repeat: Mijares threw five ptiches, all of them strikes. I didn't think it could be done.

Of course, he couldn't replicate that when he started the eighth; he fell behind Asdrubal Cabrera 3-1 and gave up a double. The ever-popular Matt Capps eventually got the Twins out of the eighth without a run.

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Brandon Inge demonstrates the value of
a baggy jersey: More HBP, less pain.

Detroit next, with Justin Verlander going today for the Tigers. Verlander's turn in the rotation was Wednesday, but the Tigers pushed him back a day so he'd pitch in the Minnesota series.

The Tiger have also swapped out third basemen. Brandon Inge (and his .177 batting average with 10 extra base hits) was designated for assignment Wednesday after Detroit traded a couple of prospects to Kansas City for Wilson Betemit.

Inge is one of those guys who is far more popular with the fans in a given city than his talents merit. Part of it, without a doubt, is that he was there when the Tigers were a godawful team in the early 2000s and he was there when they went to the World Series; part of it is that he moved, without complaint, from catcher to center field to third base to catcher to third base; part of it is that he's spent his career there and seems to like being a Detroit Tiger.

He's Detroit's version of Michael Cuddyer, and perhaps a warning on the risks involved in investing heavily in such a player as he enters his middle 30s.

Optimism and reality

The Twins have now won six of their last seven.

They still have the worst record in the majors, still sport the worst run differential in the majors, still have much of their payroll on the disabled list or obviously playing hurt. They're still 11.5 games out of first place, and 10 games behind one of the teams seen at the start of the season as a divisional contender.

They have a long way to go to realistically be back in the hunt.

More days like Wednesday -- when the Twins were the only AL Central team to win -- and I might start taking the notion seriously.

Phil Dumatrait has
pitched nine innings
with the Twins
with three hits,
six walks and two
strikeouts.

A few more comments on the Cleveland series:

* Are the left-handed components of the Minnesota bulllpen really that reliable, or are the Indians are simply that vulnerable to lefties? My guess is the latter. The biggest bats in the Cleveland lineup are either left-handed (Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo) or switch-hitters (Asdrubal Cabrera, Carlos Santana), and Ron Gardenhire leaned heavily on his southpaws. And they got outs.

Even Jose Mijares, who has had problems throwing strikes all season, was effective.

* Phil Dumatrait got the save with a scoreless 10th inning Wednesday, lowering his ERA to an even 2.00, but ... it's only nine innings, and the peripheral stats aren't that good.

* File this one under "about time": Gardenhire finally used Jason Repko as a defensive sub for Delmon Young.

* The Twins offense, productive against Kansas City in the sweep there and in the first game in Cleveland, sagged in the last two  -- not surprising considering the lineups look like spring training road games,

* The Twins have had just 21 home games so far, by far the fewest in the majors. They're scheduled to play 30 of their next 40 games at Target Field, starting tonight with the opener of a four-game series with Texas.

With no disrespect to the Cleveland Indians, the Texas Rangers right now pose a more significant challenge to the Twins newfound sense of competence.

Doing the math

Another game, another failure
for the Twins.

The rule of thumb here is to ignore the standings until Memorial Day. This is a time to break that rule.

The Twins lost Friday night (six straight losses), giving them a record of 12-14, .333 — the worst record in the majors. The Cleveland Indians (still in first place) won, making them 24-13 — the best record in the American League.

Last year the Twins won 94 games. Let's say it will take that many to win the division title. In that case, the Twins would have to go 82-44 the rest of the way; the Indians would have to go 70-55.

Say it will take just 90 wins to take the division. Then the Twins need a 78-48 mark for the rest of the season, while the Tribe would get there with a 66-59 record.

Finally, say it takes 86 wins, which is roughly where Rob Neyer projected the division winner to be. The Twins would get there if they go 74-52, while the Indians would reach that mark by going just 62-63.

It doesn't have to be the Indians. I've been clinging for weeks to the comforting notion that the likely threats to the Twins domination of the division, Chicago and Detroit, weren't doing much better than Minnesota.  But the Tigers have won six straight while the Twins have lost their six, and they are now 7.5 games up on the Twins.