Trade Deadline Tomfoolary!

Pundants and bloggers alike have been smearing the Tribe for the rash overhaul of their major league ball club. Yes, it is true the team that we saw tonight did look a lot like my favorite AAA team the Kansas City Royals (who are only a game and a half behind us). This does not mean that Mark Shapiro does not know what he is doing. We have heard that we didn't get any "Blue Chip" prospects and that this was merely a salary dump, that we are playing for 2012 and that the fans are the only ones that will suffer, and that even that the ownership may not have winning as a priority. These are nothing more than words that help the ignorant feel better about themselves; half truths if you will. The tribes record is 42 and 61, 12 games out of the lead for the Central Division. We accomplished this great feat with all of our core players, our stars, intact! Even if we kept these players their trade value would diminish and we would continue to lose. Our farm systems were depleted and thus there would be little help next year. We do however have some players that will be coming along in the near future... eta 2012. In fact, two of them are catchers (Toregas and Santana) and we just cleared room for them. But the media is right, lets not save money and continue to lose so that we don't have money to resign our closer (Wood) or starting pitching (Westbrook) that is soon to come off the books.

Enough with the negativity, this is my first post and we should be looking at potential! What are the positives? We dumped the overbearing contracts of Derosa and Betancourt... that's a start. But what about our prospects? 9 of 11 are pitchers which shows that the focus was on our greatest weakness in the minor league systems. The other two players, Marson and Donald are expected to fight for jobs with the ball club next year. Marson was said to be more big league ready then Santana and Donald is an ex-Olympian with a pedigree. Sounds okay so far... but what about the pitchers. Justin Masterson has been a part of the Redsox bullpen all season and may contend for a spot in our rotation next year. He is a proven big leaguer. Price and Hagadone were both 1st round draft picks that throw in the upper 90s. Both are young and have a pedigree. Carrasco, Knapp and Perez will also all either be on our 40 man roster or contend for spots out of spring training. That leaves Scott Barnes, Jess Todd, the 4th ranked prospect in the Phillies organization and minor league player of the year and BG native Connor Graham whom the Indians have scouted since high school. I guess we really didn't address any needs or receive any important prospects in return for our talent.

The Phillies did not give up any of the people that the Blue Jays wanted in a Halladay deal and thus the point that we didn't get them is moot. The Tribe felt that they still received more than enough talent in return. If we can't win with who we have we need players that we can win with. The real problem doesn't lie with our trading, it lies with the fact that many of our draft picks do not pan out. This leaves us looking for talent elsewhere and having to give up Cy Young winners to do so. The Indians made out in these deals and will have talent and cap room going forward into the future. We also kept Sizemore, Choo, and Cabrera which is a fine young core in itself.

Look, we could have depleted our minor league system for an Ace that won't get us into the playoffs( The White Sox, 51-51 going into today) or worse yet we could live in Kansas City. Thank Jobu that's not our case! Lastly, this message is for Jason Grimsley... who was named one of the players who tested positive for steroids... KARMAS A BITCH! Peace...I'm out.