Pluto:
http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/ind ... and_t.html

Antonetti, one of the youngest and brightest GMs in baseball

Tony Lastoria has a challenger for Pollyanna prize! Bowden also notes Knapp and Stowell among our almost ready pitches, although neither has thrown a pitch this season.

Cleveland Indians know that the proof is in the winning: Terry Pluto

Published: Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 4:15 AM Updated: Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 4:16 AM

By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer
Manny Acta is enjoying his team's fast start to the 2011 season, but he's not worrying about when attendance will reflect the Indians' record.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- For a guy who wasn't even here until 2010, Manny Acta has a solid understanding of what Tribe baseball fans have endured lately.

As the Tribe took a 22-11 record into Tuesday's game against Tampa Bay at Progressive Field, the Indians' manager insisted that he's not surprised by his team's fast start. "We expected to win," he said.

"This is not a shock because we can pitch and catch the ball."

Then Acta said he "understands why people doubt us."

He means everyone from the media to the fans.

It's deeper than the 65-97 and 69-93 records the previous two seasons. He turned the calendar back to 2008, when the Indians were coming off a 96-66 season. They were baseball's feel-good story, coming within a game of going to the World Series with a 24th ranked payroll (out of 30 teams).

"They were picked to win in 2008, and they didn't win," said Acta.

The final 81-81 record in 2008 was very deceiving, in terms of keeping the fans interested. Look at these records by month: 13-15, 12-15, 12-16, 10-14, 18-10 and 16-11. They never were more than three games over .500.

Fans know the rest of the story. Cy Young winner CC Sabathia was traded in 2008. Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee was traded in 2009, as was All-Star catcher Victor Martinez. There are only five players on the current roster left from 2007: Fausto Carmona, Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Raffy Perez and Asdrubal Cabrera.

In 2009, the Indians never were over .500. Last season, they actually started 2-1, but were 9-13 at the end of April. So there wasn't even a bit of a tease -- the Indians saved their worst baseball for their fans' first exposure.

Trading stars, cutting payroll, slow starts and losing more than 90 games left the fans with the impression that baseball here was hopeless. The Indians made the situation worse by spending too much time talking about how a lack of a salary cap hurts middle-market teams. Instead, they needed to stress that they had to do a better job of drafting and developing players, much like Minnesota and Tampa Bay.

Tampa was not able to afford veterans such as Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena from last season's 96-66 Eastern Division winning team. Acta said the key has been the Rays' farm system producing pitchers.

All six of their starters was drafted, signed and developed by Tampa: Jeremy Hellickson (fourth round, 2005), Wadsworth/Kent State product Andy Sonnenstine (13th, 2004), James Shields (16th, 2000), Wade Davis (third, 2004), David Price (first, 2007) and Jeff Neimann (first, 2004). Eleven of Tampa's 25 active players were drafted by the Rays.

What gives the Tribe reason for hope is starters Josh Tomlin and Alex White were drafted by the Indians. Fausto Carmona, Tony Sipp, Raffy Perez and Vinnie Pestano are all also products of the farm system, so things are tilting in the right direction. But the fact is every Tribe position player began his career with a different major-league organization.

White is the first player from the drafts of scout director Brad Grant, who took over in 2008. More should be coming with Lonnie Chisenhall (.295, 2 HR, 18 RBI), Jason Kipnis (.282, 2 HR, 18 RBI) and Cord Phelps (.306, 3 HR, 16 RBI) showing real promise at Class AAA Columbus. Some could be in the lineup later this season.

Then there's Drew Pomeranz (No. 1 pick, 2010), who is 1-1 with a 1.27 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings at Class A Kinston. He could be in Class AAA by the end of the season.

Tampa has found a way to average 90 victories over the last three years in the rugged American League East, dueling big spenders Boston and the Yankees. After a 1-8 start this season, the Rays won 19 of 25 heading into Tuesday night.

The Indians are now taking the wise approach of not talking about baseball economics, or chastising the fans for not immediately embracing this team.

Rather, they seem determined to show fans that they are doing the right things on the field.

Bowden has been really hyping the Tribe on XM.

Grady getting an MRI

Updated: May 11, 2011, 5:59 PM ET
Grady Sizemore to get knee looked at

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Associated Press

CLEVELAND -- Grady Sizemore's startling comeback has been slowed. He's hurt his other knee.

Sizemore jammed his right knee -- not the one he had season-ending microfracture surgery on in 2010 -- while sliding into second base in the sixth inning of Tuesday night's 5-4 victory over Tampa Bay, the Indians' 14th straight win at home. After being checked, he stayed in the game.

lastname
Sizemore

However, the three-time All-Star had knee soreness on Wednesday, so the Indians' medical staff decided to have him undergo an MRI.

Sizemore left Progressive Field to get the medical test at about 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday. He told reporters he did not have time to talk before leaving in street clothes as the Indians prepared to face the Rays.

Indians manager Manny Acta described the MRI as precautionary. He expects the team to have the results in a few hours.

"Our medical staff doesn't think it's anything serious," Acta said. "But for peace of mind, we're just taking some precautions with him. It was scheduled from yesterday just to give him some peace of mind because of what he has gone through with the other knee.

"When you jam your knee on a bag, it's not going to go away right away so it's just to clear his head."

Sizemore has played exceptionally well since being activated on April 17. Despite the long layoff -- last season ended in May and he had surgery in June -- the 28-year-old appears to be close to being the same all-around player he was before getting hurt.

He's batting .282 with six homers, 10 doubles, 11 RBIs and scored 15 runs in just 18 games.

His return has only made the Indians better as they're off to their best start in a decade and lead the AL Central by 5½ games.

Sizemore was limited to just 33 games last season. He injured his knee while diving back into first base, and eventually underwent microfracture surgery, a procedure where tiny holes are drilled into the kneecap to promote scarring and repair.

Neither Sizemore nor the Indians were sure how he would be when he got back, but he's been at full throttle.

In Tuesday's game, Sizemore homered leading off the first, beat out a force play at second with a hard slide when he got hurt and made several nice catches deep in Cleveland's tricky outfield.

"That was good to see and he didn't show any signs or issues with his knee," Acta said. "It was probably the biggest test he's had so far."

The Indians aren't whole without Sizemore atop their lineup or roaming center.

"He makes such a huge difference," Acta said. "We were waiting on him -- just his presence alone. We weren't counting on him coming back pre-injury and have his 2008 type of form. Just to have him around, we feed off of him, the way he goes about his business, his presence and his defense. He has come out swinging the bat well, and put us one step higher to the way we were playing."

"He generates so much for us. We saw last year when he couldn't play how much we miss a guy like him."

Here's the WSJ article DonSurber linked earlier


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

MAY 11, 2011

Duck! It's the Cleveland Indians
After Two Brutal Years and 206 Roster Moves, the Tribe Claws Back to the Top; The Rebuilding Study

By DARREN EVERSON

Nothing in sports cries out for a warning label like the first few weeks of a baseball season. Given the length of this unholy death march, performance in April and early May isn't a guarantee of future results.

Now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, let us ponder and wonder: How on earth are the Cleveland Indians in first place?
Duck! It's the Cleveland Indians

After two brutal years and 206 roster moves, the Tribe has clawed back to the top. The Journal's Darren Everson details the key moves that worked (and a few that didn't) along the way.



In October 2007, the team was riding high with a 3-1 lead on the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series. The Indians blew that series, slipped to mediocrity the following year (81-81) and then to irrelevance, failing to win 70 games in the next two seasons. This year they were as much as a 125-to-1 longshot to win the World Series. But a funny thing happened on the way to the boneyard: Cleveland's 22-11 record through Monday was tops in the AL, making them just the sixth team since 1900 to win 21 of its first 30 games after losing 90 the year before.

As a forensic exercise, The Wall Street Journal retraced all 206 of the Indians' noteworthy transactions since that Game 7 loss to the Red Sox. Forty-four of those were deals with other clubs, the third-most of any team over that span. These deals show, quite clearly, how well the Indians fared in dealing veterans like Mark DeRosa and CC Sabathia for prospects. It also showed what an elaborate dart-throwing exercise running a baseball team can be: other moves, like spending $6 million for Masahide Kobayashi, landed well off the mark.
Cleveland's Hits

The Indians' philosophy on retooling the roster comes from a 2002 study the front office did on rebuilding efforts across the majors. The team found that it generally took teams at least eight years to get back to a 90-win level (in other words, an eternity). "We didn't want to go through an 8-to-11-year process," general manager Chris Antonetti said. So Cleveland focused on acquiring youngsters who are at or near the major-league level, as opposed to hyped prospects who needed time. The most prominent is pitcher Justin Masterson, who came from Boston in the 2009 trade of catcher Victor Martinez. With the Red Sox, Masterson was a reliever and spot starter. With the Indians he lost 20 of his first 27 decisions. But this season he's 5-0, while making just shy of $500,000.
More on the Indians

Cabrera's in Cleveland? They Must Be a Playoff Team

Although Cleveland has had a few successes with homegrown players, especially former 19th-rounder Josh Tomlin (4-1, 2.43 ERA through Monday), it's the Indians' repeated stars-for-youngsters deals of the past three years that have paid off most. Chris Perez, the Indians' hard-throwing closer, came over from the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009 for DeRosa, a solid but aging infielder who hit just .228 for the Cardinals and is on the Giants' disabled list. First baseman Matt LaPorta, the key prospect in the 2008 Sabathia trade with Milwaukee, is improving (.464 slugging percentage) after struggling his first two years.

Outfielder Michael Brantley, a former player-to-be-named-later, was a fortuitous choice. In the Sabathia deal, Cleveland got to choose the player-to-be-named from a group of prospects, the best of whom were Brantley and third baseman Taylor Green. Although Green had more power, the Indians preferred the speedy Brantley, who was hitting .287 with a .366 on-base percentage through Monday. As for Green, he's hitting .235 for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds.

Cleveland's Misses

Not everything has come up bullseyes. Kerry Wood was a $10 million closer on two 90-loss teams. The 2009 Cliff Lee deal with Philadelphia (for Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, Lou Marson and Jason Knapp) hasn't yielded a superstar to match. Kobayashi, a Japanese reliever, was so ineffective the Indians released him in 2009 with two months left on his contract.

The draft has also been a soft spot. Jeremy Sowers, a former No. 6-overall pick, has a 5.18 career ERA and is out with an injury. Cleveland had five picks in the first three rounds of the 2005 draft and six more in 2006, but none of those players is on the major-league roster.

Antonetti stressed that it's early. "We need to be mindful of that," he said. "But I believe in the talent that's here."

Write to Darren Everson at darren.everson@wsj.com

A League of his own: Worst week ever
May, 14, 2011 By David Schoenfield

On Sunday afternoon in Seattle, Mariners closer Brandon League entered in the top of the ninth of a tie game. He pitched a 1-2-3 ninth but gave up RBI doubles to Alexei Ramirez and Adam Dunn in the 10th, and the Mariners lost 5-2. He'd been pretty much perfect before that game: no record, and a perfect nine-for-nine in save chances.

Tuesday in Baltimore, the Mariners scored a run in the 13th inning to take a 6-5 lead. League gave up four singles and lost 7-6.

Thursday night was a thrilling 0-0 game (note sarcasm in "thrilling") until the 12th, when Seattle broke through with a run. League came on, gave up a single, hit two batters, got a line drive out and then surrendered a two-single to J.J. Hardy and the Mariners lost 2-1.

Friday night, Eric Wedge again called upon League, to protect a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the ninth in Cleveland. Michael Brantley doubled. Carlos Peguero misplayed Asdrubal Cabrera's fly ball into a double. League should have been out of the inning after getting the next two batters, but instead had to face Travis Hafner. Boom. Home run. Indians win 5-4.

Brandon League appeared in four games this week and lost them all. Has a major league pitcher ever had a worst week?

Anthony Young, who holds the major league record with 27 consecutive defeats, had 13 of those occur in relief. But that happened over two seasons, and he never lost four appearances in a row, let alone in one week. The reliever with the most consecutive losing decisions is another Met -- Skip Lockwood, who lost his final 10 decisions of 1978 and his first four of 1979. Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley once lost 12 straight decisions from 1995 to 1997 (he was 0-6 in 1996). The Mariners are used to this kind of thing: David Aardsma, last year's closer, went 0-6 and is currently on a nine-game losing streak. (Twenty-four relievers, including Lockwood, Young and Eck have lost at least 10 decisions in a row in relief.)

But four losses in one calendar week? Four in a five-game span?

A week ago the Mariners were 16-17 and us M's fans actually started believing, just a little bit. Now Seattle is 16-23 and it looks like a long summer ahead.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/5 ... #storyjump

When Do Standings Actually Matter?

Picture-6_tiny by C_S_J on May 12, 2011 3:23 PM EDT in Research

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Please welcome Chris St. John, our newest contributor at Beyond the Box Score. He will generally be posting about statistical oddities and other sabermetric wonders. -ed.

Legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully likes to repeat a quote from a well-known former Major League manager, "Give me 50 games and I'll know what kind of team I have." I don't remember who said it, or what the exact quote is, but that's the gist of it. Just for reference, 50 games into the MLB season usually lands around the end of May.
Method:

I wanted to test this out and see how quickly we know how good a team actually is, so I did what any regular baseball fan would do: I went to coolstandings.com and grabbed the record at the end of each month for every team since 1998, when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks were added to the major leagues. Then, I looked at the end of month winning percentage and compared it to the end of season win total, using a linear regression. I also split each month up into bins of team winning percentage, where each bin contains about 65 teams.
Results

Star-divide

Teams are all over the place at the end of April. Sure, the 43-119 2003 Tigers looked terrible, but so did the 102-60 2001 Oakland Athletics (end of April WP of .320). There is a definite pattern, but not enough to say who is good or bad with any certainty.



Using Pizza Cutter's "magic number" of stability of r^2 = .5 from this classic article on good sample sizes for statistics, winning percentage is "stable" by the end of May. However, there is still quite a bit of overlap between terrible teams and great teams. The 74-win 2005 Orioles had an end of May winning percentage of .608, while the 89-win 2005 Astros has an end of May winning percentage of .373. Still doesn't look good enough.





June is where teams really begin to separate from each other. The really good and really bad teams are obvious for the most part, but the middle-of-the-pack teams are still pretty blurry. If a team is still winning at a .600 clip by the end of June, they're a good bet to finish the season with at least a respectable record. However, there are still some 80-win teams left there, so be careful.





July looks pretty similar to June with a little more separation. The 95+ win teams are all looking really good and all of the .570+ teams should finish with at least a winning record.



By the end of August, the standings are fairly well set. There may still be some jostling in the middle of each division, but the top and bottom teams are pretty obvious.



Once the end of September rolls around, we know with almost perfect certainty how many total wins a team will have. Obviously this is true, since the season is basically over. The only thing left to determine may be a particularly close playoff race. One final thing I looked at was the average winning percentage by month, grouped by end of season wins. The win totals were chosen to select a similar total of teams in each bin.





There are some interesting trends to spot here. First, on average, the great teams (94+ wins) have great winning percentages throughout the year, but they actually get better as the season progresses. The average end of month winning percentage increases from .594 in June to .605 in September. This may be due to trading for a great player in June or July and also feasting on lesser competition once September call ups roll around.

A barely note-worthy trend: terrible teams are terrible all year. They are terrible to begin the season, get a little less terrible in the middle of the season and then get more terrible at the end of the season, but not quite as terrible as they were at the beginning. The drop off at the end of the season is also most likely because of September call ups. The most intriguing bins to compare are the 88-93 and 82-87 bins. This is the line between "contender" and "pretender."You could argue the line is between 89 and 90, but the 88 and 90 win teams were necessary to keep the bin sizes equal, since there have been 30 of them. There is a steep drop off between 88 and 87, though:



The "pretenders" actually have a little better April, in general. That's probably just a weird quirk. However, as the season progresses, the "contenders" get better every month, while the "pretenders" get worse every month (besides September). So when do the standings matter? At the end of the season, when all the playoff spots are set. But when can we tell who is good and who is bad? It looks like somewhere in August.

The terrible teams and great teams separate in June, but the middle is still muddled. This appears to clear up somewhere in August. So how about that quote? Can a manager tell what kind of team he has within 50 games? Possibly. Can the general public tell how well a team will finish at the end of the season after 50 games by looking at their winning percentage? Forget it.

Has a major league pitcher ever had a worst week?

Fausto the Closer was right up in that neighborhood of futility.

Terry Pluto:

About the Tribe...

1. Most fans have a clear memory of the Travis Hafner homer in the bottom of the ninth to win Friday's game against Seattle. But don't forget how Michael Brantley began that rally with a double. Or how Brantley is putting together a superb season, hitting .298. The lefty is batting .308 vs. lefties, .293 vs. righties and .333 with runners in scoring position. He's looking like the hot prospect who had a career .303 minor-league average, .388 on-base percentage.

2. Brantley turns 24 today. He sometimes is the forgotten player in the C.C. Sabathia deal, because Matt LaPorta was leading the minors in homers when the trade was made with the Brewers on July 7, 2008. Brantley was the played to be named later after that season. The Indians picked him over third baseman Taylor Green, thank goodness.

3. The 6-2, 200-pound Brantley has a chance to be bigger and stronger. He already has three homers, matching his total in 297 at-bats with the Tribe last season. This is not to say Brantley will become a 30-homer guy like Grady Sizemore ... but just as Sizemore added power during his career, so will Brantley.

4. In the meantime, he is an extremely disciplined hitter with a short swing. He rarely seems fooled, an he knows the strike zone. He is effective as a leadoff hitter or batting seventh. He has an excellent .372 on-base percentage. He plays center or left field very well. He has stolen five bases in seven attempts. He's just a good all-around player destined to get better.

5. Brantley opened the 2010 season with the Tribe and struggled, especially against inside pitches. He was hitting .157 when sent back to Columbus. He hit .319 in Class AAA, came back on August 6 -- and hit .292 for the rest of the year. He made some adjustments in his stance, and now rips that hard stuff inside to right field. That's why the best is yet to come for Brantley -- he quietly works and figures things out.

6. It was great to see Hafner hammer a 96 mph fastball over the center field wall, flying over that 400-foot sign. That's a real indication that Hafner's shoulder is stronger -- overpowering a fierce fastball. Most Tribe fans are aware that Hafner is hitting .340 with five homers and 16 RBI. It's .344 vs. lefties, .338 vs. righties, a stunning .480 (12-of-25) with runners in scoring position.

7. Even more important, Hafner is a .336 hitter with 10 homers, 37 RBI and 20 doubles in 74 games since last season's All-Star break. His OPS is exactly the same in the second half of last season, and this year -- a very impressive .932.

That's why the best is yet to come for Brantley -- he quietly works and figures things out.

And even better, he has his ex big league (and ex hitting coach for Toronto) dad to help him with that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/sport ... nted=print


May 15, 2011

Ahead of Schedule, Indians Rock Again

By TYLER KEPNER

CLEVELAND — Two flags hang from each lamppost on Ontario Street here, outside the home of the best team in baseball. On one side is a head shot of a smiling Cleveland Indians player. On the other is a photograph of that player shaking hands with a fan.

The Indians did not know they would be this good — at 24-13, they lead the American League Central by three and a half games. The safe play, from a marketing standpoint, was to emphasize the ballpark experience, the special kind of intimacy that baseball offers. A team with 190 losses the last two seasons could promise little else to a jaded and wary fan base.

Privately, though, the Indians thought this was possible if their veterans got healthy and their young players developed. Chris Antonetti, the general manager, recruited bargain free agents with that sales pitch.

“The consensus outside the organization was maybe they were a year or two away,” reliever Chad Durbin said. “But Chris was adamant: ‘Absolutely not. You can make your decision here, there or wherever, but this team’s going to be better than everybody thinks.’ ”

Durbin pitched the last three seasons for the Philadelphia Phillies, who have essentially become what the Indians were in the second half of the 1990s, and not just because they have a former Indians manager (Charlie Manuel) and ace starter (Cliff Lee). The Phillies sell out every home game, as the Indians did for 455 consecutive dates from June 1995 to April 2001.

That does not happen in Cleveland anymore. The Indians blitzed to a 14-2 start at home for the first time in the 111 years of the franchise. Yet the team ranks last in the majors in attendance this season, averaging 15,648 a game. The dreary weather is partly to blame — two of three games this weekend against Seattle were rained out — but the Indians also ranked last in attendance in 2010.

“The fans here, they’re either all in or they’re sitting home,” said outfielder Shelley Duncan, a former Yankee. “They don’t want to dive in completely and get their hearts broken. That’s happened enough with people here. You see what happened with LeBron, with the Browns’ history, this team’s history. It’s understandable. I don’t blame them at all.”

Antonetti’s office overlooks the Cavaliers’ arena, which LeBron James fled last summer after failing to win a title in Cleveland. The Indians’ president, Mark Shapiro, is the brother-in-law of Eric Mangini, the latest Browns coach to be fired well shy of the Super Bowl.

The Indians have not won the World Series since 1948, and in their last appearance, in 1997, closer Jose Mesa blew the lead in the ninth inning of Game 7 against the Florida Marlins. Even without a coronation for their glory days, the Indians’ success — six division titles and two pennants from 1995 through 2001 — casts a long shadow.

“We need to pull back and do a better job of strategically assessing what we were and not look at ourselves through the lens of the mid-’90s,” Shapiro said. “It’s just not the same operating circumstances and not the same city. We need to celebrate it, but celebrate it as our heritage and not as something attainable now.”

Several Fortune 500 companies that were based around Cleveland in 1997 have since left town, including BP, OfficeMax, TRW and National City Bank. According to Census figures, the city’s population dropped 17 percent from 2000 to 2010. Only Detroit, at 25 percent, lost more residents.

Ten years ago, the Indians ranked fifth in the majors in payroll, at nearly $92 million. Two years later, they ranked 26th, after trading starter Bartolo Colon to Montreal for three future All-Stars: Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Lee. (The Indians’ payroll again ranks 26th, around $49 million, this season.)

The success of the Colon deal and extensive internal research on the patterns of other teams emboldened the Indians to move aggressively in reshaping the team.

“Nobody ever says, ‘Do you want to trade C. C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez?’ ” Shapiro said. “The answer is clearly no. The question is, what’s the best way to get back to contention as quickly as possible?”

By trading players who often have more than one year left on their contracts, the Indians have maximized the return in talent while, of course, saving more money. The moves have alienated some fans but spared the team from prolonged down cycles that have plagued Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Baltimore.

The Indians won 93 games in 2005 and 96 two years later, when they nearly returned to the World Series. But for a franchise that relies on attendance to generate much of its revenue, that season offered a sobering lesson.

The team drew fewer than 2.3 million fans in 2007, a drop of more than a million from the heady days of the sellout streak. Without a drastic change in their market, they cannot expect to draw more.

“Our economy’s starting to get better, but how much and how quickly and how will that translate to attendance? We’re not quite sure,” Antonetti said. “We’ll always have to have an efficient payroll. For us to be successful, we will have to get more out of less.”

So far, they have done that, with just three players making more than $4 million this season: starter Fausto Carmona ($6.1 million), Sizemore ($7.5 million) and designated hitter Travis Hafner ($13 million). Those three, along with shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera and reliever Rafael Perez, are the only players from the 2007 playoff roster who remain on the team. Shin-Soo Choo, the skilled right fielder, played just six games in the majors that season.

“It’s tough, because you’re used to that group of guys from ’03 to ’08 pretty much, and a good majority of those guys are gone,” Hafner said. “It’s a whole new wave, so you didn’t really know what to expect. But you could start to see it in the second half last year. A lot of the young guys were starting to figure it out.”

With the youngest roster in the majors at the end of last season, the Indians went 35-39 in the second half, when their 3.89 earned run average ranked fourth in the league. Starter Justin Masterson and closer Chris Perez pitched especially well and have carried over their success.

But for the Indians to contend, Antonetti knew that Sizemore and Hafner would have to be healthy. Sizemore had left elbow surgery in 2009 and microfracture surgery on his left knee last year. Hafner spent parts of the last three seasons on the disabled list with right shoulder trouble.

Sizemore is the Indians’ catalyst again, with a .282 average and 6 home runs in 18 games. But the threat of another knee injury looms over his every step. Manager Manny Acta cringed when Sizemore bruised his right knee on a slide last week.

“I have to, because that would be the only thing that is going to stop us from being competitive the rest of the way,” Acta said. “I don’t think we can absorb those types of injuries, especially if it is more than one guy, because that’s what happened last year. In order for us to stay the course, we need every one of these guys healthy and just about every one of them to play to their capabilities.”

That may be asking too much. But with the division-rival Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox already in deep holes, the Indians seem to be slowly convincing their fans. Local television ratings are up sharply, Shapiro said, and on Friday — with fireworks and $1 hot dogs as a lure — 33,774 fans showed up for a game against Seattle. Hafner won it with a home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Acta has told his team that the rebuilding is over and the time to win is now. Lots of managers talk that way, but the Indians have responded, largely because the best-case situations are playing out all over the roster.

That almost never happens to Cleveland teams, but the Indians are challenging the beliefs of fans conditioned to expect the worst. The team would love more support but is coping just fine without it.

“What we say is we have a good crowd in our dugout,” Acta said, “and we have a great, happy crowd in our clubhouse after we win.”

Interesting bio for the guy penning the article I just posted from the NYT about the 2011 Cleveland Indians....



Reporter Biography: Tyler Kepner


Tyler Kepner is a sports reporter for The New York Times. He has been reporting on the New York Yankees since 2002. Before that he had covered the New York Mets since 2000.

Prior to joining The Times, Mr. Kepner covered the Seattle Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer from 1998 until 1999. Previously he wrote about the Anaheim Angels for the Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise from 1997 until 1998. He also held internship positions at the Washington Post and the Boston Globe in 1997 and 1996, respectively.

Mr. Kepner graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. degree in 1997. He attended Vanderbilt on the Grandtland Rice-Fred Russell Sportswriting Scholarship.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Kepner currently lives in Stamford, Conn., with his wife and two children.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/readersopini ... r-bio.html

Today - 12:40 PM ET

Indians placed OF Grady Sizemore on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to May 11, with a right knee contusion.

The bruise isn't serious, but Sizemore hasn't made a quick recovery and the Indians are now taking the safest course. He should be back when his 15 days are up. The injury is not to his surgically-repaired knee and, according to the Cleveland training staff, he's merely dealing with soreness. Sizemore will leave behind a .974 OPS, six homers and 11 runs batted in.