LaPorta is in the upper 1/3 of 1st basemen. Grady's power numbers are way out of ahead for CF's (he's 8th in doubles, and 7th in homer although he's played less than the half the games most of his competitors)

http://www.draftbuddy.com/baseball/play ... &sort=DESC

http://www.stationcaster.com/player_ski ... 76&f=78142

Chris Perez on WKNR this morning.

As the Elias Sports Bureau pointed out Monday, 21 teams were within five games of .500 heading into this week. And over the last 95 years, it's only the fifth time that 70 percent of teams were within five games of .500 after at least 46 games. The others: 1974, 1968, 1958 and 1944.


http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/s ... ings110524

Trades spur Indians' stunning revival into best team in majors


CLEVELAND -- There's a new type of diversity gaining steam on the banks of Lake Erie. Cleveland has long been known for its influx of Eastern European immigrants who came to work more than a century ago in the city's thriving industries, but now its baseball team is seeking all-comers from around America, hired hands who as often cut their teeth in cities like Huntsville, Ala., and Tacoma, Wash., as they did in Boston and St. Louis.
The past decade for the Indians has been a riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags-and-to-riches again story, as they've alternately shipped established stars and welcomed promising young men, many whose only job experience has been in the minor leagues of other organizations.
In Monday's come-from-behind 3-2 win over the Red Sox that pushed their major league-best record to 30-15, 14 of the Indians' 15 participating players arrived from elsewhere -- nine by trades and five via one-year free-agent contracts. Only reliever Rafael Perez was homegrown.
The winning pitcher, reliever Joe Smith, was acquired from the Mets; starting pitcher Justin Masterson came from the Red Sox; closer Chris Perez, who got the save, came from the Cardinals. The tying run was driven in by outfielder Michael Brantley, who along with first baseman Matt LaPorta arrived via the Brewers' Double-A team in Huntsville. The winning run and three hits were provided by shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, who was playing with rightfielder Shin-Soo Choo for Seattle's Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma before being traded to Cleveland.
"I think it's easier to pick out the guys that didn't come in a trade," Perez said.
The Indians, which won fewer than 70 games each of the past two seasons, are the majors' surprise story of the season. They own the American League's best mark by 5 ½ games; have opened a seven-game lead in the AL Central; have the majors' best run differential (+67); have already swept six three-game series; and have a major-league-best 19-4 home record.
Thanks to contributions from players who have returned from significant injuries, a rapid defensive improvement, strike-throwing pitchers and a roster disproportionately constructed by a barrage of trades, 2011 is shaping up to be an Indian Summer.
"We don't rely on one or two people just because we can't," outfielder Travis Buck said. "Do we have as much talent as a lot of the other teams? Probably not, but we know what we're capable of doing and we have to do that every single night in order to win."
The wheeling and dealing, started by former general manager Mark Shapiro (who's now team president) and continued by current GM Chris Antonetti, has catalyzed the rebuilding process during a pair of down cycles since the turn of the century. The club made the playoffs in six of seven years (and reached two World Series) from 1995 to 2001, but then downshifted when they knew that key pieces would no longer be affordable, and kickstarted the rebuilding in 2002 by trading ace Bartolo Colon and letting Jim Thome leave as a free-agent at season's end.
By 2005 the Indians were one game away from the playoffs and by 2007 they were one game away from the World Series. But they recognized their inability to retain stars like CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, et al., and so rather than wait entirely on drafted players to develop, they traded many of their most valuable chips and rebuilt for a couple years. Today they are already back in playoff contention behind many of the players acquired in those deals.
"We started by asking the question, What's our quickest way back to competitiveness?" Antonetti said. "We realized that we could have let a lot of those guys complete their contracts, become free agents and get draft picks back for them. We felt that it would be in our best interest to try and expedite that by getting guys who were further along in the development process."
Of the 30 Indians either on the 25-man roster or currently on the disabled list, 14 were acquired in trades (46.7 percent), which ranks second by number and percentage among all major league teams, trailing only the Athletics (15 and 48.4 percent). The average major-league team carries seven players (25.0 percent) who arrived via trades.
The Indians have baseball's No. 26-ranked payroll at $49 million, meaning that expensive free agents are out of the question and their roster construction strategy would need to rely on other means. While the club has started to see improvement in the spoils of its farm system -- 2009 first-round pick Alex White made a few successful starts before injury, Triple-A infielders Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis could contribute soon and Baseball America rated its 2010 draft as the game's best -- it's been through trades that Cleveland has struck it rich.
Cabrera, the starting shortstop who has eight hits in his last nine at-bats and is hitting .312 with 10 home runs, is still just 25 and blossoming into a star. Choo, an outfielder considered one of the game's most complete players, is coming off consecutive 20-20 seasons for home runs and steals in which he also hit at least .300 with at least a .394 on-base percentage. Both were acquired in separate trades a month apart with the Mariners in 2006.
"Trades are kind of a crapshoot anyways, but yeah, I mean, we've obviously gotten great talent back from Seattle that they would probably want back right about now," Chris Perez said.
The Indians have found trading partners beyond the Pacific Northwest. In 2002, Cleveland traded Colon to the Expos for a package of players that included centerfielder Grady Sizemore, who has become a three-time All-Star; Sabathia to the Brewers in 2008 for, among others, Brantley and LaPorta; Lee to the Phillies in 2009 for three players who have been major league contributors, starter Carlos Carrasco, catcher Lou Marson and infielder Jason Donald; and Victor Martinez, also in 2009, to the Red Sox for Masterson and promising minor-leaguer Nick Hagadone. The Indians also pulled a coup in trading third baseman Casey Blake to the Dodgers in 2008 for catcher Carlos Santana.
Antonetti explained that each year's decisions are based, first and foremost, on "our competitiveness of the team, both now and the near term. There are no prizes for accumulating prospects or players." The default is certainly not to necessarily make a trade. In 2005, for instance, Cleveland decided not to trade starting pitcher Kevin Millwood because the team was gearing up for a run to the playoffs.
Baseball front offices are in the business of predicting future human performance, which on its best days is a perilous proposition. The Indians have made headway in trading, it seems, by making more accurate projections, even when considering minor leaguers who have less of a track record to guide the educated guesses.
Facilitating the analysis that goes into trade considerations is the Indians' proprietary computer system DiamondView, which incorporates statistical, biographical, scouting, financial, medical and player development data in one neatly streamlined program. It was the work of the team's in-house development staff and led by Matt Tagliaferri. Antonetti said the primary benefit was that the front office can now allocate more time on analysis than data collection.
"We sought to devise a system that would allow us to be far more efficient," he said. "There's no magic button to press that says, 'Hey, trade for Player X over Player Y.' That's not it, but it allows us to spend the time working through the decision rather than spending the time organizing all the information."
The Indians are guarded about the program, not divulging any specifics about it but it seems to be an important resource. That program, when used by a talented and mostly stable baseball operations staff, has led to the successful transactions.
"The guys in pro scouting have really shined in all these trades," Eduardo Perez said.
When a player leaves through free agency to the highest bidder, it would seem to be easier for fans in small and medium markets to reconcile their departure as the realities of the game's economics. But a trade requires willfully removing the player from the roster before it's necessary. While the return of talent in a trade is typically greater than the draft picks a team gains for losing a prized free agent and closer to being big-league ready, it's still far enough down the horizon to be challenging for fans to see.
That may explain why Progressive Field, which set a then-record of 455 consecutive sellouts that ended in 2001, had become so barren in recent years. Yet the Indians' success this season has begun luring some of those fans back. Until recently the Indians ranked last in the AL in attendance this season but have risen to 12th as the winning continues.
"Our front office kind of got lambasted the last couple of years by trading away all those guys and really not having anything right away to show the fan base," Chris Perez said, "but sometimes in baseball you have to take two steps back to take a couple steps forward."
Those steps have been evident in an offense that has increased its scoring from 4.0 runs per game in 2010 to 5.1 in 2011, while leading the AL in average (.265) and ranking second or third in runs (231), on-base percentage (.334), slugging (.425) and home runs (49).
The pitching and defense have also improved. The Indians have shaved a run per game off their opponents' scoring, allowing 4.6 per game last year to 3.6 this year. The pitching staff has given up the fewest runs in the league (164) and is third in ERA (3.38) despite ranking 12th in strikeouts, because they also have allowed the fewest walks in the league and because the defense, which ranked 21st last in defensive efficiency, now ranks fifth.
Manager Manny Acta has instilled the club, which had the youngest roster in the league by the end of last year, with confidence -- "Yeah, we're young, but we're not going to use that as an excuse," Acta told the team in its first meeting in spring training, according to Buck -- and fundamental baseball.
There are still question marks, of course, led by the health of key sluggers Sizemore and Travis Hafner and the sustainability of the pitching staff. Sizemore is already on his second DL stint of the season; Hafner has a strained oblique and while his isn't thought to be serious, those injuries can linger. Also, the team's top starters so far this year, Justin Masterson (5-2, 2.50 ERA, 117 WHIP) and Josh Tomlin (6-1, 2.41 ERA, 0.82 ERA), have their own concerns. Lefties are hitting .302 off Masterson (though righties only .144), and the defense behind Tomlin is allowing just a .175 average on balls in play, so far below the .300 standard that one suspects there'll have to be regression.
The front office understands that there are still four months left in the season, but it is pledging to ensure the Indians make the most of this run.
"We recognize the opportunity that we have," Antonetti said, "and we'll do what we can organizationally to continue and put ourselves in the best position to make the playoffs and then hopefully advance through the playoffs."
Playoffs for a team many thought would finish last? Talk about trading places.


Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/w ... z1NIttWUBf

Just read that article-these guys dont change their stripes. No sooner do they win a few games than they start bragging about their diamond vision or whatever like they are smarter than everyone else. Seems we have been through this before.

CLEVELAND: Which spot in the Indians' rotation should be causing the most angst among the team's deep thinkers? The one held by Fausto Carmona, who is the designated ace of the staff.

Problem is, he hasn't pitched like the leader of the pack. Tuesday night at Progressive Field, Carmona gave up four runs in eight innings, as the Red Sox beat the Tribe 4-2 to even the series at one game apiece with the finale scheduled for this afternoon.

Four runs in eight innings is far from a horrid performance, but everything is relative. When Josh Beckett is starting for the opposing club, Carmona needs to come up with his best lockdown effort against the Boston batsmen.

Manager Manny Acta didn't quite see it that way.

''I thought Fausto gave us a tremendous effort,'' he said. ''He gave us a chance to win, but we couldn't get anything going offensively, and we didn't do a very good job of taking care of our 27 outs.''

After the Indians scored a run in the second inning on an infield single by Travis Buck, Beckett hitting Orlando Cabrera with a pitch and a two-out single by Ezequiel Carrera, Carmona gave it right back to the Red Sox with interest the very next inning.

To start the third inning, he hit Carl Crawford with a pitch. Crawford promptly stole second, then took third on a groundout to the right side. Jacoby Ellsbury walked and also stole second before Jed Lowrie delivered a sacrifice fly to score Crawford.

Carmona had a chance to stop the bleeding right there, but he permitted an RBI double to Adrian Gonzalez to give Boston the lead.

The next 10 Sox batters went down in order before Carmona broke down again in the seventh, when David Ortiz doubled and trotted home on Jason Varitek's one-out home run. Varitek came into the game batting .197 and had not gone deep all season.

''I think I pitched pretty good,'' Carmona said. ''I was trying to throw strikes and give us a chance.''

So what do the Indians make of Carmona's intermittent struggles? In his past three starts, he has given up 16 earned runs in 202/3 innings. He is the only Tribe starter with a sub-.500 record (3-5).

Carmona left Tuesday night's game after giving up a single to start the ninth inning. He allowed only five hits and one walk but hit a batter who scored. He hasn't had much success against the Sox, having posted a career record of 2-4, despite a respectable 3.63 earned-run average.

The Indians will be bucking a mini-pattern that began when they lost two out of three to the White Sox at Progressive Field to begin the season.




In seven three-game series at home, the Tribe has swept five and lost the others, both two games to one (The series against the Mariners doesn't count, because two games were rained out). So the wondrous Wahoos need a win today to break the pattern.

To do that, they probably will need more offense than they produced against Beckett and the Red Sox bullpen. Beckett left after 62/3 innings, having given up five hits, three walks and striking out six.

The Tribe did a good job of trying to run up his pitch count in the first three innings (59), but after that, Beckett began throwing too many strikes, making it impossible for batters to continue taking pitches.

''He was using his curveball, which is one of his best pitches, to keep us off balance,'' Cabrera said.

In addition to getting hit in the helmet by a breaking pitch, Cabrera had to duck out of the way of two more breaking balls from Sox pitchers.

''They were just breaking balls that didn't break,'' he said, indicating that he wasn't a target.

Swinging played right into Beckett's hands. The Tribe tried to force things, but Varitek threw out Shin-Soo Choo and Buck trying to steal second. Moreover, When Carrera hit a drive to left center, Matt LaPorta took off from first and was almost to third when Ellsbury made the catch and easily turned the baserunning error into a double play.

''That can't happen if we're going to be a championship club,'' said LaPorta, who lost track of the number of outs. ''It won't happen again, I promise you that.''

Said Acta: ''That's the kind of mistake we can't afford to make. Beckett is one of those guys that if you let him get into a rhythm, you're going to be in trouble. That's why you have to make sure he earns every single out.''

The Indians made another attempt at producing last at-bat magic but couldn't quite pull it off, even though Buck hit a solo homer with one out and LaPorta drove a ball to the track in left to end the game.

Giving up the HR to anemic hitting Varitek was the killer.

You got that right, Rocky.

Varitek can't hit the fastball anymore and is only on the Red Sox because they have no one else, especially defensively.

The Red Sox know he is an embarassment at the plate.

Fausto threw him a change up and that's the only pitch he can hit these days. Shame on Carmona.

The lack of a No. 1 pitcher will at some time catch up with us. Maybe not until offseason. Fausto is no one's Ace.

We have pitching depth in both the rotation and the pen and that is and will continue to carry us through. In the postseason it is a different matter although sometimes guys step up and play the role (Wright and Ogea in the 1997 World Series) while at other times, designated aces fall flat (Sabathia and Carmona in the 2007 ALCS).

Pretty hard not to say that Masterson is the ace of this staff.

Masterson is ace of the staff, but is he an "Ace" as are CC or Lee or Holliday or Lincecum? Not yet. But then again Texas doesn't have one and did pretty well last season.

CLEVELAND: Jacoby Ellsbury's single off Chad Durbin in the sixth inning wasn't struck with much authority, a strong indication that Boston Red Sox batsmen were becoming arm weary from all the heavy-duty swinging they had engaged in for much of Wednesday afternoon.

That's what Boston's bashers get for beating up on the Indians 14-2. If they had to wrap their biceps in ice for the plane ride to Detroit, where they will play the Tigers, it served them right.

This one was all Red Sox all the time. But don't blame Mitch Talbot, who gave up eight runs, including seven in the first inning. He just happened to be in the way of a runaway freight train. The one driven by the same engine that scored six runs combined in the first two games of the series.

So what was so different Wednesday? Carlos Santana and Orlando Cabrera were not in the lineup, but that doesn't account for the offensive explosion by the Red Sox. And neither did two errors committed by Shin-Soo Choo in right field that didn't even add up to one unearned run.

Could the problem have been the pitching, after all? Did Talbot and Frank Herrmann bear the responsibility for the Tribe's worst loss of the season?

''It's not a very good feeling coming to the plate for the first time trailing by seven runs,'' Indians manager Manny Acta said. ''The 1927 Yankees wouldn't feel very good doing that.''

Talbot was coming off the disabled list after missing six weeks with a strained right elbow. But that means he was well rested. Was he too well rested? He did go through the usual throwing program recovering pitchers endure, which included two rehabilitation starts in the minors.

''He pitched in Triple-A five days ago,'' Acta said. ''It's still 60 feet, 6 inches. I'm not going to use that as an excuse for him, just because he pitched in a different stadium.''

Whatever Talbot was doing, the Red Sox didn't want him to stop. They didn't wait for even one batter to be retired before they began pummeling Talbot. In the first inning, 12 batters took their turns at the plate, nine hit safely and seven scored.

''It was rough,'' Talbot said. ''I wasn't making my pitches; I wasn't hitting my spots. It seemed like even when I was, they were able to find a hole somewhere. I just think it was one of those days. You have to tip your cap to them.''

The longest drive of the first inning belonged to the No. 2 batter in the lineup, Dustin Pedroia, who slammed a two-run homer, signaling that the rout was on. Six of the first seven batters got hits, but by that time, who was counting?

''Mitch was ahead in the count to one hitter, and that pretty much sums it up for him,'' said Acta, who refused to let Talbot off the hook.

''I didn't help myself,'' Talbot said. ''It seemed like when I got the ball down, it got too much of the plate, when I hit the corner, the ball was up. They were swinging early, and they were swinging often. I was giving them good pitches to hit.''

Talbot gave up only one more run, on Drew Sutton's double and Adrian Gonzalez's single in the third inning. Mercifully, Acta removed Talbot after that inning. Maybe Acta feared for the health of his fielders.

''I tried to stay with him as long as I could,'' Acta said. ''But if not for a couple of diving catches. . . . He was just having a tough outing.''

The Red Sox got a lot of mileage out of Talbot's 74 pitches: eight runs, 12 hits and two walks. And to think that in Talbot's two other starts, he posted a 1.46 ERA.

Herrmann relieved him, but the Red Sox barely noticed. The only difference to them: They hit 95 mph fastballs against or over the fence instead of 89 mph heaters.

In 21/3 innings, Herrmann gave up six runs on six hits but no singles. Carl Crawford, the second batter to face him in the fourth, hit a solo home run.

But Herrmann lived his nightmare in the sixth inning. David Ortiz led off with a home run, Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a three-run homer, and Ellsbury's soft single off Durbin drove in the final run charged to Herrmann. Best theory to explain Herrmann's shortcomings is that he seldom has pitched more than one inning this year.

''He came in after his second inning and said he felt good,'' Acta said. ''Frank is still trying to find that put-away pitch. He already has a good fastball.''

To make the contrast between the Indians and Red Sox stand out even more sharply was the workmanship of Jon Lester, who pitched six scoreless innings, allowing three hits and one walk, striking out seven.

Talbot has so few starts this year, it remains to be seen whether he is up to being in the rotation. The debacle Wednesday might have been no more than one terrible off day. But it will take time to find out for sure.

Masterson and Tomlin have been outstanding. Carmona is a #3, Carassco a #4 and let's get White back and dump Talbot or move him to the pen. Pomeranz will replace a traded Carmona next year at some point. Hit on this 8th pick in the draft and we've really got something on the pitching side fellas. Still need to find a really good young RH bat for a corner OF spot because Choo and Sizemore aren't long for cleveland.

Like I told you guys a couple of years ago, shapiro was doing all the right things to get us back in contention so enjoy the process. He delivered a year ahead of time......

With the Red Sox freely swinging from their heels all afternoon, did any of the Tribe pitchers dust one of them?