Hey, Hoynsie: Since Lonnie Chisenhall's big game in Texas last year, he has reverted back to the same player we have seen for three-plus years. Now that Giovanny Urshela is getting healthy and hitting well, can you see him as the starting third baseman coming out of the All-Star break? -– Paul Carroll, Ohio.

Hey, Paul: Manager Terry Francona was talking about Urshela on Thursday. He said he appears healthy and is playing without restriction from the medical staff at Class AAA Columbus.

He said the organization, as you have suggested, wants to see Urshela play for a while before talking about bringing him to the big leagues. I would think they'd consider Urshela in September, but right after the break might be too soon. Still a lot depends on the performance of the Indians and Chisenhall.

Couldn't agree more. One word on this issue: TRADE

Trade? For Chisenhall?

Don't see where anybody would want him. Hell, we want rid of him.

Seems to me, some team wanted the Tribe to put Chisenhall in some deal that fell through a couple of years ago. Tribe wouldn't put Chisenhall in the deal. Sounds like the Jared Wright deal when the Tribe wouldn't trade him and it was downhill from there.

Trade? For Chisenhall?

Don't see where anybody would want him. Hell, we want rid of him.

No. Trade for a 3B. Chisenhall then rides the pine.

Tribe was trying to acquire Carlos Beltran or Hunter Pence in 2011. But they made it clear Lonnie, Kipnis, Pomeranz, & White was not available. and also the Rockies originally wanted Lonnie, Kip, & Drew P for Ubaldo but Tribe refused.

HB you know I'm not a front office back seat driver so that's not what this is.

But for example the Dodgers just traded away Uribe for a bag of balls. Uribe is no stud but
would be an upgrade on both sides of the ball. Plus he's right handed.

So I'm not saying go out and get Nolan Arenado or a stud (like joez used to do) but
it shouldn't be that tough to get some kind of upgrade.

Oh, I totally agree. I just misunderstood you for a sec.

We've had baserunners today and of late. But when the bottom of the order comes up they strand them every time. We have to upgrade the left side of the infield.

Here's the thing. They can't trade for a shortstop. We understand that.

Pull the trigger on a REAL 3b. He can't even field.

As long as we're bitching I'm going to NOT bitch about 5th starter.

We could have won last night and I count that as 3 out of 4 times Marcum gave us a shot to win.

Lindor led off tonight's Clips game with a hit off Verlander.

When exactly is the date when we can bring Lindor up without penalty in arb? How about Urshula ? Is he under same restrictions? Chiz and Jose are stinking up the place at bat. Against lefties Ramirez at SS, Aviles at 3B. Against righties Chiz at 3B, Aviles at SS.

Super Two

Normally, players must have accrued at least three years of MLB service time before they can be eligible for salary arbitration — or in other words, until they can negotiate their salary and not have it automatically set by their club. But certain players with less than three years of service time can also become eligible for arbitration, if they meet the following criteria:

● If they have less than three years of service time, but more than two.

● If they rank within the top 22% of all 2-year players in terms of service time.

So if a player finishes a season and is just shy of three years of service time (say, 2 years and 171 days) then MLB will award them Super Two status and they’ll be eligible for arbitration. Since these players are still under team control for another three seasons, that means Super Two players get four year of salary arbitration instead of the typical three.

The Super Two cutoff used to stand at 17%, but got changed to 22% in the new CBA negotiations. This means that if a team wants to keep a player in the minors until after the Super Two cutoff, they will have to keep that player in the minors for even longer than before. Considering that the cutoff used to fall sometime in June — it varied from year to year, as the 17% cutoff isn’t tied to a specific date — it will likely end up being in July going forward.

Back when it used to be 17% you could bring a kid up in June without him meeting the time. But now that it has changed to 22% the date will fall sometime in July.

To be clear, when Tito says Lindor "isn't ready", he is talking about his OFFense. Defensively he is more than ready.

He is also covering for the front office, and fortunately for him he can do that because Lindor is not tearing it up offensively.

It's not like that blatant Kris Bryant situation where is was so obviously offensively and defensively ready.

Thanks Hillbilly for the info. Guess we have longer to wait.