Cleveland Sports Forum

Hillbilly wrote:By the way, Yandy hit his 4th home run of the year today, and currently hitting .263.

Damn! Oh well, wish him well. If Bauers develops it's all good.

As for Cookie, could this outing be any more different then that last one?

Wittgren could be a nice keeper. If Clippard ends up coming back strong that bullpen just might be something.

Speaking of Yandy, smart moves are what makes Tampa Bay so good (including hiring Kevin Cash).

A link to payrolls at the start of 2019. Tampa is about $39 million below Cleveland. And about to be 14-4 after 90 wins in the AL East last season.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2019 ... threshold/

Leaving Wittgren in to start the 9th. Hand has worked last 2 days.

First guy flies out. 1 away.

Wittgren stays in, though a lefty and righty are warming up.

Our old buddy Jay Bruce grounds out, for out #2!

Now our old buddy Encarnacion is up!

Wittgren stays in.

EE gets up 2-0 quickly

Wittgren comes back to even the count. 2-2

Fastball, outside, full count.

Blew fastball by him!! Strike 3, and out #3, and game over!!!

We win!

We rule!!

And daggummit, we may never lose again!!!!

They get no runs on 3 hits. That's it? 3 GD hits? Get the Jack Daniels, Harry Doyle...

Amazing they kept him in! Great outing!!

(Including whiffing EE to end the game)

Wittgren's 4 seem fastball is only 91, but they sure seemed baffled by him.

Bauers the co-hero with the only run coming on his blast.

Carrasco - Bauers - Wittgren pretty much the story.

Francona, looking for a set up guy, gives Wittgren a chance. Very uncharacteristic of Tito but pretty brilliant.

TFIR:

My old buddy Yandy with an RBI double now.

If we had him instead of Bauers we would have won 2-0 instead of 1-0... ( )

but we'd be stuck with EE instead of Santana?

Stuck with EE? ... Umm, K.. Considering the Rays got nothing from and gave nothing to the Mariners in the deal I highly doubt it would have effected the Mariners deal anyway.

On another note. This is extremely interesting.

Joey Votto a left handed hitter, just popped out to 1B for the 1st time in his career in a game yesterday. In his 6,828th plate appearance.

TFIR, not to be argumentative but seriously, I got a notification from my MLB app at the time of the trade and remember at the time wondering why it had to be a 3 team trade instead of 2 separate trades. I went to MLB.com and found the article. Is it missing something? Cause the way this looks it is strange. Not sure why it had to be a 3 teamer.

-

https://www.mlb.com/news/rays-land-yand ... c301824978

... To complete the deal:
• Bauers and cash go from the Rays to the Indians.
• Designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion and a Competitive Balance Round B Draft pick go from from the Indians to the Mariners.
• First baseman Carlos Santana and cash go from the Mariners to the Indians.
• Diaz and Minor League righty Cole Sulser go from the Indians to the Rays. ...

Hillbilly wrote:TFIR, not to be argumentative but seriously, I got a notification from my MLB app at the time of the trade and remember at the time wondering why it had to be a 3 team trade instead of 2 separate trades. I went to MLB.com and found the article. Is it missing something? Cause the way this looks it is strange. Not sure why it had to be a 3 teamer.

-

https://www.mlb.com/news/rays-land-yand ... c301824978

... To complete the deal:
• Bauers and cash go from the Rays to the Indians.
• Designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion and a Competitive Balance Round B Draft pick go from from the Indians to the Mariners.
• First baseman Carlos Santana and cash go from the Mariners to the Indians.
• Diaz and Minor League righty Cole Sulser go from the Indians to the Rays. ...

Really not smart enough to figure that out and not steeped enough in MLB rules.

Just a guess perhaps the Indians needed more cash to make it work than the Rays alone were willing to do - but also...

At the time of course everyone figured the Mariners would then send EE away packing. There was also speculation at the time that he would go to the Rays - they ended up signing RH outfielder Avisail Garcia (great move) and made him their DH, a right handed bat and obviously cheaper than EE. So they obviously were looking for a RH hitter for that role and in my book got the better player and cheaper - plus Garcia is 27. He was hurt last season but 2017 was killer for Garcia. Bargain.

So I think in there somewhere is why the 3 teams were entangled in this. The Mariners had Santana, Cleveland wanted him so EE could go there and then to the Rays. Possibly that fell through and the 3 adapted from there with the M's keeping EE (for now).

Back to the overall trade, there are so many intangibles to something like this. For example, is EE extra motivated by being dumped (the guy is actually hitting in April) and still may be moved at the deadline? (The M's are unexpectedly doing well in April but that may already be fading - they traded Paxton and Segura and those are not moves of a contender).

Is Santana extra pumped up to be back in Cleveland and so HE is hitting in April? He is Tito's kind of guy, that's pretty obvious.

Trades/new starts can get results that ordinarily wouldn't happen.

Also, Yandy and Bauers are still very early in the season and their careers. Should be interesting still to see how that part turns out. No doubt Yandy will be a hitter but the Tribe had no use for him at 3B.

I am on record as saying Santana is an upgrade over EE, I grew tired of his constant chasing that outside slider. He had 63 walks last year and 132 strikeouts (.246) which is a disaster for him. He never was that kind of hitter until last year and this year he already has 11 walks and only 13 K's. At 36 years old certainly questions had to be asked there (Santana is 33 years old).

So we shall see, it won't surprise me if Yandy ends up better than Bauers but it also won't surprise me if they both end up quite good.

The Indians were not prepared to take on Santana without getting rid of payroll or improving their payroll. Tampa taking EE allowed them to do that. Had to be a third team.