Tribe News and Tidbits

Here’s some Tribe news and links from the second week of Spring Training:

“Nasty” Tom Mastny has returned from Japan, signing a minor league deal with the Tribe and reporting to minor league camp. By the way, look at Mastny’s numbers in Japan. As Charles Barkley would say, they are “turrible.” Normally I’d say he has no shot of making the team out of camp, but the Indians did just give a starting job to Russel Branyan, so they apparently like charity.

Tribe prospect Nick Weglarz, a native of Canada, was apparently the only player in the Tribe clubhouse rooting for Team Canada in yesterday’s gold medal hockey game. I’m not a fan of hockey, or the Olympics in general, but I watched that game and didn’t feel like I wasted 2 hours or so. (Sidenote – thank god for Anthony Castrovince, the excellent beat writer for Indians.com. Otherwise we’d be stuck with Paul Hoynes’s reprocessed dreck and misinformed ideas, rather than interesting articles like this./rant)

Former Tribe third baseman Aaron Boone has retired and joined ESPN as an analyst. Unlike most Tribe fans, I didn’t hate Aaron Boone, even though he pretty much sucked. I still have a jersey shirt of his that I use as a work shirt.

ESPN’s Buster Olney ranks the strength of early season  AL schedules. It’s an insider article, so I’ll let you know he ranks the Indians right in the middle, 7th in the AL.

"Home/away: The Indians are home for 15 of their first 33 games.Games against teams that finished over .500 in 2009: 18 of their first 33.Meat-grinder stuff: After an early six-game homestand against the Rangers and White Sox, the Indians hit the road for 10 straight games against Minnesota, Oakland and the Angels."

Another solid article by Castro about Sandy Alomar Jr.’s impact on the Tribe’s young catchers. I’m not a big intangibles guy, but it is great to have Sandy back in the fold and connect this Tribe team with the great teams of the 1990’s.

Outfielder Shin-Soo Choo has switched agents and will now be represented by Scott Boras. This is turrible news for Tribe fans, as Boras is known for fighting tooth and nail to get top dollar for his clients. While there’s still a good chance Choo gets locked up long-term, the Tribe can probably kiss a discount goodbye. Meaning that if Choo suddenly decides to suck after signing a big deal, the Indians would be stuck with yet another albatross contract around the team’s neck.

But there’s no reason to panic yet, as it’s still early. I do wonder how this will affect Choo’s South Korean military obligation, although everything I’ve read from the Indians says they aren’t worried about it.

That’s all I got. Have a scientastic day!