SI’s Baseball Preview of the Tribe, Why Choo Won’t Sign

Sports Illustrated came out with its baseball 2010 preview today, and it’s pretty safe to say the Indians are nowhere to be found in this preview. Other than a quick mention of the Tribe’s starting pitching posting a division-leading 5.30 ERA last year, the Indians are only given a quick gloss-over in the AL Central preview by Joe Posnanski:

"Cleveland is only a shell of the team that was one game away from the World Series in 2007. The remaining parts—Fausto Carmona, Travis Hafner, Jhonny Peralta, Grady Sizemore and Jake Westbrook—are all coming off serious injuries, serious slumps or both. The Indians have some nice young players, especially outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, but that pitching staff looks overmatched."

Interestingly enough, he predicts the Indians to finish fourth in the division.

There’s also an individual team preview, in which Posnanski lists Fausto Carmona as the Indians’ player to watch. How novel. What’s more interesting is his “Modest Proposal” at the bottom of the page:

"The Indians’ projected rotation has just one pitcher, Justin Masterson, with anabove-average strikeout rate during his career. Jake Westbrook doesn’t missbats, Fausto Carmona is much the same, and few of the young lefthanders inline for the other spots are strikeout pitchers. Such hurlers put a premium ongood defense, which is why Cleveland should commit to Michael Brantley inleftfield and Matt LaPorta at first base, and relegate free-agent signing RussellBranyan to bench duty. Brantley has excellent speed—he was 46 for 51stealing bases at Triple A last year—and has mostly been a centerfielder in theminors. Having him alongside Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo would givethe Indians’ ball-in-play rotation the best chance of success. Brantley’s OBPand steals should make him about as productive as Branyan."

Um, that’s nice and all Joe, but Jake the Snake and Carmona are groundball-inducing pitchers, meaning that outfield defense doesn’t matter as much as infield defense. He’s right in that having Brantley in the lineup gives this team the best chance to win now (but severely hinders the Indians chances when it matters later in losing a year of Brantley’s control), but citing team defense is a poor justification for keeping Brantley up, as he still needs to work on that defense a bit. Good thought, poor execution.

Finally, the Indians’ talks with Shin-Soo Choo on a multiyear deal are apparently going nowhere. I can give you two words why: Scott Boras. Boras is going to get top dollar for Choo, and it almost makes me wonder that with Boras as his agent and Choo’s potential military obligation, that maybe the Indians would be better off trading Choo sooner rather than later. It would never happen in real life, the Indians need all the marketable good players they can get right now, and to trade another one so far away from free agency would be a death wish for the franchise. But I just know Boras is going to rope the Indians into a handcuffing deal, and that they will regret it later. It’s his MO. It’s what he does. And it’s one other thing that’s wrong with baseball.