• If you’ve been reading Deep Left Field for any length of time, you should know my fondness for now former Indians.com beat writer Anthony Castrovince’s work, and how I prefer it to any of the local fishwraps. I’m thankful for Castrovince and the job he did over the past five years. It made my work at DLF so much easier (not to mention enjoyable). Although I’m happy to see an excellent journalist get a promotion, I’ll miss Castrovince’s in-game tweets (@Castrovince) and the regular updates at CastroTurf. Still, I’m thankful for the time we had and hopefully new Indians.com beat writer Jordan Bastian will keep up the good work.
• As a blogger, I often look to um, interesting, areas for ideas and news. Twitter has been a great source for that, and inevitably there are going to be Twitter personalities. The Indians have a couple, but none is better than @PureRage_Perez, closer Chris Perez’s alter ego (which is not run by the real Perez). His tweets are hilarious, and further enforce the whole badass persona that the real Chris Perez is developing. Humor makes a bad season easier.
• I suppose I should actually mention a player, and for that, I’d like to say how thankful I am for the 150 ABs that Carlos Santana had in the big leagues this year, because he was a joy to watch. He’s exactly the type of exciting player the Indians desperately need, and I will be infinitely more thankful if he’s not permanently ruined by the freakish leg injury he suffered (damn you Ryan Kalish!!!). I’m also really thankful the Indians traded Casey F-in Blake for Santana. I really hated Blake.
• Speaking of players I hated, I’m really thankful Russell Branyan and Kerry Wood are no longer Cleveland Indians (although Branyan may come back … he always seems to find his way back here somehow).
• I’m not ready to dub Tim Belcher the next Leo Mazzone, but the Indians pitching coach has to be given some credit. I’m thankful for his re-inventing of Fausto Carmona, turning Fausto back into a usable pitcher, as well as the progress he made with Justin Masterson as the season went on. Progress is always better than regression.
• I hated the hiring at first, but Manny Acta has really grown on me as a manager and I’m thankful for his candidness and personality. After watching Eric Wedge for the past 6 years (when the only thing interesting about the guy is whether or not he’d have a mustache that day), Acta has been a welcome gust of super crisp air blasted in my face. I really hope he’s as good at developing talent as he is at schmoozing.
• Finally, I’m thankful for all of you who take time to read DLF. You guys are what drives this site, and I’d love to hear more from you. Leave a comment on the site, hit me up via Twitter (@DeepLeftField), or discuss Tribe on the Facebook site. Thank you, from both Marc and I, for your readership, and for sharing in the misery with us. Hope your holiday is lovely.

• The Indians completed the Kerry Wood deal with the Yankees, receiving a pair of minor leaguers, infielder Matt Cusick and RHP Andrew Shive. Don’t get excited, Tribe fans, these guys are strictly throw-ins. Cusick is 24 and can’t hit and Shive is 24, in Class A ball, and had Tommy John surgery. Sweet. No, what you should get excited over is the money the Indians saved. The Yankees ended up picking up about $3 million of Wood’s $3.6 million remaining on his contract. Wood was never going to be worth that with the Indians, good riddance.
• So what did the Indians do with that money saved? Well some of it went to the 2010 draft class, which, for what it’s worth, Baseball America ranked the Indians 2010 draft class as the best in baseball. The Indians spent $9.4 million in signing bonuses on the 2010 class, often going above slot to sign their players (unlike in years past). This is all well and good but we need to start seeing results before we get too excited. However I’m glad the Indians have finally stopped treating the draft like a bastard stepchild.
• Sandy Alomar Jr. is still with the Tribe, as the Blue Jays have hired John Farrell as their manager. Kind of curious to me, as Farrell refused to even interview for the Indians job last year. It makes me wonder if things just got that bad in Boston, Toronto was too good to pass up, or the Indians were just that bad of a situation to make him want to manage just a year later.
• Speaking of coaches, a bit of old news as our good buddy Eric Wedge is off the unemployment line and now managing the Seattle Mariners. Seattle just loves Cleveland Indians castaways. I wonder how long until Milton Bradley is on the trade block?
• The Indians handed out their minor league awards, with RHP Alex White winning the Bob Feller award for best pitcher and second baseman Jason Kipnis received the Lou Boudreau award for Indians minor league player of the year. These are two of the Indians’ top prospects, so it’s good to see these awards go to players that actually factor in to the Indians plans than just organizational filler.
• Finally, Trevor Crowe had surgery on his right elbow to remove “loose bodies.” And from the sound of Manny Acta’s quote, it doesn’t seem the Indians are too high on him:

“He had a legit opportunity to make a big-time impression here and put himself on the inside track of being an everyday player. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. But he did enough good things for me to continue to think he’s going to be a good part of what we’re trying to do here.”
-Indians manager Manny Acta

So in other words, you’re fighting for the fourth outfielder spot, Trevor. Good luck, you’re gonna need it.

This is the eleventh in a series of posts looking back at the realities of the Indians 2010 season. We’ll look at what was hoped for, what actually happened, and what the expectations are going forward at the position in 2011.

Now former Indians GM and current team president Mark Shapiro once said that bullpens are very fickle in nature year in and year out (I’m paraphrasing).

After watching the 2010 Cleveland Indians bullpen, I’d have to say he’s right.

Some of the guys the Indians went through probably don’t have much of a future with this club, and some like Jamey Wright (18 games, 5.48 ERA, 1.59 WHIP) are already gone.

Kerry Wood started the season as the closer, pitched miserably, obviously wanted to be somewhere else and was mercifully picked up by the Yankees … and then found his role and has been a stud for them. Go figure.

But the departure of Wood has made way for Chris “Pure Rage” Perez, who was one of the brightest spots in this dark Indians season. Perez had a 1.71 ERA in 63 games with a WHIP of 1.08 (61 Ks in 63 IP). He saved 23 games in 27 chances over the course of the season, and in his last 32 IP, he only allowed two (TWO!) earned runs. Perez has all the stuff to be a great closer, now it’s just a matter of whether or not he’ll get the save opportunities on this team.

There’s the “other” Perez, Rafael Perez, who found himself on the verge of being designated for assignment (on May 31st, his ERA was an ungoldy 7.20) but turned it on in the second half of the season, finishing with a 3.25 ERA and while never the lights-out reliever he was in 2007-2008 (during Eric Wedge’s abuse of him), he’s a reliable late inning setup guy now.

Tony Sipp was the epitome of hot and cold during the season. When he was on, he was good. When he wasn’t, he got lit up (12 home runs allowed). He’s probably better suited for middle relief, but he’ll get his chances in the late innings next year. Speaking of inconsistent, Joe Smith is still around. He also seemed to turn it around towards the end of the season, but he’s never going to be more than a righty specialist (7 ER in 8.1 IP vs. lefties). Then there’s Jensen Lewis, who was sent down to Columbus 50 times during the season (no really, 50 times exactly), but by the end of the year he finally found a role as a 7th-inning/high leverage situation pitcher (or exactly where he should have been all along). I don’t know what the future holds for Lewis, as he’s out of options and the Indians have some younger, hopefully more consistent arms coming into the pen.

There were two “surprise!” guys, and they were Frank Herrmann and Justin Germano. Herrmann busted into Cleveland and was incredibly stingy early on, but after about a month or so opposing hitters began to figure him out. Stop me if you’ve heard this before but he settled down at the end of the year and is probably going to be a middle relief option next year. As for Germano, he cold e-mailed Shapiro to get a job, got one, and found himself in Cleveland after trades and injuries. And he didn’t give the Indians a reason to send him back down. He ran up a 17.1 scoreless innings streak, and really the only blemish on his season was the spot start for the final game of the season where he gave up five runs in 2 IP. Like with many of these guys, I’m not sure Germano guaranteed himself a job, but he at least will get a shot.

Hector Ambriz was the last dude on the bench. I discussed his situation in-depth here. He’s out for all of 2011 after Tommy John surgery.

Finally, there are two guys that will get a shot to make the pen that I’m excited about. One, Vinny Pestano, got a cup of coffee in the big leagues at the end of September, and showed some promise in limited innings. He’s definitely got a shot to make the pen next year. Finally, DLF’s favorite Indians prospect Josh Judy was slowed last year by injuries, and it cost him a September call up. But he definitely has a chance at making the pen out of spring training and if he doesn’t, he’ll see time in Cleveland before the end of the year for sure.

One thing’s for certain: don’t expect the bullpen to look the same at the end of the season as it did at the start of the season. Bullpens are fickle like that.