So in lieu of a normal game review, I decided to do a tribute to the man who made this game happen (no, not you Matt LaPorta). So here is my tribute to Fausto.

F is for … Fast, because Fausto pitched like a guy who had to be somewhere. 1 hour, 57 minutes of total game time. Sure, part of that was the Twins’ Carl Pavano (remember him?), but we’re talking about Fausto here.

A is for … Accuracy, because Fausto only allowed one walk (beautiful things happen when you don’t walk people) and struck out 7, including two in the 9th.

U is for … Unity, because Fausto had a couple assists from his teammates in the form of two double plays.

S is for … Saving the pen, as Fausto’s performance was probably a sight for Manny Acta’s sore eyes.

T is for … Toughness, because Fausto was throwing as hard as he was in the first inning as he was in the 9th.

O is for … Orlando Hudson, Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer, who went a combined 0-10 against Fausto last night.

Oh gimmick posts, you slay me.

I put serious in quotations because it’s not known how seriously Hudson took the offer. However, if the reports are true, the Indians offered a 2 year, $10 million dollar contract that was apparently heavily backloaded.  The Indians did this as they had no way to really increase payroll this year, so they decided they would defer it to 2011 by backloading the contract. Anthony Castrovince of mlb.com says the 2010 salary was, “not at all substantial.”  There was also a buyout for 2012. Misguided, but kinda clever.

Orlando Hudson will not be joining the Tribe this offseason.

I should state that I’m almost universally against teams, especially the Indians, back loading contracts. As the player gets older, their skills decline, and soon you’ve got like two years and a $*** ton of money that you owe this player, who probably isn’t as good as when he signed the contract, plus he’s overpaid, making him next to impossible to trade. It’s usually not a sound investment.

As far as the Hudson case was, it really wouldn’t have been that big of a risk. The deal was only two years long, and he’s been fairly durable throughout his career. We wouldn’t have had to trade Fausto Carmona, which if you remember was my big hangup with the whole ordeal last week.

While Hudson would have been an improvement over Luis Valbuena, I still don’t think it would have been nearly enough to compete in a weak AL Central. So you kind of have to wonder what the point was.

Still, I give Shapiro a lot of credit. It was a creative offer, and that’s the type of thinking the Indians need if they’re going to stay ahead of their deeper pocketed rivals.