• 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.

This is the ninth 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.

The Indians thought they acquired their first baseman of the future when they made Matt LaPorta the centerpiece of the CC Sabathia trade in July 2008.

It’s been over a year and a half later, and the Tribe still isn’t quite sure what they have in LaPorta. At first glance, and without knowing the story, LaPorta’s 2010 numbers are quite underwhelming: .306 OBP (.668 OPS) with just 12 home runs. 10 of those home runs came versus right handed pitchers. However, LaPorta came into camp still hobbled from toe and hip injuries the year before. Add to that he wasn’t guaranteed a spot in the lineup, due to the Indians’ off-season signing of Russell Branyan, and the fact that he made the in-season improvements he did make after an atrocious April was fairly impressive.

This is not to say, however, that LaPorta’s production is acceptable. The Indians need to get better production out of LaPorta if they want to label the Sabathia trade a success. And so, LaPorta will enter the 2011 season as the Indians’ starting first baseman, no ifs, ands or buts this year. He will be given a long rope to hang himself with, as with the former first round pick (by the Brewers) being almost 26 and with absolutely nothing left to prove in the minors (small sample size warning: 81 at bats, .457 OBP, 1.094 OPS, 5 home runs in 2010 during a mid-season demotion) and must take his lumps at the major league level now.

The Indians have a lot riding on LaPorta’s success (besides the need for a return on the Sabathia trade, there’s a dearth of right-handed hitters in the Indians’ system) but if he doesn’t start to capitalize on his chances, he may find himself out of favor with the Indians. This is a pivotal year for LaPorta, and he must improve and start showing some of that potential he’s teased in the minors.

I’m sure you’ve never heard of me, but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the past 7 months or so of baseball. For the most part, you’ve done an OK job with what you’ve had, which is admittedly not much, and it’s gotten worse with the injury to Carlos Santana and the trades of guys like Jake Westbrook, Austin Kearns, Russell Branyan, and for some reason, Jhonny Peralta.

However, since all this went down, you’ve looked like a cartoon character falling down a canyon in terms of some of the moves and lineups you’ve thrown out there.

Honestly, I can forgive a lot of it, but a couple days ago I made some suggestions on how to fix this club for the rest of 2010. You’ve pretty much ignored me, so I’m sending this letter in hopes that you’ll listen to me on one of them.

I see in your lineup today you’re starting Jayson Nix again at third base. I completely disagree that he’s your best option at third base, because seeing as none of the three-headed monster that is Nimartuena (Nix, Andy Marte, and Luis Valbuena) can hit, you probably should go with the guy that’s going to suck the least at third defensively. And well, seeing as neither Nix nor Valbuena are really third basemen, I still don’t understand why you don’t let Marte play his way out of baseball. What’s the harm, you guys lose 100 games?

But I digress, as I usually do when I’m talking about El Gato. What I wanted to say is that I’m really proud of you because you seem to have settled on Nix as your sacrificial lamb from the Hot Corner From Hell. I think that’s progress. None of those guys were able to get in any kind of rhythm when you were shuffling them in and out of the lineup. I still hope balls are hit to the right side of the infield every time, but hey, at least I know who’s gonna end up booting the ball if you have a regular third baseman, even if he isn’t really a third baseman. I mean, the Indians got lucky before with Casey F-in Blake. Why can’t you get lucky with Jayson Nix?

So I’ll be at the ballpark tonight, watching reliever Justin Masterson make his 26th spot start of the year. It’s not going to be pretty, but at least I’ll know who’s on third. Thanks, Manny.

Take care,

-Ed Carroll

P.S. Heard you’re a fan of Birdman. I can loan you some Harvey Birdman DVDs if you want to check it out. Very funny stuff. Let me know.