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Resigning Choo will be priority number one for the Indians - AP |
Limited Checkbook
If anyone is expecting the Indians to be any kind of player in free agency this offseason, sorry, it's just not going to happen. This of course should not be much of a surprise given the financial situation the team is in these days.
In the past the Indians have been able make some considerable moves in free agency. They have never been big players for marquee free agents – which includes the 90s when they were at the pinnacle of their success - but when competitive they have always been able to spend a considerable amount of money on former All Stars in the twilight of their careers or good but not elite players to complement the core of the team.
This offseason, however, expect things to be very quiet on the free agent front.
There have been erroneous reports recently that the Indians would have $15-20 million to spend on free agents this offseason, which is simply not true. With more than a half dozen players up for salary arbitration, any money that is available is going to be allocated to signing those players. When you consider that the likes of Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Chris Perez, Jensen Lewis and Rafael Perez (and others) are up for salary arbitration, the Indians are going to have an expensive offseason in their own right getting one year or multi-year contracts done with those players.
Instead, expect the Indians to go out and do what they have often done in the past by trying to find value in free agency at a very low cost.
It will be an offseason very reminiscent of the offseason between the 2003-2004 seasons, the year before they became contenders in 2005. For a quick trip down memory lane, the Indians most significant signings that offseason were second baseman Ronnie Belliard ($1.1 million), right-handed reliever Bob Howry ($900,000), right-handed reliever Jose Jimenez ($1 million), right-handed starter Jeff D'Amico ($750,000), and infielder Lou Merloni ($560,000). All were signed after Christmas.
In a lot of ways 2011 is viewed like 2004. A year where the team will expect leaps in performance from a few of their young players much the same as 2004, and one more year to sift through all the internal options and come up with a core to hopefully contend in 2012. With all that in mind, if the Indians sign any free agents this offseason they will be to one year low cost deals or to minor league non-guaranteed contracts with invites to spring training.
Nagy Heads West
Charlie Nagy’s return “home” to the Indians this past season turned out to be a short stay. On Tuesday he left the Cleveland Indians organization as the Triple-A Columbus pitching coach and accepted a job with the Arizona Diamondbacks to be their big league pitching coach.
Nagy, 43, was just as quiet and unassuming as a coach last season at Columbus as he was when he wore an Indians cap and took the mound every fifth day during the Indians run in the 90s. He showed a strong ability to work with young players, an ability to teach and relate to players, and understands both the mechanical and mental aspects of pitching. This is his first big league gig as a coach, so it will be interesting to see how things shake out in Arizona.
With Nagy’s departure, he is now the second coach from the Indians player development system to leave the organization in the past week for a big league opportunity as Double-A Akron manager Joel Skinner took a job with the Oakland A’s to be a bench coach last week. Nagy joins a very impressive staff in Arizona full of former big league All Stars in manager Kirk Gibson, bench coach Alan Trammell, hitting coach Don Baylor, first base coach Eric Young, and third base coach Matt Williams.
So who replaces Nagy as the Columbus pitching coach? His replacement will likely come from a short list of three internal candidates, that being Double-A Akron pitching coach Greg Hibbard, special assistant Jason Bere, or former Double-A Akron pitching coach and current assistant to the big league coaching staff Ruben Niebla.
Alomar Stays, For Now
Indians first base and catching coach Sandy Alomar Jr. is still with the Indians after the Toronto Blue Jays made their decision on Monday to hire Boston Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell as their new manager. According to numerous reports, Alomar was one of the final candidates for the job.
It is unknown how long Alomar plans to stay with the Indians, but if his name starts to pop up more and more for higher level coaching jobs and pay grades, it is hard to imagine he will be around for long. One big reason for him to stay (or the Indians to keep him) is the Indians have a very impressive young catcher in Carlos Santana who should keep Alomar very busy the next few years as he transitions to the big league game.
It is interesting that Farrell interviewed for and eventually accepted the job to be the Blue Jays manager. Last year he was very adamant about not wanting to interview for the same opening in Cleveland, so it makes you wonder what changed in a year’s time. At this time last year he was viewed as the favorite to land the Indians job, but when he pulled his name out of the running without even doing an interview it left many scratching their heads. Whether he was just not ready, not interested, there was bad blood between he and the Indians organization, or he just did not feel he could compete in Cleveland…we’ll never know.
Offseason Housecleaning
On Friday afternoon the Indians started some offseason housecleaning with their 40-man roster by outrighting catcher Chris Gimenez and right-handed pitchers Hector Ambriz and Anthony Reyes to Triple-A Columbus.
An outright to the minors is when a team removes a player from the 40-man roster by designating them for assignment (DFA), and then after they clear waivers they are able to send them to the minors. First time outrights have no choice but to accept their assignment to the minor leagues; however, if the player has been outrighted before they have the choice to be a free agent. Since the move on Friday occurred in the offseason, both Gimenez and Reyes are now free agents though the Indians will probably try to resign both.
Ambriz is not a free agent and is still the property of the Indians. He was a Rule 5 Draft pickup by the Indians last December and had to remain on the club’s 25-man big league roster all season in order to obtain his full rights. While the Indians managed to achieve that, it was determined late in the season that he had a tear in his pitching elbow and would need to undergo Tommy John surgery. As a result, since he will not pitch with the big league team in 2011 because of the length of time it takes to come back from the surgery, the Indians removed him from the roster knowing there would be little interest in scooping him up off waivers.
These moves are only the beginning of what is expected to be a pretty large roster purge in the coming days. The Indians roster is currently at 41 players, though this includes outfielder Grady Sizemore and catcher Carlos Santana who at the moment are on the 60-day disabled list and don’t count toward the 40-man roster total. Since there is no disabled list in the offseason, once the November 20th roster deadline comes both Sizemore and Santana will need to be added back to the 40-man roster. When you add in those two moves plus the fact the Indians need to roster several of their young minor league players who are up for roster protection from the Rule 5 Draft, as many as a half a dozen more outrights are coming.
As to who the next cuts will be, it is very likely that all of the following players (except maybe one) will meet the same fate as Gimenez, Reyes, and Ambriz in the coming days: catcher Luke Carlin, first baseman Wes Hodges, shortstop Carlos Rivero, right-handed pitcher Justin Germano, outfielder Shelley Duncan, and infielder Drew Sutton.
Going, going, gone
Another young minor league pitcher was released this past week, this time right-hander Gregorio Rosario.
This is about as insignificant a move as there is as Rosario never pitched above short-season Single-A ball in Mahoning Valley. The reason why it is noteworthy is some may recall he was the player the Indians acquired from the Seattle Mariners back on May 17, 2007 in exchange for right-handed pitcher Jason Davis.
Rosario came to the Indians as an interesting 18 year old pitching prospect, but in spring training the following year tore a ligament in his pitching elbow and had to have Tommy John surgery and missed the entire 2008 season. He returned and pitched briefly at rookie-level Arizona in 2009 (8 games, 3.38 ERA) and this year at Mahoning Valley (14 games, 5.16 ERA).
Indians Columbus Bound
The Indians and their Triple-A affiliate Columbus Clippers announced this week that they will hold an exhibition game at the end of spring training in Columbus, Ohio at Huntington Park on March 30th at 1:05pm.
For Cleveland area fans this probably means very little, but for those in Columbus this has to be pretty exciting news to have a major league team coming to their city. Even though it is just an exhibition game and the Indians big league team will probably not be much different from their Triple-A counterpart, this is still something unique and should create some buzz in Columbus. Kudos to the Indians and Clippers for putting this idea together, and hopefully this is something they can do each year going forward.
Follow Tony and the Indians Prospect Insider on Twitter @TonyIPI. His latest book the 2010 Cleveland Indians Top 100 Prospects & More is also available for purchase on his site for a special year end closeout sale of $10.00 (including shipping and handling).
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