Wakeup Wahoo: Cliff Leeeee; Pinning down the Picks

I’m not sure where to start.. Maybe all the Cliff Lee stuff? Cause we need Cliff Lee and we love Cliff Lee and without Cliff Lee, we would be… Bad.

“They have a pretty good offense, especially with the addition of [Mark] Teixeira,” Lee said. “That might be the best lineup I’ve ever faced, to be honest with you.” (Indians.com)

And he held them to two runs!

I forgot to mention the awesome defense last night.. It is sort of becoming redundant like it is about Lee, to talk about Cab’s defense. I mean seriously is he kidding with some of this stuff? Bare handed grab up the middle to throw out Torii Hunter? Omar never played 2nd base but I’m not even sure he could do that. Okay, he probably could.

Cliff also made a great play on the bunt by Figgins.

“Definitely, I’ll take triple plays, too,” said Lee, who was quick to point out his defensive help. “I’d obviously not like to put men on base. But I’ll take two outs on one pitch.” (Plain Dealer)

Take ‘em how you get ‘em Cliff.

Fausto Carmona will look to follow that performance with one of his own. Take into consideration how good Carmona is during the day with a 2.81 ERA and a 12-4 record. Fausto just has to keep building off the previous start, good or bad, to get his form back.

“There are some signs there of what he does and does well,” Willis said. “He needs to get more consistent with that.” (Indians.com)

One guy who isn’t in form is Eddie Squirrels.

“I’ve had a couple bad outings,” Mujica said. “I feel like my focus is a little bit down right now. But I’ll just try to keep it up and help my team.” (Indians.com)

Wedge is going to keep throwin him out there though. He feels Mujics still can be a good pitcher and if he was confident like he was a few weeks ago, he can be there. I don’t see it but more power to him if he does.

Let’s tie up these draft picks real quick.. 30 of them are signed and sealed and soon to be delievered. You can check that out on the Player Index..

Now let’s straighten out the names because it seems like we have a lot of odd nicknames.

Curtis Haley is actually TREY Haley.. Why? I don’t know

Glenn House is actually TJ House.. Why? Well I don’t know where he gets the TJ but I can see why he doesn’t like the name Glenn. Not a ball-players name!

Robert Phelps is actually CORD Phelps.. Why? Who cares, Cord is a cool name.

Stephen Putnam is actually ZACH Putnam.. Why? I have absolutely no clue how you get Zach from Stephen.

Now that that is out of the way.. The Indians gave Trey Haley $1.2 million to sign! Damn sir that’s more than just about our entire team gets per year with the exclusion of guys like Grady, Peralta, Hafner, Vic and Cliff.

You may be asking why Trey Haley gets 1.2 million and TJ House gets $800,000 (1 mill total, 200,000 of that goes to a college education), yet Putnam a 5th rounder gets only 500,000.

Simple.. Haley and House are pitchers in High School. They are much more valuable.. They both fell because of that.

There is no doubt the Indians went signficantly over the budget. But if they got a possible first rounder in Haley, a super talented guy in House who dropped because of signability issues (who knows what round draft pick he’d be after three years in collge), then it is worth it.

Don’t ever EVER EVERRRR say this team doesn’t dole out the cash. They wanted their prospects signed and they got them..

Masa Kobayashi says the reason for his struggles is not fatigue or the switch.

“The pace is faster than in Japan,” said Kobayashi, speaking through interpreter Ryo Shinkawa, a Baldwin-Wallace College senior and member of the Tribe’s media relations staff. “That would be a lie if I said it wasn’t so. But it’s the same for every ballplayer this time of year. That’s not what’s affecting my pitching.” (Plain Dealer)

So Josh Barfield went 0-2 in his Akron rehab apperance on Thursday… How’d Victor Martinez do?

0-2 with a walk.. But hey, he played. That is all that counts.

Bafield and Martinez are both going to make one more start with Akron today and tomorrow and then go from there. Akron goes on the road so they need to go somewhere else to play. Lake County doesn’t get back till Wednesday and Mahoning Valley has break before heading off on the road on the 21st.. Might just have to get in some good old backyard baseball or a simulated game. Travis Hafner is expected to go on rehab sometime next week so he’ll probably go to the Lake. He has another batting practice session today.

Speaking of Pronk.. Pronk won a race… Not Travis Pronk, but a Horse named Pronk.

“They must have seen the way I run the bases and named a horse after me.” (Plain Dealer)

God, I hope not..

So it’s Hall of Fame weekend, that means GROVER is back!

Here is a great piece on him by Bill Livingston.

But what I REALLY want to talk about is this.

He wants to manage again!?

Color me unsuprised. You just had a feeling that wasn’t it when he was managing some independent team or whatever it was he was doing. He loves to manage, he just got burned out by the Mariners. He want’s to win and he want’s to be on a club that is going to win.

I hope someone gives him a shot for one last hurrah. Trust in him and let him do his magic. Take a look at the Mariners this year without him. Disaster! He can make a bad team good and a good team great.

BTW he still isn’t over it.

“I get asked all the time when was it I got over that loss,” Hargrove said. “I always give the same answer: As soon as it happens, I’ll let you know.” (ESPN.com)

Same here guy.