The B-List Lite: 5/20

The Indians lose to the Royals in the ongoing Luxembourg-Liechtenstein War, and today's game recap features:

• The Good Morning Song
• The Get Out of Bed Song
• Henny Youngman on Rafael Perez
• Futile gestures
• Bullpen statistics that hurt my eye
• Oolong the rabbit
• Lottery odds with the bottom of the lineup.

There are plenty of places to read very bad baseball some more, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/19

Kerry Wood coughs up 5 runs in the 9th to lose 8-4, and today's game recap features:

• Justin Masterson, Not So Bad
• Smallball with Tofu Lou
• Shelley Duncan's existence
• A radical proposal
• Guest commentary from Leonard Pinth-Garnell
• More guest commentary from Leonard Pinth-Garnell
• Guest commentary from Joe Borowski

There are plenty of places to read very bad baseball, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List: 5/18

The Indians get throttled by David Price and the Tampa bullpen, and today's game recap features:

• David Huff seen through the lens of the Posnanski Treatise
• Chump Ambriz seen through the lens of the Posnanski Treatise
• Jason Donald's debut
• Kind words for Pronk
• Cheap shots at Russ Branyan
• Patience at the top of the order
• The existence of Jamey Wright

There are plenty of places to read about David Huff performing poorly, but only one place to read The B-List.

Cleveland 2010 and the Posnanski Treatise

By now, I would like to believe that you've already read Joe Posnanski's treatise on how non-competing teams (in this case, the Kansas City Royals) OUGHT to approach the decisions they make during the course of the season.  If you haven't, this means that you are not a fan of Joe Posnanski, and this makes you a Philistine.  QED.

In any event, we start with the premise:

It seems to me that the Royals must take advantage of the one advantage they have — time. How do they do that? Well, the big thing is to know is that while, sure, you want to win, the goal must be bigger than that. You are building a team to win down the road. Everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — must be pointed in that direction. Every break you take, every move you make, every smile you fake, every bond you break should have 2011 and 2012 and 2013 in consideration. And with time, you can do things. If you have some young and reasonably talented players, you can give them give them opportunities to learn and grow at the Major League level. If you have prospects you are not quite sure about — you can FIND OUT what they have inside.

So, there it is, in three parts:

1. A non-competing team's real asset is time, and the freedom to allow players to develop
2. Winning is important, in that it breeds a culture of success, but development is bigger than winning
3. A non-competetive year is about the players who are already here learning and growing, and properly evaluating the players who aren't here by playing them to see what they have

The B-List Lite: 5/17

The Indians drop an extra-inning affair in Tampa, and today's game recap features:

• Fausto Carmona's wasted but excellent start
• Asdrubal Cabrera's unfortunate injury
• A lot of incredulity at Hank Blalock accomplishing anything whatsoever
• An ill-conceived comparison of Warren Harding and Ulysses Grant
• Tampa Bay bullpen coveting
• Son of Walk-Off Bunt!
• Second-guessing for fun and ... fun

There is now another place to watch the Indians lose on a walkoff bunt, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/14-5/16

The Indians take 2 of 3 from Bal'mer, thanks to an EIGHT-run ninth, and today's game recaps feature:

• Jake Westbrook's Fountain of Better
• The 8-run ninth
• The happiest person during the outburst
• An inconceivable walk
• Strong throwing arms
• Port smash!
• The Indians are reading my column

There are lots of places to watch Ty Wigginton slug .680, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/13

The Tribe gives Zack Greinke his first win, and today's game recap features:

• David Huff is bad
• Ducks on the Pond
• The badness of David Huff
• Squander Ball against Bad Robinson Tejeda
• David Huff's badness
• The predictable failure of Grady Sizemore
• David "Mr. Bad" Huff

There are lots of places to watch the Indians strand 11 runners, but only one place to read The B-List.

Indians Lean Hard to Port

Rob Neyer is off for a couple days, so he asked some of the SweetSpot bloggers to submit a piece in the theme of "What should your team do about [ill-performing player X]?"

For the Indians ... well ... singling out ONE ill-performing player is kind of a challenge.  Given that we have exactly two hitters doing well (arguably four, I guess), my piece would have been an eight-column installment plan, mostly ending in "scream helplessly and cry."

Instead, I sought a class of trouble we're having: namely, a near-total inability to hit left-handed pitching.  For more details, check out my entry on Rob's blog.

THEN you can scream helplessly and cry.

The B-List: 5/12

The Tribe wins the series in KC in a rain-drenched affair, and today's game recap features:

• Fausto Carmona's weasel factor
• Aaron Laffey and Chris Perez add more weasality
• Tony Sipp: not a weasel
• Russ smash!
• Drooby Doo!
• Super Trey Hillman's Parade of Bad Decisions
• Terror on the Basepaths!

There are lots of places to watch the Royals strand 13 runners, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/11

The Tribe takes the opener in KC, and today's game recap features:

• Jake Westbrook adjusts, looks much the same
• Russ Branyan connects!
• Russ Branyan doesn't connect!
• Plate discipline is not simply taking walks
• The horror of the KC bullpen
• Small Sample Size Follies
• Mark Grudzielanek, useful player

There are lots of places to watch KC's bullpen combust, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/7 - 5/9

The Indians do not lose a series and actually beat the Tigers, and today's game recaps feature:

• Masterson fights Verlander to a draw
• Talbot fights mediocrity to a draw
• Branyan fights Suck, loses by split decision
• Our new old closer
• Our old new closer
• The guy who probably ought to be closer
• Good things from Travis Hafner and Mark Grudzielanek
• Serial badness

There are lots of places to watch Luis Valbuena make another error, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/5

The Tribe blows a 2-run lead in the 9th on an error and a bomb, and today's game recap features:

• Why Fausto's walks weren't as bad as you think
• Why Luis Valbuena's error doesn't invalidate his game
• Why Chris Perez' gopher ball doesn't invalidate his game
• Why Matt LaPorta's two singles don't validate his game
• A cheap shot at Mike Redmond's advanced age
• Dept. of Not Surprise
• Why two bad plays don't invalidate the five-out save

There are lots (and lots and lots) of places to watch Russ Branyan strike out AGAIN, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/4

Extreme Blunderbuss Action does in the Tribe, and today's game recap features:

• Sage advice for Jake Westbrook he already knows
• Sage advice for Jensen Lewis he might not already know
• Grousing about the bullpen in general
• Except Chip Ambriz
• Credit Where Credit is Due
• Dept. of Not Surprise
• Two-out RBI sighting!

There are lots (and lots and lots) of places to watch Russ Branyan strike out, but only one place to read The B-List.

The B-List Lite: 5/3

Brett Cecil retires the first 19 in a row as the Tribe loses 5-1, and today's game recap features:

• Mitch Talbot and a lesson from archaeology
• Tony Sipp's quiet emergence
• Jhonny Peralta's golden eye
• Manny Acta's continuing Manny Acta'ing
• A snide comment about John Buck's neck
• Irrational disdain for Mark Grudzielanek continued
• Very little else

There are lots of places to watch your team lose on a bunt, but only one place to read The B-List.

Poaching

The Cleveland Indians are at a point in their developmental history where we have to resign ourselves to the truth that there are four ways in which we can hope to have talent:

1) Draft (or otherwise sign, as in Latin America) & develop

2) Trade for prospects & develop

3) Trade for or sign second-tier-salaried major-leaguer

4) Sign an NRI and get lucky

We've had some recent success with (1): Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis, and Cord Phelps are performing well enough in the minors, and recent successes like Jhonny Peralta, Fausto Carmona, and the recently-departed Victor Martinez show we have had success in non-draft-elligible players in the past.  (Tony Sipp is a draft product who is actually useful in the majors.)  Most people accept that (2) is actually one of Mark Shapiro's strongest suits, yielding (for example) Grady Sizemore, Shin-Soo Choo, and Luis Valbuena.  It's also resulted in some busts (Andy Marte) and guys of questionable value (Tofu Lou) and the jury's out on a bunch of last year's haul (LaPorta, Hagadone, Knapp, Carrasco, Barnes), but it's been one of the things Shapiro has done well at times.