I can't believe Dolan is trying to sell us his let's not spend any money team. Is he serious? He can't negotiate with Cliff Lee because of the economic situation? When will be the right time for Dolan to spend money. He treats the fans well, but, can't he have a good team? We can't find anyone better than Dellucci? We can't get a hitting coach? How about an actual manager that knows what's going on? It's going to be a repeat of last season, I'm afraid.
They really didn't add anyone in the off-season. Although, I do like Kerry Wood & Mark DeRosa. If Jensen Lewis can perform the way he did at the end of last year (while he was in the closer spot) now in the eighth inning, and, Wood stays healthy; we'll have a solid bullpen in the late innings. But, how about hitting? DeRosa sounds like a good guy; but, is he going to add to the line-up? I'm excited and hopeful he'll be a good addition to the line-up. We'll see what he can do. Hafner is questionable at best. I was hoping that they'd add a legitmate middle of the order hitter. If Hafner & Martinez have good years, everyone will look better. If they struggle, the entire line-up will struggle.
I don't like that the Tribe giving up on Garko & Barfield. I think they're trying to trade Garko. They're trying him & Barfield in left. And they've become back-up players. So, I think they've given up on them. If either of them hits well, I'm sure they'll see more playing time.
Choo is a mystery. With his injury last year, it's hard to gauge how well he'll do. He has a lot of promise as does Francisco. I don’t think the Tribe does well developing players. Phillips is a prime example. Barfield batted 300 before coming here and now struggles to hit 200. Garko I think is better than he played last year.
Anything can happen. If Martinez and Hafner are doing well, a couple other players click; the pitching is stable; they could be good. I don’t expect Lee to win 20 games again; but, I think 16-18 is reasonable. Carmona needs to have 18 wins and we need someone in the third spot. Westbrook is a big loss. Laffey and sowers need to step-up. Sowers is another guy that I think could be a lot better with the right coaching. He's a really nice guy from meeting him at a signing & seeing him a lot at spring training last year; so, I'm really pulling for him & give him much more slack than other guys.
We definitely need a change in coaching. There's not much this staff offers in the way of developing players, helping a struggling player, or teaching fundamentals. I do like that they were working on situational hitting in spring training. But, it sounds like they only practiced it one day. That's been one of my biggest criticisms of Wedge. They were also working on base running. Where have these things been the past 5 years? Why didn't they do more of it? The hitting is just pathetic. We can't let Shelton stay here much longer. Not to have one 300 hitter, is unexcusable. He is detrimental to this organization. It's time that management stops making excuses and starts to shake things up.
