Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor are a double-play combo to watch for Cleveland Indians

Terry Pluto's Scribbles

By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer The Plain Dealer

on March 26, 2013 at 8:15 PM, updated March 26, 2013 at 10:55 PM

GOODYEAR, Ariz. --

A handful of scribbles as the Indians wind down their spring camp with a prospect-heavy Cactus League game vs. Oakland.

1. Who is Jose Ramirez? I knew that he was at Class A Lake County last season, hitting .354 (.885 OPS). But that's light years away from the majors. Well, the 20-year-old second baseman is a stunning prospect. He has combined with elite shortstop prospect Francisco Lindor to turn some tremendous double plays. He looks very comfortable at the plate. He may only be 5-9, but he's an elite prospect. He's 5-of-9 this spring.

2. The Tribe's first-round draft pick in 2011, Lindor also has shown a lot of poise and excellent defensive range. He's only 19. It will be fun to watch him with Ramirez over the years. Lindor doubled off the wall in the third inning Tuesday. He's hitting .289 in 24 spring at-bats. Keep in mind that Lindor and Ramirez played in "low Class A" in 2012. Their poise is impressive, and they are expected to start the season at Class A Carolina.

[ Pluto erred on Ramirez's age. Jose is also 19. ]

Rangers Receive Chris McGuiness Back From Indians

By Zach Links [March 27 at 4:44pm CST]


The Rangers announced that they have received Chris McGuiness back from the Indians. The first baseman was selected in the Rule 5 draft on December 6th.

The Indians were fond of McGuiness and were hoping to work out a trade with Texas to hang on to him. The soon-to-be 25-year-old hit .268/.366/.474 with 23 homers for the Rangers' Double-A affiliate last season.

Last I read said Tribe did not expect to get back either Rondon, no surprise, or McFarland, surprising but I don't miss him.

Lefty T.J. McFarland is forcing the Orioles into a tough decision
Team must determine by Sunday whether to put impressive Rule 5 sinkerballer onto 25-man roster

T.J. McFarland made his first start in a big league uniform Monday in a nationally televised Grapefruit League game against the Red Sox.

SARASOTA, Fla. — Standing on the mound at Ed Smith Stadium on Monday afternoon, with 30 mph winds swirling around him and ESPN cameras capturing his every move, Orioles left-hander T.J. McFarland was the perfect picture of calm.

Sitting in an office chair in Bedford Park, Ill., huddled over an MLB.com video feed that wouldn't work, Tim McFarland wasn't exactly as collected as his 23-year-old son.
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"I'm the only one that didn't watch it live on ESPN. I had the MLB feed at the office and the damn thing went out two pitches into the first batter. So I never saw it live," T.J.'s father, said chuckling. "The gameday [web site] was delayed, I couldn't get any audio, so I felt kind of foolish, like I should have been in the stadium, No. 1. Or No. 2, I should have been with a group of people watching it on TV somewhere."

But Tim McFarland, president and part owner of Lexington Steel in suburban Chicago, prefers watching crucial sporting events alone so he can totally focus. And nothing was more important to him than Monday's Grapefruit League game between the Orioles and Boston Red Sox in which McFarland's youngest son was making his first start in a big league uniform.

"The feed stopped, then started and then all the sudden went black," Tim McFarland said "And I was sitting there looking at a blank screen while my kid is pitching, and I don't know what's going on. It was kind of goofy."

There are two silver linings here for the disappointed dad.

One, he also had recorded the game at home, so he watched every pitch later that night. Two, from what scouts and other baseball observers believe, Monday will not be the last time T.J. McFarland makes a televised appearance in a big league uniform.

The question, though, is which uniform he'll be wearing when it happens.

That's something the Orioles must answer soon.

The club selected McFarland from the Cleveland Indians in December's Rule 5 draft and must keep him on their 25-man big league roster (or disabled list) for the entire season or offer him back to the Indians for half the original $50,000 purchase price.

They made it work last year with infielder Ryan Flaherty, and now Flaherty is a favorite to make the 2013 Orioles in a do-everything reserve role.

But the situation with McFarland is trickier. A starter all of his professional career, McFarland's only chance of sticking with the Orioles is to be the long reliever in a stacked bullpen. The Orioles would have to make a trade — they've talked with teams about dealing away Luis Ayala — to create room in the bullpen for McFarland.

Otherwise, there would have to be an injury to someone on the pitching staff — starter Chris Tillman is a possibility there — or they'd have to go with a three-man bench to shoehorn McFarland onto the roster.

"We'd like to have him. We'll see," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "We feel as strong if not stronger than we did about him when we took him."

Player Updates
March 22, 2013 12:34 pm
Hector Rondon grabs spot with Cubs
by Bill Passonno | Fantasy Writer

Cubs manager Dale Sveum said Friday that Hector Rondon has claimed a position in the bullpen for opening day, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Rondon was selected from the Indians in last December's Rule 5 Draft and owns a 3.00 ERA over seven games this spring.

Looks like Roberto Hernandez will make the Rays pitching staff. Only question, will it be in the starting rotation or bullpen. He's battling it out with Jeff Niemann. Winner goes to the rotation, loser to the bullpen. Hernandez pitched four scoreless innings but surrender 4 and 5 runs respectively in innings 5 and 6. Maddon praised Hernandez for his ability to get balls on the ground. Only problem in the 5th and 6th innings, the balls were finding the holes.

In his final outing of the spring, Niemann allowed two hits, struck out three and didn't walk a batter in six innings, lowering his spring ERA to 2.92.

but surrendered 4 and 5 runs respectively in innings 5 and 6. Maddon praised Hernandez for his ability to get balls on the ground. Only problem in the 5th and 6th innings, the balls were finding the holes.

Those were an awful lot of holes.

New name, new team, same Fausto

This article is copied especially for rusty who believes everything dolan says and doesnt care that they have been treating their baseball team like a slumlord would treat a tenament

You need a new type of scorecard to accurately measure the wealth of Major League Baseball these days because team owners are scoring in so many different ways.

Upshot: The average baseball team is now worth $744 million, 23% more than a year ago and the largest increase since we began tracking MLB finances in 1998. During the 2012 season, revenue (net of stadium debt service) rose 7%, to an average of $227 million per team. Operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) per team fell 9%, to $13.1 million, mainly due to higher player costs and stadium expenses.
MLB Team Values 2013
1 of 30
AP 1. New York Yankees
+ show more
1. New York Yankees

Current Value: $2,300 mil.
Revenue 2012: $471 mil.
Operating Income 2012: $1.4 mil.

The Yankees sold some of their interest in the YES Network as part of Fox's purchase of 49% of the regional sport network in late 2012 and as part of the deal the team's rights fee from YES will increase from $85 million this season to $350 million in 2042.

Why did values climb sharply despite falling profitability? Because to fully capture the value of MLB’s 30 teams it is necessary to keep score of the sport’s full portfolio of assets rather than just the cash-flow of the individual franchises. Our valuations were boosted by the escalating television rights fees that flow to each team, and the climbing values of Major League Baseball Advanced Media and the league’s investment fund.
The Best And Worst MLB Teams For The Money Chris Smith Chris Smith Forbes Staff
The Toronto Blue Jays Push To Reignite Baseball In Canada Tom Van Riper Tom Van Riper Forbes Staff
11 images Photos: Baseball's Highest-Paid Players 2013

National broadcasting fees are baseball’s biggest chunk of equally shared revenue. Last year, Fox, TBS and ESPN inked new, eight-year broadcasting deals that will bring MLB a total of $12.4 billion over eight years–an average of $52 million a season for each of the league’s 30 teams–through 2021. The new deals begin with the 2014 season and are worth more than twice the league’s existing television contracts. Baseball has more inventory than any sport and with the national cable sports networks Fox Sports One, ESPN and NBC Sports battling it out for supremacy over couch potatoes, MLB was in a particularly strong negotiating position.
Special Report: The Business of Baseball

Another big contributor to team valuations is MLBAM, baseball’s highly profitable, fast-growing digital arm, which generated an estimated $650 million in revenue last year. It could be worth over $6 billion if you give it a similar enterprise value-sales ratio as Facebook. MLBAM was launched 13 years ago and every team owns an equal share, making its success particularly important for low-revenue teams. Last year, MLBAM had more than 3 million subscribers to its various products, which include MLB.TV and the MLB.com At Bat 12 mobile application. The At Bat app hit a grand slam last year: it was downloaded 6.7 million times (more than twice the combined downloads from 2011 and 2010) and is the top-grossing sports app of all-time.

A hidden gem: baseball’s investment portfolio. After MLB sold the Washington Nationals–which the league had acquired in 2002 for $120 million–to the Lerner family for $450 million in 2006, the profits from the sale were parked in Baseball Endowment L.P. (BELP), of which each of the 29 teams that had owned the Expos had an equal share (those assets were subsequently transferred to a new BELP, which is owned equally by all 30 teams). MLB also rolled in a portion of baseball’s Central Fund, which distributes the revenue from the league’s equally-shared national television and radio, Internet, licensing, merchandising and international deals.

The gross amount of Central Fund revenue for each team in 2012 was $50 million, but the league kept $7.5 million (the money belongs to the teams and is booked as an “account receivable” on their balance sheet). Commissioner Bud Selig oversees the fund. BELP has invested in hedge funds and the league has earned double-digit returns on its investment portfolio. Each team now has Central Fund and BELP investments worth $40 million to $45 million combined.

Our team valuations are enterprise values (equity plus debt) and are calculated using multiples of revenue. Thus while teams value MLBAM and BELP on their balance sheets on a “cost basis,” which understates their true value, we incorporate market value estimates for those assets. Two more significant ways our accounting differs from the P&L statements of many teams: we include revenue teams keep from concerts, soccer games and other events at their ballparks; and we deduct from revenue stadium debt payments that are paid with stadium revenue. In short, our team values are meant to reflect what a buyer would be willing to pay in an arms-length transaction and our operating income measures are meant to indicate how much cash is generated.

The ownership stakes of teams in their local television deals is not included in our valuations because teams and regional sports networks can be sold separately (witness the recent purchase of 49% of the YES Network by Fox). The San Diego Padres were sold to a group headed by the O’Malley family last year for $800 million; $200 million of the purchase price was for the team’s 21% stake in its new RSN, Fox Sports San Diego. We value the Padres at $600 million.

While the new national broadcasting deals, MLBAM and BELP have lifted the value of all baseball teams, the local television deals are mainly responsible for determining the pecking order.

The New York Yankees are the most valuable baseball team for the 16th consecutive year, worth $2.3 billion, also making the Bronx Bombers the most valuable U.S. sports team (full disclosure: I am co-host of Forbes SportsMoney on the YES Network). As part of a deal that saw Fox buy a stake in YES, the Yankees got a new rights fee agreement that will pay them $85 million this year and increase annually to a payout of $350 million in 2042. The Yankees also raked in piles of money from two Madonna concerts and a soccer game between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain.
The Best And Worst MLB Teams For The Money Chris Smith Chris Smith Forbes Staff
The Toronto Blue Jays Push To Reignite Baseball In Canada Tom Van Riper Tom Van Riper Forbes Staff
11 images Photos: Baseball's Highest-Paid Players 2013

The Los Angeles Dodgers are the second most valuable team, worth $1.6 billion. A group led by Mark Walter, Todd Boehly Bobby Patton, Magic Johnson and Peter Guber paid $2 billion for the team last year in anticipation of starting a new RSN for the 2014 season. Although the Dodgers announced a new $7 billion television deal with Time Warner Cable earlier this year, MLB has not seen the formal proposal yet.
Special Report: The Business Of Baseball

The Chicago Cubs, worth $1 billion and Philadelphia Phillies, valued at $893 million, also cracked the top five as both teams should also get much richer local television deals soon. The Cubs pulled in less than $50 million last season from CSN Chicago and WGN. The team’s deal with regional sports network CSN Chicago, which is 20%-owned by the Cubs, runs through 2019. But in 2015 the team is poised to ink a much bigger deal with WGN. The Phillies’ contract with CSN Philadelphia and PHL 17 paid the team $54 million combined in 2012. The deal with the RSN, which televises most of the games, expires in 2015. The Phillies and Comcast are already in the process of negotiating a new deal that may double the team’s rights fee.

The Bay Area’s two teams both had great years. The San Francisco Giants have benefited from winning two of the last three World Series. The team is now worth $786 million, 22% more than last year. The team has scored with dynamic pricing and drew 3.4 million fans–fourth-most in baseball. The Giants will likely have paid off the $170 million of bank debt they used to help build AT&T Park in 2017.

The value of the Oakland Athletics rose 46%, more than any other team, to $468 million. The A’s revenue increased 8%, to $173 million, as the team received one of baseball’s biggest ‘s revenue-sharing checks (more than $30 million) and improved dramatically on the diamond (winning 20 more games than the previous season and capturing the American League West). Average home attendance was up 14%, to 20,728. MLB recently laid out tentative guidelines for the A’s to move to a new stadium in San Jose, 42 miles from San Francisco, but there may be legal entanglements with the Giants. With a new stadium, Billy Beane may not have to rely on Moneyball to finally get a World Series ring.

(%) Revenue ($mil) Operating Income ($mil)
21
Toronto Blue Jays
568 38 0 203 -4.8
22
Milwaukee Brewers
562 25 21 201 9.0
23
Cleveland Indians
559 36 20 186 22.9
24
Cincinnati Reds
546 29 9 202 20.9
25
Colorado Rockies
537 16 13 199 18.7
26
Miami Marlins
520 16 29 195 -7.1
27
Pittsburgh Pirates
479 43 27 178 26.8
28
Oakland Athletics
468 46 19 173 27.5
29
Kansas City Royals
457 29 11 169 16.3
30
Tampa Bay Rays
451 40 26 167 10.0

36 million can get you a lot of home runs and strike outs.

Ken:

What does each item in this line mean? [we're 23 highest in something, I think franchise value of $559M; don't have a clue about the 36 the 20 the 186 or the 22.9

23
Cleveland Indians
559 36 20 186 22.9

My vote would be for Carrera.

My vote would be that Tito knows more about a clubhouse, as well as how to run a team AND pick a roster than all of us combined.

I just watched an interview with Michael Bourn yesterday on STO, where he talked about how much he learned from Lance Berkman while on Houston.

How many times do players have to say these types of things before we get it?

Here we go:

Rank Team Current Value ($mil) 1-Yr Value Change (%) Debt/Value(%) Revenue

($mil) Operating

How many times do players have to say these types of things before we get it?

TFIR. I think we all get it. Veterans can have a clubhouse presence where young players are concerned, but where do you draw the line? I could see where it would be of a great advantage to a 20, 21, maybe a 22 year old prospect. Maybe a 25 year old getting his first shot at a big league job.

I'm sure every team in major league baseball has a couple of these veterans around and just how many of these teams even get a sniff at a pennant much less a series !?!?!

I've seen a bunch of these guys come and go over the years and we are no closer to a pennant now than we were then. If the purpose is to teach and groom, great. Hire Giambi to coach! I just find it difficult to swallow the fact that we have a cheater as a clubhouse leader. I don't like Giambi but if he's Francona's go-to guy, that's Francona's problem.

From the New York Daily News According to one of the insiders, Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens would routinely drink beer on the dugout bench when they played for the Yankees, passing back and forth what Giambi called his "protein shake," code for a cup of beer. “Rally beers or "protein shakes" are big in the clubhouse,” one insider said. “Guys would drink them all the time, on the bench, in the clubhouse, in the training room. It’s common.”

Nice!

Giambi was found guilty by a San Francisco court of using PED's. This is Tito's go-to guy?

WoW

As far as Tito goes, I like the guy. He's human. He can make mistakes. We all are aware of the "Beer Party" that went down in his dugout before he was fired. Did Tito lose control of his team in Boston like Manny Acta lost control of his team in Cleveland? The symptoms were eerily similar.

USA Today Stated Clubhouse chemistry, conditioning and hustle were some reasons why the relationship between the Boston Red Sox and manager Terry Francona soured in a mutual fashion.

From Boston Dot Com Second baseman Dustin Pedroia, portrayed on a Sports Illustrated cover in August as “the heart of the Red Sox,’’ declined to hold any individual culpable. “I just know that playing in Boston, you’re required to play your tail off every day to try to win ballgames for this city,’’ Pedroia said. “That’s what hurt so much as a player, that we not only let each other down in the clubhouse but we let the city down.’’ By numerous accounts, manager Terry Francona lost his ability to prevent some of the lax behavior that characterized the collapse. Team sources said Francona, who has acknowledged losing influence with some former team leaders, appeared distracted during the season by issues related to his troubled marriage and to his health.

I think Francona will be good for our Cleveland Indians. He's a welcomed change and I whole heartedly will support him. But just remember, we're all human and all prone to mistakes.

Rusty often refers to the winter leagues as "beer leagues". He should check his own back yard.

Every team in the major leagues permit beer in the clubhouse and who knows what else?? I think we all know where the Major Beer League is located.

Also from the New York Daily News Beer has been a staple in Mets clubhouses, too, one of the sources said. "Guys would go into the clubhouse, pour beer in Gatorade cups and return to the dugout," he said. "In the old days, the beer distributors would leave beer for the players. We'd have three or four cases in the clubhouse at any one time."

I'm almost positive that beer is a staple in all of the dugouts.

From CBS When asked how the players reacted to the news, Valentine said, "You mean like standing ovation or booing? I didn't get either of those." Veteran David Ortiz didn't bat an eye. "We're not here to drink. We're here to play baseball," the slugger said. "This ain't no bar. If you want to drink, drink at home."

From MLB

ARLINGTON - In the wake of the revelations that Red Sox players were drinking beer in the clubhouse during games during their September collapse, Major League Baseball is looking into the idea of banning alcohol from all big-league clubhouses

So let's cut the crap!

In closing, I'd like to know just how many leaders does a clubhouse need ?!?!!?

I think Nick Swisher is a very capable candidate. He's been there, done that, and is going to be here for four more years.

How about Chris Perez !?!?!

Anybody but Jason Giambi for a variety of reasons. Most notably, he's become production challenged! One thinkg, he does know what it takes to win.