Found an article from last summer urging Indians to DFA Raburn back then and if I understood it correctly he was signed for $4.75M total for 2 years; if that's correct then we'd be eating less than $2.5M if he were axed now. [Yep, just confirmed that.] Even more of a bargain to dump him in favor of minimum salary [or a little more] Sands.

Murphy costs $6M so he's not going anywhere yet, I imagine.

Bad signings happen. At least there was some effort.

No way Murphy is going anywhere.

The one thing I do remember about last year was that although he had a mediocre season overall, the guy hit very well with runner in scoring position. Good stat to do well at.

He's really a perfect (though overpriced) 4th outfielder in a perfect world.

When you actually look at other salaries he is not over priced at all.

I don't expect Murphy to be let go, but I think Raburn may be at risk. Even the ever-perceptive Terry Pluto notes in his column Saturday or Sunday that Mr. March is having a lousy spring, with 1 xb hit in his 35 at bats.

With Brantley still resting his back and Moss not in the field much of the time, Raburn and Murphy and Holt and Sands and Aguillar all have been getting plenty of ABs. A lineup featuring an OF of Raburn-Bourne-Murphy is not really what a contending team needs.

Bourn is hitting for a nice average but he's not running the bases.

ESPN completes its ranking of top 10 players at all positions. For a team predicted by some to win the World Series there are not a lot of top ranking individual players:

LF No. 1 Brantley
RHP No. 3 Kluber
C No. 7 Gomes
2B No. 9 Kipnis
ss,3b,1b,cf,rf,lhp,reliever not rated

Washington scores 3 of the top 9 RHPs. That's a pretty good base for a champion.

civ I think you can point to the Tribe as the ultimate "sum greater than the parts" team. You do need key parts, and those are shown, but you can sum up this team IMO thusly:

Terry Francona and Mickey Callaway.

I think very similar to the way Tampa Bay constantly exceeded expectations because of their coaches.

We can call them our "catalysts" to create "synergy" to mix some scientific metaphors.

Holt optioned. Sands returned to Columbus. That leaves 3 in the running for the 25th spot: Aguillar, Martinez and Adams. IMHO, the only one who we actually need to fill a significant role is Aguillar: we have a pretty solid 8 man lineup but who is supposed to be the DH? I guess a platoon of Murphy and Raburn. Aguillar as the RH half of a tandem with Murphy would be an upgrade. Martinez? what do we need another UT IF for? Adams? 8 in the pen are nice but not necessary.

I really thought that Tito was making a push for Sands and he'd win a spot. There's not much of an economic case for keeping Raburn: if he stays he costs $2.5M. If he goes and Sands takes his spot, the price for the two of them is about $2.9M. Big deal.

Went to the Giants/Cubs Spring Training game yesterday.

Got to see the new countdown clock in action. Don't know if it is going to speed up the game much but it does put a structure in place.

As soon as the 3rd out is made and the teams change sides, the clock starts counting down....2 min 25 seconds for all games except nationally televised games (2.45). The pitcher can throw his warm up pitches (8 max) but his last pitch is made with 30 seconds left on the clock. Meanwhile the hitter must walk to the batter's box (music playing) with 40 seconds left.

Counted the warm up pitches. Couple of pitchers only got 5 or 6 before the ump signaled, last pitch at 30 seconds.

A pitching change during the inning also starts the countdown clock. They could speed this process if they started the clock when the manager came out of the dugout (for a 2nd visit mandatory change) instead of waiting for him to get to the mound.

As far as batters stepping out of the box...also a new rule. I didn't see any Mike Hargrove like action between pitches .

But then again it's only Spring Training and these guys have tee times

Sea- Thanks for that, it will be interesting, the ST games I have seen on TV not going to extra innings seem to end a bit sooner than usual, under 3 hours most of them. Doing any of your usual trolling for baseballs?

No more baseballs, Lou. Now I troll for golfballs.

Funny Lou! That post brought back some great memories....

Time for us to have 2015 Predictions File. This is a tough one, I think. The team could be really top notch if the pitchers pick up where they left off in September and Moss and Kipnis deliver as can be reasonably expected.

On the other hand if Kluber is merely good, not great, and either Carrasco or Bauer settles back to 4.00 ERA .500 winning pct this can be a pretty mediocre team. I'm thinking SI or the other experts are not wrong and we can have a good chance to win the division. 90 or so wins I guess.

CIV: I was going to wait until the end of spring training games, but I'll put it up now.