Also, to go back a day in time, keep in mind, after the Red Sox dumped Hanley last year every other team in the majors had a chance to pick him up after he cleared waivers for the league minimum. Red Sox would have had to pay the rest of his salary. But no team touched him.

Again, hope he helps. Lord knows we could use a good bat at DH. Maybe he can be our next Julio Franco or Kevin Seitzer type veteran bat at DH. But let's not act like there isn't a lot of red flags with this guy.

Arenado's $32.5M per year deal further inflates the ultimate contract for Lindor. We could try locking him up for his entire career, say 15 years for half a billion. Annually it's low but we'd be taking a long risk. That does sort of sound like a lot of money. Not quite enough for a wall, but maybe 5 miles worth.

I look at the starting lineups for both of our games and I try to figure out whose performances I'm eager to follow,.

First, I am waiting for Jose Ramirez to show us that the last 6 weeks of last season don't mean anything. No one's making much of a deal about it but it was prolonged enough to concern me.
Second, I am hopeful that Bauers will show why he was a top 75 prospect
Third, although expect nothing from him, Luplow could surprise me and turn out to be as good as say Lonnie Chisenhall, but without the sprained calf
4th, I hope for glimpse of "stars of the future" among Mercado, Chang and Johnson. Daniel is the big star of the first four days.
5th, in a week or two the kids will be in camp and it will be interesting for guys like Jones and Naylor and Rocchio and maybe Valera to get a few looks.

Performances by outfielders with at least 10 ABs

The Good
Martin 538/571/759
Allen 467/556/733
Mercado 313/313/625
Johnson 250/368/625

The Bad:
Papi 200/305/300
Thompson 200/234/400
Bauers 188/278/375
Naquin 176/176/471

The Ugly:
Barnes 100/182/400
Luplow 071/188/214
Joyce 000/077/000

First cuts are usually mid March-ish

Can't come soon enough. Too many in camp.

Meanwhile some of the top prospects are being kept away from the big league games, just like Bieber last year we have not seen McKenzie or Jones.

If I'm not mistaken, spring training in general and certainly games seem to start earlier nowadays. So indeed the cuts may start earlier than they used to?

This speaks for itself:

Lonnie Chisenhall (legs) has been cleared to resume baseball activities. Chisenhall was pulled out of a Grapefruit League game over the weekend due to what was called "general lower extremity tightness."

I note that Lonnie's fellow Pirate Erik Gonzalez has a spring time average about the same as the star he was traded for, Jordan Luplow, Also note that Luplow is not playing much, does he have some lingering injury too?

Unless we use Bauers in left, which is dependent on H Ramirez proving he can still play, I could be happy with an all-speedy little power OF of Mercado, Martin and Allen, with Naquin playing RF against lefties.

civ - by reading between lines in print, and on broadcasts, unless Hanley totally face plants that job is his to lose.

Anthony Santander who never should have been made available in Rule 5 is looking just the player we need. He's still only 24. He can play a good RF. He's right handed and he's hitting 444 this spring. Hit his 2nd homer of the spring today. Came into today's game with an OPS of 1.463. Now it's higher. I was pissed when they made him available and expect him to be a very solid major leaguer filling a role the Indians have no alternative for.

Nothing on the Indians home page that suggests they have sent any of the invitees back to the minor league camp nor made any roster trims. Juan Carlos Mejia is the only one of the 65 players who doesn't seem to be getting regular action. I suppose they don't need to make any moves until they are ready to concentrate the spring training innings on the actual 5 starters and the relievers seriously in competition for big league jobs. And when the minor league games start. Not sure if they've begun; no one has posted that info. I'll take a look

7 down, 58 to go,

Bradley who came in too fat.
JC Mejia who came in too young
Kaminsky who didn't pitch well
Chiang who didn't have a chance
Chu who hit a couple homers
Orlan who didn't have a chance either
Hentges who made a good impression

I suppose all the sports talk among Cleveland fans today is on Browns sites. Not knowing much about football, even I've heard of OBJ.