Cleveland Sports Forum

On top of the K's Santana also led the majors in errors from LF. (13 if I remember correctly. ... How the hell do you get 13 errors in left field in a shortened season?!)

A platoon at DH with Bradley would look to be in order.

Saw comments from a guy earlier who had arthroscopic surgery on his meniscus. After 10 years of pain he is now pain free. But he said he was told he would have a few week recovery time, and it ended up being a few months.

I wouldn't place any bets on Clevinger. Just just never know. As I've always said, most of the time it comes down to genes in a guy. Hopefully he's a quick healer.

Surgery is done, and Clevinger is expected to be ready for action in 6-8 weeks.

Does that mean ready to go, or just start to get ready? I dunno, I’m sure some clarification will be coming.

Opening day is 6 weeks from yesterday.

Hopefully won’t miss many starts.

Watched an interview with Tito and he said Clevinger will be able to build up his arm virtually the entire time he is out. He also called him a "quick healer". (Based on last season?)

So he will most likely be back sooner than we might think.

I wouldn't expect Tito to say anything different. Always the optimist.

He's guessing just like anybody else.

He'll be ready when he's ready.

Héctor Gómez @hgomez27
Former MLB player Tony Fernandez has died. He suffered a brain stroke and Kidney complications.
Fernandez was selected to 5 All Star Games, won 4 Gold Glove and a World Series with Toronto Blue Jays (1993).
Rest in peace.

Let me work on this now:

Mercado almost daily in CF or maybe LF when Deshields plays Center.

Luplow at least against all lefties in one corner. Platoon could be with Mercado and those days Deshields in Center. Or Naquin when he's available. Or Bauers; he's sort of not part of much discussion but he still is potentially a good talent.

Reyes in RF, which seems more likely with Santana the klutz lined up for DH.

D.Santana DH.

That leaves out Allen, who could be 26th man OF, to pinchrun and finish games in Right
Zimmer who fill the same role envisioned above for Bauers or Naquin, and has options remaining
Bradley who seems frozen out with D.Santana on board
Johnson who gets a chance to show off in ST and then show he can repeat his 2019 success in Columbus

with 13 position players on the roster including 2 catchers, 6 OF is all they have room for and that leaves only 1 utility IF and I'm sure they will want to give Arroyo with no options left a good shot at a role but also would like Freeman.

Regarding Reyes, I do think he can be taught to be a passable outfielder. The athleticism, at his size, is definitely there.

Regarding Clevinger - I do know a couple guys who had the meniscus thing.

These are athletes, very good tennis players and they have had the surgery very recently. Nowadays this is very sophisticated which is likely why Tito said he could build his arm continually through the process.

Add in Clev is a very young stud athlete and the lower end of this timetable is a no brainer.

John Smoltz did point out that the last part of his delivery where he swiiiiiings that leg is very high impact though so that could be a complicating factor. Perhaps he modifies that.

We all know the Tribe front office crunches numbers like all organizations. A look at Santana from a fantasy site:

Domingo Santana (OF-CLE) appeared to be nearly back to 2017 breakout (.278-30-85-15) form when an elbow injury derailed his 2019 campaign.

Through 399 PAs entering the All-Star break, he was batting .286 with 18 longballs, 63 RBI, and 6 stolen bases, but in just 108 second-half PAs he hit only .128 with 3 longballs, 6 RBI, and a pair of steals. Overall, he posted a strong 42% hard-hit rate and smoked lots of liners (27%), although his 31% flyball rate hurt his ability to put batted balls over the fence.

At a glance, Santana's 24% HR/FB from 2019 might appear on the high side, but his career clip sits at 25.5%. His 29% strikeout rate from the first half of the 2019 season mirrored what he logged in 2017, so that was also a positive sign given his 32% career clip.

It's tough to not be optimistic about Santana's potential entering his age-27 season. It doesn't hurt that he will be moving from spacious T-Mobile Park in Seattle to the more neutral Progressive Field in Cleveland.

Fantasy sites could care less about the Cleveland Indians, so that writeup is from a neutral source.

This would be the motion Smoltz is referring to as high maintenance and long term iffy to his health:

72 year old friend says he recovered from his meniscus surgery in 3 weeks. But he's not a hard throwing pitcher so that timetable may not be relevant.

Do any reasonable Google search on this surgery and it's easy to see how minimal it is. Outpatient in and out -
crutches just a few days with rehab almost immediately.

And pro athletes get incredible care - a full staff's daily attention with state of the art equipment - unlike us regular folks. And us regular folks are not 20+ year old super athletes.

Honestly, if this happened during the year I bet he pitches through it. It's February so....

are not 20+ year old super athletes.

Speak for yourself!