The other three left because of contract issues

Pluto is such a clown.

I'm not sure how you write a column about 2013 pitching options for the Indians without bringing up the rather significant news that Carlos Carrasco is expected back. Who cares about David Huff?

Indians reliever Vinnie Pestano: 'I don't think we've quit'


Published: Monday, August 20, 2012, 8:02 AM Updated: Monday, August 20, 2012, 9:48 AM
By Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer

Clubhouse confidential: Have the Indians quit? When a team plays as bad as they have since the All-Star break, the question keeps being asked.

Reliever Vinnie Pestano said no.

“I don’t think we’ve quit,” he said. “Honestly, the way we’ve played lately, it’s an assumption people have. But sometimes, as much as you want to win, belief gets a little lost. When things start to go sour, we’re just like fans. When Oakland started coming back Friday night, it’s like, ‘Here we go again.’ It’s about cutting that off and flipping it around.

“You have to believe it’s not going to keep doing that. Once you start doing that, the next thing you know, you rattle off seven in a row. It’s all a matter of belief.”

Just do it: Jason Donald made his first big-league start in left field Friday. In the fifth inning, he made a sliding catch in foul territory against Jemile Weeks. Not a bad effort for a middle infielder.

“I don’t know what I was thinking when I caught it,” Donald said. “I just wanted to get to the ball.”
Stat of the day: The only day of the week the Indians have a winning record on is Monday, when they’re
8-4.

Deny, deny,deny.

Josh Tomlin will have surgery, Grady Sizemore done for year: Cleveland Indians Insider


Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 9:21 PM Updated: Tuesday, August 21, 2012, 10:38 PM

Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer




Clubhouse confidential: If Cleveland fans didn’t know Eric Wedge was manager of the Mariners, it wouldn’t have been hard for them to put two and two together after reading Michael Saunders’ quotes in the Seattle Times following Seattle’s 5-3 win on Monday.

After hitting two homers against the Indians, the elated Saunders said, “Baseball is a grind and it’s a process. I’m just going to believe in my process. I know I’m going to go through ups and downs obviously try to weather them. But baseball’s a grind.”

Long live the School of Grind.

Sniff, sniff: A trip to Safeco Field would not be complete without watching bomb-sniffing police dogs check out the ballpark and press box before games. Tuesday it was a black and golden Lab that did the sniffing.

Fortunately, they missed the roast beef sandwich in my computer bag.

Stat of the day: Derek Lowe, now pitching for the Yankees, is still second on the Indians with 13 quality starts (three or fewer runs in six or more innings). Justin Masterson leads with 15 in 26 starts.

— Paul Hoynes

SEATTLE, Wash. -- The news on Grady Sizemore and Josh Tomlin was inevitable and fit perfectly with the collapse of the Indians' season.

Head trainer Lonnie Soloff said Tuesday that Sizemore will not play this year because of recurring pain in his right knee and that Tomlin will undergo Tommy John surgery on his right elbow Wednesday in Los Angeles. Dr. Lewis Yocum will perform the surgery.

Soloff gave updates on several other injured players.

• Third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall (broken right ulna bone) could be back playing in September.

• It's still unclear if DH Travis Hafner will return before the end of the season. He is being treated for a bulging disc in his back.

• Left-hander Rafael Perez is still recovering from sprained right ankle. He has not pitched since late April because of a strained left lat.

• Right-hander Carlos Carrasco, who had Tommy John surgery last year, is scheduled to start pitching in a game this week in the Arizona Rookie League.

Soloff said Sizemore experienced pain in his right knee last week when he tried to run on the field at Progressive Field in preparation for a rehab assignment. Sizemore's latest setback meant that this season's schedule would run out before he could attempt to play in games in the minors or for the Indians.

Sizemore is a free agent at the end of the year. His future with the Indians is uncertain.

GM Chris Antonetti took a gamble on the much-injured former All-Star center fielder last off-season when he signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal. Sizemore needed back surgery to repair a herniated disc before the start of spring training and never played an inning for the Tribe.

"As a result of the increased soreness in his right knee, he's been advised to slow down his progression for 10 to 14 days," said Soloff. "As a result of this development, and where we are in the season, it's unlikely he'll have enough time to see game-related activities."

Said manager Manny Acta, "I'm just sad because of the type of human being he is and the type of player he is. One of the things that attracted me the most to this job was Grady Sizemore. I was going to have a player who could help me win games by himself. A lot of things have happened over the last three or four years that have been completely out of his control."

Sizemore, 30, has not played a full season since 2008. He has undergone six surgeries since 2009, including operations on his left elbow, right and left knees, two sports hernias and surgery for a herniated disc. When asked if he felt Sizemore's career was over, Acta said, "No, I would not jump to that conclusion. He's still very young. He's got plenty of time to heal up his body and play baseball."

Tomlin, who won 12 games last year, will miss the next 12 to 18 months. He went 5-8 with a 6.36 ERA in 21 games, including 16 starts, this year. He was sidelined at the end of last year with a strained ulna collateral ligament.

Now he will have the UCL replaced by another ligament from his body. Soloff said Tomlin was always able to rehab the injury, but the UCL has been stretched to a point where it can no longer protect his elbow and must be replaced.

Tough times: Acta wrote this on the message board outside the locker room at Safeco Field: "Life is tough. Wear a hockey mask and face it."

The Indians entered Tuesday night's game on a six-game losing streak. They're 1-6 on this West Coast trip and are 10-27 since the All-Star break.

Sad news: Michael Weiner, executive directive of the players association, is being treated for a brain tumor. The union released a statement on Tuesday.

Shelley Duncan, the Indians' player rep, called Weiner "a brilliant man." Duncan also knows what he's going through, as his mother underwent surgery from a brain tumor last year.

Taking a look: MLB is investigating Chris Perez's confrontation with a fan Saturday in Oakland at O.Com Coliseum. The argument was videotaped and appeared on several Internet sites. There is no word if Perez will be disciplined. Earlier in the year he was fined $850 for a Tweet about the Kansas City Royals.

Finally: Acta's second annual celebrity bowling charity fund raiser is Thursday from 5-9 p.m. at the Corner Alley on East 4th Street in Cleveland. For ticket information go to indians.com. Proceeds go to Acta's ImpACTA Kids Foundation and Cleveland Indians charities. ... Shortstop Dorssys Paulino was named the Indians' minor league player of the week. Paulino, 17, hit .560 (14-for-25) with three doubles, one triple, three homers and 19 RBI for the Indians Arizona Rookie League team. On Tuesday he was promoted to Class A Mahoning Valley.

On Twitter: @hoynsie

It's all Soloff's fault.

Left-hander Rafael Perez is still recovering from sprained right ankle. He has not pitched since late April because of a strained left lat.

Is that typically a four-month injury? Good grief.

on Sizemore: ""I'm just sad because of the type of human being he is and the type of player he is."

Let's find out what kind of human being he is. Offer him a one-year contract at major-league minimum and with whatever on-the-field-performance incentive clauses seem reasonable. Have him start the season on the 15-day DL and ask him to be an ambassador to the fans in the Cleveland area and elsewhere. His job will be to go out and drum up interest in the Indians while trying to get back into playing shape. If he is eventually able to play, great.

VT'er-

Well reasoned and appropriate. Which is why it wont be done.

Was anyone clean on our team in the 90's?

Bleacher Report ‏@BleacherReport

Bartolo Colon has failed a drug test and faces a 50-game suspension, per @JonHeymanCBS http://cbsprt.co/SodWSc

VT'er wrote:on Sizemore: ""I'm just sad because of the type of human being he is and the type of player he is."

Let's find out what kind of human being he is. Offer him a one-year contract at major-league minimum and with whatever on-the-field-performance incentive clauses seem reasonable. Have him start the season on the 15-day DL and ask him to be an ambassador to the fans in the Cleveland area and elsewhere. His job will be to go out and drum up interest in the Indians while trying to get back into playing shape. If he is eventually able to play, great.

His agent shook down our amateurs in the brain trust. What kind of human being is grady? He needs to get on the juice get himself healed and hope he doesnt get caught.

kenm wrote: His agent shook down our amateurs in the brain trust. What kind of human being is grady? He needs to get on the juice get himself healed and hope he doesnt get caught.

Grady would probably injure himself picking up a pill bottle or Syringe.

This is the Tribe's version of "rebuilding:"

http://tribevibe.mlblogs.com/2012/08/23 ... area-home/

From Yahoo Sports-------

Cleveland manager Manny Acta: ‘If one guy is going to go, it’s going to be me’

By Kevin Kaduk

Big League Stew
There's not much that Manny Acta can do for his free-falling team over this last month or so of the season. The Cleveland Indians are a worst-in-the-AL 10-29 since the All-Star break, they're currently working on an eight-game losing streak and they're going to lose fourth place to the Minnesota Twins if they're not careful. The season has sunk.

One thing Acta can do, though, is provide a little encouragement to his team in the form of what looks a lot like gallows humor to the rest of us.

His message:

There's only one person sitting on the hot seat right now and it's me.

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

"I talked to them just to reassure them," said Acta following a 3-1 defeat to Seattle (on Wednesday). "They do need to relax. There have never been 25 guys released [at once] in the history of the game. They should relax. If one guy is going to go, it's going to be me, not them. So relax and play the game."

Whether or not Acta should really be fearing for his managerial future seems to be up for debate. Acta's contract runs through the 2013 season and he received a vote of confidence from GM Chris Antonetti on Aug. 6. The Indians have gone 4-11 since then, though, and they're a weekend sweep by the Yankees away from posting their second 11-game losing streak of the second half. If the Indians continue to flail for the rest of the season, can Acta survive the postseason evaluation that will take place?

Also up for debate:

Does Acta even want to manage the Indians anymore? As TD of Waiting For Next Year wrote Thursday morning, Acta's recent comments suggest a guy who doesn't think he has much to lose anymore. Not only is he willing to play sacrificial lamb in front of his players, but he's starting to publicly question the flawed makeup of this Indians team. It's hard to think that any member of Cleveland's front office wants to have a spotlight shined on their failures by a member of their own organization.

Give Acta credit for using any capital he might have in forcing a change for 2013. Although given the Dolan family's penchant for doing things on the cheap, there's a good chance no big changes will be made before next season — and yes, that frugality probably also includes an aversion to firing Acta and paying him to do nothing next season.

If I were a betting man, I'd say Acta returns for one more year. Whether anyone likes it or not.

From the Sporting News----

Indians manager Manny Acta not fretting over job security

Published 10 hours and 37 minutes ago

The Cleveland Indians are 10-29 since the All-Star break and 4-17 in August, but manager Manny Acta isn’t worrying about his job security—not publically anyway.

"I know it's a cliche, but I'm going to tell you the same thing over and over again—all I can control is to prepare myself every day and do the best I can. I'm doing the best I can,” Acta told The Plain Dealer.
Manny Acta says he isn't worried about getting fired. (AP Photo)

General manager Chris Antonetti recently gave Acta a vote of confidence, but that hasn’t stopped the speculation that the organization will make a change in the dugout after the season.

The Indians suffered through an 11-game losing streak in late July/early August, and they have lost 8 consecutive games heading into this weekend’s series against the New York Yankees at Progressive Field.

"It's hard," Acta added. "That's the best way to put it. I'm just not going to be crying in front of you guys."

The Houston Astros fired Brad Mills this past weekend in the first managerial change of the season. Because their teams also are underachieving, there also has been speculation about the security of Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia and Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine.