A.L. Central Today—Winter Meetings Edition, December 4, 2006

The A.L. champion Tigers only real goal at the winter meetings is to find a replacement LOOGY for Jamie Walker.  Shouldn’t be all that hard.  I hear the White Sox will let you have Boone Logan.  According to Jason Beck of mlb.com, the winter meetings are just a preamble to the Tigers main focus of signing the 29-year old Brandon Inge to a “multi-year deal.” Holy Charlie Hayes, that would be a bad idea!

With the acquisition of Gary Sheffield, the Tigers are willing to move Craig Monroe or Marcus Thames and superfluous infield reserve Omar Infante (someone has to be worse than Neifi) in a trade.  Now, now, don’t all rush up at once, there’s plenty for everyone.  Wait, wait, why are you all asking about Ledezma?

Still looking for bullpen arms, the Indians are in the midst of serious discussions with Joe Borowski.  After failing his physical with the Phillies last week, the 35-year old Borowski is close to inking a one-year pact.  Even after signing ‘penners Roberto Hernandez and Aaron Fultz to one-year deals over the weekend, mlb.com’s Anthony Castrovince declares that the Indians are still “in need of some back-end relief,” which sounds like something they should see a proctologist about. 

Dan Labbe of the PD online doesn’t understand why he should be excited about the Indians’ signing of David Dellucci.  But that’s mostly because Labbe is kind of dense. “Is this guy really that different from Jason Michaels?” Labbe asks, “Sounds like the Tribe just signed up for a platoon.” Uh, yeah, that’s exactly what they did.  Now they have a great production in LF to go with what should be an excellent RF combo of Blake and Choo.  Depth is good, Dan.  Shouldn’t you have learned that last year? 

Kudos to Major League Baseball for scheduling the Cardinals and Indians to play in the inaugural “Civil Rights Game” on March 31, 2007 in Memphis, Tennessee.  Thanks to Bill Veeck, the Indians were the foremost American League team in integrating the sport.  Cleveland’s fabulous 1954 team had so many great ballplayers (many acquired cheaply because of their pigmentation) they literally couldn’t find room for them.  Any team that doesn’t have room for Minnie Minoso or Dave Pope or Luke Easter because you already have Larry Doby, Harry Simpson and Bobby Avila has done a fine job of mining the Negro and Caribbean leagues.  After Auggie Busch bought the Cardinals, his St. Louis franchise took immediate steps to reverse their history of poor race relations.  Not all those early decisions were good (minor league stars with the Padres, Tom Alston was kind of well, crazy, and Memo Luna hurt his arm even before reporting to the Cards), but the acquisitions of Brooks Lawrence and, especially, Big George Crowe laid the groundwork for the great, integrated Cardinals teams of the 1960s. 

The Indians have brought Buck “Mr. Fun” Showalter on as a senior advisor to baseball operations.  Showalter will assist the Indians brass in player evaluation and instruction.  He will be in uniform, but is allegedly no threat to steal manager Eric Wedge’s job.  That whooshing sound you hear is the entire Indians roster breathing a collective sigh of relief.

As much as I’d like to see the White Sox consummate the big Santana-Contreras-Crede-Figgins deal, I don’t see it happening in the long run for one huge reason—the demand for pitching is just too huge right now.  If the Angels are really willing to trade one of their dirt-cheap starters, like Santana or Saunders or Escobar, then someone will be willing to offer them much more than a slugging, good-glove third baseman with a weak eye and a weaker back.  The deal is much more sensible for the White Sox, who would still be left with six starting pitchers, allowing them to trade Javy Vazquez or “California Jon” Garland. 

According to G.M. Ken Williams, The White Sox are not going to be chasing any of the “big-name” free agents.  So, that rules out Mientkiewicz.

Something tells me that the Chisox will still bring in the rehabbing Darin Erstad. Erstad is a White Sox kind of guy—good clubhouse prescence, we-team, plays multiple positions.  The odds are that Erstad will probably return to the Angels and Scioscia (especially since Erstad is one of the few players that doesn’t hate Mad Mike). 

In DisneyWorld this week, the Royals are in search of a couple reliable starters (to add to their current crop of zero reliable starters) and an experienced closer.  Oh, and other pitchers too.  Having just passed through the nadir of the success cycle (isn’t jargon fun?), the Royals really don’t need to be picky.  Royals recipe this winter:
1) Find a couple of mediocre innings eaters/rehab projects
2) Mix them in the open slots on the staff
3) Allow to simmer until Gordon, Maier, Butler and Lubanski save the organization in 2008. 

With $18 million to spend, Gil Meche and Miguel Batista are the club’s top priorities.  However, since so many other teams are looking at the same guys, the Royals are open to making some kind of trade for pitching.  They won’t trade away their “youthful core,” so, KC would like to move Emil Brown, Reggie Sanders or Angel Berroa (please, please).  As I suggested this spring, last season’s much poo-pooed free agent signings look much better now since they (more or less) filled gaping holes in the lineup and their $20 million in contracts will come off the books after 2007, just in time for the team to boost the club as they bring in the young ‘uns. 

Coming to your local theater: How Sisco Got His Groove Back, starring Andrew Sisco, the studly Taye Digs, and Whoopi Goldberg as the crazy Mexican version of Annie Savoy.  And you thought that Apocalypto was going to be scary.

The Twins would like to add a veteran innings-eater to fill their rotation.  With Radke still slated to retire, the rotation is really much thinner than most people realize.  They are also without a LFer, although they will probably fill that from within the system, and a designated hitter.  Insert joke here about how they were without a LFer and DH for most of last season as well.  They may be interested in finding a replacement for Nick Punto at 3B also. 

All would be quiet on the Twins front had Batgirl not unearthed the top secret love letters of Derek Jeter and Jessical Biel.  Not only are they both dreamy to look at but they also write longingly romantic Victorian letters.  Who knew?