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Indians Tidbits (2006 season)..

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1/12/06

Perez getting closer to taking spot with
Tribe

Thursday, January 12, 2006


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]By Andy Call REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER [/FONT]



CLEVELAND - The Indians hope they found a low-risk solution to their first-base problem.
The team is expected to announce the addition of free agent Eduardo Perez today, signed to platoon with Ben Broussard at first base. Perez completed a physical examination Tuesday. The Indians were working Wednesday night to open a 40-man roster spot, either by completing a trade or convincing Perez to accept a minor-league contract with an invitation to major-league spring training.
The 36-year-old Perez spent last season with Tampa Bay and also has played for the Angels, Cincinnati and St. Louis. His father, Tony Perez, was a Hall of Fame player for the Reds.
The signing of Perez may not salve the loss of free-agent hitters Nomar Garciaparra and Brian Giles following prolonged negotiations, but the financial risk is low and the raw numbers encouraging.
Perez and Broussard have nearly an identical number of at-bats against left-handers over the last three years. Perez is hitting .288 with 19 home runs and a .958 on-base plus slugging percentage. Broussard, meanwhile, has hit .242 with eight homers and a .721 OPS against lefties in that span.
If Broussard’s 2005 numbers against righties and Perez’s 2005 numbers against lefties are combined, the result is a decent major-league first baseman — .262 average, 26 home runs, 81 RBIs and a .819 OPS.
Perez hit .255 overall for the Devil Rays last season, with 11 homers and 28 RBIs in 161 at-bats.
His best season came with the Reds in 1997, hitting .253 with 16 homers and 52 RBIs.
The signing of Perez has not exactly been the best-kept secret in Cleveland. The St. Petersburg Times first reported Perez was headed for the Indians on Jan. 1. Reach Repository sports writer Andy Call at (330) 580-8346 or e-mail [email protected]
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1/13/06

Perez signing likely Indians’ last offseason move

Friday, January 13, 2006


<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]By Andy Call REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER[/FONT]




CLEVELAND - Only 36 more days until spring training.
Perhaps the silver lining in that bit of news for the Indians is that a frustrating offseason is almost over. The team made what General Manager Mark Shapiro said will almost certainly be its final winter roster move Thursday, signing free agent first baseman Eduardo Perez to a one-year contract with a club option for 2007.
“I think we’ve done what we had to do,” Shapiro said. “We didn’t necessarily make some of the improvements I wanted to make.”
Perez, signed to platoon with first baseman Ben Broussard, was the next-best alternative after negotiations with free agents Brian Giles and Nomar Garciaparra failed to bear fruit and no trades for a hitter could be made without giving away a solid young prospect in return.
“I wouldn’t rule out making a move but, if I had to guess, it’s most likely we’ll go to spring training with the club we’ve got right now,” Shapiro said. “We are very comfortable with the club we’ve got.”
The starting position players will remain basically the same as in 2005, with Perez playing first base and perhaps some outfield against left-handed pitchers. The starting rotation lost American League ERA leader Kevin Millwood and solid No. 5 starter Scott Elarton to free agency, replacing them with veteran right-handers Paul Byrd and Jason Johnson.
Perez, 36, has a .288 average, .958 on-base plus slugging percentage and 19 home runs in 246 at-bats against left-handers over the last three seasons. Broussard hit .242 off lefties in 2005. Shapiro said he anticipates Perez will get about 350 plate appearances in 2006.
“I know Ben, and we will complement each other and do well together,” Perez said. “I hope I can help the team against lefties. I think the Indians have a young, potent lineup that is well-balanced. They know how to play the game, and that’s a big part of it right there.”
Perez also has played for the Angels, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Tampa Bay.
“This is a guy who has done well when given the assignment of hitting left-handed pitching, has some experience and will be a good fit on our club,” Shapiro said.
The Indians made room for Perez on the 40-man roster by designating left-hander Brian Tallet for assignment. The team has 10 days to trade or release Tallet or outright him to the minor leagues.
Reach Repository sports writer Andy Call at (330) 580-8346 or e-mail [email protected].
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1/14/06

INDIANS
Now, it's Graves who's the veteran


Friday, January 13, 2006 Burt Graeff
Plain Dealer Reporter

The hair is long. The ears are pierced and about a dozen tattoos line various body parts belonging the Danny Graves.

"I was a kid the last time I was in here," said Graves, looking around the Indians clubhouse on Thursday afternoon. "I am different now."

Some of the nameplates he saw above the lockers in the empty clubhouse at Jacobs Field on Wednesday: Hafner, Boone, Sabathia, Peralta.

The nameplates are much different than the ones Graves saw when he was called up to the Indians in July 1996. "Guys like [Albert] Belle, [Kenny] Lofton and [Jim] Thome were here then," Graves said.

"I saw those superstars and I wanted to go hide in a corner. Now, I talk a lot."

Graves was 23 when he first appeared in a big-league game, pitching two innings in a 19-11 victory over the Minnesota Twins on July 13, 1996.

Baseball careers often have unusual twists. The Indians sent Graves, then a right-handed prospect, to the Cincinnati Reds as part of a six-player trade in July 1997.

In Cincinnati, Graves' career came alive, then died.

Now, back in Cleveland, Graves hopes to revive it.

The Tribe, looking for help with the departure of Bob Howry to the Chicago Cubs, signed Graves to a minor-league contract in December with an invitation to the big-league camp for spring training.

"I felt like I was 44 years old at the end of last season," said Graves, 32. "Today, I feel like I am 24.

"I am a born-again baseball player."

Graves holds the Reds' franchise record for career saves - 182 - but what turned out to be an ill-fated move to the starting rotation in 2003, where he went 4-15 (5.33 ERA), sent a blossoming career into a tailspin

The Indians played a role in Graves' career bottoming out. In a May 22 game at Cincinnati against the Tribe, Graves started the ninth and was rocked for five runs in one-third of an inning in a 9-2 loss.

Moments after he was removed from the game, a fan near the Reds dugout barked a racial slur to Graves, who is the lone big-league player born in Vietnam. Graves responded with an obscene gesture and, on the next day, was designated for assignment by the Reds.

"The fan should not have said what he said and I should have not responded the way I did," said Graves, who closed out the season with the New York Mets and the Class AAA Norfolk Tides.

Graves is eager for the chance to revive his career where it began.

"Mentally, the starting thing stayed with me for a long time," Graves said. "I can joke about it now. Hopefully, the 15 losses is out of my system.

"Physically, I think I'm close to being back. The arm strength is there."

Tribe General Manager Mark Shapiro was the team's director of minor-league operations when Graves was traded nearly nine years ago. "On the day I left," Graves said, "Mark told me he'd try to get me back.

"When I came in here today, it was like I never left. Even if some things are different."

Like the longer hair, the ear piercings, the tattoos and the nameplates above the lockers.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

[email protected], 216-999-4479
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1/15/06

INDIANS

<H1 class=red>Three approaching arbitration

</H1>

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Paul Hoynes

Plain Dealer Reporter

Chris Antonetti, Tribe assistant general manager, expects to have a deal done with at least one of three arbitration-eligible Indians before salary figures are exchanged Tuesday.

Left fielder Coco Crisp, first baseman Ben Broussard and right-hander David Riske were among the 100 players who filed for arbitration Friday.

"We've had discussions with all three," Antonetti said. "We could have at least one of them signed by Tuesday."

Crisp hit .300 with 16 homers and 69 RBI last season. He made $364,900 last year and has been the subject of trade rumors all winter.

Broussard hit .255 with 19 homers and 69 RBI. The Indians just signed Eduardo Perez to platoon with him at first base. Broussard made $365,000 last year.

Riske went 3-4 with a 3.10 ERA in 58 appearances last year. He made $1.42 million last year.

The Indians have not had a player go to an arbitration hearing since Greg Swindell and Jerry Browne in 1991.

Players qualify for arbitration by being super-two players or by having three or more years in the big leagues. A super-two player is in the upper 17 percent of players with more than two, but less than three, years in the big leagues.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

[email protected], 216-999-5754
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1/17/06

Indians sign RHP Riske to one-year deal

<TABLE class=byln cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=428 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=bottom><TD class=byln width=328>1/17/2006, 1:12 a.m. ET
The Associated Press</TD><TD width=3> </TD><TD width=97></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Indians and reliever David Riske avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $1.8 million contract Monday.

The right-hander made 58 appearances last season, mostly in middle relief. He went 3-4 with a 3.10 ERA and one save in 72 2-3 innings.

Riske, who has spent his entire six-year career in Cleveland, has a 17-12 career record with 16 saves and a 3.55 ERA. He set career highs of seven wins, 77 1-3 innings and 72 appearances in 2004.

Cleveland has two players still eligible for arbitration: left fielder Coco Crisp and first baseman Ben Broussard.
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1/20/06

Tribe's gains paying off

Indians' season ticket sales already top last year's total
Thursday, January 19, 2006 Joe Guillen
Plain Dealer
The Indians missed the playoffs last year after an exciting, yet ultimately disappointing end to the season. That brush with success, though unrewarding, is spiking ticket sales for 2006.

The club has already surpassed last year's season ticket sales - with 78 days remaining before the April 7 home opener against the Minnesota Twins. To date, more than 12,400 season tickets have sold compared with 12,373 in all of 2005. The goal is to sell 13,000 season tickets this year, Indians spokesman Bob DiBiasio said.

Last fall, when the playoff race was heating up, club officials predicted ticket sales would improve for the 2006 season rather than that September. At the time, those sentiments could have been interpreted as apologetic because Jacobs Field wasn't selling out. Fans filled only about 60 percent of the ballpark for a crucial weekend homestand against Kansas City in the thick of the playoff hunt.

But ticket sales are improving now because team officials say they've shown Indians fans the team is a playoff contender. More than 1 million total tickets have sold for 2006, three months earlier than that benchmark was reached last year.

"That's a normal trend in our business - you will realize a growth in sales a year after [success]," DiBiasio said. "We're experiencing that."

One sports marketing executive agreed.

"There's no doubt that a successful run like the Indians had will spur some additional fan interest in terms of advance ticket sales," said Bob Basche, chairman of Millsport LLC. Basche's company is a division of The Marketing Arm, a Dallas-based sports and entertainment services company.

Cleveland won 93 games last season, the most since 1999. But the Indians lost six of their last seven, dropping them out of the playoffs. It was enough to pique fan interest.

Neil Perko of Kirtland was a season-ticket holder for about 10 years before he stopped buying those tickets in 2002. "The team was starting to decline," he said. "They weren't bad, but you could see the big players were leaving."

After a two-season hiatus, Perko recently bought two 20-game ticket packages for himself and his 15-year-old son. They attended one game in the left- field bleachers last season. The fun atmosphere in the bleachers helped lure Perko back, but the thought of attending playoff games was added incentive.

"With their success and the run they made at the end of the season, that pushed us into it," he said.

But encouraging ticket sales remain far from the heights reached in the late 1990s. Then, the team was selling about 25,000 season tickets per year and yearly attendance hovered around 3.4 million. Last season's attendance barely topped 2 million, yet that total was the highest since 2002.

Team officials have budgeted for attendance of 2.15 million this year, up from a forecast of 1.8 million last year.

This year, more fans are buying group tickets and six-game ticket packages, called "Six- Packs." More than 800 new season ticket holders resulted from a deal last year that gave playoff ticket priority to people who put a $200 deposit toward 2006 season tickets.

But fans shouldn't expect another giant streak of consecutive games sold out or yearly attendance to creep toward 3.5 million like it did in the late 1990s.

DiBiasio, the team's spokesman, refers to those years as "the perfect storm," a rare time when downtown was re-emerging, the Indians were contending and a new ballpark attracted fans. Though that might not happen again, DiBiasio embraces the team's upward momentum, both in the standings and in the stands.

"It's a great sense of validation for all of us," he said.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

[email protected], 216-999-4675
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1/21/06

<H1 class=red>Health first, then the heater

</H1>Tribe taking it easy on prized prospect Miller's power arm

Friday, January 20, 2006 Burt Graeff


Plain Dealer Reporter

The baseball does not explode out of the right hand of Adam Miller as it once did. He's not complaining.

He's pitching.

"I'm almost back to normal," said Miller, the Indians' top pitching prospect who was sidelined for the first 2½ months of last season with a slight tear of the right elbow. Surgery wasn't necessary.

The tear occurred near the end of spring training. "I was shocked," he said. "All power pitchers have arm issues at some time, but I didn't see this coming at all."

Power is the name of the game for Miller, a 6-4, 185-pounder from McKinney, Texas, who was the Tribe's sandwich pick (31st overall) of the 2003 draft. In the 2004 Carolina League playoffs, a Miller fastball was clocked at 101 mph.

It's apparent Miller, 21, has not completely recovered. In two starts at short-season Class A Mahoning Valley last season, he was 0-0 with a 5.06 ERA. In 10 2/3 innings, he struck out six and walked four. Opposing batters hit .405.

Promoted to Class A Kinston, N.C., he made 12 starts -- going 2-4 with a 4.83 ERA in 59 2/3 innings. He stuck out 45, walked 17 and allowed opposing hitters to bat .318.

"Last season wasn't great for me," said Miller, one of numerous prospects participating in the Tribe's winter development program at Jacobs Field and Case Western Reserve University, "but I did get better toward the end. I never really got a feel for a second pitch."

Miller did show signs of regained arm strength, hitting 96 mph in the Carolina League playoffs while demonstrating a good-looking slider and improved change-up.

Subsequently pitching six games in the Arizona Fall League, he was 1-1 (5.68 ERA) while striking out 18 and walking five in 25 1/3 innings.

Pitchers drafted directly out of high school generally need more time to reach the big leagues than those coming from college. The Indians' front office is not overly concerned with Miller's bump in the road.

He's ticketed to begin the season at Class AA Akron.

"Adam is progressing on a throwing program," said Tribe director of player development John Farrell. "He will go into spring training ready to compete.

"We think he responded well in the [Arizona] Fall League. He's on a solid, progressive path - especially for someone 21 years old."

Farrell said it's not out of the question that Miller could be pitching at Class AAA Buffalo at some point this season.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporters:

[email protected], 216-999-4479
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BCSBust said:
It looks like the Indians are shopping Coco. I would go crazy if they traded him away. The guy is a potential superstar.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2006/01/20/arroyos_deal_he_loves_it_here/

What can I say? I'm crazy for Coco Crisp! :tongue2:
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I don't think they are "shopping" Coco. I think they are "listening" to offers. The fact that they haven't traded him speaks volumes. He will be in left field come Opening day, guaranteed.

78 days till Baseball? Wooo Hooo!!!

chief.wahoo.logo.jpg
 
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