Thursday, July 21, 2011

A Quest Called Tribe

Jason Kipnis
So... remember all of that stuff that I said yesterday?  You know, about Jason Kipnis not coming up as long as Orlando Cabrera was on the roster?  And Jared Goedert getting a shot in September?  Yeah?

Rubbish.  Utter and complete bull plop.

Luis Valbuena has been optioned back to Columbus and Kipnis will be recalled before Friday's game against the White Sox.  Goedert will be DFA'ed to make room for Jason on the 40-man.  O-Cab will once again be relegated to a utility role.

The move is oddly timed considering Kipnis is 3-for-his-last-36 (.083) while Jason Donald is raking at .526 (19-36) over his past 10 games.  Expect Kipnis to play a lot, that means 5 starts a week if not more.  I do believe that this is a last ditch effort by the Tribe, hoping to avoid the necessity of making a big time trade.  If Kip can hit big league pitching, they probably do not have to.  If he cannot...

Still expect the Tribe to make some sort of move.  The chatter today is on former Indians Ryan Ludwick and Coco Crisp, with greater emphasis on the former.  These are middle range targets and the organization will likely pay the price (My guess - 3 B-/C+ prospects) for whichever they can get at a better value.

I could go into extravagant detail about how I was led astray with regard to Kipnis, but I will not.  Let me simply say that none of the Indians bloggers have any more access to inside information than any of the others.  Some might be more diligent and thus post releases more quickly, but, again, none of them have are privy to the Tribe's grand plan.  If there is one.

All we can do is learn from our mistakes.  In case you were not yet aware, that is what we call experience.

Here's to Kip invigorating the offense.

Cheers.