Monday News & Notes: Rest in peace, Oscar Taveras

Rest in Peace, Oscar Taveras | Viva El Birdos

Very sad news.

Last Night's Game

San Francisco 5, Kansas City 0

San Francisco leads series 3-2

Kansas City Royals at San Francisco Giants | MLB.com Box Score

Madison Bumgarner threw a four-hit complete game shutout. He struck out 8, walked none, and continued his run of postseason success. Ned Yost continued managing in his own way, executing a double switch that made no sense and hinged on Jayson Nix getting his first ever hit as a Royal. Nix did not do that, and the move baffled observers.

Kansas City's Postseason Ratings Have Been Absurd | Awful Announcing

Happier news for the Royals.

Cleveland News

Hey, Hoynsie! | cleveland.com

The day after Terry Talks Tribe, Paul takes questions. They aren't very interesting, ranging from "Should Cleveland trade Kipnis and Murphy to save money and sign Victor?" to a variety of questions that Google answers a lot faster than penning a missive to Hoynes does ("What happened to LeVon Washington?"). There's not much for LGT types in the column, but I do think the "save money" question raises an interesting point about how some fans warp the MLB offseason discussion to resemble the discussion in leagues with harder caps and more active trading markets — specifically, the NBA. I can't imagine a baseball team trading away a player like Kipnis to "save cash", but I do understand the (misplaced) "trade machine" mentality that fans might be bringing to the decision. Or maybe I'm out of touch?

And then there's this:

Hey, Hoynsie: Recently, when addressing the "progress" of the front office in 2014, you described it as "good", saying, "realistically, it would have been difficult to improve on the Indians' 92-win season from 2013 with the lack of help acquired during the offseason."

Why does that make anything the front office is doing good? The front office's main responsibility is to construct a competitive roster. When in September you are relying on JB Shuck, Chris Gimenez, Tyler Holt, and Zack Walters, you have failed at the task. The coaches made good progress in developing Bauer, Kluber, and the pitching staff. Francona gets credit for his managing of the team. But the coaching staff only can work with what they have.

Attendance is an issue with the Indians. Personally, I don't know why I should support a team whose front office puts the team in a position where, "realistically, it would have been difficult to improve with the lack of help acquired during the offseason.'

Sigh. Where's Jaysie when we need him?

Indians' VP of Player Development Lauds Lynchburg | The News & Advance

I don't think this got caught the first time around (if so, apologies). First, Ross Adkins -- a sharper dresser than I would've guessed!

Second, if the Hillcats GM is to be believed, our new affiliate is pretty lame:

"We're not a high frills, fancy, huge scoreboard-type team that does a lot of wild and crazy things. We're kind of low key and put on a mom-and-pop show if you want to say that or much less frilled. We're not trying to have some of those promotions out here that a lot of clubs have that are maybe a little controversial. We kind of stick with what works for us and I think he appreciates that."

Uhh, alright. Sounds great.

Pirates Purchase Sellers, DFA Gomez and Axford | Bucs Dugout

You probably didn't realize it, but the Pirates had a very Indians weekend. They purchased Justin Sellers from the Tribe and, in corresponding moves, DFA'd John Axford and Jeanmar Gomez.

After spending parts of three seasons as a spot starter with Cleveland, Jeanmar has been (basically) a full-time reliever for Pittsburgh over the past two seasons. He's become the kind of pitcher who, if you don't pay any attention, you might mistake for being a real asset — he's posted ERAs of 3.35 and 3.19 over the past two seasons. But, a little bit of digging fills out the picture — his Fangraphs WAR over the past two seasons is -0.4, and his peripherals are mediocre at best (under 6 Ks and over 3BBs per 9). His career earnings are at $1.5M and I'm happy he's scratched out the career he has.

I remember Jeanmar fondly — I followed his career from his Lake County debut in 2007 and his first five starts in the majors were very good. In a season where David Huff, Mitch Talbott, Justin Germano, and Aaron Laffey all started at least a game (Talbot started 28! Huff started 15!), I remember thinking Laffey and Gomez might be the two backend guys who would stick with the team. But, our holdovers from that 2010 pitching staff are Josh Tomlin, Carlos Carrasco, and Frank Hermann (I guess). Funny game.

And, never forget: Andy Marte threw an inning that year! It was glorious.

WE ARE A JOKE | Bench Ben Francisco

You may have noticed there's not a lot of news these days. So -- how about a sad blog post from 2009? What do you think ever happened to KingDiesel, that Cleveland scribe of yore?

The trades of Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez so far have both graded out as F and F. That is based on thee most important aspect of the game: Pitching. Are we really supposed to believe that Justin Masterson or Carlos Carrasco are going to be big parts of the 2010 rotation? Neither can get anybody out!

There's your weekly reminder that none of us know anything about anything.