New Cleveland Indian, Mike Napoli, described as well-prepared, patient, and a good bunter

Here's to a great week!

Napoli is a patient slugger (Laurila)

Included in a Fangraphs notes article is a section on Mike Napoli, which notes that the first baseman saw 4.35 pitches per plate appearance in 2015, good for third-most among players with at least 400 PAs.  There's also some comments from Boston's bench coach, Torey Lovullo, on what Napoli brings to a team.  From Lovullo:

"He's always well-prepared.  He works on the little parts of the game. He isn't fast, but he's one of our best base runners. He's a good bunter. He's motivated to being more than just a power-hitting first baseman. Given how well he sees the game, I could actually see him managing someday."

Cliff Lee update from agent; return not at all guaranteed (MLBNetworkRadio)

According to agent Darek Braunecker, Lee would need a perfect fit to return to the mound this upcoming season.

How the Royals bullpen matches up with the Yankees new bullpen (Ruprecht)

A homer-ish article from Kansas City comparing "super-pens" that ultimately  makes me realize that the back ends of both the Royals and Yankees bullpens could be ridiculously good.

Some fun MLB expansion options (Demuro)

An interesting and totally wild read on some expansion and realignment options, with cities like Charlotte, Portland, Montreal, and San Jose being discussed.  From Demuro:

I wanted to keep my expansion and realignment even simpler: the current 30 Major League teams all stay in place, and I only added two new franchises: Charlotte and Las Vegas.

Charlotte is a big and very quickly-growing city in an area underserved by Major League Baseball, with both NFL and NBA franchises. It also has a brand new Triple-A ballpark in the heart of Uptown and the feeling there is that the park would be retro-fitted for Major League action should the Queen City land an expansion club in the near future.

Las Vegas, too, is a big and growing city in an area underserved by Major League Baseball and, stupidly, by all of the big-time professional sports. I'm not concerned with the old "what if the players gamble" argument about Vegas, what with the ubiquitous rise of the Internet and all, and it's time to put a team in Vegas.