Cleveland Indians: Looking at the potential replacements in center field

Tribe News

Cleveland Indians have Terry Talkin' about outfield pains and plugging holes at third -- Terry Pluto (photos) | cleveland.com

In isolation, losing a 1-2 win player (Almonte was worth 1.1 Wins Over Replacement in 51 games for the Indians a year ago) isn't a massive loss, but because the Indians have almost no major-league depth, his loss at a time when you figure Michael Brantley will also be out gives the lineup a rather massive hole in April and May. If the Indians don't pick up a center fielder before Opening Day, I'm with Pluto: just go with Tyler Naquin.

Will Indians' Tyler Naquin walk through door that Abraham Almonte opened? Hey, Hoynsie | cleveland.com

I got a chuckle out of Hoynes' last answer, which was in reference to Almonte testing positive for a PED:

It's an interesting dynamic. An NFL football player can get banged for a positive test and no one raises an eyebrow. But let a middle-of-the-road outfielder like Almonte test positive and it's the end of the world.

I think baseball and its players are held to a higher standard than the other professional sports. I'm not quite sure why.

Here's Almonte's full statement on the positive PED test:

And here is Francona's reaction:

Although Francona is confident with the players in camp, I think the Indians are going to add at least one major-league outfielder to the roster before spring training is over.

MLB News

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Jay Jaffe breaks the new changes to both plays at second base as well as the new pace of play changes. It's well worth a read.

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David Laurila's MLB notes.

Yoenis Cespedes rolled into Spring Training on Saturday in a DIFFERENT tricked-out trike | MLB.com

Cespedes has to have a very large garage. A detailed look at his roster of motorized vehicles.