Athletic Rajai Davis signs with Oakland Athletics

Rajai Davis is gone from the Indians (for now), but he will never be forgotten. On Tuesday, he inked a 1-year deal with the Oakland Athletics that will pay him $6 million. His league-leading 43 stolen bases and career-high 12 home runs during the regular season were obviously overshadowed by what could have under different circumstances been the greatest postseason homer of all time.

We'll never, ever forget this.

Thanks, @rajai11davis. pic.twitter.com/yFmAGA28Kl

— Cleveland Indians (@Indians) January 4, 2017

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• Michael Brantley began some Grady-sounding non-contact swinging of a baseball bat over the "holiday break" and will be in Cleveland this week to continue his rehab, which hopefully will not remain Grady-sounding.

• Edwin Encarnacion is likely to officially become an Indian this week and there could be a presser on Thursday.

ª Encarnadion leads #RHPBs in AB/HR since 2012.

• Dave Cameron and Jonah Keri have differing viewpoints on whether Shapiro messed up this offseason. It is somewhat surprising to me that he brought ALL of his risk-averse tendencies with him to (the larger market) Toronto, where he could presumably afford to make more mistakes.

• Jose Ramirez is ready to go chase that championship.

• The Indians hired a former football guy to head their farm system. There used to be a James Harris who was GM of the Jacksonville Jaguars, but this doesn't appear to be that same one. Have Browns-DePo jokes? Take 'em somewhere else.


• After all, 2016 was a great year for Cleveland.

Around baseball

The Reds added Drew Storen to their historically bad 2016 bullpen

The Royals acquired Peter O'Brien, who apparently has massive power, from the Diamondbacks. They gave up Sam Lewis for him. Hopefully the D'backs were right about somebody for once and POB doesn't blossom in KC.