Death by Blunt Instrument

Plenty of off-season decisions await Indians GM Mark Shapiro
Thursday, October 25, 2007Bud ShawPlain Dealer Columnist

Ride it out with C.C. Sabathia or seek to trade him? Baseball post-mortems really are a relaxing, fun time for baseball’s general managers. It’s surprising they don’t enter wearing their pajamas and carrying a tub of popcorn.

Mark Shapiro got roughly 72 hours to come to grips with his disappointment before having to measure his anxiety.

Shapiro said Wednesday the team would address Sabathia’s contract status “sooner than later,” meaning before spring training. But, he said, his inclination if the two sides can’t agree on a new deal is to put the best team possible on the field in 2008, which is difficult to imagine doing without Sabathia.

“He’s been extremely consistent and extremely strong in wanting to be part of this team and part of this community,” Shapiro said Wednesday. “The only question there’s ever been, understanding the magnitude of his success and what it means in a free-agent environment, is there a business deal that makes sense for both him and our ownership that can be struck?”

No small question, that. Sort of like, “What’s the meaning of life?”

Sabathia is entering the final year of his contract. Shapiro thinks it’s “possible” to keep him but it will require “some push” on both ends.

It’s rolling a boulder up a mountain.

But even if they’re far apart when spring training rolls around, I’d keep Sabathia, too. Unless this team is looking up to Kansas City at the trade deadline, you’d keep him until the end and hope it’s not a bitter end.

He will probably win the Cy Young Award over Josh Beckett, since voting concluded before the postseason began. His playoff performance aside, it’s not as if the 2008 season can make him much more marketable than he is today.

- You can’t say he hardly knew Kenny Lofton. But don’t expect him back for a 17th time. Or is it 18? Shapiro wasn’t ready Wednesday to discuss personnel decisions. Lofton, a free agent, gave the Indians exactly what they hoped he’d give them. That did not include a lot of run production, which also wasn’t a surprise.

Corner outfielders are usually prime run producers on a baseball team. At age 40, Lofton certainly isn’t one. The Indians have David Dellucci and Jason Michaels signed.

But even if they didn’t, they’d want a bigger bat in left field.

The Indians won’t miss Lofton anywhere near as much as the fans will.

The Indians have 10 days after the end of the World Series to pick up Paul Byrd’s option. The same goes for Joe Borowski and Aaron Fultz, but Byrd is the tougher call. The league’s interest in talking to him about the HGH issue probably won’t amount to much. HGH is banned in baseball. But they don’t test for it. (Now, there’s a deterrent).

So unless Byrd admits he’s still using it, I don’t see a suspension coming down.

Byrd’s story is sketchy to say the least. But he also won 15 games and along with Jake Westbrook at least gave the Indians two pitchers willing to challenge hitters.

- Was Travis Hafner hurt? That would explain a few things. “No,” said Shapiro. “I think pressure maybe — again it goes back to how much he cares — some of the pressure he feels, he carries that weight with him. He’s a resident of this city. He wants great things for this team and these fans.”

One theory died this season.

Remember early in the year when you wondered if the absence of a long-term deal was affecting Hafner? Not so much.

- Josh Barfield is the one we hardly knew.

“It’s difficult for me to see a team next year that doesn’t have Asdrubal Cabrera playing a significant role on it,” Shapiro said.

And then: “[Cabrera] won’t play shortstop. Jhonny Peralta is our shortstop next year.”

Barfield was overmatched in his first year in the American League. That could change, but he didn’t exactly come close to tearing up the National League either.
- Asked to venture a guess at the 2008 rotation, Shapiro didn’t hesitate . . . after the first three names anyway. Sabathia, Carmona and Westbrook.

The other two will come from a group including Byrd, Cliff Lee, Jeremy Sowers and Aaron Laffey.

Shapiro talked of Lee failing to “make adjustments” early this season as the reason for his demotion.

When the Indians talk about Lee, you get the idea it’s not the strike zone that worries them but the zone between his ears.

- The HGH story was not a distraction that cost the Indians the series. Shapiro called it an issue for him and Byrd, nobody else. He’s right. When you lose, 11-2, and are outscored, 30-5, over the last three games, there’s nothing subtle about it. The autopsy shows death by blunt instrument.