Heck no 13 homeruns from your DH you might as well have Hannahan as your DH..... I couldn't resist that one.....

Yeah I know it has always been the power hitters were your infield and outfield corner spots and that has changed but I would still like to see one of the corner spots in the infield for the Indians still be a power hitting spot. Choo I am not so sure he will be a power threat anymore even though I sure hope he can be because this team needs that out of him. Kipnis I will wait to see after a full year since now teams have video on how to pitch to him so if he can make adjustments great. Santana now doubt but can he do more then walk and hit homeruns? Hafner is the guy they really need but watching him so far he looks like he is toast, stick a fork in him he is done. A. Cab showed last year he can hit with power but as the league adjusts to him I don't see him hitting but 15 this year. In a perfect world yeah they should have enough power from guys like Santana, Kipnis, Cabrera, and Choo but will they?

Jimenez, Masterson and Lowe I feel comfortable with as the top 3, Jimenez does need to settle down and not be so wild though. The bullpen I think will be okay, a few guys had some problems early last year like Smith going on the DL, Tomlin I am not real confident with and Gomez to me right now is still a question mark. If the offense doesn't pick it up they won't win many games even if guys like Santana, Kipnis, Cabrera, and Choo hit with power because solo homeruns won't add up on the score board very quickly. If the offense can't get fired up that just puts more and more pressure on the starters who will go out there every game trying to throw a shutout, that is when mistakes are made. Right now as far as impact hitters goes, Santana not being able to do anything but walk or homer, Cabrera starting off the way he ended 2011, Hafner and Kotchman having a problem hitting the ball out of the infield, this offense won't even be half as good as the Rays you talk about last year.

This GM showed he wasn't afraid to make a trade using prospects for an established Major League starter BUT, I think he got his hands slapped thinking his trading would continue into the off season and would be able to spend some money to continue adding to this team but he got his nuts cut really quick as soon as the stories came out they didn't have any money to spend. Adam Jones from Baltimore, that is a dream a lot of Indians fans could already be having including you and me..... BUT, with what the Indians have that they could afford to trade without setting themselves back another couple years, I just can't see any kind of a trade being made for an impact payer no matter how much the new GM wants to make another splash.

Okay let's just be honest here...

For every reason that I have to be positive about this team, you're going to find something that is negative. You believe that you're being realistic, and I believe I'm being realistic. I certainly don't think we're the best team in the AL, and on paper we're not even the best team in the Central. But I believe the talent is there to contend, and if we can just keep our heads above water for long enough I'm confident that the front office will make the necessary moves to push us over the top. We have yet to see what Antonetti can do when there's actually a contending team on the field. You can say we contended for much of 2011, but by all means we were a year ahead of schedule. In 2007, we saw Shapiro make a move to add Kenny Lofton, and there's no doubt he helped us down the stretch and in the playoffs. Can Antonetti make a similar move? I believe he can and I have no doubt that he's willing to do so.

So regardless of where either of us stand, here are a few things that I know to be facts:
1) Antonetti is one of the most well-respected baseball people around the league, in any front office.
2) Antonetti knew the payroll limitations of the Cleveland Indians much, much better than either of us have any idea.
3) Antonetti was offered several higher paying jobs with richer ball clubs before becoming GM in Cleveland, but still stayed with the club under Shapiro's wing long enough to move into the GM role.

Those 3 things have nothing to do with what the Indians have said, what Shapiro has said, or anything else like that, these are facts. And because of those reasons I am going to trust what Antonetti has attempted to build here in his first two seasons as GM. He deserves the benefit of the doubt regardless of what you thought of his predecessor.

Sounds like we need to agree to disagree.... lol I think there is talent on this team and I thought there was last year also the problem is most of that talent isn't showing up regularly. Baseball is a team sport and they need everyone on the team working hard to get things done and win games but one game Santana hits two homeruns and he is about all the offense they get. That has been a major problem with this team for a lot longer then just this season, one or two guys have to carry the offense because the rest of them can't do anything. Then watch, one game they will all decide to do something and they will run up 12 to 14 runs but the next game they will come back and score 1. I agree the Indians are not the best team in the AL and I agree they are not the best team in the central division at least they sure don't look like they are close to being the best. Wait we just agreed on two things.

See, you have a whole lot more faith in the FO then I can even muster up on a good night. The Jimenez deal was supposed to be the start and it was going to carry over into the off season but it wasn't but a short time into the off season the main stories you could read about the Indians was how they had to pay out so much money for raises and wait and see if they were going to get hit in arbitration, after they signed Sizemore, a stupid move, then traded for Lowe the stories were they were out of money and it was even written that the GM had to go to the owner to ask permission to spend more money, we know what that answer was.

Come on, they were playing for the post season in 2007 and they went out and got Kenny Lofton, wow, big improvement for an over the hill player and I say over the hill because that was the last year he played in the Majors, nobody else wanted him. And I say that deal was made for money, the money they could pull in bringing back a guy who played for those 90's teams, it put butts in the seats.

Okay 2011 was a year the Indians were not supposed to even get a sniff of 1st place but they did for quite a few months. You never know what will happen next year so when you have a chance to grab the bull by the horns like at the deadline in 2011 you go for it, heck nobody knows if anything good can come in 2012 so you go for it when you have the chance, they didn't why, the owner wouldn't let them. Now all the talk was that 2012 will be the year for the Indians, everything will come together and the window of opportunity will be there for 2 maybe 3 years. But for a team that had 2012 in the grand plan of things for about the last 2 or 3 years they sure fell on their faces during the off season building up to that big here we come everyone watch out year of 2012. Maybe Antonetti had some deals he was working on and had good ideas as to what the team needed this past off season but he couldn't do anything about it because he had to make an appointment to see the owner to see if he could spend some money. They had 10,000 there Sunday and they didn't even make it to 10,000 on Monday do you really think that Dolan is going to be any different this year then he has been for the past 10 years, when the fans come out I will spend the money. After all these years with the same song and dance it has gotten pretty darn old, Dolan is nothing more then a stuck record with the same old same old every year and it isn't going to change. Hey I can't say that Antonetti doesn't have players he is watching who he would like to bring to Cleveland but will he be able to do it, I don't see it happening maybe some over the hill guy who some other team just wants to get rid of that will be about it, and he better come cheap. What did we hear and read about the Abreu trade, it was off because of money, don't know how much but it was money, I didn't think he was worth anything in the first place and wouldn't have been a good fit in Cleveland to start with leaving sunny California and being downgraded to the cold miserable weather in Cleveland.

"Antonetti is one of the most well-respected baseball people around the league" I remember things like that being said about Shapiro what a great mind he had and how he was going to do so much for the organization, Antonetti is just another number dummy like Shapiro and he works for a cheap owner. I really don't think Antonetti did know the payroll limitations going into the off season, or he figured the owner would cut him some slack because he was new at the job and had some leverage. As far as being offered other jobs maybe he figured he wasn't ready and needed to prove himself in Cleveland before he took a job elsewhere or he felt he owed Shapiro something since he was his second in command for years and wanted to stick around to show him he could do a good job, I really don't know.

Hey I was thrilled to death when I heard Shapiro was getting promoted, heck only in Cleveland can you do a lousy job and win nothing and get a promotion from it. I hoped the new GM would want to make a name for himself and I think the Jimenez trade was to do just that but after that trade he got his wings clipped real quick. Nice job good trade now finish out what you started but you don't have the money to do it, good luck. I hoped it was the start of a GM making a name for himself, I hoped we would see improvements especially going into 2012, but when nothing happened as it was supposed to during the off season and I read how it was a good move to keep Sizemore in Cleveland, it started to sound like Shapiro had never left the job. If they make trades to improve the team before the deadline, and i don't mean someone a team just wants to get rid of so we see a couple different faces in Cleveland but a real improvement over what they have now, I will be the first to tell you that you were completely right about Antonetti and you hit the nail right on the head as to what was going to happen and what he was going to do.