500 words or less…on signing Ubaldo Jimenez

Ubaldo Jimenez (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

The Cleveland Indians should sign Ubaldo Jimenez.

Jon Heyman reported on Monday’s MLB Tonight that Ubaldo had dropped his contract demands further and was seeking a three-year, $39 million dollar deal.

That puts Jimenez right in the Tribe’s money wheelhouse.

On October 9^th, I speculated that Jimenez would have a floor of three years and $33 million, with a ceiling of three and $39. While there were more years and bigger numbers being discussed by his agent, money expectations for Jimenez had to be tempered a bit because of his overall body of work with the Indians. While he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball last August and September, he was far from it in his previous two seasons with the Tribe.

Jimenez is the pure definition of dichotomy as a starting pitcher. On one side of the coin, he is a flawed pitcher that struggles to throw strikes. On the flip-side, he is one of the best pitchers in baseball when everything is clicking, who works the zone, confuses hitters, and can carry a team.

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CSI: The Podcast 69: A top ten guide to the Cleveland Indians prospects

Indiansbaseballinsider.com’s Jeff Ellis joins IBI and CSI columnists’ Jim Pete and Michael Hattery to talk about the Cleveland Indians’ top ten prospects.

It’s always difficult discussing prospects because of the volatility of young players from season-to-season, but Jeff, Jim and Mike give their “very early” top ten list, prefacing it with the understanding that things could change from day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month, especially considering that we’ve yet to make it to spring training.

We all know that Francisco Lindor and Clint Frazier are at the top of the list, but where will Jose Ramirez, Joe Wendle, Jesus Aguilar, Tyler Naquin, Bryson Myles, Trevor Bauer, Francisco Mejia, Ronny Rodriguez and many, many more show up? Is your favorite prospect on the list, or have they fallen out of favor?

Tune in after the jump, with our initial top-ten prospect pod-guide, in all it’s glory:

500 words or less…on Ubaldo Jimenez and Trevor Bauer

Trevor Bauer (photo: AP)

Can Trevor Bauer rebound from his struggling 2013 season?

Clevelandsportsinsider.com columnist Steve Orbanek and I bantered about the numbers of Danny Salazar‘s 2012 minor league campaign with Cody Anderson‘s stat line in 2013. Steve makes a good case for Anderson’s future in Friday, January 17^th‘s Orbiting Cleveland.

Salazar and Anderson are different styled pitchers, but are on a similar trajectory.

From there, I began a cursory look at Trevor Bauer, pondering his future compared to Salazar and Anderson because of his day-to-day struggles to find the strike zone. While Bauer, Salazar and Anderson all have had varied levels of success, comping them while Bauer is struggling seemed unfair.

While pondering a comparison-study, one name stood out to me in relationship to Bauer: Ubaldo Jimenez. I cherry-picked Jimenez’s final season at Triple A Colorado Springs, as-well-as Bauer’s 2013 season in Columbus.

12 Days of Christmas at the Corner of Carnegie and Ontario

It’s Christmas time here at the Corner of Carnegie and Ontario, and what that means for the Pete household is a respite before loading up the Pete Family Truckster for a criss-crossing, 2000 mile trek up and down the East Coast, taking my family to both Florida and Pennsylvania over the next two weeks.

Trust me when I say that I’ll enjoy the respite of Christmas day with just my family, opening presents, watching 24 hours of a Christmas Story, and hopefully falling asleep at some point around 5:00 P.M.

Hopefully you’ll be doing the same.

With all of that said, it’s Wednesday, and the column must go on. I’ve decided to take a much more relaxed tone this week, and have delved into the land of theme.

With Christmas Day finally here, I’ve decided to go the route of the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas for the 2014 Cleveland Indians.’ Oh, I could have rehashed the 2013 season (it certainly would have been easier), but thought it would be fun to take a look into Christmas’ future, rather than Christmas past.

Jeez, I just hope I, or the Indians, don’t bump into the Grim Reaper along the way.

Let’s give this a whirl…

The Spin Cycle: Who is the Indians next closer?

Cody Allen (photo: AP)

In our last Spin Cycle, we took a look at which current rookie or minor leaguer that would have the biggest impact with the Indians in 2014. In essence, what we were looking for was which player might have the Yan Gomes effect next season. Rare is the day that a player enters a season as a rookie, or if not a rookie, having never been a major league regular and ends the season having been a major factor with the big league club.

Yan Gomes was that player last year.

We took a look at several different prospects, and while there wasn’t a majority, there was one player that far exceeded the rest.

That one player was Jose Ramirez, with 59 votes of the total 303 votes for 19 ½ percent of the vote.

It should have been higher.

The only other player with a double-digit percentage was reliever Kyle Crockett, with 31 votes and 10% of the vote.

Trevor Bauer, C.C. Lee, Bryan Price and Carlos Carrasco all came in with 30, 29, 29 and 27 votes.

This week, we are going to take a look at who the Indians are going to ultimately use as their closer in 2014.

Cleveland Sports Insiders: The Podcast 56: Joey Wendle and Cody Anderson

Michael Hattery and Jim Pete discuss the Indians choosing Joey Wendle and Cody Anderson as the Boudreau and Feller award winners as best minor league hitter and pitcher in the system.

Orbiting Cleveland: Should Colon be an option?

On Monday, the Cleveland Indians’offseason took its latest turn when the team announced it had extended a $14 million qualifying offer to free agent right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez.

By all accounts, the qualifying offer was a good move. Jimenez now has until Nov. 11 to accept or reject the offer. If he accepts it, he will be bound to the Indians for one year at $14 million. If he declines and signs with another team, the Tribe receives an additional 2014 draft pick at the end of the first round.

That, my friends, is what you call covering your bases.