Here is the reason why the Indians have ping pong'd in wins the last three years. The Indians have a good year in the pen, they don't re-sign Howry on the cheap, suddenly the pen melts down. They have a good year this past season so now they let their premiere back up catcher and their defensive whiz in right field up for trade.

The Indians blockade their kids too much. The point of the Bradley trade was to have a future replacement in right field, now we lose players at two positions so we can sign a player coming off of a year that was less than what Casey Blake outputs.

All the Indian have to do is have an outfield of Francisco, Choo, Gutierrez, Sizemore, and Blake in an emergency. The Indians should have locked up Gomez for a million, and then offered him a 500,000 dollar bonus if he was traded. This would give the Indians maximum flexibility.

Shoppach make Vic better. If for any reason Vic has an off year throwing out runners, just haviing Shoppach come in and nail a few runners takes the steam out of the other team.

Shoppach and Vic both won 3-4 games each with their defense last year. Breaking up that combo is dumb. Franky also saved some games with his defense. Perhaps the reason they are thinking of doing this trade is to make 20-30 games available at first to some one besides Vic, like Andy Marte.

Shapiro always seems to be two moves ahead in acquiring good prospect talent, but one move behind in blowing it via moves like this or questionable veteran signings. Defense matters, Franky in right field and Shoppach behind the plate is a solid defensive combination, and both of these players have two of the highest slugging percentages on the team!

Strong defense, strong slugging percentages, and we are about to move these guys?