By lack of effort by a platoon of other warm bodied skinbags, Cliff Lee gets the 5th spot in the Tribe rotation this year (for now). My question is, does he make it all year, or does he get traded/released by years end?
I think Cliff Lee's Body of work for his career helped him in the competition for the 5th spot in the Tribe's Rotattion. He has also been healthyy this spring and has done well the last couple starts he's had. Imagine how dangerous the Tribe will be with a healthy Cliff Lee and Jake Westbrook along with C.C. and Fausto.
Interesting question: will he be traded or stay?...if he pitches well, he could be traded; if he pitches well, he might stay. Either way, if Lee pitches likes he has done for much of his career, he has value for the Indians.
I like what buckeye says though...look out if he does pitch well...the Indians pitching just may be downright devastating.
Cliff Lee was the best pitcher the Indians had a couple years ago, people forget this. He was 18-5 in 2005 and 14-11 in 2006 with a decent ERA and over 200 IP both seasons. Not bad for a #5 starter. He was downright terrible last year, but since age is not a concern (he is only 29) i think he can easily bounce back from this bad season. I say he stays with the tribe, they wont trade a good lefty like him.
I still think Cliff Lee can be a very good pitcher. In fact if the Indians loss Sabathia we need him to return to his old form of 2005 - 2006. Just think if the Indians can get Lee & Westbrook to bounce back from bad years, and Sabathia. and Carmona have a good year like they did last year.
Interesting "takes" on awarding the fifth spot in the starting rotation to Cliff Lee for the coming 2008 season. Some people believe Lee was the lesser of three evils.. Others believe that Lee could be the guy who won 46 games over a three year period prior to the 2007 season. It may come down to a relatively simple and crucial aspect of how the Indians staff approaches the coming season:
Every outing, ever game, the Indians have a chance to win with our starting pitcher !!
When the Cliff Lee of 2007 was making his starts after his spring training injury last year, not many fans had the same degree of confidence that the Indians had a good or better chance to win as, say, when FAUSTO or CC were taking the ball. Cliff Lee, during this spring training, has shown that type of confidence. If it carries over into the regular season, this could be a truly special and incredible season.
I'd say that I'd take the Indians' pitching staff over the Red Sox staff right now, but it's a relatively small difference in overall strength. To me, the big difference between the Tribe and the Sox? Manny Ramirez. If the Tribe had Manny last year? The Tribe would have beat the Sox in five games, may have swept them and certainly would have gone on to win the Series. Argh!
I was going to go on a rant about David Dellucci again, but suffice to say that the Tribe needs to address that problem, just like they finally addressed the Aaron Fultz problem. It may not be a fun thing to do, but guys eventually need to be cut loose. Heck, we'd still have Bill Selby if it were based only on being nice guys all the time.
Cliff Lee had to pitch his way back on the team, over some real competition. This is the best way for him to be back. Let's hope that what happened in 2007 stays in 2007 and Lee charts his way back on to the course he set before.
I watched Lee pitch in his second last spring training start and he's stopped throwing across his body as much as he did last year(this was the "mechanical difficulty" he had last season).His fastball showed nice movement,he actually threw his curve and mixed far fewer cut fastballs and pitched quite effectively.His last start he gave up some jacks but otherwise pitched okay,I would expect a fairly decent season from Lee this year,double figure wins,an improved bullpen will help him the most.
We fans worry about another Brandon Phillips scenario with Andy Marte. Who wants to get burned like that again? Well, I think there is much more reason to worry about getting burned if Cliff Lee were to go to another team and win 15 games or more. It's not like he didn't prove himself for 3 years - he did. He was injured last year. He did not handle it well, but it really wasn't so bad (as in Milton Bradley) that he needed to be cast off. He's still fairly young. Even the best pitchers have off years at some point in their careers.
Quality starting pitchers are one of the hardest things to fill on a team. Look at the Yankees. With all their money, etc, Lee wold be an upgrade to their rotation!
I'm glad Lee is back with the Indians. Wedge says he's healthy and has command of 3 pitches again, liked his outings this spring, and that is good enough for me. Wedge earned my respect for sticking with Fausto Carmona after the terrible stats he compliled in the 2006 season, proving that there is more to evaluating talent than looking at stats. The way Wedge and the Tribe have handled the pitching staff has been nothing short of outstanding.
I think he will be watched carefully. I think Wedge will be very quick to make a change if he has a couple of bad starts to begin the year. Hopefully he does not.
BTW, does anyone remember when he tipped his hat last year after a bad game? That still bothers me. No one likes to get booed, but he was pitching terrbily.
