Olney On August Moves, Mauer, Indians

All three names could help help a contending club. Pavano could be a back end guy for an NL club. Carrol is a decent utility guy who kills lefty pitching. Bentacount needs to get healthy first but with every club needing relief help, im sure there will be a market for him.

A question for Indians fans, I know Wood has been getting hit pretty hard but has he been unlucky or just terrible? Are his velocity, movement and location still there?

I wouldn't say Carroll kills lefties... maybe in limited time this season, but he's got a career .728 OPS against LHP, and he's posted a sub-.700 OPS against southpaws numerous times over the course of a season.

Ricky Romero's rise has been absolutely huge for Toronto.

A.J. Burnett's departure left a pretty big hole in their rotation in terms of top level performance, because coming into the season it looked like Halladay and a bevy of 4/5 starters.

But Romero appears to be emerging as a legitimate #2 behind Halladay, which is rather surprising given how unimpressive his rise through the minor leagues was.

But Romero appears to have found his place as a four-pitch lefty, and any four-pitch lefty that can throw in the 90's with an out pitch is a major asset.

Romero has shown the ability to miss bats, avoid walks, and keep the ball on the ground. His HR/FB ratio is a flukishly high 17.0%, so his HR/9 is bound to come down at least somewhat if he maintains the rest of his performance.

Looking at a potential 2010 rotation of Halladay, Romero, Marcum, McGowan, and Cecil/Richmond/Janssen offers an awful lot of hope to Toronto fans. And Travis Snider hasn't even shown what he's really capable of yet.

Kerry Wood's issues have nothing to do with velocity. He's actually throwing harder this year than he was in Chicago last season.

He's just really lost his control and command this season, after flashing a brilliant grasp of those skills last year.

His walk rate has skyrockted from 2.44 per 9 all the way up to 5.47 per 9, which is almost unheard of. He walked 18 guys in 66 innings last year, and he's already walked 16 guys in 26 innings this year.

And he's leaving the ball up in the zone far more. In other words, he's throwing a lot more "meatballs" than before, which has led to the 5 home runs allowed in 26 innings after allowing just 3 in 66 innings last year.

He's still missing bats because his raw stuff is so damn good, but he seems to be having some serious issues locating his pitches right now.

"Don't think the Indians can expect to get anything good for Pavano."

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you here.

Pavano has actually pitched quite well this season.

His ERA and WHIP look so bad because his opponents have a really high .350 BABIP and his LOB% is a flukishly low 60.4% this season.

He's striking out a solid amount of guys and walking less than 2.00 per nine innings, and he's inducing groundballs effectively as well.

Pavano has surpassed expectations thus far this season and he's absolutely been a pleasant surprise for them.

I actually think that Pavano could end up being one of the best pitchers on the market as we near the deadline, although that's moreso because of the lack of pitching around the league than because Pavano is that good. He's been pitching like a decent third starter this year though.

Betancourt could net a nice prospect, but he won't be back until at least the all-star break. Pavano needs to have 2 or 3 straight quality starts before the Indians could get anything for him and Carroll is a nice utility man, but the Indians could probably only expect a low level prospect and salary relief for him.