FEBRUARY 12: The Indians are still unwilling to sign Kevin Millwood to a one-year, $4MM deal, tweets Paul Hoynes of The Plain Dealer. Meanwhile, the club still has interest in Jeremy Bonderman, but on a minor league deal.
FEBRUARY 5, 3:26pm: Millwood is still talking with multiple clubs and has yet to decide where he will pitch in 2011, a source tells Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports (via Twitter). Meanwhile, even though the Indians would prefer to bring someone in on a minor league deal, the team has not ruled out signing a pitcher to a big league contract, writes Bastian.
11:50am: The Tribe may try to bring in one starting pitcher but not two, and there's a still a chance they won't sign anyone, writes MLB.com's Jordan Bastian. Cleveland has been connected to Jeremy Bonderman recently, and Bastian says the Millwood talks seem to indicate that a snag has been hit with Bonderman.
9:34am: The Indians are making progress with free agent Kevin Millwood, tweets Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. He notes that CEO Paul Dolan would have to approve the signing if it's a big league contract.
Just a few days ago we heard that Millwood's camp was still seeking $4-5MM, prompting MLBTR's Ben Nicholson-Smith to list some potential suitors for the right-hander. Millwood, 36, is familiar with the Indians, having pitched in Cleveland back in 2005, when he led the league with a 2.86 ERA and finished sixth in the Cy Young voting.
If the Tribe manages to bring Millwood back, one thing they can count on are innings. He's made no fewer than 29 starts or thrown fewer than 168 2/3 innings since 2004, eclipsing 190 innings in each of the last two seasons. Unfortunately he's posted an ERA north of 5.00 in three of the last four years, and his strikeout and ground ball rates have dipped down to 5.9 K/9 and 39.8%, respectively, over the last two years while his homer rate has climbed to 1.3 HR/9.
I speak on behalf of all Yankee fans- Take him Cleveland!
You forgot to say PRETTY PLEASE!!!
I like the idea of taking a flier on Millwood, but I’d like it for more in the $2M with some incentives kinda range.
Yea, I really don’t think it’s a great signing for 4-5m…
He might end up pitching like a 4-6m dollar pitcher, but that’s no guarantee
but on the other hand, most incentives are based on Innings Pitched, and Games Started, and Millwood has no problem staying healthy, so he’d pretty much be a lock to earn those incentives.
And ERA/WHIP/W’s based incentives are pretty rare (probably because players wouldn’t take that kind of contract).
Although I’d have no problem giving him award/all-star based incentives haha
What happened to Cleveland, this used to be a real powerhouse.
They don’t have a huge market so they can’t keep their developed stars for as long as some of the higher market clubs.
New ownership, Jacob’s spent on the team and Dolan does not. Look at the differences in payroll from the Jacob’s era to the Dolan era. It’s not that they CAN’T keep their developed stars so much as they have no intention of even trying.
And the ones they kept ended up failing. They put a lot of money into Hafner who’s now a top 5 worst contract, and Sizemore has been hurt and disappointing the past two seasons, and they were supposed to be their cornerstone guys.
Some bad luck with the way they spent their money and lackluster trade returns, then they decided to quit spending money altogether.
Which has led to the lowest attendance in the league, which causes revenues to drop even further, which gives them even less revenue to work with, which means they have to trade the next big contract player-that would be Choo-which means there is not even one recognizable name on the team, which means there is even less fans in the stands.
It’s a sad situation and I can still see it getting worse for Cleveland before it gets better, if it ever does get better. They could be the first team up for contraction if the commishioner ever decides to force the issue.
This view is popular in Cleveland where people take glee in eviscerating Indians management to redirect attention away from the city’s moribund economy and, not coincidentally, the city’s terrible sports franchises. I’m not a fan of Dolan. There is evidence the family bought the team with too little hard cash, but I think the criticism that he is “cheap” is not supported by the evidence.
In 2007, it looked like the team had returned to contention, but injuries and sub-par performance of several veterans lead to poor records. This, along with fans’ attention being diverted by LeBron James, lead to poor attendance. It slowly dawned on management that their low-risk draft strategy (whereby they drafted easily-signed college players who looked like good bets to make the majors) in reality meant the Indians had cornered the market on AAAA players. Finally, CC Sabathia made it clear he wanted a max contract that the Indians could never support. They had no choice but to get what they could for CC, and subsequently had to trade Martinez and Lee. By the same token, Choo, Carmona and Sizemore will have to be traded.
I’m as downcast about the Indians’ future as I have been in twenty years. Despite this, if they can figure out a way to make a set of prospects rise to the majors at the same time then they’ll have several years of peak performance before having to unload those players. This much is true: the economics of baseball (and the Cleveland economy) mean we will never be able to keep our stars long enough to create sustained winning. We cannot compete with bigger cities and in the long run there is a real concern that Cleveland cannot support three sports franchises.
Um, the headline doesn’t match the story-or am I misreading something?
I can’t think of any benefit of adding Millwood–especially for $4M. Let our young pitchers pitch and gain some confidence in the bigs. What is with the Indians and their refusal to test their talent? Their idea of giving players a chance is a joke. The funny part is that even if the team gets worse, all they need to do to improve on what was baseball’s worst attendance last year is call up some prospects and let them play everyday. Fans like to see some consistency, and they like to see glimpses of the future. You have Kipnis in the lineup, or maybe Phelps–speed up the timetable on Alex White, etc. you are going to have fans in the stands. Yeah Pittsburgh’s economy is way better, so I know the comparison isn’t perfect, but people love going to PNC Park and watching the Pirates–win or lose. Cleveland can have that if they stopped signing people like Adam Everett and plugged those spots with some prospects. I feel bad for Indians minor leaguers. Even when you succeed you’re not given a shot. Speaking of the Pirates, lets all watch Andy Marte explode in Pittsburgh this year, while the Indians brass insist that giving him endless criticism and a 150 sporadic ABs a year for the past 5 years was a meaningful opportunity. What I wouldn’t do for a shot at taking over as GM in Cleveland for a few years.