Meeting of the Mines

Everyone loves the Winter Meetings.  They’re a great bridge between the last out of the World Series and the start of Spring Training.  You get the Rule V draft and, since every GM in baseball is there, the potential for some interesting trades.  Agents are there to push their players agendas.  There’s also the unpublicized side where masses of hopefuls descend on the host city in hopes of finding that one person that’s willing to give them a shot at their dream – to work in baseball.  It’s one of the few events in all of sports where everyone gets together with one thing in mind: the self.

And with that in mind, how do we peer into the head of Tribe GM Mark Shapiro to find out what is on his agenda for this year’s Winter Meetings?  Well, barring Shapiro stepping into one of those crazy contraptions from Batman & Robin that scans the brain and records all his thoughts, the best we can probably do is make some educated guesses.

The fact that Jake Westbrook’s Puerto Rican rehab is progressing well (he threw 3 innings earlier today) takes some of the urgency out of the Winter Meetings for Shapiro.  The Indians may try to find another reclamation project to take a gamble on, but they’ll run with Westbrook as long as he’ll hold up.  Frankly, having Westbrook and Carmona already in the fold may limit the organization’s desire to take more chances on pitching.  But for the right price, they might take a shot at Ben Sheets or Erik Bedard.  We know Carl Pavano has been discussed, but he would probably just get in the way of one of the younger pitchers coming up and showing what he can do.

And that lessened urgency makes me think that this is going to be a very quiet Winter Meetings for Shapiro and the Indians.  I don’t see what they really need to address.  Their off-season checklist looks like a quick run to the supermarket rather than hunting down food to stock a bomb shelter.

• Sign a part-time, right-handed hitting first baseman to a low-money one-year contract.  Your choices are Kevin Millar, Mike Lamb or Kevin Millar.
• Sign a veteran, innings-eating pitcher.  (Personally, I think this is a mistake, but they’re thinking in that vein.)
• Sort out bullpen candidates.  Most of these guys will be fighting for a job.
• Sign a utility infielder since Jamey Carroll is drawing interest from half the league.

That’s pretty much it.  They seem to be content to let the kids play in 2010 and see what happens.  Everything else this franchise has done for the past 6 months says they’re playing for 2011.  I don’t see any reason why they would stray from that path now.

Of course, in my glass-is-half-full-of-nothingness mentality, the Indians will find away to do something interesting this week without doing anything significant to improve the club.

Tags: first baseman, Off-season, pitching, winter meetings