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Newly acquired reliever Chris Perez melted down in his Cleveland debut. He hit the first two batters he faced, walked the bases loaded and then cleared them as Chicago scored four runs in the ninth on a fielder's choice, an RBI double, wild pitch and run-scoring single.



"Obviously, not the best first impression," said Perez, who also failed to cover first on a potential double play. "Hopefully, the next time will be better. I had a mental lapse and it snowballed from there."

I was listening to the Cleveland broadcasters gushing about what a great deal Shapiro had made.

Toeing the Company line for sure. :rolleyes:

Perez may have been watching Cleveland's relievers while with St Louis on ESPN and just wanted to fit in.

To be fair, Mark Shapiro is THE best in the business in trading in my opinion. He traded for Hafner, Lee, Sizemore, Phillips (who we traded for basically nothing I know), Asdrubal, Choo, etc and gave up virtually nothing for them. Obviously we will have to wait and see what Brantley and LaPorta bring to the table later to judge the Sabathia trade, but the Indians weren't getting him back anyhow. Also, the Indians were supposedly asking a lot for DeRosa so I'm fairly certain that player to be named later is going to be a pretty big piece of the trade. Not that I wanted to trade for a relief prospect, but Perez does have great stuff and had success as a rookie last year. He's only 23 years old remember...

the white sox agree. great trades all by shapiro. keep it up!

Shapiro gets the credit for these trades because he has built a great scouting system. Much like Oakland, Cleveland is great at scouting other organizations, and swooping in for the kill in what seems like a minor deal at the time.

Shapiro's deficiencies come in putting a major league team together. Going into 2009 with the singing group of Cliff Lee and the four Hopefuls was weak.

Shapiro has always been offensive oriented, hoping for breakout years from pitchers such as Carmona and Lee or even Pavano or Reyes. He could have traded Shoppach at top value over the off season, especially with what Cleveland has in the way of catching at the minor league level, but didn't pull the trigger. Shoppach will probably be peddled for lesser players this off season or before the deadline.

In golf, they say that pro's 'drive for show and putt for dough'. Cleveland is much the same, in that they will entertain with their hitting, but fall short of Championships with their pitching.



[ June 30, 2009, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: DOUGHBOYS ]

i think they just scout hitters. or they think that playing soft toss is the way to go- but hey- like i said- keep it up.