Chief Wahoo's Trail of Tears -- a Cleveland Indians blog

For all the fans that the Cleveland Indians have, and there are a great many, so long as you only conduct your fan census more than 30 miles from the intersection of Carnegie and Ontario, there's not much in the way of Indians blogs out there. Given that all the Indians have for several years is rampant speculation, now seemed like a uniquely suitable time to put my unwarranted speculation, moaning, and Eric Wedge-criticizing into one convenient location.

The Indians are now down, by last count, six players -- three of whom should have been dealt (Betancourt, Garko, and DeRosa -- in that order), three of whom absolutely should not have been dealt (Martinez, Francisco and Lee -- in that order, for reasons I'll cover later). Somehow, however, the Indians still have the two players that everyone knows they needed to trade -- Jamey Carroll and Carl Pavano. Pavano just threw 8 innings of one-run ball, so perhaps his trade value will have increased slightly, but I won't hold my breath. Jamey Carroll just needed to be traded because he's on his way out anyway and he's cheap enough that borderline contenders can just claim him on waivers and barely care if they get stuck with him.

And, because they've now dumped all those players, they are up one Eric Wedge, who has gained an additional year of immunity for incompetence, because the Indians would never fire a manager because he's incapable of competing with inferior talent. Well, the post-Mark Shapiro-firing-Charlie Manuel-for-exactly-that-reason-Indians wouldn't, anyway. Not that it did John McNamara, Pat Corrales, Doc Edwards, Frank Robinson -- that's where I ran out of names, but there are a great many -- basically everyone after Lou Boudreau.

So things are looking grim, not even Harry Doyle can turn this season around -- though the Indians ability to regress to the mean just may. See you at the 12th pick of next year's draft, ladies and gentlemen.