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May 19, 2008

Transaction Analysis

Miracle Cures

by Christina Kahrl

CLEVELAND INDIANS Team Audit | DT Cards | PECOTA Cards | Depth Chart

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Designated OF-L Jason Tyner for assignment; recalled LHP Jeremy Sowers from Buffalo (Triple-A). [5/16]
Optioned LHP Jeremy Sowers to Buffalo; recalled 1B-L Michael Aubrey from Buffalo. [5/17]

Aubrey's easy to root for, and it's a great thing to see him up. His performance in the minors this year was more a demonstration of health than a reflection that he's all the way back from his seemingly endless litany of hurts—back in the day, his power projection was perhaps the most tantalizing element of the package—but even so, it's something. In April, Aubrey played most of the time at first down in Akron, and hit .282/.330/.456 (and .300 while slugging .500 against RHPs), and his Buffalo performance in the subsequent pair of weeks (.341/.383/.432) did nothing to take away from the suggestion that he's healthy and still has fine plate coverage. As a more practical matter, he's also potentially very useful to an Indians team that's getting very little out of Travis Hafner, and which might also need to consider using Ryan Garko as something less than an everyday first baseman. Since Aubrey can play a good first base when healthy, it could turn into a nice platoon situation, although the lack of solid everyday players in the outfield corners sort of handicaps their ability to afford the roster space for a first base platoon and a full-time DH and a platoon of David Dellucci and Franklin Gutierrez in a corner. Add in the optionless Andy Marte cooling his heels on the bench, and you get a sense of the problem—somebody's got to go, but if nobody's hitting and few guys are optionable, the choice becomes quite literally cutting.