Indians and Braves make a tomahawk swap.

I originally planned to make this post about my Altoona stop,but the baseball world saw a swap between the Indians and Braves,so we move onto that as two teams traded underperforming players with bad contracts that had cleared through waivers.

Cleveland traded Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn (the Indians high priced free agent signings of the 2013 off season) to Atlanta for third baseman Chris Johnson.
Cleveland also added some extra cash to a trade that was more about salary relief for the 2016 off-season than about actual baseball improvement.

Swisher has suffered through injury issues over the last two seasons after having a pretty good first season of an expensive contract while Bourn has seen his batting average and stolen bases tumble in each of his Cleveland years and appears to be a player reliant on his legs while age slows his game down.
Both players had one year left on their contracts,but at sizable amounts (29 million for the two),but Chris Johnson has two years remaining on his deal at 7.5 and 9 million,so this saves the Tribe a little bit of dough.
The thirty year old Johnson was a .321 hitter just two years ago,so he could be a reclamation project or at least a fill-in at first and third,but could also be shipped elsewhere again in an attempt to trim the payroll a bit.

In the end,it shows the problems for small market teams signing big contracts for free agents-You just cannot miss on these signings.
A bigger market can make impact with signings and be able to eat the losses on players that do not work out.
Cleveland cannot.
Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn were brought in to Cleveland to help put a borderline team over the top into the playoffs and they helped.
For one season and one playoff game,ever since their contracts and statistics have been a drag on the franchise and just moving them on is a good thing-no matter the return...

Big weekend for me,so don't be surprised if I am not around for a few days.
If I am,it will most likely be about Altoona...

Indians buy Nick Swisher,sell STO

A bit late, but I still wanted to jot down a few thoughts on the Cleveland Indians managing to land Nick Swisher to plug into a corner outfield spot and add power to a team in desperate need of it.

Swisher was tabbed to a four-year deal for 56 million dollars with an option for a fifth year, provided Swisher reached a certain threshold of numbers and games played.

The 32-year-old Swisher will replace Shin-Soo Choo as the starter in right field and along with the recent signing of Mark Reynolds gives the Indians power that they did not have last season.

The pairing of Swisher and Reynolds should have a strong chance of combining for sixty homers and three hundred strikeouts, but I think Cleveland will make that trade-off considering the desperate need for a power infusion.

Swisher has never hit under 21 homers in any season in the big leagues and instantly becomes more than just a free-agent signing.
Nick Swisher may have wanted to play on the West Coast (his wife is an actress) and he likely would have rather played on a contending team, but if the Indians could not sign a player from near the area (Parkersburg WV isn't exactly Solon or Strongsville, but still) and has state ties (former Buckeye) that had a limited market for his skills, who can the Wahoos sign?
Nick Swisher instantly becomes the face of the franchise and gives a fan base that has been disappointed by being the runners-up in so many attempts to sign players, a reason to hang in there.

Do not get me wrong, Nick Swisher is not a franchise player, but he plays very hard and lends a charisma that the franchise has lacked over the past few years, or at least before Grady Sizemore turned into a piece of peanut brittle.
I wish the deal was a year shorter, but to get players to Cleveland, one must overpay at times, so it is understandable to make this deal work.

The Indians also made a business deal by selling the team-owned Sports Time Ohio network to the Fox Sports bunch for 230 million and Fox Sports will pay at least 40 million a year for the next ten years for rights to televise the Indians.
I would think that the Fox people would keep STO rolling as a side channel for those April nights when the Indians and Cavaliers each play and once you get cable/satellite clearance, you generally do not want to give that up.
I have no concern with what channel shows the games, but I do hope that STO stays somewhat intact as I enjoy the local Cleveland-oriented programming on STO more than I do the national-based (other than Cavalier shows) programming on FSO.
If Bruce Drennan, Chuck Galeti, and the Browns Red Zone stuff stay on STO, I'll be fine with any other changes, if not then I'll be more bothered.
I have the Directv sports package mainly for the Cleveland talk (The games are paid for separately), so I might drop that if radical changes are made and add more of the same stuff that I see on other networks.

It is a good business move for the Indians, who get some dollars and less of the responsibility of running a network, while Fox wins as well by eliminating its competition and adding another sports entity to its network.
I just hope that the networks stay the same just under the same umbrella.....