A bunch of mediocre guys or one Garrett Atkins?

I read in the Plain Dealer today the Cleveland Indians had an off-season budget of $3-5 million to spend on players.
So far, they have aded Austin Kearns, Mike Redmond, Jason Grilli, to contracts that would total almost $3 million if they all play at the major league level.
Now, compare that with what the Baltimore Orioles did. They signed Garrett Atkins to a one-year deal for $4.5 million, with an $8.5 million option for next year.
Atkins, 30, is a career .298 hitter over seven major league seasons, all with Colorado. He has a career .811 OPS.
In 2006, Atkins set career highs with a .329 average, 48 doubles, 25 home runs and 120 RBI. He helped the Rockies to their first World Series appearance in 2007, where he homered in Game 4 of the Fall Classic.
However, last season, he struggled, hitting only .226 with 9 home runs and 48 RBI.
I am going to assume that last year was a fluke, even though the Rockies declined to offer him a contract, essentially dumping him without getting anything in return.
Signing Atkins is a little bit risky because of his poor showing in 2009.
But I would much rather take a $5 million chance on someone with a career OPS of .810 than on Kearns, Grilli and Redmond, who probably won't reach that number in 2010 unless you add their totals together.
Atkins' average season, from baseball-reference.com, is .289, 21 home runs and 100 RBI.
Now, if the payroll issue alone wasn't bad enough, there's a baseball piece to this discussion, too: Who will the Indians play at third in 2010?
Probably either Jhonny Peralta or Andy Marte.
Peralta's average season is .266/19/80. He had a horrible 2009 and he has always been prone to long slumps.
Marte hasn't played a lot. In a total of 668 major league at-bats, his totals are .215/15/77.
So, here are your choices:
Atkins or Marte or Peralta at third or;
Atkins or Kearns, Grilli and Redmond on the payroll.
In both cases, I say Atkins.

This one will put them over the top for sure!

Today, the Cleveland Indians announced they signed catcher Mike Redmond to a one-year deal for $850,000.
Why on earth would they spend that much money on another catcher when they already have Carlos Santana and Lou Marson and Wyatt Toregas? Why on earth would they sign Redmond but trade Kelly Shoppach?
I am sure this is another one of the "veteran guys with great character," who will hit .237 and take at-bats away from one of the developing young catchers.
If they had to being in a guy like this, they could have brought back Sal Fasano (pictured).
At least he has a cool mustache.

Serial cereal blogging

I have been eating Kellogg's Corn Pops lately.
We just got a big box from Costco with two bags of Fruit Loops and one bag of Apple Jacks. I have not opened any of them yet.
Just thought you'd like the update.

Twelve Sturgeon volumes only took me eight years and I'm still not done?

I just wanted to say that a couple of weeks ago, I finished reading the 12th and final (as far as I knew) volume of The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.
I started reading them in September, 2001 when I got a couple softcover versions of the books for half price at (where else?) Half-Price Books in Columbus, Ohio.
I got stuck on Vol. 3, "Killdozer," sometime in 2002. I didn't pick it up again until late 2004. I remember having to shove myself through the story "Killdozer," which has caused me to pause reading several Sturgeon collections. Strange how you remember some things: I finished it in a bed and breakfast in Ireland during my honeymoon.
I started buying some of the rest of the books in 2005-2006 when I still lived in Ohio. I remember ordering them from Amazon.com, and being unhappy because I had to pay more to get hardcovers. I really just wanted to read the stories, not keep the collectable, and more expensive, versions of the books.
I finished buying the first 11 books sometime in mid-2008, when I got Vol. 8, Bright Segment, used.
For some reason, at the time, Amazon had them all new, except that one. It's still not in stock, and a used copy costs $249 now.
(If I were you, I wouldn't pay $249 for that book. I'll sell it to you for half.)
I paid $35 from a used bookseller through Barnes and Noble's Web site. To date, I think it's the only volume I paid cover price for, and that one was used. Is that irony?
While reading Vol. 8 I got stuck on a story called, "To Here and the Easel," for something like a year and half. When I finally got through that story and that volume -- during my two-week stay at Fort Dix, N.J. in September -- it was only a matter of months before I finished them all.
Vol. 12 was delivered to my house in October, shortly after it was published. That caused me to finish reading Vol. 10, which by then I was half-way through. (I wasn't very good at reading them in order even when I had a run of consecutive volumes.)
After that, I started and finished Vol. 12, which I thought was the last one. I read that last page just after Christmas.
When I got to the end, I was very satisfied to have finished them all. I felt like I had accomplished something. However, I also felt like people often feel after Christmas: Nothing else to look forward to.
Reading that series was a long process, during which I always knew I had a book I should be reading sitting on my shelf.
I thought I had read them all. I was left with a question I could not answer:
Now what?
So, today, just goofing around, I went to the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust Web site. I discovered that I was not done after all.
From the news section of that site:
Volume 13, which will be the last volume in the series, will be titled "Why Dolphins Don't Bite" and should appear in October, 2010.
Now I feel like I am at a concert waiting for the encore.

Cosmetic surgery is bad

I think I have linked to something like this before. It's images of celebrities then and now with a discussion about whether or not plastic surgery does anyone any good.
As far as I am concerned, plastic surgery for vanity's sake usually just makes someone look worse. Take a look at Kenny Rogers and Priscilla Presley. Yechhhh.

What will the Browns do with Eric Mangini?

My prediction, based on nothing substantive at all, is as follows. The Browns will:

* Keep head coach Eric Mangini
* Keep defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and the 3-4 defense
* Fire the entire offensive staff and bring in someone from a west coast offense background
* Find a mediocre veteran quarterback who can run the west coast offense
* Draft, sign or trade for a young quarterback who will be the understudy
* Pancake teams with their defense next year
* Use a run-heavy version of the west coast offense and play a lot of close, low-scoring games
and
* Finish something like 8-8

Indians signed *Yawn* who?

The Indians signed Austin Kearns and International League MVP Shelley Duncan today.
Ho-hum.
Other teams do things like sign Matt Holliday to a $120 million contract.
The Indians get a guy who hit below .200 last year and a guy who, at 30 years old, was the best player in the IL.
The Plain Dealer said Kearns has a chance to start in left field next year. If he does start ahead of all the young players who need those at bats, we'll know the Indians are headed in the (completely) wrong direction.