Indians Drop the Ball

By: Jeremy Lawless

The Cleveland Indians front office duo of Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff are in a tight spot. With all of the focus on who is going to win the starting First Baseman role, they neglected and mishandled a prime position and are now scrambling to find the solution in Center Field.

Oscar Mercado, Bradley Zimmer and now Amed Rosario are really the only three options for the Tribe in Center. Mercado has not shown signs of getting back to his 2019 self. Bradley Zimmer has been productive but stop me if you have seen that before in meaningless games only to suffer an injury and subsequent IL placement. Amed Rosario had only ever made one career start in CF before playing there twice now in the spring but Andres Gimenez’ has secured the Opening Day Starting Shortstop role. They have to try and find Rosario a spot because you want his bat in the lineup.

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All of this is all fine and dandy. But on Thursday when asked why guys like Daniel Johnson, friend of the show, hasn’t been given an opportunity to play CF Antonetti responded with:

“If we were in an ideal world and this was a normal Spring Training, he would get reps out there,” Antonetti said. “We do think he has the ability to play out there.”

I refuse to accept this answer.

Lower level prospects George Valera appeared in a total of 18 games while Billy Hamilton, yeah THAT Billy Hamilton appeared in 4 games in CF. That seems like a decent number of reps where Daniel Johnson could make a legitimate case for Center Field. Not too mention B Squad games are also played on the back fields in Goodyear.

The Indians have some really tough decisions coming up for their Opening Day Roster and the direction of this ball club in a re-tooling year. 

But much like Amed Rosario a few days ago, they have dropped the ball.