It's official, Jason Michaels is no longer a member of the Cleveland Indians and Ben Francisco was brought up to take his place. Michaels was brought in before the 2006 season to solve the Indians left field woes by having a steady, consistent hitter to take the pressure off the middle of the lineup. To get Michaels, we traded Arthur Rhodes, who was our best left handed reliever in 2005 with a 2.08 ERA. I was angry at the time, but Rhodes blew up in Phily in 06, didnt play in 07 and is now struggling with the Mariners. I just have never understood why Mark Shapiro brings in players that used to be back ups with little starting experience and expects them to start for the Indians. Michales batted .304 in 2006, looks good, right? However, he had only 289 at bats in 105 games while splitting time in a crowded outfield with Pat Burrell and Bobby Abreu. So in '06, the Indians planted Michaels in left field and gave him almost 500 at bats, he responded by hitting .270, 9 HR's, 55 RBI. Those are solid numbers, but not for a left fielder in Cleveland where the fans expect you to put up Manny Ramirez/Brian Giles type numbers. Because after all, we could have had Brian Giles playing in left after Manny left. So when Michaels didn't put up any better numbers in '07, he was put in a platoon with the likes of David Dellucci and Franklin Gutierrez until losing his job pretty much for good when Kenny Lofton came back to town. I still think the Indians should sign Kenny, i know he can still play. On a side note, my girlfriend was excited to hear the news because she never liked Michaels and made an "ew" face whenever he was shown on TV because she thought he had an ugly horse face and referred to him as horse face the last 3 years. Hopefully Francisco can step up and play strong while he is up, if only Brad Snyder could hit over .225 and when is Trevor Crowe going to be ready?
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