C.C. sweepstakes

I'm referring to it as a "sweepstakes" in the headline, as that's how the national media tends to refer to such things. It's not really a sweepstakes, of course. That implies a certain randomness. There's nothing random about who will get C.C. Sabathia. It'll be the team with the best package to offer in return. (I know, I know, I said "package." Get your mind out of the gutter.)

Word is the Milwaukee Brewers seem to have taken the lead in this race, reportedly offering a package (stop giggling, you moron) involving top prospect Matt LaPorta. This Mr. LaPorta is hitting .288 in Class AA Huntsville, with 20 home runs and 66 RBIs. That home run number is good enough for tops in the Southern League. He's had a pretty good first half, but he's probably not ready for the majors yet.

The Tribe is allegedly also trying to get Double-A shortstop Alcides Escobar, who is currently third in the SL in the batting race. It bears mentioning that the top four all play for Huntsville, so one must wonder whether the home ballpark has something to do with that. I haven't seen any research on the subject of the ballpark at Double-A Huntsville, but you can bet Mark Shapiro has.

So that seems to be what's going on. Of course, it's easy to go off half-cocked about trade rumors. I blogged a few months ago about the rumors of the Cavaliers getting Matt Miller in a trade, and that apparently never even came close to happening; we wound up getting Wally Szczqzxzerbiak, Ben Wallace, et al instead. So we'll see what happens. Any National League team that picks C.C. will have the added advantage of his bat. He's hit two home runs in interleague games, so he can handle the lumber.

I know many fans are seeing this as a bad time because we're almost certainly about to give up one of our best players, and a guy who's spent his whole career with the Indians up to this point. The same was true of Albert Belle, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez, all of whom brought the Tribe nothing but supplemental draft picks. A strong Double-A prospect is worth at least three or four supplemental draft pick. So let's not feel too bad about this.

UPDATE: It seems C.C. has been traded to the Brewers, just as I was publishing this post. We don't know the details yet, but they're saying on Baseball Tonight that it's a done deal. I'm assuming we got LaPorta; don't know about Escobar.