Written by Brian McPeek

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We’re going to start out on a positive note this weekend and talk about the Tribe’s most consistent performer over the last two seasons. It’s a guy who’s come a long way through the minor leagues, through injuries and through some flotsam and jetsam that the Indians chose to run out there ahead of him, but he’s here to stay now. By that time my blood should be boiling pretty good and we can talk about the city’s reaction to the Cavs draft and finish things up by asking what the hell is the problem with Browns legend Jim Brown? Is he petty and senile or just using Trent Richardson as his whipping boys after being dropped as a team consultant? Either way, he needs to shut up.

It’s the Weekend Wrap.

VfP

Does anyone remember Chad Durbin on the Tribe roster last season?

He’s a vague memory here in Cleveland even though he stole a couple million in salary for the year he gave. But I ask if you remember Durbin because he was the guy "responsible for blocking the path" of guys like Josh Judy, Frank Hermann and Vinnie Pestano from ever reaching the Major Leagues.

There’s a really entertaining thread on The Cleveland Fan that gets into the whole thing and even includes an appearance somewhere by Pestano’s dad (Curs1004). It also stands as living proof why I never get too bent out of shape when guys like Chad Durbin or Dan Wheeler are acquired and hold down a spot in the bullpen. Those old vets fill the ‘blowout’ role that you don’t want your kids and young guys filling and, this is the important part, they don’t block or prevent talented players from making it to the big league club.

Don’t buy it? Don’t like Wheeler and Durbin taking up roster spots? That’s fine, but tell me which guy Durbin blocked last season out of Judy, Hermann and Pestano?

The answer is none of them. Much like Dan Wheeler didn’t keep Scott Barnes or Nick Hagadone from getting their chance this season. Every one of those young kids got their major league chance despite board members and fans complaining about guys like Durbin and Wheeler impeding their progress. Talent rises to the top. Guys get their shot if they get guys out wherever they are.

And if the younger guys get them out here in Cleveland they stay around the big leagues for a long time, which brings us back to Vinnie Effing Pestano.

Pestano has gone from a guy that was ‘blocked’ by Chad Durbin to perhaps the premier right-handed 8^th inning set up man in the game. Only the fact that multiple closers are chosen for the All Star game is preventing VfP from actually making a deserved appearance in Kansas City himself.

Look at the numbers over the last two seasons.

Pestano was dominant last season from the time he came up through the end of the season and after being placed into high leverage situations. He’s been dominant this season even though hitters have adjusted to his stuff and some of his numbers aren’t as striking as they were last season when he was a mystery.

But you’ll take year after year of what Pestano is giving you this season and those kinds of years will make him a wealthy man one day. In fact, you could argue that this year is better from Vinnie because guys are familiar with him, know what to expect and still aren't beating him any more often than they did a year ago.

What fans love about Pestano is that there’s no bullshit. He’s throwing what he throws, which is a good, moving 92-mph fastball and a devastating slider that keeps hitters from sitting on 92-mph fastballs. That slider is the equalizer. Low 90’s fastballs are not ‘elite’ unless they look like 98 because there’s a seed of doubt that what you see might be deceiving your eyes in the batter’s box.

Pestano has used pretty much those two pitches to get out the very best hitters in baseball for going on two consecutive seasons now. Tribe fans love the courage and the outs. They also love that Pestano isn’t full of himself and isn’t afraid to tell you he wet the bed if the sheets are wet. That honest approach goes a long way (and we’ll save the honest approach of Chris Perez for another day) and Pestano has endeared himself to Tribe fans from day one.

One day Pestano’s role may draw him more national attention and fame. He appears to be cut out for a closer role somewhere and sometime. He’s got the stuff and appears to have the temperament. But you have to love him in the role he’s in now. He’ll get beat once in a while but thus far VfP has won the majority of the 8^th inning battles and in doing so has helped keep this club in the division race.

And by the way, much love to Mr. Pestano for jumping in, reaming me out and sticking up for his kid. I thought it was great and would love to see and hear more from the man now that Vinnie has established himself in the big leagues. Parents invest a lot of time, money, emotion and love into their kids regardless of whether they make it to the major leagues or not. I’d like to talk about what they see and how they cope while their son is walking the 8^th inning tightrope with Jeter, Cano and A-Rod looming.

Look me up, Mr. P.

Once More with Feeling

I love professional sports drafts. I especially love them here in Cleveland. I love them because the orange and brown gravy guzzling Browns fans will go to great lengths to assume the guys the Browns drafted in the first round, whether they trade a couple picks to move up a single spot or draft an octogenarian rookie QB 15 spots higher than they had to, were the perfect picks.

Browns fans are pretty well set that Trent Richardson will be terrific and that Brandon Weeden’s major league arm (or, more accurately, Class-A California League arm) is a clear and convincing guarantee that the Browns have to be better than they were last year.

He can sling it!!

The front office (the one that’s done nearly nothing well and has been an embarrassment on nearly every level) is going to get this one right, dammit. We’re on our way!!!

And then I see many of the same folks who are still wiping orange and brown off their face have the balls to bitch about the Cavs taking Dion Waiters with pick number four. These same people who wouldn’t know Brandon Weeden from Sir Brandon of Suffolk and who wouldn’t be able to tell Dion Waiters from Dionne Warwick from the waist up suddenly are NBA draft experts.

They bitch about taking a guy they never heard of over taking a guy they may have seen play one or two March Madness games they watched at a bar.

Brilliant.

I don’t know how many times I had numerous people email about my criticisms of the Browns on draft day tell me, “You’re no expert and they do this for a living”. Yet apparently that doesn’t apply in the case of teams other than the Browns. Twitter and message boards melted down Thursday night when the Cavs selected the 6’4” 2-guard from Syracuse.

I bet even the level-headed and fair and balanced talk radio hosts in this town sounded like raving idiots….Never mind most people who were venting a spleen (and 98% of talk radio hosts) had no clue about the player or the process the Cavs went through in selecting him.

Brian Windhorst actually took his head out of LeBron’s jock strap long enough to be given complete access to the Cavs draft room for draft day and writes about it here. He’s adamant that the Cavs had the draft sequence pegged and that the top two players on their list were Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Dion Waiters. Having correctly predicted that Charlotte would take Kidd-Gilchrist after New Orleans selected Anthony Davis, the Cavs also correctly called that Bradley Beal wasn’t getting past Washington at #3. That left the Cavs a very easy decision, according to Windhorst, and one they (including owner Dan Gilbert) were thrilled to be left with.

So tell me, if the Cavs are incompetent and stayed at #4 to get one of the two players they coveted, why are they dumber than the Browns who couldn’t use #4 and #22 plus a stockpile of other picks to get RG3 and who found it ‘necessary’ to trade up a spot to get a RB that Minnesota didn’t want with the knowledge that the player the Vikings coveted wouldn’t be there for them if they traded with another club? Why are the Cavs dumber for getting the guy they really wanted than the team that took the fourth ‘best’ QB in the draft with pick #22 when no one back in that part of the draft needed a QB and the teams that did need one got theirs when three QBs went in the top ten picks?

I have no idea if Dion Waiters or Ty Zeller (the player the Cavs got at #17 in exchange for the remainder of their picks) is going to be what the Cavs need them to be. I have no idea if Trent Richardson will be William Green or Maurice Jones Drew. Neither do you. But what I see is a team that executed their draft and predicted relatively well how the entire first round was going to go, even beyond their pick. I see them falling in love, for whatever reason, with Waiters and getting the kid they wanted. Then I saw them act on Chris Grant’s promise not to draft four rookies and turning excess picks into a 7-foot center who can score and played four years for a great program. How is them identifying a player they loved any different than the Browns doing the same thing other than the fact the Browns paid a higher price when they likely didn’t have to?

I’m saying you can love or hate the drafts but you can’t credibly say one organization succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and that the other failed miserably. If you’re preaching patience and understanding with the Browns giving up picks and placement to get Richardson and Weeden then you probably need to practice what you preach and see what the Cavs bought themselves Thursday night as well.

And what about the prep time and effort on Waiters, who never came to Cleveland for an interview or workout? Well, this is from the Windhorst article:

“Trent Redden, the Cavs' director of college personnel, had been to Syracuse's campus several times to see and gather information on Waiters. Grant spent three days there watching Waiters practice and play and attended a couple of the Orange's NCAA tournament games. Several of the team's other decision-makers had watched Waiters extensively as well. In addition, the Cavs had talked at great length with Syracuse's coaching staff. Grant has known Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins since they were both in high school.

Waiters' basic statistics didn't seem all that impressive for a player under such consideration: 12.6 points a game off the bench, a couple rebounds and a couple assists. But the more advanced stats the Cavs looked at impressed them further. He shot a high percentage on the kinds of shots they felt he'd take in the pros and they liked his numbers scoring out of the pick-and-roll.

So even as Waiters' name stayed out of the mainstream news, as the days passed he was in the Cavs' internal headlines. Coach Byron Scott had fallen in love with Waiters' ability after watching plenty of film. As far as Scott was concerned, getting the 6-foot-4 shooting guard would be hitting a jackpot.”

I know Windhorst somewhat glanced over the time and effort the Cavs spent on watching and learning about Waiters, but tear that paragraph apart and you can see the Cavs put in tons of time and man hours scouting the kid.

Does it mean he’s the next Dwyane Wade? No?

Does it mean they threw a dart that hit the name of a bench-riding scrub from Syracuse? No.

But for people to look at something like that and infer from it the Cavs didn’t do their homework on the kid is irresponsible. To spread that message is simply laughable.

Here in Cleveland we need to stop treating the Browns like the favored first son and giving them every benefit of the doubt. And we need to stop taking out frustrations with that first son’s repeated failings by smacking around the other kids in our house just because the first born is a perpetual screw up.

I don’t care if the first born is the favorite son, and you don’t have to give a shit about the other kids in our sports family at all, but not paying much attention to them, other than putting them down for doing no worse than that first born kid has done and keeps doing, makes us look like a bigger fools and losers than blindly supporting that favorite son in the first place.

The STFU Award Winner for June Is…

Nope, it’s not ‘Typical Browns Fans’. But they should lock down August through December without much trouble.

This month’s winner is Jim Brown. He may be the greatest running back in the game’s history but he also can’t seem to help but come off like a jilted 14-yr old girl ever since Mike Holmgren (in one of the few moves that made sense since Holmgren took over) ended Brown’s half a million dollar a year gravy train.

Brown is pissed that Holmgren removed Brown’s hand from Randy Lerner’s pocket. Brown will tell you it’s not about the money and only about the counsel he provides to Lerner in regard to running the team. Well, Big Jim was on that gravy train for almost a decade and the counsel he provided hasn’t improved shit.

Making Brown’s tantrums more annoying is that most of them are directed toward RB Trent Richardson, Cleveland’s first round pick. Brown has gone out of his way multiple times now to call Richardson ‘ordinary’.

Why is Brown being such a d-bag regarding Richardson? Because the Browns front office traded up to get the kid and Jim Brown knows it’s easy to pile on this regime right now while everyone else is. The old man needs to STFU. If allegedly throwing chicks off of balconies and allegedly smacking them around doesn’t tarnish one’s legend, coming off as a petulant, colossal asshole probably will. Especially as the fan base gets younger, Brown gets older and not as many people care about what he did a hundred years ago.

Try and keep whatever slim remnants of respect you have around here Jim. But make quick work of it. The tank is nearing ‘E’.