Leadoff with Lee 2.29.16

By Chris Lee, @TripleThreatLee

- Browns center Alex Mack is expected to opt-out of his contract, but return to Cleveland on a new contract is a real possibility. According to one source the Browns and Mack are close to a new 4 year contract. Mack is in the second year of his five-year, $42 million contract that included $26 million guaranteed. He would make annual base salaries of $8 million over the remainder of the agreement and the deal includes a no-trade clause. Mack has already visited with new Browns head coach Hue Jackson and director of football operations Sashi Brown. Alex Mack could easily become the NFL's highest paid center making at least $10M per year. The Browns have until March 4 to negotiate a new contract with Mack before he is eligible to opt-out.

- There’s a belief at the combine that offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz end up with a contract in the $8M per year. That would make Schwartz the second-richest right tackle in the league in terms of annual salary. With the Browns expected to draft a quarterback with their second pick Hue Jackson would like to protect his investment. Last season Schwartz earned $1.095M in base salary.

- The NFL's competition committee has had "lengthy discussions" about reducing the preseason schedule for NFL teams to just three games instead of the four they have now. Team would have a two-week break between their final preseason game and the start of the regular season.  It doesn't sound as though the change would affect the 2016 preseason, but it sounds like it could definitely be in play for 2017 and beyond. Hopefully this isn't a precursor to the league attempting to lengthen the regular season schedule. . .if the shortened preseason is being done primarily because of potential injury concerns it kind of defeats the purpose of shortening the preseason.

- The Denver Post reported that Peyton Manning is expected to announce his retirement. If this is the end of his career Manning he will have 200 Wins, 71,948 passing yards and 539 touchdowns a 96.5 passer rating and 2 Super Bowls under his belt. He’s got a deadline of March 9th. The end of next week is March 4th. His decision should be final within the next week according to multiple reports. He doesn’t want to force Denver’s hand and make his exit awkward. Denver public relations tweeted the following in response to Dan Petty.

Peyton has not made a decision on his future. Plan remains for him to continue talks with the team this week. https://t.co/2YcjDCCQSg

— Patrick Smyth (@psmyth12) February 28, 2016

People around Peyton Manning believe he will retire, but as of now, he has not told the Broncos of any decision.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 28, 2016

- Unless something drastically changes between now and Tuesday, it appears that the Denver Broncos will place the franchise tag on Von Miller. At this time it's unclear whether the Broncos will use the non-exclusive or exclusive version of the tag. The non-exclusive tag, would allow another team to sign Miller to an offer sheet and in return for two first-round draft picks if the Broncos don’t match the offer, would cost $14.129 million for 2016, fully guaranteed. The exclusive franchise tag would be based on the average of the five highest 2016 cap numbers for all linebackers, measured as of the conclusion of the period for signing restricted free agents to offer sheets, in April. The exclusive tag for linebackers currently is on track to by $14.04 million.

- FIFA has elected Gianni Infantino as its new president. Infantino won on the 2nd ballot, netting 115 out of 207 votes.  He will complete Sepp Blatter's term and serve until 2019. Infantino holds both Swiss and Italian citizenship and has been the general secretary of UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, since 2009. He worked with UEFA to expand the European Championship from 16 to 24 teams, and he has promised to expand the World Cup field to 40 teams. An attorney, Infantino has also served as a member of FIFA’s Reform Committee. Infantino becomes just the third Fifa president in 40 years personified by Blatter and his Brazilian predecessor João Havelange, during which Fifa’s revenues soared but scandals involving World Cup tickets, TV rights and corrupt bidding races multiplied. In May, Sepp Blatter was forced to promise to stand down and then was banned from football for six years for making a $1.3M "disloyal payment” to his one-time heir apparent Platini in 2011. 

- Major League Baseball handed Indians outfielder Abraham Almonte an 80-game suspension Friday for testing positive for boldenone, a form of a Performance Enhancing Drug (P.E.D). Almonte was signed July 31 2015 from the San Diego Padres and was to be the potential opening day starter in the early part of the season while All-Star outfielder Michael Brantley recovers from off-season shoulder surgery. Brantley has only now begun hitting off a tee and will not likely be ready by the start of the season. Almonte and free agent signee Rajai Davis were expected to get at-bats in the outfield as Brantley mended. Now, the Indians must lean more on Davis, and perhaps Colin Cowgill and Will Venable, who was signed to a minor league deal. Venable's deal is for $1.5M is base salary and can make an additional $2M in performance bonuses if he makes the team.

- The Cavs signed Jordan McRae of the D-League's Delaware 87ers will sign a 10-day contract. With Mo Williams' knee injury lingering McRae will help provide additional depth to the bench. The 6'5" guard is averaging 23.3 points, 4.6 boards and 5.2 assists for the 87ers this season.

- NBA veteran guard Joe Johnson was waived by the Brooklyn Nets on Thursday, shunned the Cavs and has decided to take his talents to South Beach once he clears waivers today at 5pm. The Miami Heat are expected to sign the seven time all-star for about $3M for the remainder of the season. In Sunday's game vs. the Knicks, Johnson had 12 points in 30 minutes, on 5 of 10 shooting from the field.

- Making the oldest team in the NBA even older, free agent veteran Andre Miller has reached an agreement to sign with the San Antonio Spurs for the remainder of the season. Miller cleared waivers on Saturday after reaching a contract buyout with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

- Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry now has 287 3-pointers this season,breaking his own record from last year of 286 (GSW still have 24 games remaining). And he tied the record for 3's made in a single game with 12. He shares that record with Donyell Marshall and Kobe Bryant. 

Tribe Talk 8.22.15: 2015 Was EXACTLY What The Indians Needed #Indians

By @DaSportsGenius7

Let's all be honest, the Cleveland Indians season hasn't gone the way most of us had hoped or planned.  But maybe, while fans don't see it now, in a few years I think this season will be deemed as more of a success than a failure.  Yes Sports Illustrated picked us to win the World Series and we haven't lived up to expectations.  Now there's a lot of blame to go around from the people that assembled the team, to the manager, to the players themselves.  But after 2 years of above .500 baseball and a Wild Card Game appearance, now is not the time to blow things up.  In fact throughout the past few weeks, I think Chris Antonetti, Terry Francona and the players have shown that they deserve another year.  So let's rewind to right before the deadline to review what has happened and at the end of all of this, Indians fans trust me, this season was exactly what we needed.

July 30th- Indians trade Brandon Moss to St. Louis for LHP Rob Kaminsky- Brandon Moss was the Indians key acquisition this offseason and although he provided some power in the lineup, he wasn't working out.  In the weeks prior, Chris Antonetti had stated he wasn't interested in trading Moss, but in Antonetti fashion, he got a deal too good to pass on.  Analysts have said this trade is an absolute steal for the Indians, adding a nice young lefty pitcher to the organization.  The Indians could've kept Moss as they did have some club control left on Moss, but Antonetti got a great offer and took it.  While maybe not really popular, Antonetti I think once again stole a prospect from arguably the best organization in baseball.

July 31st- Indians trade Mark Rzepcynski to San Diego for OF Abraham Almonte- While Almonte is a Cleveland fan favorite for now, I'm not expecting huge things from him.  But the Indians found a possible bench player in exchange for a reliever who wasn't pitching like we've been used to.  The Indians can now utilize young lefty Kyle Crockett.  Crockett is more than capable as he's shown before to pitch at the big league level.  Remember this kid had a 1.80 ERA in 43 games in 2014 and in 16 games had a 2.79 ERA in 2015.  Um...what does Francona have against this kid to begin with?

August 7th- Indians trade Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn, and cash to Atlanta for UTIL Chris Johnson- Remember this trade Indians fans, this is the move that turned everything around.  Bourn and Swisher were brought in to be these veteran leaders that produced, but in the 3 years they've been in Cleveland they've done next to nothing and from rumors with Bourn, were hurting the Clubhouse.  In this deal, Cleveland gets a lefty masher in Chris Johnson.  While the Indians have to pay Johnson a good amount of money, to get rid of Swisher and Bourn, it was the best move they could've made.

Now after reviewing the deals made in the past few weeks, eliminate the fact that Cleveland has actually played better for me.  The key is that the Indians have finally told the young core of Kluber, Kipnis, and Brantley that it's their team now.  The veteran leaders like Bourn, Swisher, and Giambi are gone.  In the players minds its time for them to put up or shut up.  In a lot of ways, this is exactly what the players needed.

Since August 8th, the day after the Bourn and Swisher trade, the Indians have gone 7-5.  Now although its not great, its a nice sight to see the core of the Indians that Chris Antonetti and staff have identified as the core have stepped up.  In this 10 game span, we've seen Danny Salazar dominate batters and look like the pticher we were hoping to see on a consistent basis.  We've seen Jose Ramirez return to the bigs and although more recently has slumped, has shown for the most part he can contribute.  And possibly the most promising sight, Lonnie Chisenhall is showing he can play some outfield and be that guy who can give players a night off next year.

While there are bright spots, there remains a lot of questions to be answered.  One of my biggest concerns is the position of Right Field.  One of my targets would be Yoenis Cespedes, but I get the feeling that he's not in their plans.  I do feel however that this is going to be one of, if not the biggest priority over the offseason.  There are plenty of potential big time trade targets that the Indians can look into (I'll dive into that in the offseason).  But the sense I get from people I know, it's an area that will be addressed.

In hindsight if I myself had looked at the roster more closely, I wouldn't have gotten as all hyped up.  I got hooked, I think we all got hooked honestly.  This year proved to me that the Indians have the pitching to put themselves into contention, but they need the offense.  Look at the Mets, outstanding staff, lackluster offense, then they add Yoenis and they're a major threat.  I think the Indians right now are stuck where the Mets were.  One of my biggest beliefs is if you have the true cleanup hitter, the rest of the batting order will fall into place.  It's Chris Antonetti's job to explore every option that becomes available this offseason.

At the end of the day, the Indians had a bad year, think of it like 2006.  But in a lot of ways, this was the best thing to happen for the Indians.  The Indians now are forcing their core players to become the leaders.  I think with the rest of the season to let Brantley, Kipnis, Kluber and co. to establish their leadership in the clubhouse, plus the right moves to fill in the rest of the gaps on this team, the Indians will make a run in 2016.  But what if I told you that maybe it was best if the team waited until 2017 to make their run?  But that's a topic for another day.  Just remember the future is bright Cleveland, the Tribe has a young core that finally have assumed leadership.  All in all, while we won't probably reach our goals, we're setting ourselves up to a better 2016 season.