A Birthday Rivas Update

I know so many of you have breathlessly waiting for an update on Rivas....well here it is. I could think of nothing better then a Luis Rivas filled birthday, so I unblocked the internet tubes, called Al Gore and fired up the 'ol NIT card and used the Googles to do some Rockin' Rivas Research (RRR for short).

It looks like our friend Rivas has a good shot of making the Indians. I have no idea how this could happen, except that Ol' Luis must have some nasty blackmail on several members of the Indians staff. It probably helped that some of Rivas's competition literally threw themselves out of the competition (I'm looking at YOU Hector Luna...you and your EIGHT spring training errors). However, Cleveland is choosing Rivas over other, living, breathing baseball players.

It isn't like Rivas is lighting up Indians camp with a barrage of singles either...he is batting a very Rivas-like .176 this spring. Oh...but that isn't why he might make the team...

"We said from the beginning," Shapiro said, "that the main criteria was going to be defense up the middle."

Rivas will make the team because of his "defense". I'm trying not to laugh. Maybe his veteran "presence" and knife fighting skills are also coming into play. I would like to point out that most defense metrics around rated Rivas as having the WORST range in the American League in 2005, his last full year in the majors. The idea of Rivas making a team because of defense makes me happy.

The fact that Rivas is going to make a lot of outs offensively and have lots of ground balls zoom just past him used to make me cry when he was with the Twins. Now, Rivas deliciously plays for a division rival and he has instantly become one of my favorite players. In fact...I think I might get an Indians Rivas jersey. It is almost like he is playing against the Indians anyways.

However my RRR (Rockin' Rivas Research) lead me to see other people BESIDES the Indians front office and field staff are brain washed. It seems some Indians fans and a few writers also have been brain washed by some sort of Rivas-voodoo. This is an actual quote that discusses who will be the backup infielder...

"If he was the same player he was with the Twins a few years back it would be a no-brainer."
tribetracker.com

Wow. Yeah, if Rivas could waste 600 at bats...then we definitely want him! Apparently Cleveland loves slow, lazy second basemen with no range and who get on base at a .285 clip. But hey! He is still young! ...and uh... he can turn a double play pretty good...and...um...well that is it.

I hope Rivas helps the Cleveland Indians lose some games this year. It'll make the summer just that much nicer.

Sources:
http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070324&content_id=1857329&vkey=spt2007news&fext=.jsp

http://blog.cleveland.com/tribetracker/2007/03/analysis_2007_cleveland_indian.html

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