OK, let’s dry our eyes and try to get through this latest trade by the Tribe.
Good, I knew that wouldn’t take too long. Jhonny has been traded to the Tigers - so let’s recap.
I’ll skip the obvious jokes here and be slightly sentimental.
It wasn’t Jhonny’s fault that he was told he was a major league shortstop by Wedgie and the Indians front office. It wasn’t Jhonny’s fault that he didn’t have enough range to play the position. It wasn’t Jhonny’s fault that the most positive thing Wedgie could say about him was, “Jhonny’s the master of the routine play”.
All this is so much more obvious now that we do have a major league shortstop and he’s actually playing shortstop - brilliant.
As Mikey would say, “C’mon man”.
Jhonny was better at third base - although not stellar on defense and his offensive numbers lately - well, have been disappointing. He was hitting .246 with 23 doubles, 7 homers and 43 RBI in 91 games. (Career - 923 games in the big leagues, average of .264, 103 homers and 456 RBI).
To be fair, he did have one good playoff run for the Indians - in the 2007 Division Series he hit .469. That same year, in the ALCS, he hit .259 with 2 homers and 8 RBI.
However, his low key personality and lack of range gave the appearance that he didn’t really care - which probably wasn’t true - although I’m not totally positive about that statement.
Anyway, the Tigers thought so much of him (and don’t forget, they have been ravaged by injuries, which has been proven to affect clear thought processes) that they offered a Class A pitcher for him. I’ve confirmed that the Indian’s front office thought about the offer for about 1.3 seconds and said yes - if for no other reason than the guy is a young and has a cool sounding name - Giovanni Soto. (Oh yeah, the Indians still have to pay most of his salary so the Tigers weren’t completely delusional).
So, we bid you farewell Jhonny. Perhaps you’ll get hot and help the Tigers get into the playoffs. Who knows, they might even win the World Series. However, through it all I’ll be thinking just this;
Jhonny, you were never even allowed to prove you could rise above the routine play, at least not with the Indians.
Good bye and good luck - and thanks for the memories.
Dad
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