Will Cleveland rock?

Manuel: Indians won't be reduced to playing smallball

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. -- The way Indians manager Charlie Manuel sees things, there's no way Brady Anderson is going to hit .200ish again. And there's no way Omar Vizquel is going to hit .255. Travis Fryman (.263 in 98 games) will be healthier. Russell Branyan (132 strikeouts in 113 games) is getting the hang of things.

The way Manuel sees it, these Indians may not be the fence-smashing Indians of years past. But they'll hit.

And not just a bunch of singles, either.

"I tried to kill that right away -- we're not playing smallball," Manuel swears. "That's not in my nature."

Or, as shortstop Vizquel puts it: "We're not the Minnesota Twins. I think we have more power than them."

The Indians, like most everyone else in the early going of spring training, are still trying to figure out how they'll come together. Without the hitters they had last season -- Juan Gonzalez (.325, 140 RBIs) signed with Texas, Marty Cordova (.301, 20 homers) went to Baltimore, Roberto Alomar (.336, 100 RBIs) was traded to the Mets and Kenny Lofton (a career .302 hitter) wound up with the White Sox -- the Indians will struggle to score.

Maybe not in Manuel's view. In his spring-colored glasses, the Indians will simply have to score differently.

But not smallball. "I'm a hitting guy," Manuel says.

Instead, the Indians will stress situational hitting. They'll move runners over, employ the hit-and-run, take an extra base when possible. They'll lean on what they consider a strong starting rotation, too, and deep and experienced bullpen to keep the scoring down. Defense will be much more important, especially now that Alomar, maybe the best second baseman ever, is gone.

The Indians, too, will stress playing hard every single pitch. (Their spring training t-shirts read "Energy! Effort! Action!") The high-scoring Indians of 2001, second in runs and third in homers in the American League, often didn't do that, Manuel says.

Then again, when you're ahead 12-4, it's hard to concentrate on every pitch.

"I don't think we'll rely on the home run as much," says Vizquel. "Instead of 10-1, you'll see 3-2. We have to win those little games."

The Indians still have powerful first baseman Jim Thome (49 homers, 124 RBIs in 2001) and other free swingers like Ellis Burks and Branyan. But if they expect to score enough to win the AL Central, it's clear they'll have to learn how to score by keeping the ball inside the park.

"Yeah," Manuel says thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair in his office at the Chain O' Lakes Park complex. "Yeah. Yeah. We definitely can score enough. Yeah, we have a different kind of a team. But don't overlook the fact that we have ability. We'll definitely score runs."

Why don't you stick around awhile?

There's not a person anywhere near the Phillies' camp in Clearwater that doesn't know exactly what's going on with third baseman Scott Rolen. His flat-out turndown of a $140 million, 10-year contract from the Phillies has teammates questioning his thinking and the front office still pleading.

His problem, he says, is he is not convinced that the Phillies are committed to building a winning franchise. This came even as the team gave outfielder Bobby Abreu a five-year, $64 million extension.

Rolen's decision was a stunner to many -- though, after a feud with manager Larry Bowa and the Philadelphia front office last season, it probably shouldn't have been too big of a surprise -- but the Phillies remain upbeat. With a lot of talent on its way up through the minors and a new ballpark scheduled to open in 2004, the Phils seem to be in pretty good shape.

Already, the Phillies are starting to prepare for a possible life without Rolen. Chase Utley, a second baseman who was the team's first pick in the 2000 draft, played third during an intrasquad game earlier this week just so the team could get a look at him.

Still, the Phillies are not giving up on Rolen. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that team chairman Bill Giles plans to meet with Rolen and his family sometime in March for a little dinner and pleading. Team president and CEO David Montgomery spent two hours with Rolen the other day, according to the paper.

"You have to take care of your star players. It's like football. You try to keep your quarterback happy," said Bowa. "We're trying to keep him happy. But if we don't, we'll have to move on …"

The kids are alright

Few teams in the majors will rely more on youth than the Blue Jays. Their No. 1 pitcher ( Roy Halladay ) is only 24. The average age of the rotation, as it stands now, is barely of legal drinking age.

Manager Buck Martinez worried openly last spring about dealing with young players, about the attitude many players in the league carry these days. He called it the "whatever" attitude. And there were reports that those youngsters got a little unruly at times last season.

A year later but still with a baby of a team, both Martinez and the Jays seem to be maturing. Maybe it's just the headiness of spring, but Martinez, entering his second year as a manager, clearly likes his team. The team, too, is starting to respond in what will be an ongoing process.

"You saw it today with the high fives after the intrasquad game," Martinez said Wednesday afternoon in Dunedin, Fla. "That kind of stuff [playing an intrasquad game] used to be a burden for them. Now, they're having fun."

Camping out …

There may be more warm and fuzzy scenes in camps somewhere, but it'd be tough to top seeing Phillies great Mike Schmidt , back in uniform again, towering over Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, talking in depth about the art of hitting outside of the batting cage on the Robin Roberts Field at the team's training complex in Clearwater, Fla. … That was about the only thing warm and fuzzy just about anywhere north of Fort Lauderdale in the Grapefruit League on Wednesday. The arctic chill that blasted much of the country found its way down into the Sunshine State, where temperatures barely crept into the 50s and the wind chill made it feel like -75 degrees. OK, that's not scientific, but that's what it felt like in Florida, OK? … Former Reds coach Ron Oester has jumped into the Cincinnati fray, siding with ex-Reds Pokey Reese and Dmitri Young about what a pain in the neck Ken Griffey Jr. is as a teammate. Oester, now a minor-league instructor with the Phillies, told the Cincinnati Enquirer that "[Griffey's] weakness is being a teammate …" Oester also smacked down Barry Larkin for refusing to move to second base to give Reese a crack at playing short. Why can't the Reds just run away like that wild cow? … So, B.J. Surhoff wants off of the Braves if he can't start, which isn't likely to happen considering Chipper Jones has taken Surhoff's spot in left. Well, it's not like the Braves haven't been trying to trade him. Maybe he could simply buy his way out … Finally, amid all those high winds Wednesday in Clearwater, Bowa got to talking about pitcher Nelson Figueroa, who is 6-foot-1 and weighs maybe 150, 155 pounds. Bowa has been on him to gain some weight, but the manager has pretty much given up. It was too cold to take actual notes at the time, but Bowa said, roughly, this: "We put a windbreaker on him [today]," he told reporters, "and he'd be flying out there somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico."

John Donovan covers baseball for CNNSI.com. His Spring Training Buzz will run each Tuesday and Thursday until Opening Day.

 

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