Cleveland Indians general manager Chris Antonetti sounded cautiously optimistic over the phone early Thursday afternoon, answering questions about the work that Ubaldo Jimenez has put in this offseason, about the rotation, and about how the Indians could see the evolution of their young team.
But it wasn't long after that conversation that news broke of the arrest of Fausto Carmona, who may or may not be Fausto Carmona, and may or may not be 28 years old. There is still a lot that the Indians don't know about this case, including whether Carmona will pitch for them in 2012, or ever again.
From the Indians' perspective, the best course of action is probably to assume that Carmona won't pitch this year. Whether he's innocent or guilty, he is now stuck in a legal web that may take months or years to untangle.
But the loss of Carmona -- and that's how we'll refer to him in this column, for the sake of simplicity -- is not equivalent to what the Tigers experienced earlier this week, with the injury to Victor Martinez.
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Buster Olney
ESPN Insider- Senior writer ESPN Magazine/ESPN.com
- Reporter for ESPN Sunday Night Baseball
- Author of "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty"
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Buster Olney
Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of two books. "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," is a Times best-seller, and "How Lucky You Can Be", about basketball coaching legend Don Meyer, was released in 2011.
He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).
Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."
Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN
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