Maybe The Bisons Will Be Allowed To Use Four Outfielders?

Anthony Castrovince at mlb.com had an interesting article about the Indians, throughout the system, using Excel to plan out at bats and games for minor leaguers. Obviuosly, this is just another case of the Indians front office going about things sensibly. Having a hard copy full of data eliminates the possibility that something will get lost in translation, and a spreadsheet is awfully easy to refer to.

That's not really the point of this post though. Referenced in the article is that Trevor Crowe is likely to start the season in Buffalo. I have no idea if Castrovince has information to this effect from interviews or if it is merely his hypothesis. In any event, it doesn't seem to make the greatest amount of sense to me. In an earlier post, I was uncertain as to where he would start, but after thinking it over, I think that starting him at Buffalo would be foolhardy.

First, there is the numbers crunch. As the article states, Crowe, Ben Francisco and Brad Snyder will be there. Unless another major league team picks up Jason Tyner at the end of spring training, he'll be headed there. Jason Cooper is still in our system. Shin-Soo Choo is recovering from Tommy John surgery and will be headed to Buffalo for rehab. That's a lot of outfielders. It's a good thing that the Indians have a hard plan for all of these guys, but I'd rather be certain that Crowe, Snyder and Francisco would be playing every day.

Let's say instead that Crowe starts in Akron. Then Buffalo has a regular outfield of Francisco in left, Snyder in right and Tyner in center, with Cooper the fourth outfielder. When Choo goes on rehab, he can fill in the outfield corners. Choo is out of options, so when his rehab is finished, the team is going to have to make a decision with him. He will either be promoted to stay, traded or outrighted. If he's outrighted, I doubt he'll make it through waivers, and would be picked up by another team. Once this happens, Crowe can move up to an every day role, and Tyner moves to a fourth outfielder role.

From Crowe's standpoint, he gets to consolidate the second half gains he achieved while starting in Akron. He can play every day there, and Akron is unlikely to face a glut of outfielders who are either prospects or are deserving of regular play. An outfield of John Drennen, Crowe and Jose Constanza would be a good start to the season. When Crowe gets promoted to Buffalo, the Aeros can make Nathan Panther the new regular in the outfield, or some other minor league veteran.

From the numbers standpoint, it just makes sense. The problem is that if Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro feel that Crowe is ready for the AAA challenge, in which case they may not have a choice but to have an awful lot of outfielders in Buffalo.