Appeasing the Baseball Gods

I'll leave Vinny to comment (if he wants) on the substantive merits of yesterday's Danny Graves and Steve Karsay signings, but I do feel a need to give Shapiro some credit for making an effort to appease the always fickle baseball gods (like Jobu, pictured left).

As everyone knows, Danny Graves and Steve Karsay both had prior stints with the Indians. Graves was one of the Indians' hot young properties back in the mid 1990s, and John Hart dealt him to Cincinnati as part of the deal that brought veteran southpaw John Smiley to the Indians in 1997. That deal turned out to be a disaster for the Tribe, as Smiley broke his arm shortly after the Indians acquired him, while Graves turned in several solid seasons as the Reds' closer, and was even selected to play in two All-Star games. Meanwhile, the Tribe had to console themselves with the weak hitting Jeff Branson, the other player acquired from the Reds in that ill-fated deal.

As bad as that deal was, the deal that sent Karsay to the Atlanta Braves was even worse. Why? Two words: John Rocker. Yup, the Tribe sent Karsay and Steve Reed, another decent right-handed set-up guy, to the Braves in 2001 in exchange for John Rocker. Oh yeah, they got minor leaguer Troy Cameron too. Not the Troy Cameron? Yup, the very same guy who was last seen tearing up the Atlantic League for the Camden Riversharks.

Not quite as bad as Harry Frazee sending Babe Ruth to the Yanks, but these were two awful deals in anybody's book. They were certainly bad enough to draw the ire of the baseball gods, and by undoing them, even belatedly, perhaps the gods will be appeased. If not, then to hell with them. Or, as Pedro Cerrano more eloquently put it in Major League, "Jobu, I stick up for you. I am good to you. If you don't help me now, I say F-you Jobu, I'll do it myself."