The Tribe's Silva Lining

UPDATE: Since first posting this item, definitive word on Silva's contract surfaced. He's making $48 million over four years, not $44 million, which further proves my point.
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The Tribe has seven guys to fit into five rotation spots, and for that Indians fans should be thankful as we head into the holidays.

Especially given the news recently about two of the "top" pitchers available in this year's free agent market - Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse.

The money these two guys are getting is just plain crazy. Neither would crack the top four in the Tribe's rotation and would have trouble cracking the top three in most rotations in baseball.

Yet Silva will work for $44 million over the next four years for Seattle. Lohse is not embarrassed to ask for $10 million a year for four years.

Silva was 13-14 with a 4.19 ERA last year. Not bad, but is that worth $44 million over four years?

Lohse was 9-12 with a 4.62 ERA for two teams last year, and that was one of his better years in the recent past.

There's even a rumor floating about that one of the few pitchers really worth something out there - Johan Santana (who would be a trade-for-and-sign guy) - might be looking for a seven or eight year deal. And he certainly WILL be looking for at least $20 million a year.

Glancing at the other headlines of the day, the Tigers are said to have inked a three-year, $29 million deal with newcomer Dontrelle Willis. This is for a guy too young to have reached the free-agency stage yet.

And reliever Ron Mahay is reportedly heading to Kansas City for $8 million over two years - that's $4 million per for a reliever with a 3.77 lifetime ERA.

So given a glance at just one day's headlines, is it any wonder that the Indians' brass is adamant about holding on to its young, cheap, high-ceiling arms?

As I've already said in previous posts, for a guy like Dan Haren I probably would have pulled the trigger - since he has already proven himself and makes virtually no money in comparison to guys like Lohse, Silva and Cliff Lee.

But there also is something nice about having plenty of spare parts to plug in if the originals blow out or malfunction.