Breath Easy, Lee Won't Pitch in WBC; I can't think of something clever for this part

Alright so, here is what I've to say about the Eric Mangini hiring.

Look, I'm not a Browns fan, in fact I'm quite the opposite, but I don't get into it because I'd rather not get pelted with tomatoes.

Could it really be worse than Butch Davis?

It seems as if Cleveland always has to take that view. It's the one we've been taking with Andy Marte and Mark DeRosa.

Yeah hey, Mangini and DeRosa (Go Italian Go) may turn out to be good things, but at least they aren't the worst things the teams have had in recent memory.

Okay that's enough Browns talk. I feel dirty. The only reason I bring this up is because Eric Mangini is married to Mark Shapiro's sister. Which means absolutely nothing when it comes to the Browns making the playoffs, but is very relevant because Carl Pavano is of interest no longer, actually he is, but there really is nothing else to talk about.

"Scott brought along a young quality control guy named Eric Mangini," Shapiro recalled. "He said to Eric, 'There's any girl in this city to meet up with, but not my friend's sister.'"

Mangenius really is a snake in the grass. At least it's not Jolly Romeo. Okay enough with the At Least It's Not... We already have a new tagline for this site. Scott by the by is Scott Pioli, the other guy Shapiro probably wanted in Cleveland.

That's gotta be awkward for Shapiro. Being a brother-in-law to Mangini and friends with Scott Pioli. I wonder how that goes being the man in the middle of a spygate relationship. But you know what they say, you can't choose your family, just your friends. I bet he likes Pioli more and they run off and snicker about how chubby Mangini is.

Where the hell is this going?

Oh that's right the Indians.

Much to the relief of every Indians' fan everywhere and much to the dismay of many rabid Team USA supporters, Cliff Lee will not be partaking in the World Baseball Classic.

"Cliff gave it a lot of thought," said Braunecker, "but he's coming off the biggest workload of his career. He wanted to stay on track. If, as anticipated, the Indians are a contender this year, he could pitch even more innings."

Personally, I'm glad. I think when you have a pitcher, you want to avoid seeing them in the WBC for the fact that as it's mentioned in the article by Cliff's agent, Darek Braunecker, they gotta prepare early and the title game is late in March, so close to the end of Spring Training. It might mentally prepare a player like Grady Sizemore, but these pitchers are technically using up some of their season in the pre-season.

For that.. I'm not a fan of our pitchers going. Hopefully no Fausto, double because of the injury, for the Dominican Republic and no Victor Martinez, just because he's coming off an injury.

I don't know if Choo has gotten the call for his native land, but even though he can't earn Military immunity if his Korea team wins, he still wants to represent his country.

Speaking of that. There was a new mailbag, but the mailbag is being discontinued on MLB.com. Still Castrovince decided to post it and he suggested that maybe Choo would just not return to his homeland to serve his military service.

Of course then he could never go home again. Given how he wants to represent his country, I can't see that.

Shin-Soo Choo, for the record, is boss and Hines Ward doesn't molests collies. I'm not even sure who thinks of that kind of stuff.

Good news on the option front. Zach Jackson has an extra option, which changes the outlook of Edwin Mujica's future.

Mujica is option-less and on his last legs. He's survived multiple 40 man cuts, and given that the Indians probably won't add anyone, he'll survive longer.

This could mean Jackson is the one starting in Columbus and Mujica is the one in Cleveland rather than Mujica out on his ass with the Pittsburgh Pirates, pitching with the two Patel Twins or whatever they are.

You know the Indians would probably rather find Mujica one more chance than fielding the best bullpen. So... Yeah, gotta take that into consideration, jango.

I'm going to have to think long and hard about the Press tour this year.. Last year it was insanely cheap just to get into the part where I can get an autograph. This year it's like 35 bucks. Hey man, I'm on a budget.

Even though Cliff Lee is going to be in Akron.

Anyway, here is the list of locations and stuff. Go if you can.

Two more Pavano links. It's not really a direct Carl Pavano type thing, but thanks to it, it brings up the Kelly Shoppach discussion that I was hinting at. Michael Taylor did the due-diligence of finding out how much Shoppach could get paid in arbitration and to my surprise it's not as much as I thought it would be. But all you guys that call Dolan a cheapstake better take a look at this payroll as it stands now, and what it can potentially be and slap yourselves. Because damnit, we are spending a lot for being Cleveland and being in an economic crisis.

And finally, because the Pavano signing has a lot of impact on the starting pitchers like David Huff, Scott Lewis and more importantly, Aaron Laffey and Jeremy Sowers, Tony Lastoria chimes in on the deal.

Finally, Carl Pavano got a bit of good news, and no it wasn't the fact that some team was taking a chance on him. Alyssa Milano cannot poison him anymore. She is now engaged to some agent and she'll be making him the butt of many jokes. Poor Carl, the woman is like a walking baseball player black book. I'm not sure where I'm going that I'm talking about Eric Mangini and Alyssa Milano this much, but I have to keep up on the celebrity gossip once and awhile, or else I'm not doing my job.

You know this woman is near a baseball field entirely too much. It's no wonder she's dated many of ball-players. It's almost as if she's scoping out talent. I'd sign her up to be a scout. She can't possibly do any worse than two Indian-Born players that did nothing but win a contest.

Also someone from NY actually supports this deal for the Indians. I'm not sure who Jesse Spector is, but thank you. That's one guy in New York not laughing at us. You know it really will be funny if we can get CC's debut in Cleveland as a Yankee against Pavano and he can beat him, after Cliff Lee beats him in New York to open up the new Palace (which I call the Palace, not Yankee Stadium).

I think I'm going to quit now. Baseball needs to start soon or else it will be more Alyssa Milano jokes and bringing your spirits down with talk about the Browns. I'm not even a fan but my spirit lowers a notch everytime I hear something about them.

Oh and I've been going and switching the URL all around the web. I think it's going well. I'm going to switch all the links on the side that lead in-site when the "transition" is complete.