Kelly Shoppach Traded to Tampa Bay

I interrupt your regularly scheduled boring Tuesday afternoon to announce to you that the Cleveland Indians have traded Kelly Shoppach to the Tampa Bay Rays.

Anthony Castrovince beats them all to the punch via twitter. More information via CastroTurf.

In return, the Indians will get a player to be named later, someone they are very familiar with and have acquired before.

No seriously... The PTBNL will be selected by December 20th... Who knows what the Indians have as far as pickings, but the Rays must have offered them a possibility of something more worthwhile than just non-tendering him.

The Rays will in all likelihood try and work something out with him or go to arbitration. The Indians would have just non-tendered him and let him go into Free Agency.

On a sad note... I loved Kelly Shoppach. It may not seem like it because of the way I got on him last year and the way I was saying he was as good as gone this year.. But I really did.

Kelly is a good guy. He's a hard worker and a tough guy. I always loved seeing him RUN to first base when he got walked even though it was a rare occurrence. When he came up he was a defensive stud. Those skills have sort of diminished in the past few years which makes his value go down because of the All or Nothing mentality he takes that plate.

Which is fine. I love that type of mentality in a backup catcher because he's not playing too much. Why not have someone off the bench that can hit it a country mile there.

Like I've said. He's not starting worthy, especially with his defense falling off. Ideally the Indians should have traded him after last season. I would have put in him a deal if someone wanted him, but I'm sure the Indians were asking for too much and other people saw what we saw.. He strikes out a lot and isn't worth the package that would gain you something for a starting catcher.

But oh well.. This is how it turned out and it was pretty clear Shoppach would be making too much money for the Indians to hold onto him this year, especially since they are looking towards Carlos Santana's arrival and Lou Marson's shot to start this year.

So long Kelly. I will no doubt write something up about Kelly and his career with the Tribe. Great guy, solid ballplayer, tough ballplayer. He's the type of player you want on your team, especially at the catcher position. Good luck in Tampa friend.

Side Note: You have to wonder how much of a part new hitting coach Derek Shelton had in this. Could be a good thing for us..