The Indians are working on a deal for free agent righty Jon Garland, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. This morning ESPN's Buster Olney tweeted that Garland "is getting a minor league deal" with the Indians, but still has to pass his physical. Garland, 32, made nine starts for the Dodgers to begin the 2011 season before having July surgery to clean out debris in his shoulder.
Two weeks after the surgery, Garland said he expected to be ready for spring training, explaining to MLB.com's Ken Gurnick and AJ Cassavell, "I was very satisfied with what the doctor said. He's upbeat. The labrum was almost pristine. The cuff was a little worse than he thought, but a lot of what he found was just scar tissue and bursitis. He shaved down the bone so things move smoothly. A layoff like this can only help the rest of my body."
The Indians added Derek Lowe and Kevin Slowey this offseason, with the latter likely battling for the fifth starter job with David Huff and Jeanmar Gomez, according to MLB.com's Jordan Bastian. Fausto Carmona, who was previously penciled in, is an unknown due to false identity charges.
Prior to 2011, Garland had posted nine consecutive seasons of at least 190 regular season innings. He signed a team-friendly one-year, $5MM deal with the Dodgers in November of 2010. At that time it seemed likely to become a two-year, $13MM contract, as an $8MM option for 2012 was to vest with Garland's customary 190 innings. Now it seems the California native may wind up back in the AL Central, after spending the first eight seasons of his career with the White Sox.
This post was originally published on February 13th.
Blue387
If he could sign for an affordable deal and has recovered fully, he would be a great bargain.
Britt
So if we land him, the staff is Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Carlos Carrasco, Josh Tomlin, Jon Garland, Roberto Hernandez Heredia (The Man Formally known as Fausto Carmona), Derek Lowe, Kevin Slowey, Jeanmar Gomez, Mitch Talbot, with outside shots for Scott Barnes, Kelvin De La Cruz, Hector Rondon, and Zach McAllister… I guess you can never have too many arms.
dpm21
Rondon was cut this offseason and Talbots in Japan so I don’t think you can count them
R34P3R_BOB
Rondon was not cut, He’s just not on the 40 man.
Jim Blevins 2
carlos carrasco is out with TJ surgury this year
chico65
Is that like the diabetes?
Jim Blevins 2
also, wasnt Talbot DFA’d?
Jim Blevins 2
and you might not even see fauxsto this year
Mike Mark Sopp
Rumor is the Indians are one of the teams in the running for Burnett with the idea that Travis Hafner would be heading to the Yankees. It would solve the Yankees problem of wanting a lefty hitting DH, but the Indians would be saddled with another bad contract for a few more years.
dpm21
even though I can’t wait for hafner to be off of our payroll, I’d rather have him on the team then Burnett
josh 35
yeah that’d be awful for the mets
Lefty
Jon Garland??? Why??
I would rather have Wayne Garland at this point!
blovy8
They could get Lannan from the Nats for not too much, he’d be a more legitimate lefty starter than Huff.