Branyan, Russell

The Indians just publicly acknowledged that paying $10.5 million this season for Kerry Wood to close didn't make sense for a team that was unlikely to compete.

So they went out and signed Russell Branyan.

They already have Travis Hafner and Branyan now probably puts one of the two prime players that they received for C.C. Sabathia either on the bench or in the minors. True, a Matt LaPorta first base was likely to be an ugly thing.

None of which change Branyan's value much. He's still going to go out and hammer a home run ever 15 at-bats, a bit better in a good year and a bit worse in a bad one. He moves to a Cleveland park that will play similarly to Seattle but where he will possibly have quite a few more baserunners depending on where they actually hit him. Branyan actually got on at .347 last season which was his second best clip of his career, but he's still unlikely to score many runs at all because the end of Cleveland's order looks pretty awful. .250-50-21-65-1. 475Abs