It’s reached the point with the Cleveland Indians that they trade Mark DeRosa and it feels like they traded Mark McGwire.

The St. Louis Cardinals must have thought the same thing. They put DeRosa in the fourth spot in the lineup in his first game. Behind Albert Pujols.
Gotta protect Pujols, after all.
On one level, the DeRosa trade makes sense. He’s 34, he’s going to be a free agent and the Indians are going nowhere.
Except that the Indians say that the relief pitcher they got for DeRosa — Chris Perez — was acquired to help this year. So they evidently think that they can still go somewhere this year. The likeliest place seems to be Hale Farm, on the train.
It’s not right or fair to make too much of the DeRosa deal. He’s one player on a bad team. But. . .any dissatisfaction or willingness to part with him is confusing. And it’s kind of emblematic of a situation with the Indians.
They seem to be on a treadmill, with guys coming and going between major-league or minor-league teams — yet the team is not going anywhere.
This is not optimal.
As for DeRosa, all he did was drive in 50 runs and play a bunch of positions. Maybe he wasn’t a No. 2 hitter, which is where he started the year. If he’s not, it’s not his fault he was hitting there, is it?
DeRosa was one of the few Indians who bounced around from position to position and did not let it affect him. He started slow, but if the manager and front office were judged by slow starts, they would have been gone years ago.
I kind of liked DeRosa. He was a pro, did his job and did it fairly well. He could have gotten on base more (.342 OBP), had an OPS of .799. The Indians rued the time he missed in spring training for the World Baseball Classic because he couldn’t become a leader, then they traded him.
In the offseason, the Indians talked to Casey Blake about re-signing with the Tribe. When he didn’t, they traded for DeRosa and called him a better Blake.
They started DeRosa at third base, where he was not spectacular, but was OK. Then they moved him all over so they could put the swift-footed and baseball-picking Jhonny Peralta at third.
Part of this trade is prompted by the move of Peralta to third. Me, I think Peralta is less valuable there, but the Indians seem committed to seeing what he can do there. It was odd they moved him during the season, but that’s what they did.
The thinking is that Peralta’s lack of mobility and foot speed won’t be as big a deal at third, where less ground has to be covered. But first-step quickness is necessary at the position, and that seems to be lacking from Peralta’s arsenal.
I might have preferred two more years of DeRosa instead of four more of Peralta, but we’ll see. But I also lack the Indians’ studies and analysis. Bill James I’m not.
DeRosa is 34, and the Indians are 12 games behind with the worst record in the American League. He was on a career pace for homers and RBI, so the Indians might have traded him at his peak (14 of his 50 RBI came in three games). And they got a hard thrower for the bullpen, a large need, as well as the proverbial player to be named, a player who is supposed to be a major-league player.
“We feel we’ve acquired a pitcher whose upside is pitching in the back end of the bullpen,” General Manager Mark Shapiro said. “His fastball is 93 to 95 mph and has touched 98, he’s got a swing-and-miss slider, but has some development to do.”
Perhaps this reliever is Mariano Rivera II. One of the things the Indians do best is cherry-pick other people’s talents. Jose Veras, recently acquired from the New York Yankees, also throws in the 90s. This upgrades the bullpen speed; now it has to translate to upgraded performance.
But the Indians need to produce more loaves and fishes before they can contend this year.
This is not a fire sale, the Indians tell us, but it sure stinks like one. Offers have come in for Cliff Lee. Speculation has the Indians putting Rafael Betancourt, Carl Pavano and Jamey Carroll on the block.
That’s all well and good, but it’s badly reminiscent of last year’s fire sale: The Indians acquire guys, state how good they are and then trade them away for more guys who are going to be good.
Last-place teams do these kinds of things. At some point, the fans will grow weary of it — if they haven’t already.
Because it just seems that if it looks like a rebuild and walks like a rebuild and talks like a rebuild. . .well.. .doesn’t that make it a duck?