Betancourt Headed West, Tribe Looking to the Future

The Indians made an important move yesterday in trading Rafael Betancourt to the Rockies for Class-A pitcher Connor Graham. This is a move that will surprise no one, considering the team was unlikely to exercise their $5.4 million option on Raffy Right next year. However, this move signifies that the team is willing to look beyond 2010.I think that most fans can agree that this is a good thing. With the current state of the pitching rotation, and the fact that some of our best prospects are two years away, competing in 2010 is not as important as 2011. Currently, the Indians have four players listed in Baseball America's top-50 prospects; with Carlos Santana listed as No. 7, and Matt LaPorta coming in at No. 22 (Lonnie Chisenhall and Nick Weglarz were simply listed by alphabetical order in the 25-50 half of the list). Of those four, I would only expect to see Weglarz and LaPorta in the big leagues prior to next September (at least for serious consideration). Unfortunately, none ...