Wait–The Cleveland Indians are interviewing legit candidates?

If you haven’t heard by now, the Cleveland Indians are actually interviewing guys we’ve heard of before. We’re pleasantly surprised. Don Mattingly and Bobby Valentine? This is pretty cool. If you’ve been following the Indians lately, you’d expect them to go cheap and do their best job of finding the next Eric Wedge. You know, a project guy who has no previous experience except being a minor league ballplayer. A guy they can coin off as having ‘excellent baseball smarts’ and ‘knowledge of the organization’. A guy like an AJ Hinch type. Basically someone they don’t have to spend any coin on.

But look at this shit. Mattingly and Valentine? These guys should top any team’s shopping list that are in the market for a new manager. The Indians going after both is a very good sign. Personally, we never thought they should have jettisoned Mike Hargrove. But to land either one of these guys (we’re pulling for Mattingly to get the job) would be a real lift to this downtrodden organization.

We were thinking Tony LaRussa, and it’ll probably still end up being some relative unknown (who is cheap). Remember, these are only interviews. The Indians organization might just be floating this to the press to make their fans think they’re in the market for the big fish. We won’t give them much credit until the hire is official.