Contract dump: Bad Bradley for bad Silva

Talking about a shocking trade that didn't help anybody: look at the Milton Bradley-for-Carlos Silva deal Friday that the Mariners and the Cubs agreed to.

One (Bradley) is a bad actor; the other (Silva) is a bad pitcher. Both carry heavy-duty contracts, which limited any potential suitors. It took two organizations with the same purpose to swallow this deal whole.

Yet if somebody had to pick a winner here -- and it'll be a photo finish -- he'd give the edge to the Cubs, because getting anybody to take Bradley off the team's payroll was a dream Cubs general manager Jim Hendry couldn't possibly have expected to come true.

Not that Silva will help the Cubs much; he won't. A lousy pitcher in the American League won't become a Cy Young winner merely by switching leagues. But Silva won't turn the clubhouse into a nut house, which Bradley is sure to do in Seattle.

Now, the Mariners say they are hopeful Bradley's nuclear temper will chill a bit under the influence of Grade A characters like Ken Griffey Jr. and Chone Figgins, a recent acquisition. They are also counting on a calmer, more sedate Milton Bradley being a productive Milton Bradley.

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Valentine's day makes a lovely impression

Bobby Valentine got nostalgic. He sat with journalists Thursday inside Progressive Field and reminisced about the glory days of Cleveland baseball. Valentine remembered those days, as does any person who calls himself an Indians fan.

He relished an opportunity to bring those days back. That was the reason he was in Cleveland talking baseball. He was making a case to GM Mark Shapiro to hire him as the next manager of the Indians.

“I had a great day – a great day,” Valentine said. “I talked to baseball people – talked baseball. I couldn’t be happier with that.”

His hours-long interview with Shapiro and his lieutenants, Valentine said, went seamlessly, if an interview for a high-profile job can be described as such. He called the process “interesting,” and the word should come into use again if he’s the man Shapiro picks to manage the Tribe next season.

For Valentine won’t be taking over a team stacked with top-shelf talent. That fact is that he admitted he didn’t know much about what the Indians have or what the American League is about these days.

How could Valentine?

He had spent the past six years managing the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan.

“I had a six-year love affair with baseball in a different country,” he said.

Valentine was being overly modest. The love affair was mutual. As much as he loved baseball in Japan, the people there loved him. He was a “star,” although describing any manager as a star isn’t easy.

Parting might be sweet sorry, but people don’t weep over it in baseball. Didn’t anybody learn that from watching “A League of Their Own”?

In meeting with the Cleveland media, Valentine didn’t forget to talk about his time in Japan. For him, the experience there enriched his life; it taught him lessons that might be useful in managing in the big leagues.

He admitted he will have things to catch up on, particularly the statistical information that drives front offices and Fantasy Leagues. He will also have to get a better feel on who the Indians players are.

Can’t tell the players with a media guide, right? Hand Valentine one, and he could have used a media guide before his talk with Shapiro.

Before the interview, Valentine didn’t bone up on the team. He could have, he said; he decided to go in cold, he said.

So if anybody in the Shapiro’s front office favored an outsider’s perspective, a candidate who was selling a philosophy and not someone who was pitching his unflagging loyalty to the organization, it found that outsider in Valentine, who compared his managerial style to an orchestra director.

“I can put the right sounds in the right places and the right instruments in the right places to make something that’s pleasing to the ear and to the eyes – and, hopefully, to the baseball community,” he said. “That’s what I do for a living. Hopefully, that’s good enough.”

His words sounded the right chords. He impressed with them – at least the men and women who heard his interview with the media thought so.

Whether he struck those same notes with Shapiro will be decided down the road. He has other candidates left to interview, including an organizational insider in Triple-A manager Torey Lovullo.

None of the others on Shapiro’s list have Valentine’s experience. He played in the bigs, and he managed the Rangers, the Mets and the team in Japan. Shapiro probably focused on that experience during the interview. He had to wonder, however, whether Valentine, now 59, had the fortitude to take on a rebuilding project as massive as the Indians.

The straight-talking Valentine said he didn’t avoid the question. He told Shapiro he did: He wants to manager the Tribe. Nor did Valentine avoid many other questions. Probably the only question he clearly sidestepped the whole day was the last one the media pitched to him.

Somebody asked Valentine, now a baseball analyst with ESPN, what specifically he discussed with Shapiro and other men he met. He didn’t touch it.

To answer that question, he said, would give the candidates who have not met with Shapiro a hint of what to expect.

“Nobody gave me any heads-up,” Valentine said, laughing.

Will Valentine's day come early for Indians?

I don’t know much about Manny Acta – as a person or as a Major League manager. I’ve never interviewed Acta; never seen the man either. What I do know about him is the managed one of the worst teams in baseball last season. Now, managing the Nationals isn’t a fate the baseball gods should put in any decent man’s hands. The Nats are a hopeless lot in a league with other going-nowhere organizations like the Padres and the Pirates. Acta could have been Walter Alston, Connie Mack, Casey Stengel and Sparky Anderson rolled into one, and he still wouldn’t have been able to turn the Nats into a winner. He might develop into a Sparky-like manager -- someday. Yet I find it curious that Indians GM Mark Shapiro (and team president Paul Dolan) has kept Acta, 40, on a short list of candidates to replace Eric Wedge. Aside from being a Latino and bilingual, two plusses in baseball, Acta brings little else. In my opinion, he's a gamble. But managing in the Major Leagues isn't like playing roulette in Vegas, so Shapiro should go for a manager whose resume looks a bit more substantial than Acta’s. I saw that candidate on Shapiro's initial list: Mike Hargrove. And maybe if the Astros can think about rehiring Phil Garner, the Indians could have brought Hargrove back. He certainly knew the organization and Cleveland, a city where he played and managed. If Hargrove, 60, had rekindled the passion inside, I would have welcomed the man back. Hargrove, however, wouldn’t have been my first choice anyway. Shapiro has been looking at another candidate as seasoned as Hargrove in Bobby Valentine, a man fresh from managing in Japan. Valentine, 59, has never lost his passion. When the Mets fired him in 2002, Valentine chased managerial openings elsewhere. Nobody rush to hire him, despite the fact he had won with the Rangers and with the Mets. His only opportunity came with the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan, and Valentine took it. He’s back from Japan now; he’s ready for another go at the bigs. Shapiro should give it to him. He should pick Valentine because he’s an experienced outsider, someone who can judge the ballclub without appearing to be, as Wedge did, Shapiro’s footman. The organization seems to have enough Shapiro lackeys in the front office to last it a decade. He won’t be hiring a lackey in the frank-talking Valentine, whose enthusiastic candor might not keep him on Shapiro’s list. Still, Valentine's glibness would be a wonderful change, though, from the reticence Wedge showed he favors. In Shapiro's delusional world, the Indians are a ballplayer here or there from being a contending club. The organization is filled with players with high ceilings – talent that just needs to be nurtured. To him, bad isn’t as bad as it seems; just disregard the fact the Tribe finished light-years away from .500 last season. Shapiro won’t be able to sell Valentine this fiction. Valentine won’t let him. He also won’t let his players dodge responsibility – to the team, to the community and to the media. Keep in mind that Shapiro isn’t necessarily going to pick a manager who will warm to the media; he’ll pick a manager who can lead an inexperienced and rebuilding ballclub. The fact his choice might be able to curry favor with the media could be a bonus. What he needs is somebody who isn’t inexperienced like Dodgers bench coach Don Mattingly, a rumored candidate. If Shapiro's choice happens to be Mattingly or Valentine or Acta, the Indians will be better for it. The organization (and its flaws) will certainly be more transparent than it ever was during the Wedge years.