Whatever, the organization that continually strives for mediocrity continues to fall woefully short. Which is why we've decided to distract ourselves from the putridity by creating a roster of non-football-playing professional athletes who would immediately make the Browns better. That's not hyperbole.
Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2010.
Take your hat off to the Angels for the way they weathered the dual gut punches of Nick Adenhart's death and a raft of early-season injuries to advance all the way to the ALCS this year. The biggest reason why was an offense that defied its reputation for playing small ball all the way to a franchise-record 883 runs. That, in turn, led to a much better than expected record and helped hide the fact that their pitching staff was fairly average.
That makes two straight years where the Angels wildly outperformed expectations, and general manager Tony Reagins will be hard-pressed to put together a team that does it a third time. Chone Figgins, Vladimir Guerrero and John Lackey are all free agents who figure to have a lot of callers in a weak year for free talent, which means that the team will likely be dealing with at least one significant change to their core group.
With the Rangers on the rise, the AL West could be ripe for a changing of the guard in 2010.
CHICAGO -- On a day this week when the stock market had one of the encouraging spikes investors have enjoyed more frequently over the past few months, Kenny Williams let out a sarcastic cheer for what it meant to baseball.
"Let's go, let's party," he said. "We've got cash again."
Then, the White Sox general manager quickly returned to reality, at least the version of reality that he and his colleagues have been describing this week at the GM Meetings.
"I don't think it works that way," he said. "We might need to see six months of recovery before we buy into that. We need an advertiser or a sponsor or two to come back to us."
Editor's Note: FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher contributed to this report
CHICAGO -- The Reds' need to slash payroll, according to a major league source, could lead them to explore trading second baseman Brandon Phillips as well as right-handers Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang.
Cincinnati's 2009 payroll was about $71 million. General manager Walt Jocketty said during a break Tuesday at the GM Meetings that he "might" have to move some high-salaried players to meet the 2010 goal.
"We're going to probably have less to spend this year than we have in the past," Jocketty told FanHouse. "It just depends on how [ticket] sales go this offseason."
Considering that the Phillies made a few changes to their lineup in 2009 after winning a World Series, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that the 2010 version of the team will look a bit different as well. It was announced by the team on Sunday that they would not be picking up the option on third baseman Pedro Feliz, who will now become a free agent.
This does not mean that Feliz won't be back with the Phillies next season, it just means that he won't be back at the price of $5.5 million. General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. did say that he wouldn't rule out re-signing Feliz this winter in the team's official statement regarding the Feliz option.
NEW YORK -- Of course it would end this way, in such classic, expected fashion. What, you didn't have Jerry Hairston Jr. scoring the winning run for the Yankees in the bottom of the 13th inning, after the Angel infield completely lost its heads? Join the club with millions of other baseball fans who watched Saturday's American League Championship Series melt into Sunday morning, and still aren't sure how and why this astonishing Game 2 concluded as it did.
NEW YORK -- They could have tossed aside their mittens and shunned their wool coats, that's how blistering hot the cozy confines of the new Yankee Stadium felt now that CC Sabathia had everything under control. It's been quite awhile since this corner of the Bronx has rocked with so much confidence and rolled with such delightful expectations, but that's what happens when the ace doesn't sweat.
Up on their feet, banging whatever or whoever stood near, tens of thousands of Yankee fans rose as one and emptied their lungs in rapturous unison: CC! CC! CC! It wasn't just that Sabathia was blowing through Angel hitters with shocking ease; no, it was so much more. It was the eighth inning and he was still throwing ridiculous heat, his fastball kissing the inside corner of the plate, his slider hypnotizing the batters from Southern California until it looked as if they were swinging at the big lefty's stuff with greased-up surfboards.
In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down each of the playoff teams from a scouting perspective.
There are a lot of reasons that the Angels lead baseball in team batting average. Beyond the general fact that they are just loaded with quality hitters, they are loaded with hitters that are as comfortable hitting off-speed pitchs as they are the fastball. To shut down these hitters, you need to attack with power stuff and aggression. They thrive on jumping on pitches early in the count and forcing pitchers to go to secondary offerings before they want to.
By not allowing the pitcher that first-pitch strike, the Angels are creating a great deal of discomfort and taking him out of his rhythm. If you run out a pitcher with merely average stuff, Los Angeles has the approach to handle changing speeds.
But besides his fine season -- 89 runs scored, 96 RBI, .823 OPS -- Abreu seems to have passed on his patience at the plate to the rest of his Angels teammates.
"He's got the younger players understanding patience isn't a bad thing," Chone Figgins told FanHouse. "It's not about not being aggressive, but being patient, getting a pitch to hit. There's nothing wrong with being 1-1 and hitting, or 1-2, or 2-2.
"It's not something simple to do, but I think we did a good job of it in spring training and have tried to bring it into the season and have so far done a good job."
Footprints in the Snow
Editor's Note: FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher contributed to this report
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NEW YORK -- They could have tossed aside their mittens and shunned their wool coats, that's how blistering hot the cozy confines of the new Yankee Stadium felt now that 
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