While We’re Waiting…Andrew Sweat’s Concussions, Tribe Trade Needs, Kent State Builds

While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.

More on concussions in football, and what led Andrew Sweat to give up his shot with the Browns: “While that experience gave him signals that something serious could be wrong, Sweat brushed it aside during the winter and spring, hired an agent and awaited his NFL future. Not until an accidental bang to the head the day before minicamp did Sweat walk away from his boyhood dream. As fate would have it, Sweat bumped his head in the shower – a Doomsday location for Cleveland – at the Browns’ team hotel. Symptoms he had experienced for months returned, and that’s when Sweat knew it was time to concentrate on something else.” [Kyle Rowland/Eleven Warriors]

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What’s the Tribe’s biggest area of need heading into the deadline? “With apologies to left field, where there are at least a number of options, the biggest hole right now is at first base. Casey Kotchman simply isn’t cut out for the job—even after you account for the role that his low BABIP has played in his struggles and give him extra credit for his strong defense, he just doesn’t have what it takes to be a starting first baseman. The only other option the Indians have really considered this year is Jose Lopez, who is like Kotchman but with lower upside and worse fielding.” [Wahoo’s On First]

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Building something more at Kent State: “In a larger sense, though, a new set of expectations — and maybe a new reality — will follow this team and this program. Now that the Flashes kicked in what once seemed like an impenetrable door, their goal is to remember the way in next time.

Next year? Once every five years?

Those are questions without solid answers and questions that may not have seemed legitimate two weeks ago.” [Zac Jackson/Fox Sports Ohio]

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Continuing the search for a right-handed bat: “Cleveland would be far better served to take one last, long look at a guy like Matt LaPorta, who had very similar numbers to Guerrero in 2011. LaPorta had 11 homers and 53 RBI in 352 at bats compared to Guerrero’s numbers in 562 at bats.

The hope would be the Indians could work a trade for someone like Josh Willingham of the Twins or the Cubs’ Alfonso Soriano. Both are playing well and neither is past their prime. That is what the Indians need.

They need someone who can carry an offense for a stretch of games. They need someone with pop in the bat. Guerrero and Ramirez were great once and may be in the Hall of Fame some day. They should not wear a Cleveland Indians uniform this season.” [Craig Gifford/DidTheTribeWinLastNight?]

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More on moving past LBJ: “Simply put, LeBron’s Cavaliers are dead and buried, and Kyrie Irving’s Cleveland has taken its place. I’m not talking about selective memory or ignoring what happened, but willingly embracing the memory as a sort of Nietzschean way of letting the entire experience free us from the eternal return that is Cleveland fandom.

Rather than being blinded by anger and making the same mistakes all over again, the city has a chance to learn from it and build a team in its place – instead of cutting corners and relying on one all-world talent to dictate the circumstance.” [Martin Rickman/SB Nation Cleveland]