Chase Utley, when he left Philadelphia, did not cease to exist.
Which is cool, if you like hard-nosed players who volunteer with animals and are the best players of World Series’ that they don’t even win. It’s bad if you’re a conflicted fan, torn by Chase’s general “bad boy” persona yet wordless, undeniable “good guy” twinkle.
YO ETHEL
— Justin Klugh (@justin_klugh) January 31, 2017
I like your style pic.twitter.com/nv5q53q60k
Yes, Jon Heyman was saying a little over a week ago that Chase would be picking his 2017 landing spot soon, and now Heyman is saying that spot might be the defending American League champion Indians, a team that, quite thankfully, is not the Atlanta Braves.
The Cleveland Indians, who have already made some surprising moves this winter, are said to be intrigued by free agent second baseman Chase Utley, though there would appear to be some impediments to a deal.
“Intrigued” like, they might want him to play for them, or “intrigued,” as in how Ethel is clearly intrigued by the moral grey area Chase represents? It’s got to be a mix. You can’t have one without the other. I’m sure Heyman gets into this in the article.
Last year, Utley hit .252 with 14 home runs in 138 games for the Dodgers. The second base market doesn’t have a lot going on, and L.A. decided they were a little heavy on the lefties, so Utley seemingly lost his job to the right-handed Dodger acquisition Logan Forsythe. Now, he is left wandering the countryside, bring his unique brand of charm/menace to small towns across the United States, with the occasional casualty.
The Indians already have an all-star at second base, however, with Jason Kipnis around. He likely doesn’t plan to lose his job to a 37-year-old looking for work, so if Utley were to land in Ohio, he’d be doing so in some sort of alternative role to his regular “starting second baseman” routine. Not really sure he’d be into that.
It is difficult to wait for Chase to come home, but we must be patient, as he will let us know when he is finished with baseball by disappearing in a very abrupt and disturbing way. No one will even notice he is gone until it is his turn to hit and everyone suddenly realizes they actually haven’t seen him for two and a half weeks. One guy on the team will swear he just handed him his glove, but the others will tell him that’s impossible, and he’ll go to his grave thinking that he must have lost his mind.