Cleveland Indians

The Indians have called a press conference for 1:30 pm today, where they are expected to announce that GM Mark Shapiro will move to a new role as team president and Assistant GM Chris Antonetti will take over the GM role, effective after the 2010 season.

While the news has not been officially confirmed, it is expected to be announced at today's press conference.

It's been a rather quiet offseason for the Cleveland Indians on a national scale, but that doesn't mean there haven't been rumblings about the Tribe since the end of October.

The hiring of Manny Acta and his coaching staff has energized the fan base in one way or another.

The other day, Baseball America released their Top 10 Indians Prospects for 2010 .

This announcement is always fun, because not only does it list the best up-and-comers in the organization, but it also looks at the best tools and tries to predict a future lineup. In this case, BA looks ahead to the year 2013.

Paula Volpoff loves the Cleveland Indians.

She suffered through the early 1950s, when great Cleveland teams were edged out by the slightly better, or as she says, "luckier," Yankees.

Volpoff vividly recalls what happened to the Yankees in 1954.

It’s not often that we Cleveland fans have something to be proud of.

We’re the Mistake on the Lake; the city so dirty that our river caught fire, and so stupid that we didn’t learn our lesson the first time it happened.

A baby born the day the Indians last won the World Series would now be 61 years old. It’s been 56 seasons since we've had an MVP trophy to put on the mantle.

Pots atop the Hot Stove have been boiling furiously over the past few days.

Jason Bay signed with the Mets. Adrian Beltre signed with the Red Sox. Matt Holliday is nearing a contract with the Cardinals. The market’s best offerings are suddenly disappearing.

Lost in all this was the news about the Cleveland Indians.

After three months of ranking among the most stagnant teams in baseball, the Tribe has quietly signed two free agents in 24 hours.

Well, it's January 1st, and as always, people around the world are resolving to better themselves in the year ahead.

Some people will resolve to lose weight, some people will resolve to think more about others, and some people will resolve to read my articles more often (I hope).

The principle doesn't apply very well to baseball; if executives thought about improving their teams only once a year, they'd be fired pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, here are my suggestions for how Larry Dolan, Manny Acta, and Mark Shapiro could better the Cleveland Indians in the year ahead.

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