Goodbye Bryan "Geek" Shaw

Indians fans knew this was coming eventually and now, on December 12, the details have emerged. almost five years to the day after he was traded to Cleveland from the Arizona Diamondbacks, free agent Bryan Shaw has agreed to a three-year deal with the Colorado Rockies, pending a physical. according to Buster Olney, Shaw is expected to earn around $9 million annually. congrats.💰

whenever a player who's been on the team for a long period of time is traded or becomes a free agent and then signs elsewhere, i typically write a goodbye blog containing a few kind words and maybe a nice memory or two. i haven't done one of these in a while, but Shaw's departure is certainly worthy of a formal farewell.

Shaw has been a vital member of the Tribe's bullpen since 2013. in each of his five seasons with us, he made at least 70 regular season appearances and pitched no less than 64.0 innings. in the last four years, he appeared in at least 74 games. the right-hander set a single-season franchise record in 2014 by pitching in an MLB-best 80 games. he was also tied for the most appearances in baseball this past season with 79. basically, all the guy does is pitch.

more importantly, he never gets hurt. you would think that all these outings in consecutive years would catch up with him sometime, but Shaw never