(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Welcome to Tribe Talk, where Bleacher Report's Tribe fans weigh in on the ups and downs of the Indians each week throughout the season.

This week we discuss how Kerry Wood inadvertently took the Indians for a ride with his laughably bloated contract, how Chris Gimenez, by contrast, isn’t really fooling anyone, and reminisce about our favorite ghosts of Indians past.

I would like to thank this week's participant, Dale Thomas, for his contribution.

This discussion is open to all, so please feel free to comment below and pitch in your thoughts on the questions we're addressing this week.

Go Tribe!

1. There is little dispute over whether Kerry Wood has been worth the $10 million contract he was signed to before the season started, but has he really been as bad as he's often made out to be?

Wood has had just 20 save opportunities this season and has converted 15 of them.

While Wood's 4.70 ERA is certainly nothing to brag about, it doesn't look so bad when compared to that of, for example, Brad Lidge, who has blown eight save opportunities, owns a very bloated 6.90 ERA, and for the record, is actually more expensive than Wood at $12 million.

So how bad (or good) is Kerry Wood? And how much is he to blame for the fact that his contract looks absurd now?

Is there any chance that perhaps the contract turned out to be a huge dud not because Wood has pitched all THAT poorly, but because the team has given him so few opportunities to earn his paycheck by providing just 20 save chances over the course of the season?

Samantha Bunten: I want to go to Vegas with Kerry Wood: He's either the luckiest guy on earth or he figured out how to beat the house. His contract is absurd. $10 million for a projected 34 save opportunities. Nice work if you can get it.

Perhaps instead of incessantly harping on the Dolans for the Indians' payroll, which is in fact very average, we should go after Mark Shapiro for making this boneheaded deal with Wood, which has sucked up such a huge percentage of said payroll.

But then again, maybe not. Who is really to blame for this is open to debate. Like so many other things that have gone wrong for the Indians this season, who would have ever guessed that Wood's ERA would be so bad, or that the team as a whole would give him so few opportunities to earn his money?

Depending on how you look at it, Wood's absurd contract is either everyone's fault or no one's.

Personally, I blame about a fourth of it on Wood, a fourth on the front office for making a deal this ridiculous, and the remaining half on the rest of the team for failing to create save situations for Wood.

If the offense can't score or the rest of the pitchers can't hold the game to within three, Wood never even gets a shot.

Take it a step further, and you have to consider that if Wood can't use the arm, it's going to get a little rusty, so even when he does get the opportunities, he won't be nearly as sharp as he would presumably have been, had he been able to keep the arm loose by closing on a consistent basis.

In the end though, no matter whose fault it is, Wood is being grossly overpaid.

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