What Went Wrong?

Sitting in Pronkville on Wednesday with my buddy TC, we were trying to figure out what's gone wrong with the Indians. Citing the fact that the Indians roster of 2006 was nearly identical to that of the 2005 team (which won 93 games) with the obvious changes in LF (Michaels for Crisp), the rotation (Byrd for Millwood, Johnson for Elarton), and the bullpen (namely Mota for Howry), we wondered, “How is this team this bad?”

How do those changes, which don’t scream, “downgrade”, translate into a truly disappointing season? There’s a lot of questions, without any concrete answers; but let’s take a look at some of the things that have gone wrong and how this team sets up for 2007, which I still argue is pretty well.

The infield defense has been abysmal, but that infield remained unchanged, as did the catcher position – so how did ALL of these players suddenly regress defensively to such a degree that the Indians’ defense became painful to watch? It’s true that Boone was never a great defender, and it does look like Peralta’s range has lessened – but Broussard suddenly became a HUGE liability at 1B, and Victor (who has been, by all accounts, a competent backstop) allowed teams to run all over the Indians and lacked the energy that he once brought to the position.

Could Peralta have gained weight in the offseason, affecting his agility? Did Broussard decide to mail it in when the Indians didn’t give him the 1B job outright, instead bringing in Perez to form our good friend Benuardo? Is Victor nursing some injury, not serious enough to merit a trip to the DL; but one that limits his defensive ability? If you’ve seen Victor run the bases this year, he is notably slower than he was last year. He’ll never be mistaken for Ichiro on the basepaths, but he was thrown out at 1B on Wednesday AFTER the runner at 2B was safe on a potential GIDP!

Is it all on the defense? No chance. It certainly didn’t help, but you can’t blame a lost season on infield errors.

The bullpen was an obvious disaster as nobody could fill the Howry set-up role, even adequately. Mota, Betancourt, and Cabrera all came out as unmitigated disasters and, from that night in Baltimore, when Matty Miller and Rocky Betancourt hit the DL in the same INNING – it was all downhill. The bullpen became an open tryout for the likes of Guthrie and Slocum. In the meantime, the “savvy veterans” Graves and Sauerbeck proved themselves to be no longer of the ML-quality variety. That’s just about the whole bullpen blowing up, with the exception of what was the biggest preseason question mark, the Sticky One.

By the time the bullpen sorted itself out, with Carmona dominating, Brian Sikorski being picked off the scrap heap to contribute, Cabrera re-capturing his 2005 success, and even Jason Dangerously contributing – the season was done.

Sure, it could have played a role, but can the bullpen be fully blamed? No, teams with lesser bullpens have succeeded.

By the way - on Carmona - while watching the Miami Vice pilot last Saturday, I decided that Fausto's entrance music should be Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” because no song builds up anticipation that delivers with that first drum roll like that one.
Picture it – Collins’ voice comes over the sound system, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight, I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life” as the bullpen doors open.

But I digress.

Back to the matter at hand, it’s true that the offense has been inconsistent, but it’s been solid. It seems that they’ll score in double digits, and then go into hibernation for a few games. But you can’t argue with their overall numbers.

Same with the starting pitching – it’s been inconsistent to a degree, but solid overall.

What’s the conclusion? Unfortunately not much, outside of the fact that the 2005 Indians weren’t as good as their final record indicated and that the 2006 Indians aren’t as bad as their record indicates. The folks at Baseball Prospectus seem to agree with their statistically-driven Power Rankings on Monday, saying that the stats dictate that the Indians should be winning at a .524 clip, not losing at a .440 rate (the difference being a 53-48 record and a 44-56 record).

Who knows what it really is, as we can sit here and cry over the spilled milk on the table for the next two months.

Rather than doing that, I’d rather focus on the fact that I don’t think that this team is too far away from getting back to the results of last year.

Jim Leyland, who is enjoying his current status as baseball genius, said that his Pirates had a year similar the 2006 Tribe in 1989 when things just didn’t go right for a young, talented team. He said that the team used it as motivation to rattle off three straight divisional titles, then went further to say that the Indians have that kind of young talent. Could it have been a Lou Holtz-esque sound bite, where you praise your opponent? Sure, but Leyland doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy, huffing heaters in the tunnel, mostly looking like the crazy skinny guy you see at the end of the local bar, sucking down PBR cans, that you would NEVER mess with.

As we’ve said, the question marks for this team for next year are at 2B (where Belliard could be re-signed, or Super Joe Inglett could force his way into the plans like Coco did, just don’t count on it), a corner OF position (where with the addition of SSC, or as serial poster Rodells called him Big League Choo, has another ML-ready player to pick the right mix from; and a FA signing is still a distinct possibility), and the Bullpen (where the open tryouts will separate the wheat from the chaff).

That’s it. There aren’t as many holes or question marks as some people would have you believe.

Sizemore, Hafner, Martinez, Peralta, C.C., Lee, and Carmona are all still going to be the core.

Shoppach, Marte, Gutierrez, Inglett, Sowers, Cabrera, Mujica, Perez. Sipp, Choo, Garko, and those bullpen arms are all youngsters who have opportunity to develop into core players in some form.

Blake, Westbrook, and Byrd are all scheduled to be back to contribute their veteran leadership.

I also happen to believe that the money being saved with all of these moves WILL translate into some money being spent in the off-season, maybe not on Carlos Lee, and maybe on our own guys (like Lee or Pronk) – but the money will be spent.

The way that this team is being constructed is allowing greater flexibility with Blake and Inglett forming a stronger bench for next year and allowing the young core another year to mature.

I’m not sitting here with rose-colored glasses – the current incarnation of the Indians is painful to watch, trust me - I know that.

But to me, the future is still bright for this team (maybe not so bright that I have to wear Timbuk 3’s shades), but bright enough that I can still see the light at the end of tunnel.