Lazy Sunday with the President, v.2015
It’s everyone’s favorite time of year again (well,
my favorite time of year at least), as I was fortunate enough to have my annual
March talk with Indians team President Mark Shapiro earlier this week. Mark and
I usually talk at the team’s spring training facility in Goodyear, but owing to
some extenuating circumstances, I was unable to make my traditional pilgrimage to Arizona this winter. Still, he was gracious enough to take an hour out of
his very busy spring schedule to talk with me over the phone, and that’s the
next best thing.
Al
Ciammaichella: Looking at the offseason progression of the stadium, how excited
are you for the new Progressive Field experience in 2015?
Mark Shapiro: I’m extremely excited. That week I came home from spring
training, about a week ago, and walked the space, it struck me just how
dramatic the changes are, and I think just how unaware most fans are, that have
been coming to the ballpark for over 20 years, how different that area in
centerfield and rightfield is going to seem to them. How much more improved
it’s going to be, and how excited they’re going to be about the opportunity to
have new experiences in the ballpark.
AC:
The tickets are certainly a great deal. $13 and you get your first beer paid
for.
MS: Yeah, that special ticket that’s meant to really
activate the bar in the corner, and people that have more of an interest in
standing up and not necessarily having a fixed seat. We have a ton of standing
room, with drink rails that allow people to watch the game and move all around
in that rightfield bar.
AC:
I know it was a rough winter in Cleveland, is everything on schedule to be
completed by opening day?
MS: Remarkably, even with the winter we’ve had, at the
moment we’re on schedule. I haven’t looked at the weather, but if it stays
decent the rest of the way and we don’t get another big snowfall…but it’s
Cleveland, and it’s weather. Anytime you’re dealing in that realm, there’s some
unpredictability. I would say the one thing we’re certain of at this point is
that we will have substantial completion, and the majority of the project will
be done by opening day. The one thing I cannot tell you with certainty, because
there is no certainty when it comes to weather in Cleveland, is that it’ll be
totally complete. Just like when we moved into the ballpark 21 years ago there
were still things that had to be done during the first road trip. Small things
that were not complete.
AC:
Were there any ideas left on the drawing board when it came to that space?
Anything that you looked at doing but didn’t make it into the final plans?
MS: Absolutely. Any time that you do a project like
that it’s the financial realities of having to stay within a budget. You start
with the concepts. Start by researching the market, and testing it. Then you
take the concepts to paper and start looking at a bunch of alternatives. And
some of those alternatives that you love eliminate themselves because they’re
just too expensive and they would limit the scope of the project. So there were
plenty of things that I won’t dwell on that we considered doing that we did not
do. But overall, I’m extremely excited, extremely happy about how the project
looks when I look at it.
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| Photo Credit: Al Ciammaichella |
AC:
Shifting to the on-field product, Jose Ramirez came up last year, a guy who was
more of a utility guy in the minors. Played a lot of 2B, was on the same team
with Francisco Lindor a lot in the minors. Obviously Lindor is a special SS, so
Ramirez played a lot of 2B and some 3B. He came up last year and really
solidified the SS position at the major league level. Did you see him as a guy
who could come up and be that good of a defensive SS right away at such a young
age?
MS: Jose is an interesting guy. He’s a guy who’s not
conventional in much that he does. You can’t teach the game the way he plays
it. He’s got a great motor, incredible hands, good instincts, he picks great
hops. He’s fearless in the way he plays the game. He’s obviously got well-above
average speed. So he’s a guy that adds a dimension to our lineup and to our
team that we really haven’t had, and I think a jolt of youth and energy to our
team last year when he came up and did a great job.
AC:
Does having him at SS give you a little luxury as far as leaving Lindor down in
AAA to finish his development? You don’t have quite the same rush to promote
him as if there were a free agent hole at short.
MS: At this point, we’re looking at those guys
exclusive of each other. There may be a time when that doesn’t happen, but at
this point Francisco Lindor’s development path says he should be in AAA
completing his development and his foundation. Jose Ramirez, with his major
league debut last year, justifies his opportunity to be our everyday shortstop.
So although things can change; that’s the nature of professional sports and
major league baseball, at the moment their trajectory doesn’t impact each
other.
AC:
So, speaking of Lindor, I think all fans want to know, with this top-5 prospect
in all of baseball, what’s going to finish off his developmental curve? What
will you see that makes him ready to come up to Cleveland and compete?
MS: I think consistency. Continuing to build the
foundation of his routine and his preparation. I think the quality and
consistency of both his at bats and his preparation are probably the keys. He’s
got very limited time left in the minor leagues, and what he has, he has to use
to prepare himself to have a foundation to handle both the mental and physical
side up here. As a 21-year old there’s still some maturation both physically
and mentally that he’s going through.
AC:
So there’s no at bat threshold, certain amount of time you want for him in AAA
or anything; when he’s ready, he’s ready?
MS: Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve said it before, but
having seen it over decades, with players who are very good players, they set
the timeframe for you. You don’t have to make decisions on them. It becomes
very clear, very quickly that they’re not being challenged at the level they’re
at, and that they’re ready to contribute up here or at least transition up
here.
AC:
Another thing in the 2nd half of last season was the incredible run
that really the entire pitching staff put together. You tried to shore that up
this offseason by picking up Gavin Floyd; obviously that didn’t work out when
he re-injured his arm. Are you concerned at all about the starting pitching
depth, even with 7 or 8 guys competing for 5 slots in the rotation? Is that
something you wish you’d done more to address this offseason?
MS: Yeah, that’s why we signed Gavin Floyd. But the financial reality of the
parameters that we have and the reality of starting pitching being such an inefficient
market; I would point to this, Al…Brett Anderson, who hasn’t pitched more than
75 innings in the last four years got $10 million (from the Dodgers). Just stop
and ponder that for a moment. Brett Anderson hasn’t pitched more than 75
innings in the last four years and got $10 million. So we took a guy who we
thought was a little better risk than Brett, and gave him $4 million in the
hope that he could pitch some or all of the season for us in the rotation and
alleviate some depth concern and provide some veteran presence, all the while
knowing it was very high risk, but that’s the nature of starting pitching, free
agent starting pitching in particular. But we still have good options,
particularly the way TJ has been throwing the ball.
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| Photo Credit: Al Ciammaichella |
AC:
TJ is another guy I wanted to talk about. Did you see him coming up and
pitching that well? He probably pitched better in the major leagues last year
than he did at any stop in the minors on his way up. Is there anything in particular
that keyed that success at the major league level?
MS: You know, that’s a good question. He’s an
interesting guy to look at, because he’s not the prospect that came up and didn’t
struggle, he’s a guy that struggled, and I think it’s his struggles that helped
him to define both the pitcher he is and the mental approach he takes to the
game. So when I look at him, having a tough and unconventional path to the
major leagues, he’s a guy that was forced to confront some significant
challenges along the way. And I think those things helped him to define how he’d
be successful in both approach and his repertoire.
AC:
Speaking of struggles, you have three guys at the major league level that had
really tough years last year due to injury, three guys who you thought coming
into last season were really going to be key guys in Kipnis, Swisher and Bourn.
What are you looking for from those three guys this season? Do you see them as
being able to get back to the level they were at pre-2014?
MS: I’d probably separate Swish out from those other
two guys. But the one thing I can say about all three guys together, Al, is
that the upside with our club lies in those three players.
AC:
Right. There’s almost some course correction, some improvement, that you can hope
for out of those three if they are healthy:
MS: Right. And then shifting to Kip, talking to
every single player that I know about what they’ve gone through when they’ve
strained an oblique, particularly during spring training, that is an extremely,
extremely tough injury to battle back from. And in some ways it never truly
heals, particularly when you do it right at the beginning of spring training. I
think that impacted his swing, his mechanics. I would say among the things we’ve
seen in camp this spring, his play and his physical level of preparedness is
probably the most exciting thing I’ve seen this spring. I mean, he’s rifling
balls to left and right field, he’s ran extremely well.
AC:
Yeah, he’s going the other way better, and when he’s going the other way that’s
a sign he’s really going good.
MS: Yeah, I’d say that, and just hard contact. He’s
impacting the baseball, and running extremely well.
AC:
The competition in the AL Central this year…Chicago went out and got a lot
better this year, Detroit is probably slipping a little with losing Scherzer
and getting a little older, but what’s the challenge in the Central this year?
That’s a tough division to be in right now.
MS: It can pretty much be summed up as the best
division in baseball. I think there’s a lot of parity throughout the game but it’s
hard to argue that the Central isn’t the best division. There are four teams
that you can make a compelling case to win the division. The interesting thing
is that you can probably also say here are the flaws in those teams and the
reasons why they won’t win the division. But as you noted, Chicago may be the
most improved team in all of major league baseball, and they were probably a
lot better than most people realize last year as well. The Tigers, while they
could be termed as “declining” simply because of age, they’re declining from an
elite level where they were probably capable of winning 115 games. That’s
probably something people don’t realize there, different things have led to
them underperforming relative to their talent level over the last few years, so
they could easily go out and win 100 games this year. That’s how good they
still are. Kansas City, obviously, has some challenges that we fight. They’re a
very young, very talented core group of players, but they’ve also lost some
guys.
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| Photo Credit: Lianna Holub |
AC:
One good thing to look at is the 2014 draft. It’s being roundly accepted as one
of the best drafts in all of baseball, getting a guy like Bradley Zimmer that a
lot of people saw going in the top 10-15. Did you have a plan to get guys like
that, or did they just fall to you? How did that all work out?
MS: I think what we really try to challenge ourselves
to do is to have our org slotted as well as we can possibly slot it. Over the
years, probably over the past 5 or 6 drafts, we’ve gotten better each year at
understanding about how to position our board most effectively, and I think
that allows us to react to what happens in front of you without having to
target specific players. Our goal and our intent is to get the best player
available at the time we pick, each time we pick. There may be other variables like
signability that factor into it, particularly in later rounds, but initially we
just want to be in position to get the best player available. We have a set of
criteria that’s constantly evolving that allows us to slot the board that
factors in scouting information and every other piece of analytical data that
we can possibly get our hands on.
AC:
It has to be good to see guys like Zimmer and even Bobby Bradley, a kid who
came right out of high school, already fitting in spring training games at the
major league level, holding their own, showing that they belong there.
MS: Those are exciting guys. Both Zimmer and Bobby
Bradley…Bradley may be one of the most exciting high school position players
that I can remember. We’re excited about the draft. I’m hesitant to pay
attention to what people talk about, judging draft classes too early. Judging
draft classes should be 5 or 6 years later.
AC:
You see a big explosion, seems like every year around this time, of pitchers
going down with Tommy John, pitchers getting hurt, needing season-ending
surgery. Is there anything the organization is doing to try to protect
themselves against that? Obviously there’s no way to completely eliminate it,
but is there anything you’re doing to try and reduce arm injuries? Are you
avoiding young pitching prospects?
MS: No (not avoiding pitching prospects). We have
certain things we look at that are somewhat predictive in terms of ability to
stay healthy, ranging from arm action to delivery to usage…other physical
parameters. But they’re not perfect. Human beings are far from perfect. We’re
constantly seeking to learn and understand, there are adjustments kids have to
make to keep guys healthy once we get them. Matt Harvey is a good example. He’s
a guy we thought profiled to stay healthy and he still got hurt. Pitching is a
tough, tough area. It’s an area where you never feel completely confident and
secure. You do the best you can to control what you can control.
AC:
Right, there’s clearly no magic bullet that says “this guy will have TJ, and
this guy will never get hurt.”
MS: The likelihood with pitching is that at some
point guys are probably going to have some type of arm injury. There may be some
freaks of nature that don’t, but it’s an unnatural movement and motion, one
that gets repeated a lot over a career.
AC:
Seeing the opening of Cuba as a market, more so that before with defectors, as
both the Indians President and a guy on the competition committee, what do you
think of some of the big deals that are getting thrown to the Cuban guys that
are coming over? Do you ever see an international draft because of some of the
factors in the market down there?
MS: Well, it’s a little bit, probably,
Indians-centric of me as a judgement, but I’d like to see some adjustment that
allows access to that talent. As it’s currently being distributed, we are going
to be marginal to non-players in that area just because of the level of risk,
and that risk comes from lack of information. We just don’t know much about
these guys. Unless there’s information being illegally obtained, they’re being
signed largely from a tryout environment. I understand, and I’d probably take
that risk if I ran a large-market team, but we don’t have that luxury. It’s not
an area we can play in. We can’t risk tens of millions of dollars on players
that we have far less information on than players in the draft that cost a lot
less. So it’s just a very tough market for us to play in. I would like to see
something that allows access to that talent on a more proportional basis, that’s
not so market-based.
AC:
Does it at least offer you an opportunity, with the big-market guys paying the
Cuban players? The Red Sox can’t spend international money (bonus over $300k
per the CBA) next year. Does that give you a little more of a market share with
the Dominican, Venezuelan and Colombian kids?
MS: Slight. They’re going to do what they did this
year. It might free us up a little for that one year, but they’ve already spend
the money. For the next year maybe, maybe, for one team it takes them out of
it. But that’s just one team, so it’s not going to dramatically change it.
AC:
Looking at some of the excitement around the team this year, you have a lot of
national guys, ESPN, Baseball Prospectus, picking the Indians as a dark horse
for the AL pennant. Some guys picking you to win the Central despite that tough
competition we talked about earlier. Do you like being more of a dark horse or
in the favorite role?
MS: If I had my preference, I’d probably prefer to
fly under the radar. But I also like the credit, like seeing the credibility
generated by the way we’re going about our business. People are starting to
recognize the talent we have in our clubhouse, how we have some of the best
players in major league baseball on our team. I like to see that recognized.
But internally, very few people pay attention to that stuff. Our players
probably have no idea, other than that there’s been a little more attention
this spring.
AC:
Ok, I can’t possibly go an entire interview with the Indians team President
without talking about Yan Gomes. How happy are you with the contract that you
were able to sign him to, and how good does that look moving forward?
MS: You and I have talked about that a lot (laughs).
I love Yan. I love Yan the player, I love what he represents. He’s a winning
player, the kind of guy, the kind of player that I’d prefer to have represent
the Indians. The fact that we can control him, and the fact that he’s so happy
to be a part of the long-term plan here. I think it’s empowered a guy like him,
and Michael Brantley, to take even more of a leadership role here. Leadership
gets asserted in different ways by different guys, but those are both guys who,
the way they go about their business, is a form of leadership and is
inspirational in some ways. I’m excited to watch Yan continue to mature, and
there’s not much doubt at this point, already, that he’s one of the best
catchers in the American League.
AC:
Speaking of Brantley, his 2014 was one of the best seasons by an Indians
position player in recent years. Do we think that 2014 Brantley is the new
normal? Or is that going to be a little bit of an outlier for him, with him coming
back to earth a little bit?
MS: Obviously, there’s an analytical case to be made
that he will regress some. But I think what offsets some of the analytical
concern is knowing the guy. He’s a determined guy, extremely committed to his
level of preparation. So while I wouldn’t be surprised to see him regress some…but
look, guys like Kluber and Brantley, the years they had, some regression is not
unexpected, but that would not mean they had a bad year.
AC:
Thanks again so much, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me
again, and good luck this year.
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