Attending to a Lazy Sunday

After spending the last 2 days ripping up carpet and refinishing hardwood floors, it’s time to fire up some brain activity as my body can’t take much more. As the terms “tack cloth”, “80 grit” and “polyurethane” leave my brain slowly over the day, let’s get going on a Lazy Sunday with Spring Training still in its infancy and on a topic more compelling than what one week of Spring Training games can offer.
And with that, we’re off…

Just to present a quick synopsis of the items of importance from Goodyear, the Indians are undefeated and Asdrubal’s out for a week with a g-g-groin injury while Kerry Wood fights off his usual Spring soreness. If you need to play catch-up or need some insight as to what’s happening at camp, Terry Pluto (as usual) hits on the high points, writing that the back-end of the rotation “battle” is progressing precisely as expected (here, at least) and Rusty Branyan’s balky back could open the door for the assumed alignment of Brantley-LF/LaPorta-1B that seemed so likely way back when.

With those pleasantries out of the way, let’s launch headlong into today’s topic, starting with a great piece from Joel Hammond of Crain’s Cleveland Business, with a hat tip to Vince Grzegorek at “’64 and Counting” in a piece that passes along word that the prospects for selling out even Opening Day are tenuous...yikes. Back to Crains and the matter at hand, Hammond’s article examines how the three major sports teams in Cleveland are adapting to the economy as well as to what their expectations are for the future of their attendance.

While the Cavaliers and Browns have clearer futures (for differing reasons), the current Indians do not fall into the category of “Cleveland’s Mistress” the way that the current Cavs do or “Cleveland’s Spouse”, the way that the Browns always have. The Indians, by virtue of the success of the Cavs and the perpetual support of the Browns, find themselves in a precarious position as they enter their second rebuild/reload/whatever in the past decade and their ticket sales reflect that:
“The Indians have adjusted downward their sales goals for this year after a 65-win season in which attendance fell 17.6% from 2008.

“They’re most vulnerable because of their ticket price point,” said Cleveland State economist Ned Hill. “The Cavs and Browns draw the more serious fan, while the Indians draw more pure entertainment dollars. That entertainment dollar goes to movies, dinner, the bingo table and now gambling.”

The Indians, though, are undeterred, citing improvement in attendance when they’ve won: In 2005, when the Indians won 93 games and fell just short of a playoff berth, attendance jumped 11% from the year before; in 2007, when the Indians were one win away from the World Series, 14% more fans bought tickets than in 2006. That’s nothing like the 455 straight sellouts of the mid-1990s, but it’s nothing at which to sneeze, either.

The whole piece is worth a read, even if I’m regrettably not linking until nearly a month after it was written, as it puts some hard data on Northeast Ohio’s ability to support sports teams, but I’ll get to that a little later.

First off, let’s use Hammond’s piece, and specifically the part that the Indians “are undeterred, citing improvement in attendance when they’ve won” as a jumping off point to introduce a bit of heavy analysis done by Sky Andrechek of Baseball Analysts, who did a comprehensive study examining “What Puts Fan The Seats”.

For the study, Andrechek used data from as far back as the 1950s to analyze attendance for each team and how attendance was affected by winning percentage, previous year’s performance, playoff berths, new stadiums, and expansion teams. Since the new stadium and expansion team aspects haven’t applied for quite some time, let’s start off with Andrechek’s analysis on the effect of winning percentage on a team’s attendance:
The average .500, non-playoff team that does not have a new park or any other advantages draws about 24,500 fans. Every extra game won adds about 300 fans per game. Of course, the relationship is not linear, but that’s an approximate estimate. All else being equal, a .400 team will draw about 20,100 fans, while a .600 team will draw 29,900 - difference of about 10,000 fans per game. Obviously, winning teams draw more fans and the effect is quite large.

Starting from there, let’s see if these numbers have held up over the last 7 seasons in Cleveland, beginning with the first full season after the Colon deal:
2003 Attendance – 21,358 (24th in MLB) - .420 Winning Percentage
2004 Attendance – 22,400 (25th in MLB) - .494 Winning Percentage
2005 Attendance – 24,861 (24th in MLB) - .574 Winning Percentage
2006 Attendance – 24,666 (25th in MLB) - .481 Winning Percentage
2007 Attendance – 28,448 (21st in MLB) - .593 Winning Percentage
2008 Attendance – 27,192 (22nd in MLB) - .500 Winning Percentage
2009 Attendance – 22,492 (25th in MLB) - .401 Winning Percentage
If Andrechek asserts that “a .400 team will draw about 20,100 fans, while a .600 team will draw 29,900”, he’s not far away from where the Indians’ attendance finished in 2007 (28,448 with a .593 winning percentage) and in 2003 (21,358 with a .420 winning percentage) or 2009 (22,492 with a .401 winning percentage). Using those numbers, the lows don’t go quite as low as Andrechek’s findings suggest they should have in 2003 or 2009 (though we’ll see about 2010) when the team is losing nor as high as they “should have” when the team was winning, most notably in 2007.

The attendance generally fell in line with what the study found based on the criteria of winning percentage, with the outlier happening in 2008. In that year, the team that finished the season at .500 outdrew Andrechek’s assertion that “the average .500, non-playoff team that does not have a new park or any other advantages draws about 24,500 fans” as an average of 27,192 people attended the 2008 games.

The reason for that is one that Andrechek addresses in two parts, one having to do with the attendance following a season in which the team won at a .600 winning percentage and following a season in which the team made the playoffs. Starting off with the “previous year winning percentage” (WPCT) portion, Andrechek writes:
As you might expect, the team WPCT from the year before also has a very large effect. This effect is not as large, but a .500 team who was a .400 team the year before draws 22,700, while a .500 team who was a .600 team the year before draws 26,400. This “year before” effect makes sense. At the beginning of the season, fans don’t really have an idea if their team will be good, so it makes sense that they use last year's performance as a guide. The previous season’s success draws fans back to the park, even if that success isn’t repeated the following year.

Putting this back in the context of the Indians’ attendance in the 2000s, the 2004 team finished with a .494 winning percentage after the 2003 team finished with a .420 winning percentage and drew an average of 22,400 people, a mere 300 per game less than Andrechek’s findings predict. The 2008 season (winning percentage of .500) on the heels of the 2007 season (winning percentage of .593) saw an average of 27,192, above the 26,400 that the study predicts in terms of expected attendance.

The reason for that bump (and not the one in other years) is obvious as Andrechek examines the impact that making the playoffs the previous year has on attendance. He states that “making the playoffs the year before raises a .500 team's attendance by about 3,000 fans per game - a major boost.” Thus, if the attendance for the 2008 season (.500 winning percentage) was 27,192 and the study asserts that a .500 team generally draws 24,500 people, the numbers are right about spot-on.

What’s surprising to me is that the Indians did not get a perceivable leap in attendance after the 2005 and 2007 seasons on the surface, or at least the bump that may have been in their expectation. However, the numbers for each season actually fall right in line with what the expectations for attendance should be based on their performance and accomplishments on the field from Andrechek’s study.

Obviously, the club would like to see the attendance jump higher than what the findings of Andrechek findings assert they should do, but the attendance numbers over the past seven years might ultimately be what the Indians are looking at in terms of expected attendance.

It’s been pointed out that the lack of consistency in winning is a major factor as the Indians were never able to build on their success from one season to the next. To that end, the one issue that the Indians have unquestionably been sabotaged was their slow starts. However, it is worth mentioning that the average home attendance in 2008 (just after the ALCS appearance) was 25,240 (58% capacity filled at Progressive Field) from the Home Opener until the beginning of June in their first 32 home games, meaning that the crowds were not showing up en masse because of the ALCS appearance and prior to the trade of CC or while the bottom dropped out.

As a quick aside here (and to debunk the notion that “activity” in an off-season generates more fan interest), the average home attendance in 2009 – the season after the Indians signed Kerry Wood to the 10th largest contract, per annual salary, in the off-season) – was 22,453 (52% capacity filled at Progressive Field) from Opening Day to the end of May in their first 25 home games.

But I digress…the most surprising aspect of applying these numbers to the performance and attendance of the Indians over the past 7 years is that Andrechek’s findings look to be consistent with the amount of people going through the turnstiles at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario…and yet, the highest the Indians ranked in MLB in that 7-year stretch is 21st in MLB in 2007 instead of closer to the middle of the pack.

For a possible explanation on that, we go back to the excellent article from Joel Hammond in Crain’s, in as much that the Northeast Ohio area may be incapable of supporting three teams in the major sports. Obviously, the conclusions of the study that Hammond cites shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone with a good sense of the dwindling population in Northeast Ohio as “the TPI (Total Personal Income) needed to support the city's three sports teams at $160.4 billion — baseball at $86.7 billion, football at $37.6 billion and basketball at $36.4 billion annually — for a huge disparity” due to the fact that Cleveland’s TPI is “only” $83.2 billion.

Why is this all relevant now?
As most of us have now received the letter to tell us to anticipate another letter with our Census information (the US government…like a finely-tuned machine), let’s just examine the Census data for the city of Cleveland for the last 50 years:
1960 Census – 876,050 people (8th largest city in US)
1970 Census – 750,903 people (10th largest city in US)
1980 Census – 573,822 people (18th largest city in US)
1990 Census – 505,616 people (23rd largest city in US)
2000 Census – 478,403 people (33rd largest city in US)
2010 Census Estimate – 433,748 people (41st largest city in US)

I know that those numbers simply relate the population of the city of Cleveland proper and that the Combined Statistical Area of Cleveland-Akron-Lorain still ranks as the 15th largest in the US, but that doesn’t hide the fact that the area is shrinking and the obvious effect on the Indians is that there have to be MAJOR concerns about the Indians’ ability to draw in 2010, much less into the future.

How much of a concern is it?
That brings us to the reason that this whole attendance examination becomes interesting as the recent article from Tom Verducci introduced the idea of “floating” re-alignment. If you’re confused by the term, “floating” re-alignment would mean that “teams would not be fixed to a division, but free to change divisions from year-to-year based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not.”

If you parse through the whole concept, the idea ostensibly boils down to just showcasing the big-market teams to increase attendance (and revenue) for non-divisional teams that generally wouldn’t play them very often because of the unbalanced schedule instead of attempting to legitimately level the playing field.

Yeah…pick your chin up off the floor as here’s how Verducci presented the idea in concrete terms:
One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight.

Really…this is the solution that MLB is proposing for narrowing the gap in competitive balance to find, as Verducci writes “a work-around to the Boston-New York axis of power in the AL East” because “in the 15 seasons during which the wild-card system has been in use, the Red Sox and Yankees have accounted for 38 percent of all AL postseason berths.”

Forget just going back to a balanced schedule…this concept gained “strong support” among committee members?
Lest you were wondering who voiced that “strong support”, here’s the list of the 14 committee members:
Tony La Russa - St. Louis Cardinals
Jim Leyland - Detroit Tigers
Mike Scioscia - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Joe Torre - Los Angeles Dodgers
Andy MacPhail - Baltimore Orioles
Terry Ryan - Minnesota Twins
John Schuerholz - Atlanta Braves
Mark Shapiro - Cleveland Indians
Chuck Armstrong - Seattle Mariners
Paul Beeston - Toronto Blue Jays
Bill DeWitt - St. Louis Cardinals
Dave Montgomery - Philadelphia Phillies
Frank Robinson
George Will

And maybe now we start to come full circle on this as the committee proposing this (with “strong support” includes the man who will be stepping up from his GM post to a more business-related position in an attempt to maximize revenue after this year.

Do you not think that Shapiro knows that the Indians averaged 30,065 “fans” at the 4 Yankees games in 2009 and 21,514 at the other 77 games?

If this is the “solution”, what does that tell you in terms of expectations for ever seeing a more level playing field?

Ultimately, it means that nothing within the structure of MLB is going to change anytime soon and these small-to-mid-market teams are attempting to maximize revenue and to capitalize at their gates when they go through the down cycles of their circular tear down/rebuild existences. These “cycles” are the new reality of MLB and, if a team like Cleveland is not going to generate revenue in those down cycles through their gate (nor should they if they aren’t winning), then you start to see the rationale behind this, as flawed as it may be in that it doesn’t solve anything and only exacerbates the competitive balance issue at hand.

Consider what Shapiro told Tyler Kepner in a piece for the New York Times:
“What we try to do is to aggressively manage the cycles,” Shapiro said. “Take that as the underlying premise, that cycles, as our market has evolved, are a given. It’s not New York, it’s not Boston; there aren’t the resources to artificially go through the cycles. We’re going to have them. What you’re trying to avoid is what’s occurred in similar markets, where you go into the down cycle and you’re unable to get out.”

Kepner then continues on his own regarding the “down cycles” in “similar markets” when he points out the struggles of other small-market teams:
The Pittsburgh Pirates have had 17 consecutive losing seasons, a major league record. The Baltimore Orioles have had 12, the Cincinnati Reds 9, the Royals 6.

As a quick aside here, anyone else notice that those four once-proud franchises captured 7 of the 16 World Series flags from 1970 to 1985 and have won one (CIN in 1990) World Series since then?

Even if the Indians’ attendance per game is going to fluctuate between 20,000 and 30,000, depending largely on the success of the team, that may be where the Indians are going to sit for the foreseeable future. Where does this leave us for expectations for the 2010 attendance?

Not good…and obviously a fast start would help to generate some interest (you hear that Manny?), though it is likely that the length of the NBA playoffs (and the assumed participation of the Cavs in said playoffs) would affect attendance and interest until the end of the Cavaliers season.

So, a fast start is probably going to have to continue until June or so to legitimately generate enough interest in this team out outpace last year’s average attendance of 22,492 people. While PECOTA has now amended their projections for the 2010 season and now project the Indians to finish 84-78, with the Indians’ offense projected to score the 5th most runs in the AL while allowing the 10th most runs in the AL, one would have to hope that a majority of those wins are going to come in April, May, and June – if only to generate interest in a team that isn’t generating much local interest just three weeks away from Spring Training.

Maybe the Indians surprise some people and finish around where PECOTA has them pegged for, not unlike the 2004 season (remember that we’re still attempting to compare the two seasons). It should be noted that the average game attendance for a .500 team in the 2004 was 22,400 people…or a little less than 100 fewer people per game than what the Indians drew last year.

It could be a long summer down at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario and the longer it gets, the lonelier it might become.

Six-to-Seven Year Itch

Now embarking on the first full season since the latest rebuild/reload/whatever began in earnest last July, the comparison as to where the current Indians team finds themselves on the path that (hopefully) leads back to contention is both inevitable and painful, particularly considering that the previous tear down/build up happened so recently and ended with unfulfilled expectations. Nevertheless, the Indians find themselves rebuilding again, attempting to find that mix of players that will mature at the same time, with injuries and regressions minimized in an attempt to outwit a flawed system.

While other MLB teams can build out from a strong core, the demarcation line between how a certain percentage of teams can build for the future against how the rest of the teams are left to search for these windows of contention is not lost on the Indians. You know that the saturation point on how the structure of MLB has become common knowledge when even players are surmising the situation as Grady Sizemore did when he said, “I think it happens in 95 percent of the teams. Four or five teams in the league don’t go through that. You have to deal with it and play through it. You can’t control anything else. You only worry about what you can control.”

Regardless, the Indians are attempting to once again shorten that “rebuilding” period and the 2010 season should provide some clues as to where the Indians are in the timeframe of legitimately contending again. The immediate comparison is to the 2003 and the 2004 seasons, as they represented teams not quite ready to compete for the division, but trending in the right direction, with varying degrees of trending. Since this was something that was touched on back during the “All Bets Are Off” guest-hosting and fleshed out a little bit in the Rotational preview of Dave Huff and Aaron Laffey (and how each compare now to Lee and Westbrook going into the 2004 season), I thought it would be interesting to try to compare what the Indians team looked like going into the 2004 season, with ages and career numbers to that point only posted, in an attempt to get a better sense of where this 2010 team is on the rebuilding ladder.

Back in 2004, the Indians were famously under the clock to say that the team would contend in 2005, a mere three years after the rebuild began when Bartolo Colon found himself in the Great White North, so the 2004 season represented a big hurdle that they had to clear on the path from “young” to “respectable” with the idea that the contention would come in 2005…as they had “promised”.

Attempting to remember what the feelings and expectations were prior to the 2004 season aren’t as easy as jumping into the Silver Delorean, though the cover of the 2004 Media Guide offer a clue as to who the Indians (or at least their media relations staff) were looking at as the bedrocks for the next Cleveland contender. Yes, that’s Jason Davis and Jody Gerut and Milton Bradley (who would never make out of Spring Training in 2004, traded to Los Angeles before the season in the infamous “Taxi Cab” ride after butting heads with The Atomic Wedgie) on the cover with Omar and CC in the foreground, ahead of the black-and-white pictures of the most beloved Indians (because of public perception, not performance) of the “Era of Champions” – Charlie, Sandy, and Kenny.

Generally, we have little way of knowing what to expect in 2010, taking out what we know now about certain players, what was known about these guys prior to the 2004 season even getting underway?

Starting off, looking at the ages for the year indicated and career OPS prior to the season for each position is telling:
C
2004 – 25 years old, .688 career OPS
2010 – 24 years old, .771 career OPS

1B
2004 – 27 years old, .737 career OPS
2010 – 34 years old, .822 career OPS

2B
2004 – 29 years old, .741 career OPS
2010 – 24 years old, .708 career OPS

SS
2004 – 37 years old, .695 career OPS
2010 – 24 years old, .766 career OPS

3B
2004 – 30 years old, .709 career OPS
2010 – 28 years old, .756 career OPS

LF
2004 – 32 years old, .791 career OPS
2010 – 25 years old, .750 career OPS

CF
2004 – 24 years old, .665 career OPS
2010 – 27 years old, .851 career OPS

RF
2004 – 26 years old, .830 career OPS
2010 – 27 years old, .887 career OPS

DH
2004 – 27 years old, .795 career OPS
2010 – 33 years old, .921 career OPS
Kind of crazy to look at how inexperienced and unaccomplished some of those 2004 regulars were without adding names to the ages and numbers, isn’t it?

Before going forward on this, it should be noted that one of those positions is filled by the same player, an astonishing fact considering that the separation between the two teams is merely six years and that the Indians actually achieved success in a few of those six years, meaning that the turnover shouldn’t be that pronounced.

Nevertheless, while I hate those position-by-position “analysis” pieces that come out before every playoff series (2007 ALCS – Joe Borowski vs. Jonathon Papelbon…Advantage – RED SOX), it’s often forgotten that the 2004 team, that finished 80-82 and flirted with 1st place as late as August, was not exactly full of known quantities much less established stars.

It’s easy to look back at that 2004 team with today’s knowledge and see a young Victor break out in his first full year and see a 27-year-old Travis Hafner show the first signs of being Pronk, just as it is interesting to look back at a team that “boasted” one regular position player under the age of 25 in Coco Crisp (24 in 2004).

As inexperienced and unaccomplished as some of those guys were heading into the 2004 season, it did represent the year that a few principals of the offense unquestionably broke out with more on the way as a 21-year-old Grady received 159 plate appearances late in the 2004 season and a 22-year-old Jhonny Peralta sipped an MLB cup of coffee during the season after getting a look in 2003. However, that 2004 team was largely (with a few notable exceptions like Victor) full of mainly fair-to-middling prospects and veterans who were holding the place for younger players or younger players getting their first extended chance in MLB.

Some took the opportunity and ran with it as they began to establish themselves as legitimate MLB stars (Martinez and Hafner), some showed flashes of promise that proved to be just flashes (Broussard and Gerut), and some went elsewhere when the team had exhausted their usefulness (Belliard and Lawton).

What does that mean for what 2010 holds in store for us?
Who knows, but the more in-depth comparison at what those players looked like prior to the 2004 season and what the current assumed group of regulars looks like today is more than a little revealing.

Catcher
Victor Martinez’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.288 BA / .343 OBP / .346 SLG / .688 OPS in 210 PA

Lou Marson’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.262 BA / .355 OBP / .415 SLG / .771 OPS in 76 PA

This isn’t really a fair comparison to start off as Martinez’s 2004 season (when he was 25) was the one in which the highly-touted catching prospect put himself onto the map by posting a line of .283 BA / .359 OBP / .492 SLG / .851 OPS in 591 PA. Marson (23 this year) falls more in line with the Josh Bard (circa 2003) placeholder with Carlos Santana playing the role of Vic the Stick, perhaps as early as this summer. Marson likely factors into the Josh Bard role going forward as well as Bard served as the placeholder, then cheap backup catcher, before finally being traded as part of the Crisp-Marte deal as his usefulness with the team had decreased.

First Base
Ben Broussard’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.247 BA / .308 OBP / .430 SLG / .737 OPS in 549 PA

Rusty Branyan’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.234 BA / .331 OBP / .491 SLG / .822 OPS in 2,824 PA

It is often forgotten that back when the 2004 season was just beginning, Ben Broussard was seen as a viable, if not spectacular, 1B in MLB just in need of some regular exposure to MLB pitching. While his 2004 season (in which he was 27) represented his high-water mark as a player, posting a line of .275 BA / .370 OBP / .488 SLG / .878 OPS in 485 PA, Broussard was a relative unknown going into the season, unlike Branyan (34 this year), who is more than a known quantity, whether that knowledge elicits hatred or curiosity.

Second Base
Ronnie Belliard’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.266 BA / .343 OBP / .398 SLG / .741 OPS in 2,435 PA

Luis Valbuena’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.249 BA / .300 OBP / .408 SLG / .708 OPS in 452 PA

Whereas both Martinez and Broussard were players who emerged from the farm system, Belliard was seen as more of a placeholder in 2004 until Brandon Phillips could eventually assume the mantle of “2B of the Present and Future”, a crown that would never rest on his head in Cleveland. Belliard, who was 29 in 2004, came to the Indians and posted a line of .282 BA / .348 OBP / .426 SLG / .774 OPS in 663 PA. Valbuena enters the 2010 season as a 24-year-old, 5 years younger than Belliard was in 2004, with the idea that he is going to be given a chance (and a long leash) to establish himself as the new “2B of the Present and Future”, a title that may not still be his when the season ends.

Shortstop
Omar Vizquel’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.273 BA / .340 OBP / .356 SLG / .695 OPS in 8,246 PA

Asdrubal Cabrera’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.287 BA / .355 OBP / .411 SLG / .766 OPS in 1,185 PA

Yes, the now-24-year-old Asdrubal has posted higher career numbers in his first 3 seasons than Omar did in his first 15 seasons. The Indians new lead-off hitter actually has the same amount of seasons with an OPS+ over 100 (2) in three seasons as Vizquel does (2) in 21 seasons. That’s not meant to besmirch the legacy of Vizquel (who posted a .291 BA / .353 OBP / .388 SLG / .741 OPS in 651 PA in 2004 as a 37-year-old, in what has been the 3rd best offensive season he’s compiled) as much as it is an attempt to put the level of success that Cabrera has already accomplished into perspective. If Cabrera posted a line similar to Vizquel’s 2004 season, it would come off as a disappointment. Cabrera is among the Indians’ best hitters and, at the age of 24 with nearly 1,200 MLB PA under his belt, he may still just be scratching the surface.

Third Base
Casey Blake’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.253 BA / .310 OBP / .399 SLG / .709 OPS in 746 PA

Jhonny Peralta’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.266 BA / .331 OBP / .425 SLG / .756 OPS in 3,456 PA

Peralta enters the 2010 season in a position not unlike how Blake came into the 2004 season, as a player attempting to prove that he should be in the Indians’ long-term plans. Blake “won” the Indians 2003 3B job out of Spring Training as a 29-year-old with 125 MLB PA (still think that 2010 is close to 2003?) and used the regular AB given to him in Cleveland (specifically in 2004, when he posted a line of .271 BA / .354 OBP / .486 SLG / .839 OPS in 668 PA as a 30-year-old) to establish himself as a solid, if underappreciated, all-around contributor to a good team. Peralta goes into 2010 fighting for his life in the organization, as most have written him off as an inconsistent “is-what-he-is” player, with his club option for 2011 certainly looking unlikely to be picked up. Over his up-and-down career, Peralta has compiled an OPS+ of 100 (league average by definition), which certainly doesn’t merit his option being picked up for 2011. However, out from under The Atomic Wedgie’s thumb, it will be interesting to see if Peralta is able to recapture the success of his 2005 season, when (as a 23-year-old) he hit 35 2B and 24 HR with an OPS of .885. If that player still exists behind those sleepy eyes, the Indians have an established, dynamic player in Peralta that they lacked among 2004 regulars.

Left Field
Matt Lawton’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.267 BA / .370 OBP / .421 SLG / .791 OPS in 4,276 PA

Matt LaPorta’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.254 BA / .308 OBP / .442 SLG / .750 OPS in 198 PA

While LaPorta could (and maybe should) be included in the 1B portion of this exercise, as that looks to be his eventual position on the team, LF represents one of the spots in which the 2004 team had a placeholder in Lawton. While Lawton was paid more than the going rate for a placeholder, the Indians weren’t making any future plans around Matt Lawton (who posted a line of .277 BA / .366 OBP / .421 SLG / .787 OPS in 591 PA as a 32-year-old in 2004, frighteningly close to his career line) or working off of any assumption that Matt Lawton would be around if the rebuild came to fruition. Not so with LaPorta, who looks to be the only RH bat amongst the many LH sticks up and down the lineup and up and down the organization. Getting LaPorta as many PA this season is as important as any other development this year given that he has less than 200 MLB PA and turned 25 this past January.


Center Field
Coco Crisp’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.264 BA / .305 OBP / .360 SLG / .665 OPS in 590 PA

Grady Sizemore’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.275 BA / .367 OBP / .485 SLG / .851 OPS in 3,612 PA

Now we get into the part of the lineup that separates very quickly from the 2004 team as the Indians did not have a player of Sizemore’s caliber at Sizemore’s age to anchor the lineup going into the 2004 season. One player had a career OPS higher than .800 going into the 2004 (we’ll get to him in a second) and while many of the young offensive players used the 2004 season to “break out” (with the 24-year-old Crisp as one example as he posted a line of .297 BA / .344 OBP / .446 OPS / .790 OPS in 538 PA), no player on the 2004 team had the track record that Sizemore has entering the 2010 season, recent injuries considered.

Right Field
Jody Gerut’s career numbers prior to 2004 season
.279 BA / .336 OBP / .494 SLG / .830 OPS in 525 PA

Shin-Soo Choo’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.296 BA / .386 OBP / .491 SLG / .887 OPS in 1,275 PA

Remember when Jody Gerut was thought to be a potential “core” piece to the Indians, before he wandered off into journeyman-land? Gerut entered 2004 as the only regular with a career OPS over .800 and that was only on the basis of the 525 PA that he accumulated prior to the season. His 2004 season would be the first step in the stairs going down as he posted a .252 BA / .334 OBP / .405 SLG / .739 OPS in 548 PA, disappointing numbers for a 26-year-old corner OF. One would think that The BLC’s track record (read – more MLB PA) would portend more success for him in 2010 than Gerut attained and Choo’s presence in the 2010 lineup provides (along with Sizemore) stability in the middle of the lineup that wasn’t obviously there when 2004 began.


Designated Hitter
Travis Hafner’s career numbers prior to the 2004 season
.252 BA / .327 OBP / .467 SLG / .795 OPS in 394 PA

Travis Hafner’s career numbers prior to 2010 season
.281 BA / .387 OBP / .526 SLG / .921 OPS in 3,383 PA

Of course, that “stability in the lineup” in 2004 did come about with the first appearance of the monster that would heretofore be known as Pronk. Despite having only 394 PA under his belt prior to 2004, Hafner burst onto the scene in 2004 as a 27-year-old who obliterated his way to a line of .311 BA / .410 OBP / .583 SLG / .993 OPS in 573 PA. Whether that monster still lurks deep within the player thought to receive the majority of the plate appearances at DH for the Tribe in 2010 remains to be seen, but expectations for Hafner have been low in the past with pleasant surprises coming with his performance. Since it is Spring and hope is still eternal, I’ll leave it at that…

All told, the two teams that were entering the 2004 and 2010 seasons were strikingly different in that the 2010 team seems to be flush in more established veterans than simple placeholders. I realize that I’m excluding MiLB track records and prospect rankings for any of these players, but on the surface it certainly changes the tone for the 2010 season seeing as how the 2004 season served as a pleasant surprise after it started with so much uncertainty.

Each team had young players with limited exposure to MLB pitching and the 2004 team responded by finishing the 2004 season with 858 runs scored, 5th among the 14 teams in the AL. This was all accomplished despite the fact that there were more than a few players on the 2004 team that didn’t have 600 career MLB PA in Martinez, Broussard, Crisp, Gerut, and Hafner.

Interestingly, that success can be traced to so many of those players in 2004 were in their “peak production years” in that Gerut was 26 and Broussard and Hafner were both 27. Look who’s going to be 27 this year on the Indians – Sizemore and Choo (who have the two highest projected OPS on the team, as per CHONE) – and only Peralta (28 this year), Hafner (33 this year), and Branyan (34 this year) are older.

Not included in this list are Santana and Brantley for the 2010 projected lineups (likely to displace Marson and Branyan in the mix), just as the 2004 lineups don’t include Sizemore and Peralta. If Santana and Brantley (or further down, The Chiz) can burst onto the scene the way that Grady and Jhonny did in 2005, the offense’s future gets even brighter.

Regardless of the future of the offense, the present of the offense looks superior to the 2004 version if you examine only what was known entering the two seasons. Players given the opportunity to play everyday in 2004 became cornerstones of the (short-lived) contention of the previous incarnation of the Indians and 2010 should provide that same opportunity.

All of that being said, I know…it’s the pitching, or is it when you look at what the 2004 staff looked like coming into the season and what they actually put forth in the 2004 season?

Don’t worry…that’s coming next.

A Lazy Sunday with Faces…Old and New

Fully in the throes of Spring Training with baseball on TV and in the air, it’s finally time to talk about some of the PERFORMANCES and not just the projections associated with the upcoming 2010 season. So, with that in mind (and my brother-in-law on his way over to rip out carpet), let’s get it going on a Sunday that will be anything but Lazy for me:

Right off of the top, while the pickings are slim in terms of legitimate clues as to what the regular season holds from what is seen under the Arizona sun, Andrew Humphries of LGT has a list of things to watch in Spring Training. In the piece, most of Andrew’s focus goes (not surprisingly) to the pitchers and what to expect from the likes of Masterson, Huff, Carrasco, and Carmona and whether anything can be gleaned from their performance in Goodyear, or even just one aspect of their performance. Regardless of whether any of the numbers in Spring mean anything, if you really want to make the attempt to wade through box scores to see what it means for 2010, the list put together at LGT is where my eyes will go when it’s all said and done.

In fact, I’d say that the list put together – which casts an eye to Carmona’s K/BB, Carrasco’s H/9, Huff’s K/9, Masterson’s splits, and the power from LaPorta and Peralta (the only two RH potential power bats in the lineup) – would be what should be watched all season long, and not just in Spring Training as those six components of the team are going to determine how quickly this reload is going to take or how far away this team is from legitimately contending.

Since a part of the aforementioned piece relates to Fausto Carmona and what can legitimately be expected from him, is there a player that’s more emblematic of where this team has gone in the last 3 years?
Dominant in 2007, with a future that looked so endless and bright…
Injured and ineffective in 2008, with hopes tempered but still relatively high…
A train wreck in 2009 – with memories of a bright future being just that, memories…

Am I wrong to assert that those three descriptions sum up both Carmona and the Indians of the last three years?

As Carmona has gone, so have the Indians and at a time when “hope” is the buzzword of the Spring and because of where Carmona now finds himself, somewhere between frustrating and depressing. However, most forget that back in 2007, Carmona posted the 4th best season statistically (as measured by VORP) of any and all pitchers in MLB. All this at the tender age of 23 and with a sinking fastball that made Torii Hunter think that he was hung-over. The world was at Carmona’s feet as he endeared himself to Tribe fans during the “Bug Game” and looked to be the reason that the inevitable loss of Sabathia wouldn’t hurt the team too much as the front-of-the-rotation starter role looked to be Carmona’s for the foreseeable future.

Since that time (and even before it), Carmona has been on a roller-coaster ride since he was promoted to the team in 2006, starting with his time as a dominant set-up man in his rookie year from the time when he went from a swing man to his ill-fated stint as closer and from his dominance at the top of the rotation to attempting to right himself on the fields of Goodyear during the 2009 season:
Carmona – The Set-Up Man (2006)
1.07 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 8.75 K/9, 3.43 K/BB in 24 2/3 IP

Carmona – The Gas Can (2006)
16.39 ERA, 3.00 WHIP, 8.67 K/9, 1.28 K/BB in 9 1/3 IP

Carmona – The Ace-in-Waiting (2007)
3.06 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 5.7 K/9, 2.25 K/BB in 215 IP

Carmona – The Enigma Wrapped in a Riddle (2008-2009)
5.89 ERA, 1.70 WHIP, 5.0 K/9, 0.98 K/BB in 246 IP

What happened here?
How did Carmona, who so famously pulled himself out of the closer-induced abyss of 2006 to become a bona-fide top-of-the-rotation fall off the cliff again so quickly?

Could it really be something as simple as moving to the other side of the rubber, as that suggestion has been this Spring made in an attempt to make him more effective against LHP?

If you look at the numbers above, Carmona’s effectiveness seems to be dictated by his ability to limit free passes and, while that’s no great revelation, take a look at Carmona’s K and BB throughout the Minors prior to being called up in 2006:
2005 – 173 2/3 IP, 106 K, 35 BB
2004 – 163 IP, 122 K, 44 BB
2003 – 154 1/3 IP, 86 K, 14 BB

2005 – 5.5 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 3.03 K/BB
2004 – 6.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 2.77 K/BB
2003 – 5.0 K/9, 0.8 BB/9, 6.14 K/BB

The K rates always remained fairly steady (and fall in line with what he put forth in MLB from 2007 to 2009), but the sudden increase in walks since the 2007 have absolutely crushed Carmona’s effectiveness. So the question becomes, how does a guy who walked 93 batters in 491 innings in the Minors from 2003 to 2005 (1.70 BB/9) and walked 92 batters in 289 2/3 innings in the Majors from 2006 to 2007 (2.86 BB/9) suddenly turn into the pitcher that we’ve seen for the last two years, who has walked 140 hitters in 246 innings (5.12 BB/9)?

Rather than simply chalking up his 2007 season as an aberration (which it very well could be), the thing that stands out to me is that Carmona’s 2007 season falls in line with what he did in the Minors and only SINCE that 2007 season has the train come completely off of the tracks.

With that in mind, let me point something out – in the Indians’ 2006 Media Guide, a 22-year-old Fausto Carmona’s listed weight was 190 lbs. In his breakout 2007 season, he was listed at 220 lbs. and has been listed as 230 from 2008 to how it appears on the Indians’ official site today. Seeing as how CC Sabathia’s listed weight never went above 290 in the media guides despite his obviously growing girth, the listed weights often can be taken as “ballpark figures”, particularly for MLB players with weight issues. Which is why Carmona’s listed weight in 2006, when he was simply thought of as a “depth starter” in AAA, or in 2007 when the Indians famously pointed out that Carmona had put on weight because he had received some long-overdue dental work, is so interesting in that the listed weights in 2006 and 2007 needed no ceiling because there was no interest in that number.

However, since the 2008 season, he’s always been listed at 230 despite coming to camp last year with what Castrovince recently referred to as a “spare tire” (to put it charitably). Now, if Carmona’s put on weight (reported or unreported), don’t you think that it would have some effect on his mechanics?

I’m not a doctor, nor do I even play one on TV, but remember the hip injury that derailed Carmona’s 2008 season and led to the domino effect of CC going to Milwaukee? Have we ever considered that Carmona’s “evolving” body type has forced him to change his mechanics or that it even affected his delivery back in 2008, which led to the hip injury? If NBC can put multiple bobsleds or downhill skiers on the screen at the same time to examine how the two compare, isn’t it about time to see how Carmona’s mechanics look now compared to 2007 and even in the Minors?

Obviously, this has likely been done (or at least I hope it has), but maybe the mechanical problems that Carmona hasn’t been able to rectify have to do with the fact that Carmona CANNOT get back to the repeated delivery that provided him his greatest success in 2007 because his body is not the same as it was in 2007 (or previously) and the Indians are left attempting to modify Carmona’s delivery in the context of his current body.

Essentially, the Fausto Carmona that blazed through the minor-league ranks and flat-out dominated the AL in 2007 hasn’t toed the rubber for the Indians for the last two years. Why that is remains anyone’s guess, but the Indians still owe Carmona $11M over the next two years in guaranteed money on a deal that looked like an absolute heist when it was signed back before the 2008 season.

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating – as Carmona has gone the last three years, as have the fortunes of the Tribe over those three years. While it’s fun to argue over the back-end of the rotation and who fills the last couple of slots in the pitching staff or on the position player side, a trim, healthy Carmona goes a long way to making the 2010 Indians less of a mystery and would be the best “building block” or point of developmental progress that could come out of the 2010 season, given that the Indians do hold club options for him through the 2014 season.

At one time, Carmona looked like the pillar of the pitching staff of the present and of the future. Today, the Indians (in dire need of legitimate, internal top-of-the-rotation options above Kinston) are hoping to raise that pillar once again, regardless of how unlikely it seems.

By the same token, as much attention is being paid to the young hitters in the Indians’ lineup and how the team looks to be a potential offensive juggernaut, the one piece of the lineup that (like Carmona) was thought to the foundation of the lineup in the present and the future remains clouded in uncertainty as Travis Hafner attempts to re-capture the success that has eluded him for far too long now.

According to most reports, Hafner is completely recovered from his shoulder injury (and let me pause as I recount how many times I’ve believed that to be the case in the past) and is looking to get back to Pronkian levels that he hasn’t approached in recent memory. Like Carmona, most people today forget how truly dominant Hafner was over a 4-year stretch that ended with the close of the 2007 season, a period of time over which he posted these cumulative numbers:
.296 BA / .410 OBP / .567 SLG / .976 OPS while averaging 35 2B and 32 HR a season

His 156 OPS+ in that stretch put him in some pretty rarified air among MLB sluggers who amassed 2,000 plate appearances or more in those four years as he posted the third highest OPS+ in that timeframe in MLB (with Victor coming in at #28 and Grady coming in at #31). Seeing as how Hafner was the 2nd youngest on that list among the top 7 (with Pujols younger and Big Papi, A-Rod, Berkman, Vlad, and Manny all older than Hafner at the time), his fall of the cliff has been preposterously fast.

The reasons for the drop-off can be debated and debated again, but since the start of the 2008 season, Hafner’s posted an OPS+ of 101 (MLB average is 100) in just over 600 plate appearances. For a player that was once among the most feared hitters in MLB (for 4 years no less), his contributions of league average production have contributed greatly to the Indians’ struggles of the past two years.

Whether Hafner is truly healthy or whether that 4-year stretch, during with Pronk was a menace in the AL, will simply represent a peak never to be climbed again could start to find answers in the 2010 season. Like Carmona, Hafner was thought to be the anchor in the middle of the lineup to keep the Indians in contention for years to come after 2007. Instead (again, like Carmona), he’s been an anchor of a different kind, weighing the team down with his lack of production and the team’s financial commitment to him.

While many eyes are watching Carlos Santana and Hector Rondon and Chris Perez and the other players that many people think can be significant contributors to the next incarnation of a contender in Cleveland, it’s easy to forget that the ghosts of the last contender (of just 3 years ago) remain on the team in the personages of Carmona and Hafner. A return to form by either or both (which shouldn’t be counted on any more than a sudden break-out from one of the youngsters) would lessen the pain and length of the rebuilding process that the Indians find themselves in the midst of once more.

Since Spring is the time that hope is permitted to spring eternally, maybe one final last hope should go into those two players, or the team is looking simply at the hope that the youngsters develop while the players who were thought to be the bridge fall deeper and deeper into disrepair.

Speaking of the youngsters that the Indians hope to develop, everyone should obviously be going out and purchasing Tony Lastoria’s Prospect book (and here’s how you can get it, if you take a look at the top bar and the sidebars of this link, which provides some handy-dandy “options remaining” information) to learn more than you would ever need to know about some of the Indians’ prospects.

What’s interesting to me at this time of year is when some of the national prospect lists emerge as it starts to put the names that we’ve heard about and read about for a couple of years now into the greater context of MLB. Some of the lists have already come out; most of them listing the top Indians’ prospects just as Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus does in his recently published listing:
8) Carlos Santana
43) Lonnie Chisenhall
77) Alex White
82) Jason Knapp
91) Nick Hagadone

On Goldstein’s list, the Indians tied for 2nd on the list with 5 prospects (the Rays had 7 and the Angels, Royals, and Twins also had 5), which isn’t surprising given the trades of the last year, but even more interesting is the list from Matt Hagen at The Hardball Times, who lists these Tribe prospects (with applicable comments on each) among his top 200:
7) Carlos Santana - One of the Top 10 prospects in all of baseball, Santana brings solid defense to the catcher position and the type of power bat and middle-of-the-order mentality that could make Cleveland fans quickly forget about Victor Martinez.

17) Hector Rondon - Rondon's electric four-pitch arsenal is the envy of minor league baseball, but his tendency to lose focus and leave pitches up and over the plate will need to be remedied if he is going to succeed against major league hitting. His questionable endurance could be to blame in late innings. He is very good, but not a perfect prospect.

41) Lonnie Chisenhall - Sporting the swing and approach of a true professional hitter, Chisenhall impressed in 2009. He has a developing blend of power, patience, and contact skills that make me think he has a good chance to be an above average major league third baseman. An All-Star, though, may be stretching it.

46) Jason Knapp - Knapp has the ceiling of an ace, and the work ethic and smarts to get to that point. His high-90s fastball is his meal ticket, but the rest of his game lags behind. Watch for his secondary stuff to take a step forward in 2010.

55) Alex White - White is expected to make an immediate farm system impact in 2010. His tremendous repertoire will keep hitters off-balance from the get go, but Cleveland will surely be keeping an eye on his mechanics and control.

119) Michael Brantley
134) Alexander Perez

Yes, that’s Hector Rondon at #17 on Hagan’s list whereas Rondon doesn’t even appear on Goldstein’s top 100. While I attempt to rein in my excitement about Hagen’s comments about Rondon, let me link something that SI.com’s Jon Heymann passed along from scouts who have watched the Indians’ (now nearly) unquestioned top 2 prospects, The Chiz and Santana:
• One scout said of Indians third base prospect Lonnie Chisenhall, “He's going to be a star. He's a bad---.” (He meant that in a good way.) The scout said he sees him as the next George Brett but didn’t wish to put Brett's name between quotes in a comparison because Brett “did get 3,000 hits.”
• The scout also said Indians catching prospect Carlos Santana is “another Victor Martinez.”

In case you didn’t notice (and I bet you did), the only name that appears on either list that came over in the CP Lee is the 19-year-old Jason Knapp. Just as a quick aside, and just to point out a quick example of how subjective these lists are (and to bring in two non-Indians names who you may be familiar with because of the CP Lee/Halladay deals), The Hardball Times lists Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor as their 62nd and 63rd best prospects, whereas Baseball Prospectus has Drabek rated #16 in MLB and Taylor as #20 in MLB entering the season.

Back to the players that came over for Lee from Philly, there was an interesting piece in the Philadelphia Daily News about Marson, Carrasco, Donald, and Knapp with quotes from Antonetti peppered throughout. Most of the quotes are of the ilk that we’ve seen for years, saying nothing while talking, but since I haven’t seen these specific on-the-record quotes, here are Antonetti’s “thoughts” on all four.

On Marson:
“Lou’s coming into camp with an opportunity to be our starting catcher,” said assistant general manager Chris Antonetti. “He did have some exposure at the major league level with us last year for a more extended period than he’d had in the past and we saw some good things. We were encouraged by some of the things he’s done both at Triple A with us and in a short time at the major league level.”

On Carrasco:
“We’re very encouraged by what we saw developmentally with him last year when he came over and pitched for us in Columbus. He pitched deep into games a number of different times and showed some really good stuff.”
Antonetti said the team wasn't turned off by Carrasco’s struggles after he was called up.
“It’s very difficult to make the transition from Triple A to the major league level, especially on the pitching side,” he said. “Carlos needs to do some of the things that made him very successful in the minor leagues. Commanding his fastball to both sides of the plate, working down in the strike zone, mixing in his secondary pitches. I think as part of the transition for a younger pitcher, he’ll eventually make that transition successfully.”

On Donald:
“Unfortunately, after we got him last year he had some back tightness that’s been fully resolved,” Antonetti said. “He's 100 percent now. He’s coming into camp with the opportunity to potentially make the club as a utility guy, but we have to weigh the benefits of that and him fitting on the major league team in a part-time role vs. playing every day because last year he only had 250 plate appearances.
“But in a brief time with us and consistent with our scouting reports he made a very favorable impression on everybody. Staff and teammates. By the way he carries himself and the way he approaches the game. His toughness. It’s been fun to watch.”

On Knapp:
“He’ll come into spring training on the minor league side and continue his rehabilitation and we’re hopeful he’ll get back on the mound this year in a competitive setting,” Antonetti said. “He won’t be ready going into the season. He’ll be behind. How much behind, we’ll get a much better sense when he gets into camp.”

In case you were wondering about ol’ CP Lee up in the Pacific Northwest, SI.com’s Jon Heyman has a piece about how the M’s would love to lock up Lee. Call me overly suspicious, but if you don’t see that Lee as a Free Agent after this year would coincide with him taking Andy Pettite’s spot in the rotation next year in the Bronx…you’re not looking hard enough.

Moving on from prospect and from Clifton Phifer, there’s a terrific analytical piece on batting orders, that site friend Jon Steiner wrote for WFNY penned (don’t let the byline confuse you), as it pertains to idea that Russell Branyan will ostensibly be taking the spot of Mike Brantley (at least to start the year), using CHONE Projections and Baseball Musings’ Lineup Analysis tool to assert the following conclusion:
Best case scenario with Brantley in the game? 5.171 runs per game. Best with Branyan? 5.257 runs per game. That’s comes out to 14 more runs over the course of a season with Branyan over Brantley—or an extra win or two over the course of a season. An added bonus? Playing Branyan for a year keeps Brantley’s arbitration clock from ticking! This way, we get an extra year of club-control for Brantley, while only paying Branyan $2 million.
I’m a sucker for analysis like this, so check out the whole thoughtful piece courtesy of Jon and WFNY.

Moving to the other end of the spectrum of analysis, we have Tim Marchman’s piece from SI.com that ranks the current GM’s that you’ve likely seen at some point by now. While most of the local coverage has centered on Marchman’s ranking of Mark Shapiro as the 22nd rated GM in baseball, what stands out to me is the process (or rather, lack thereof) that he comes to his rankings. Marchman himself states that “there isn't any good, objective way to rate general managers” and that “the best way to judge general managers might be to measure their wins against their payroll”. He then diverts from that path and makes up his own (by his own admission “subjective”) criteria of success, not doing “stupid things”, efficiency, and tenure to come to his rankings which seem more wildly subjective than probably he intended.

The most noteworthy thing to me about Marchman’s “exercise” is that Shawn Hoffman of Baseball Prospectus did an analysis based on what Marchman even states as the “best way to judge general managers…to measure their wins against their payroll”, as Hoffman quantified how well each GM spent the money made available to him by ownership, more accurately defining who had done the best job as a GM, with Marchman’s created criteria (or the sense that you get from the Marchman piece of “what have you done for me lately”…like Andy MacPhail of the Orioles coming in at #12 probably because of his off-season, despite his Baltimore teams finishing with 93, 93, and 98 losses since his arrival) not getting in the way. Hoffman even posted the results of his analysis for all of the GM’s of the 1990s and 2000s that quantified how he got to his conclusions, something Marchman either does not engage in or simply doesn’t explain.

Ultimately, each person’s individual feelings on these “GM rankings” are going to dictate whether you think that Marchman was spot-on in his evisceration of Shapiro as a GM or if the performance of the Indians over the last few years falls more in line with what Bill James stated in his recently published Gold Mine 2010 (via CastroTurf) as he opined thusly:
In my many years as a baseball fan, I’ve rarely seen things go bad for an organization, through no fault of their own, the way they have gone bad for the Indians. Two years ago, the Indians appeared ready take on the world. Two years later, with CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee long gone, Victor Martinez gone, Carmona having imploded, and even Grady Sizemore not playing as well, they’ve been pushed down to near the back of the line. I’ve never really seen anything like it.

Again, pre-existing feelings on the Indians’ Front Office will determine which camp you reside in when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of the Indians in terms of building a team. As Spring Training continues, while most of the attention will be paid to the back end of the rotation and the last couple of spots in the bullpen, the performances of the players thought to be the bedrocks that took the Indians into the land of consistent contention (something that obviously didn’t happen) could provide a greater clue as to how quickly (or slowly) the next “window of contention” opens.

Swimming Upstream

While the Indians are still getting ready to play a game against a team that also doesn’t have “Cleveland” across the chest, news from Goodyear is slow. There’s the bit of info that Carmona moving to the other side of the pitching rubber which, if turns him back into Fausto v.2007, could be the biggest and best news for Indians’ fans since CC was traded, and there are the usual “he looks good”, “he’s in the best shape of his life”, and “this young guy could make some waves this season” pieces…but all in all, it’s been largely uneventful.

In light of that, I thought it would be interesting to pass along a piece that Baseball America recently posted concerning the issues of competitive balance and revenue sharing in MLB, a topic that I took some time to touch on this off-season, proposing what I saw as a suitable proposal to address both. Seeing as how the upcoming Indians’ season is being anticipated with either dread or apathy by most, going through the piece might put where the club sits today in Arizona (at the beginning stages of another rebuild) into the proper perspective.

Providing that perspective is Maury Brown, founder of the Biz of Baseball site, who penned a must-read article that explains how Revenue Sharing works, both in terms of the payees and the payors, a Competitive Balance Tax, and the feasibility of a salary cap, soft or hard.

While this is meant to shed some light on a particular aspect of the piece, I would encourage everyone to take the time to read the entire missive as it does a tremendous job of explaining where the revenue-sharing money comes from (it comes from two places) as well as outlining the issues that nearly every team (regardless of where they fit on the food chain) seem to have with the current arrangement.

The most interesting portion of the piece as it relates to the Indians however, was that the MLB went on the record as to how they felt the revenue-sharing money should be spent by those receiving checks not only from the Central Fund, but also from the high-revenue clubs. In the process of articulating their opinion as to how revenue sharing is supposed to work this little beauty was uncorked from Rob Manfred, the MLB’s Executive Vice President of Labor Relations:
“Overall, the Commissioner’s view is that revenue-sharing recipients have made appropriate use of revenue-sharing proceeds over a very long period…Clubs at low-revenue spectrum have always gone through cycles when they develop with less expensive young talent, in a way like Tampa Bay did, that moves them along to field a very competitive team. When you’re at that low-revenue period, you’re still going to be getting your revenue-sharing. Clubs can then position themselves for a much higher player payroll when that roster matures, and one of the ways you may decide to position yourself is reduce your debt load so that you don't have to pay debt when your roster then matures.”

Read that again and realize that this passed through the lips of the MLB’s Executive Vice President of Labor Relations – that the system in place currently perpetuates a vicious cycle for low-revenue teams, starting with said low-revenue teams developing young, less expensive talent in an attempt to field a “very competitive team”. Once that young, less-expensive talent matures, The Commissioner’s solution for this is to have contributed the revenue-sharing money throughout the cycle to afford them the opportunity to and to “position” the team for a “much higher payroll” when that roster “matures”.

Anybody know where I can find a real-world application of this?
Oh yeah, that’s right…from 2004 to 2009 in Cleveland:
Indians’ Payroll
2004: $ 34,319,300
2005: $ 41,502,500
2006: $ 56,031,500
2007: $ 61,673,267
2008: $ 78,970,066
2009: $ 81,579,166

See the slow ramp-up in payroll as the talent that was once “less-expensive” starts to mature?

Now that the team finds itself at Square 1 (or maybe 2 depending upon where you sit), remember how the team is shedding payroll and attempting to minimize all future financial commitments to clear the decks for what is hoped to be the next contending team?

This is how MLB has DESIGNED “low-revenue” teams to compete, in this cyclical attempt to catch lightning in a bottle manner, up against the “haves” in the marketplace. Essentially, the design of it is exactly how we saw the last 5 to 6 years play out in Cleveland as the team assembles a group of young talent in the hopes that it will mature into a contender, with the further hope that the contending team can win the World Series before the whole “tear down/rebuild” has to start again.

Unfortunately, this is how it works for the majority of the teams in MLB as Brown points out that from 2000 to 2009, “of the 23 clubs that made the playoffs, the top nine in payroll made 58 percent of the postseason appearances.” Yes, the 9 teams that had the highest payrolls in the decade (Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, Angels, Phillies, and Cardinals) accounted for 46 postseason appearances, while the other 21 teams in the league accounted for 34 postseason appearances* from 2000 to 2009. And somehow, MLB is pointing to this as evidence that revenue sharing is working.
*It should be noted that the Indians had two postseason appearances and came in with the 13th highest payroll of the decade in MLB.

The idea is that every team will get a chance to make the post-season, just not that every team will get a chance to make the post-season year after year. That opportunity for perennial contention is only afforded to the teams that can…well, afford it.

We’ve seen it here in Cleveland that if mistakes are made as those payrolls ramp up or injuries or regressions occur to the players that are chosen to extend that “window of contention”, the whole thing starts over again in earnest. Seeing both Hafner and Westbrook on the 2010 serve as a reminder to that, in that the Indians did commit large dollars to players that they felt would be able to carry them from one window of contention to another and the failure of either to live up to pre-contract performance undermined the idea that perennial contention was anything more than a wing and a prayer.

As the Indians enter the 2010 season attempting to climb back up that mountain that battered them so badly on their way down over the last two seasons.

A Contractual Lazy Sunday

On a day that looks like the snow may have finally stopped and when it really doesn’t matter because USA-Canada isn’t allowing anyone to leave the house this afternoon, let’s get right off on a Lazy Sunday to hit on the high (and not so high) points having to do with YOUR Cleveland Indians…

The news that caused the biggest stir of the past few days is Manny Acta’s declaration that Grady Sizemore’s going to be moved down in the lineup. While I’ll spare you the link to the PD story (your time does mean something here), where the cause of the “Indians’ once-powerful lineup” being “reduced to a moth-eaten T-Shirt at an Army surplus store” is chalked up to the departure of “Victor Martinez, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Garko, Ben Francisco, and Casey Blake”.

No seriously, the “reason” being given as to why the Indians find themselves no longer able to field a “powerful lineup” is that DeRosa (here for ½ of a season), Garko (attempting to platoon at 1B in Seattle, where he may actually catch because they don’t know what to do with him), Francisco (a 4th OF in Philly…which he always should have been in Cleveland), and Blake (wildly unappreciated while in Cleveland and turned into Carlos Santana) are not in the lower portions of the “Indians’ once-powerful lineup”.

Complaining about the Indians’ performance and decisions over the past two years is one thing, failing to use logic or even offer compelling examples that mistakes have been made are quite another…

But I digress, as we move back to the news that Grady’s moving down the #2 hole, so if lineup construction is a point of contention, have at it…I’m not really not all that concerned about where these guys hit (as long as there’s an ounce of logic beyond it), so it doesn’t register as earth-shattering for me as it may for some.

Just for some background here, more than a few years ago, Tom Tango (and others) attempted to quantify the importance of batting lineups and optimize them, throwing out the conventional wisdom at each position in the process. Last year, Sky Kalkman at Beyond the Boxscore attempted to summarize those conclusions, to quantify and put some hard ideas together as to what each hitter in the lineup should ideally contribute. Here’s what Kalkman asserts that the #2 hitter in the lineup should be:
The #2 hitter comes to bat in situations about as important as the #3 hitter, but more often. That means the #2 hitter should be better than the #3 guy, and one of the best three hitters overall. And since he bats with the bases empty more often than the hitters behind him, he should be a high-OBP player.

Sounds like Sizemore, if you’re looking at the Indians’ roster, right?

If the idea is to see the leadoff hitter and the #2 hitter get on base, both Cabrera and Sizemore fit that bill, regardless of where they hit:
Cabrera
Career OBP - .355
Projected OBP (PECOTA) 2010 – .366

Sizemore
Career OBP - .367
Projected OBP (PECOTA) 2010 – .389

It will be interesting to see how Acta handles the left-handedness behind Sizemore at #2 in the lineup as Choo (who has been the team’s best hitter for the last 2 years) and Hafner and Branyan all likely factor in somewhere between #3 and #6, assuming all are healthy and in the lineup. However, this news does come in February and it will be interesting to see how Acta’s lineup evolves throughout the season, and not just in the #2 hole in the lineup.

In the midst of a number of topics (none of them very compelling and nearly all of them depressing), Paul Hoynes drops a couple of notes that actually mean more for the team than how much Manny Acta likes John Wooden and how The Sporting News (which I was surprised to learn was still in print) picked the Indians to be the worst team in MLB. Before getting to the points of interest and just to put a yin to the prediction of The Sporting News’ yang, it should be noted that the new PECOTA projections have the Indians finishing at 79-83, tied for 3rd with the Tigers and 2 games out of 1st place in the Central, and CHONE’s most recent projections have the Indians finishing at 82-80, 2nd in the division, 4 games back in the Central.

But back to the interesting nugget in Hoynes’ piece as he notes that “Jeremy Sowers (left shoulder), who threw a bullpen session Friday, could get into a Cactus League game before the end of spring training”.

Wait, we went from JUST finding out that Sowers had a sore shoulder earlier in the week to (assuming it’s accurate) reading that “Sowers COULD get into a Cactus League game before the end of Spring Training”?

Is that to say that there’s no guarantee that he’s even going to be ready to play in a Cactus League game all Spring? Remember that whole idea from Acta that he wanted to have his team essentially set a week to ten days before the end of Spring Training to see if it would result in a better start in 2010?

If Sowers “could” (nothing more) see some time in a Cactus League game and Acta wants to have his team in place a couple of week before camp ends to give the team some level of consistency in the hope that a better start is possible, what chances do you think Sowers has of breaking camp with the team…2%...5%?

Not that it’s going to be a surprise (as I guessed this last week), but that news (again, assuming it’s accurate) would certainly point to Sowers heading to the DL to start the season, likely heading off to some rehab assignments after that, allowing the Indians to filter through Mitch Talbot and Hector Ambriz (who would need to break camp with the team) while Sowers can be stashed on the DL and in the Minors until a roster decision is forced on the team when (or is it suddenly “if”) Sowers gets healthy.

The second little bit that Hoynes mentions in passing at the end of the piece is that “Acta said second base is ‘Luis Valbuena’s job to lose’” and while that doesn’t come as a surprise either (even after the flirtations with Orlando Hudson fell short in the off-season), the Valbuena situation will be an interesting one to watch as it relates to the way the Indians use him and manage his service time. Acta came out earlier in the Spring to say that, “we’re not in the business of developing platoon players at 23 years old” in that it looks as if the Indians don’t have an interest in protecting Valbuena against LHP in the early going, but that doesn’t mean that he’s likely to remain the 2B (or even on the roster) the whole season.

The reason for that would be the service time issue alluded to above, which is something that Tony Lastoria and I touched on in this week’s edition of “Smoke Signals”, when we discussed the infield and welcomed Jason Kipnis, the Indians’ 2nd Round Pick from last year, to the show to talk about his transition from college OF to MiLB 2B.

To that end, Tony actually wrote a must-read service time piece that he posted as it related to the likely demotion of Mike Brantley to AAA to start the season, but here’s what Tony relates about Valbuena, who has 1.012 days on MLB on his service clock:
Sending down Valbuena…to Columbus for a month at some point in the season is not a stretch as he has options remaining. While the reason would be more to get looks at other guys, it would also offer an excuse to align his service clock to where Valbuena finishes the year with under two years of service time…to essentially add another year of control to him.

If you’re confused by that, Cot’s Baseball Contracts has a spreadsheet available that shows the service time of all Indians’ players which is extremely informative, particularly when partnered with the explanation of Tony’s service-time article. Looking at both give you a great idea as to what roster moves could be in play in 2010, particularly in the case of Valbuena.

Before jumping out and asserting that this is the latest example of the Indians’ frugality, realize that this in not a practice that’s unique to Cleveland, as Tom Verducci relates in this week’s print edition of SI. Essentially, the pattern is that a top prospect going into this season doesn’t figure to get promoted until late May or so because of this service-time issue and how waiting equates to avoiding a year of arbitration and (as Tony states) an extra year of player control, at a time when the player should wildly more productive than when they are first promoted. Verducci explains the benefits of the practice, while mentioning some recent examples of non-Indians thusly:
One way for clubs to save millions on their best young players is to delay the start of their major league service clocks until at least late May, which generally leaves players with three cracks at arbitration down the road instead of four. Four impact rookies last season were promoted 10 days apart, beginning on May 29: Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, White Sox third baseman Gordon Beckham, Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutcheon and Braves righthander Tommy Hanson.

There’s more than meets the eye here and baseball decisions do not always dictate the timing of when these young players spend time on the parent club and Brantley and Valbuena (and likely Carlos Santana) are going to be examples of the Indians managing service time for young players in 2010 with the idea that they retain control over the player for one more season, instead of seeing them hit FA as a 28-year-old because they spent two weeks on the MLB roster as a 22-year-old when they could have spent time in AAA.

Of course, the other way that teams manage the salaries of young players is to avoid arbitration from year to year, extending young players with long-term deals before arbitration with the promise of financial security.

It was thought that this practice (used with players from Sabathia to Sizemore to Carmona) was thought to have the next two targets this Spring in Asdrubal Cabrera and The BLC. However (and just to illustrate how important the management of service time truly is), the idea that SS Choo remains a candidate for a long-term extension, buying out his upcoming arbitration years (2011, 2012, and 2013) just took an ENORMOUS hit as the news hit that Choo has hired Scott Boras as his agent.

Why is this “enormous”?
Mainly because Scott Boras has never had a client who chose to give a “hometown discount” in signing away his arbitration years (much less a year of Free Agency) for the security of a long-term deal, something that the Indians likely hoped to ink this Spring with Choo’s former agent Alan Nero, who signed a deal with Indians as Victor Martinez’s agent in 2005 and as Rafael Betancourt’s agent in 2008.
As a quick aside here, Nero remains Asdrubal’s agent…

Yes, Prince Fielder (a Boras client) signed a two-year deal with the Brewers, avoiding the arbitration process, but it didn’t come with any “hometown discount” and it certainly didn’t forfeit any of Fielder’s FA years, where Boras will be looking for a huge deal for Fielder on the open market. With Boras in the fold, it’s likely that the Indians are going to have to go from year-to-year with Choo contractually, facing off with Boras and his portfolio of data that says that only 6 players in MLB have outpaced Choo in the last 2 years in OPS (Pujols, Berkman, A-Rod, Teixeira, Youkilis, and Holliday) in all of MLB and ask for the moon in each arbitration year for The BLC. If I can find that out in a quick OPS search, what else do you think Boras is going to arm himself with to look for a huge amount of money for Choo in each of the three coming off-seasons?

Maybe Choo really does believe that he has the final say in making a decision on whether or not he wants to sign a deal that would keep him in Cleveland past 2013 (the final year before his FA at this point), as he said “I really want to stay long-term…I have good teammates here. A good team. Everything I like. I feel at home here. I like the Indians.”

However, the Indians like to sign players like Choo to long-term deals, if for no other reason than to set a known value on a player going forward and, with Boras in the equation, you would have to imagine that the salary situation for Choo and the Indians from 2011 to 2013 just got a lot cloudier.

Jumping off from the idea that Choo isn’t likely to settle for any type of financial security in the present at the expense of future earnings, take a look at what the Indians’ financial commitments of this team past the 2010 season, not taking into account the arbitration years of players like Choo, who (it should be noted) will be 31 going into his assumed Free Agency year of 2014.

Financial Commitments in 2011
Hafner - $13M
Sizemore - $7.667M
Carmona - $6.3M
Peralta - $250,000 buyout of 2010 option

This assumes that Wood’s vesting option does not vest (or it vests with him not on the Indians) as well as assuming that Peralta’s $7M club option for 2010 is bought out (hence the $250K on the list), but that’s your whole list…

Obviously, you have to add in the arbitration-eligible players (and Rafael Perez would be in his second year of arbitration after agreeing to an $895K deal in his first year of arbitration), but here’s the list of guys that figure to be arbitration-eligible after 2011:
Asdrubal Cabrera
SS Choo
Joe Smith
Jeremy Sowers
Jensen Lewis

Figure in that Cabrera is still going to be approached for a long-term deal (and just for comparison’s sake, the first year of Sizemore’s long-term deal was $500K) and that Sowers and Lewis become less valuable as their salary rises, meaning that they may not even be around once they hit arbitration, and the 2011 payroll number doesn’t figure to be a huge amount of money.

The total of the financial commitments listed above is a little over $27M and even if the payroll drops to $50M (and I’m not saying that it will) in 2011, the Indians have about $14M less than that committed to the players assumed to be on the team past 2011. That being said, the true indication as to where this team is heading, in a payroll sense, is coming after this season and it’s important to note what the Indians’ total payroll looked like the first time they went through this rebuilding process:
2004 Payroll - $34,319,300
2005 Payroll - $41,502,500
2006 Payroll - $56,031,500

Where the 2011 Payroll goes is anyone’s guess, but The BLC moving into Scott Boras’ stable brings the idea that the service clock “manipulation” game that the Indians play is not in vain.

Moving on from the payroll situation and just to put the last few years into some proper context (a concept that generally eludes the beat writers for the papers), Kelly Shoppach is interviewed in the Boston Globe’s Sunday Baseball Notes column. After a lead in the “Notes” that examines why 2009 went so poorly for the Rays (with many of the same reasons we saw sabotage the 2008 and 2009 seasons in Cleveland), Shoppach touched on the “exodus” in Cleveland where the blame lies:
Shoppach, traded to Tampa Bay this winter, was one of the last Indians purged in the latest rebuilding program. Watching his teammates leave was tough.

“I had a lot of friends walking out that door,’’ he said. “First C.C. [Sabathia] and then Cliff, and when Victor left, it was very hard from a personal point of view. All I really knew in the big leagues was that staff and Victor.’’

But he understood the exodus.

“We had three years to win,’’ he said. “They put a team out there that could win, and we didn’t get it done. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.’’

After the disappointments of the last two years in Cleveland, and the moves that were made as a result of those disappointments, Shoppach’s summary accurately puts the current state of MLB into proper context (“we had three years to win”) as well as how the Indians lost despite a stable of talent that has now turned into young players that Indians’ fans are left to hope can turn into another stable of talent…who hopefully have longer than “three years to win”.

Such is life among the have-nots in Cleveland, where service time management and payroll control are as important as anything that happens on the field, and while that may be a bitter pill to swallow on a morning when the ground is covered in snow and ice, the coming events on the Olympic ice this afternoon should warm Americans everywhere, regardless of location.

Tomahawks with Balls in the Air

The first full-squad workout is scheduled for Friday and Figure Skating is about to leave my universe for the next 4 years, so the reasons to celebrate are many and more than just a little pleasing as the snow continues to fall on the North Coast. Thus, between the snowflakes and amongst the winter wind, let’s release some quick tomahawks to celebrate the arrival of “competition” in Goodyear…
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If you haven’t seen it…and I’m sure you have, allow me to clear my throat for my public announcer’s voice and be the first to say it – “Ladies and Gentlemen, Russell Branyan, the starting 1B for YOUR 2010 Cleveland Indians”!
And the crowd goes…well…

Yes, indeed it is true that Branyan will be the 1B for the majority of his time here in Cleveland, as per both the GM and the Field Manager via Castrovince:
Also, Shapiro and Manny Acta confirmed our expectations that Branyan will be the regular at first base, though they stopped short of saying that confirms that Matt LaPorta will be a regular in left. They said both LaPorta and Brantley will be playing every day “somewhere.”
I’d still expect LaPorta in left and Brantley in Columbus on Opening Day.

The “somewhere” term is a great vague anomaly, as it could mean “somewhere” around the diamond in Cleveland, just as easily as it could mean “somewhere” on a baseball team within the state of Ohio. The “Branyan will be the regular at 1B” goes along with how I saw the dominoes falling after the deal was announced, and the issue that I still have with it has to do with the way that LaPorta suddenly becomes a man without a position in a year in which he should be settling into MLB as a 25-year-old with fewer than 200 MLB PA.

Maybe there’s some as-yet-undetermined amalgamation of players at different positions that affords the plate appearances to keep LaPorta and Brantley playing every day “somewhere”, but it’s much more likely that the Indians simply send Brantley to AAA to start the season and send LaPorta to LF, with an occasional stop for him at 1B and DH as Branyan and Hafner get days off. If we’re working under that assumption, Brantley goes to Columbus to play LF “everyday” and either forces his way onto the team by his own merit or gets the call-up when Branyan gets traded or Hafner gets hurt or any number of scenarios that would open up 1B again for LaPorta and allow Brantley to settle in covering LF in Cleveland after getting his sea legs beneath him in AAA.

That issue of opening up 1B eventually for LaPorta remains the sticking point for me in that he’s now entering the season in which he’ll be 25, having accumulated less than 200 MLB PA to this point in his career. If LaPorta is that potential middle-of-the-lineup thumper that he was purported to be when the CC deal was made (and if you’ll remember, his bat was allegedly “nearly-MLB-ready”), it’s time to put him in the lineup everyday at the position that the Indians see him occupying in 2012 and 2013 (which is 1B…I think) and let him have at it.

As for the idea that Brantley figures to start the season in AAA, it really may not be the worst thing in the world as Brantley still did only post a .267 BA / .350 OBP / .361 SLG / .711 OPS in Columbus last year and he could probably use some more seasoning, not to mention spending some time in AAA to prevent his service clock from advancing unnecessarily.

Would I like the “future” to start tomorrow?
Absolutely, but if I’m given the choice of a 25-year-old LaPorta playing part-time or a 22-year-old Brantley spending ½ of a season in AAA, I’m choosing the latter. Of course, I'd probably have picked “C – None of the above” and left Branyan to his own devices, but if the Indians can manage Brantley’s service time (and that is an important factor at play) giving them one more year of control of Brantley 6 or 7 years from now, I'd struggle to find fault in it. With Brantley starting the season in AAA, it forces him to assert himself onto the MLB roster in 2010 instead of a spot being handed to him on the basis of 121 MLB plate appearances last year, during which he looked the part of a MLB hitter, but only posted a .707 OPS in 28 games.

While the LaPorta-to-LF endeavor makes little sense to me as I think that he’s eventually slated for 1B and I’m frankly tired of this versatility card being perpetually at the top of the Indians’ deck, the set-up does seem to be there to get LaPorta his “everyday” AB playing LF, 1B, and DH. While he does that, Branyan plays as the everyday 1B and protects Hafner (who may just need more protection than they’re letting on) at DH. Brantley goes to AAA to start the season in an attempt to see him improve on a .711 OPS in AAA and to manage his service clock to give the Indians one more year of Brantley down the road. All of this for the low, low price of $2M for Russell Branyan…or whatever the pro-rated amount of his salary that they pay him before he’s traded.
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An interesting scene unfolded here at The Reservation tonight as The DiaTot (formerly known as The DiaperTribe) was paging through the old man’s new issue of Sports Illustrated as dinner was being prepared. He came into the kitchen opened to the article on the Mariners in the new issue and asked (as innocently as a 3-year-old can), “hey Daddy, how come Cliff Lee’s not wearing an Indians’ shirt in this picture”.

The DiaBride (after telling me that this explanation was all mine, which I accomplished after swallowing hard) then noted that she had been cleaning out some of her dresser that day and found that all of her Indians’ T-Shirt jerseys that have been collected over the course of the last 5 to 6 years were no longer viable for the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. The Lee jersey (bought BY HER in 2004, back when he was still #34), the Blake jersey from 2006, the Victor jersey from 2007…I found all of them lying on the bed, mocking me as I went up to start up the bath for the boy later in the evening.

Despite Spring Training being in full bloom, it’s impossible to erase the memories of the last few years and the “what-ifs” from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, making this coming season even more difficult to get excited for as the grieving period over the 2005-2009 teams is not yet complete.
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Just as an addendum to that “Ten Little Indians” series, I thought it was worth mentioning how I'd like to see innings divvied up between starting pitchers this year. That idea of managing innings for the prospective starters counts because, if you’ll remember, we’re not necessarily shooting for contention in 2010 here and answering questions about pitchers that project to contribute past 2010 is tantamount to the Indians’ rebuild/reload/whatever period being as short as possible.

For starters, let’s take a look at what’s being projected (at least by CHONE and PECOTA, which have proven to be the most effective projection tools) for the starting rotation, to see if it starts to bear out the idea of where the majority of the innings should go:
CHONE Projections
Masterson – 4.36 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 1.85 K/BB
Westbrook – 4.38 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 1.53 K/BB
Laffey – 4.68 ERA, 1.57 WHIP, 1.37 K/BB
Carmona – 4.72 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 1.42 K/BB
Huff – 4.87 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 1.85 K/BB
Sowers – 4.94 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 1.40 K/BB
Rondon – 5.08 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 1.98 K/BB
Talbot – 5.25 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, 1.64 K/BB
Carrasco – 5.26 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 1.68 K/BB

PECOTA Projections
Masterson – 4.20 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 2.03 K/BB
Rondon – 4.54 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 2.40 K/BB
Carrasco – 4.85 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 2.03 K/BB
Huff – 4.96 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 1.84 K/BB
Carmona – 4.99 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, 1.49 K/BB
Westbrook – 5.00 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 1.47 K/BB
Sowers – 5.02 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, 1.34 K/BB
Talbot – 5.13 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 1.91 K/BB
Laffey – 5.34 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 1.22 K/BB

Yes, these are only projections (and I’m not including Scott Lewis or Ant Reyes here, for reasons, if only obvious to me), but looks about right, doesn’t it?

That being said, MLB teams averaged 942 innings pitched by their starters in 2009, so let’s round that number down to 940 just to keep it as a nice round number. Tell me if this inning breakdown doesn’t look too far off in terms of divvying up innings, strictly in terms of innings as a starter with the idea that you don’t want to stretch any one pitcher too far in terms of innings while attempting to answer questions:
Westbrook – 100 IP (Lee had 22 starts before being traded, so 5 IP x 20 = 100 IP)
Carmona – 200 IP (he threw 171 2/3 combined innings last year)
Masterson – 160 IP (he threw 129 1/3 innings last year)
Huff – 180 IP (he threw 167 2/3 combined innings last year)
Laffey – 140 IP (he threw 139 1/3 combined innings last year)

That combined number is 800 innings, and 700 of those innings would be pitched by starters that could factor into the team past 2010. While that’s obviously on the optimistic side and assumes health and effectiveness throughout the season, it’s a pretty nice chunk of innings from the 4 pitchers that the Indians need to have answers on going into 2010. If we’re going off of that wildly optimistic assumption on those 5, it would mean that the Indians would have about 140 innings to play with in starting roles to be divided up between the prospective long men/spot starters Jeremy Sowers and Mitch Talbot (who, it is worth noting, threw only 68 1/3 innings last year in the Minors), as well as the two young pitchers who figure to start the year in AAA, Hector Rondon and Carlos Carrasco.

Do I really think that there will only be 140 innings available in the starting rotation if the Indians go with the above guidelines?

No chance as there will certainly be more, and it’s important to remember that Tomo Ohka had 70 innings pitched for the 2009 Tribe and Ant Reyes threw 38 1/3 innings (no, seriously), as much as we’d like to forget those 100+ innings. Thus, divvying up 140 innings in starts between Sowers or Talbot (as the situation dictates from time to time) and Rondon and Carrasco (towards the middle to end of the year) isn’t going to be rocket science as the innings will be there for the taking.

Maybe one of those guys (ahem, Fausto) blows up and is not deserving of those innings or maybe injuries and trades force those inning totals to be moved around, which could cause the season ending with the most promising looking arms in terms of projected WHIP and K/BB (Masterson, Huff, Rondon, and I’ll even throw Carrasco in there because of his K/BB line, his PECOTA projection, and the fact that he’s not yet 23) could be where the Indians end up in terms of their 2010 rotation.

However, the Indians need to answer questions most importantly on Carmona, Masterson, and Huff in 2010 with less pressing answers needed on Laffey, Sowers, and Talbot and just a taste of what could be expected from Carrasco and Rondon going forward. The distribution of innings for starters this season should reflect those priorities accordingly.
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Now, if you’ll pardon me…I need to go snowblow the driveway while I dream of flying baseballs under the Arizona sun.