Jon & Paul Plus Baseball: Springing Into A “Plan”

Spring Training is just around the corner and while everyone on The Reservation is finally exhaling with the (albeit expected) news that The Axe Man is ready for action in Arizona, it’s time to break out the latest installment of the oh-so-popular series of “Jon & Paul Plus Baseball” where Jon Steiner from WFNY and I go diving into the depths of the Indians. Today, we’ll take a not-so-quick look (as is our wont) at whether the uneventful Spring Training that we stand at the precipice of is where the Indians should be in their “contention cycle” - which is to say, at the bottom...

JON: As the calendar turns to February, I’ve been thinking: what’s the biggest Spring Training story for the Indians this year? Is it third base? Second Base? The fifth starting spot? I guess, but I don’t really think we’re going to learn much about the first two until late March, and the fifth starter thing? Let’s be honest: fifth starters don’t really matter.

No, what strikes me as the biggest story coming out of Spring Training is that this team is coming off consecutive 90-loss seasons, and nothing has really changed. We’re left looking at largely the same roster that we had last year, with (hopefully) fewer injuries.

Does this strike you as a problem? Should there be more intrigue and moving parts for a team with so much room for improvement?

PAUL: That’s a great question leading into a Spring Training that looks to be largely boring in terms of “position” battles, which is unquestionably surprising for a team at the bottom of the “contention cycle” as the Indians purport to be. Truthfully, the answer as to why there doesn’t seem to be any compelling “battle” lies in the fact that the pieces that are now lining up in Cleveland and Columbus were put in place for the last two years, pointing to 2011 as a vetting year and 2012 and/or 2013 as the legitimate timeframes as to when the Indians would be looking to contend.

When you think about it, despite questions up and down the 25-man, no moves were made this off-season because the Indians have been making so many moves in an attempt to line up this specific young talent, so it’s time to see what happens with that “young talent”…that’s the idea, right?

Certainly that has some merit, but even with those “pieces” lining up for the parent club, what I find myself increasingly convinced of is that the Indians’ ideas for how these guys line up is already set in their minds. That is to say, they know what they’re going to do and have known what they’re going to do with the 25-man from the time that Kearns signed on. Certainly that’s a good thing – to have a plan – but the drumbeat of what’s coming out with the local scribes seems to presuppose that Donald is likely to start the season at 3B, Nix at 2B, and…well, “Who the Hell Really Cares” in the 5th starter spot.

They’ll spend the Spring defending Donald at 3B or Crowe’s inclusion on the roster or why Marson is going to start the season in AAA because the decisions have already been made and, whether what happens under the Arizona sun justifies that or not, the Indians seem to have a “plan” in place and if history provides the prologue, that’s probably how it plays out in Goodyear over the next few months. That being said, given the dearth of proven options and some of the talent that seems to around the MLB level, why don’t the Indians open some of these spots up legitimately for “open competition”?

The best-laid plans are great and all and certainly a team in the Indians’ position (market-wise and at the bottom of a mountain that may or may not be climbed) needs best-laid plans, but there’s something to be said for elasticity in these “plans” and to “playing the hot hand” and see where it goes from here.

You know what would make Spring Training interesting?

How about a young guy coming out and laying claim to a spot on the 25-man roster, whether it be a starting spot (like Phelps at 2B or 3B) or even in a back-up role (like Zeke Carrera outplaying T. Crowe) or come out of nowhere to earn a spot in the bullpen.

Know what would make that “earned” spot even more compelling?

If the Indians abandoned their best-laid plans on Day 1 of Spring Training and went off script.

By no means is that to suggest that guys like LaPorta, Brantley, Carrasco, or players like that should be on notice for their jobs in Goodyear, but there seems to be some flexibility at the edges of this roster and maybe seeing if one (or more) of the players that come to Goodyear without much of a chance to break camp with the team insert themselves into the short-term (and long-term) plans of this team.

Given what we keep seeing regarding what’s going to transpire in Goodyear and what is likely to come northeast at the end of March, do you think the Indians are willing to go “off script” in Arizona?

JON: Perhaps what I’m about to say is less cut and dried than reality might suggest, but this organization does not strike me as one that embraces improvisation. They seem to act judiciously and decisively--occasionally even viciously. But they do not deviate from their plans for the sake of appeasement. Not bloggers or fans or newspapermen. For better or worse, they strike me as an obstinate bunch. A more poetic man than I dubbed them LaCoste Nostra, and for good reason.

So while I see some merit to “shaking things up” in Goodyear by opening up a spot or three to competition, it would seem highly unlikely that we’ll actually see anything along these lines. As you point out, the organization has gone out of its way to establish a course of action over the last several years. And the front office believes, rightly or wrongly, that the appropriate course of action in 2011 involves a hearty and thorough evaluation of the talent on hand. An evaluation that needs playing time to be carried out.

And yes, I happen to agree with this train of thought--that 2011 must revolve around the task of fact-gathering. Do we know enough about Michael Brantley or Matt LaPorta or Carlos Carrasco or Jason Donald or Lou Marson or Josh Tomlin to say with any authority what they will or won’t become? I would say that we do not. So while adding pieces and parts at this point in the game might (might!) result in a slightly (slightly!) better record, those gains would be, in my mind at least, offset by hindering the evaluation of the players who are most important to the next decade of Cleveland baseball. And we’re not going to find any of those on the scrap heap. (Yes, I’m sort of ignoring your points about the younger guys like Carrera and Phelps; sorry for the detour here.)

I should admit: I was struck with an odd feeling of happiness when I realized that the Indians were not, in fact, on the verge of signing Jeremy Bonderman. That happiness was harpooned when word of Kevin Millwood started to surface. In trying to rationalize these feelings, I found myself in the odd position of rooting to see David Huff pitch for my team. This, quite obviously, necessitated multiple showers.

But that’s not it, really. It’s not that I want to see David Huff. It’s not that I believe in Jason Donald or Lou Marson. It’s that I believe that this organization owes it to the fans to bring their plan to fruition. We were told, in the wake of the trauma of 2008, that the trades were being used to restock the shelves. As a sign of organizational reckoning, it’s time to open the pantry and see what we bought. Even if it’s canned yams and spoiled tuna fish, we have to see it. It’s owed us.

Maybe that means I value process over results. Maybe that means I still refuse to believe we got snookered. Maybe that means I will perpetually care more about next season than this one. Whatever it is, I find myself excited for this season specifically because we are about to see an experiment three years in the making. Signing a scrap heap guy will cheapen that for me, and, in a way, would create a crisis of confidence in the front office that the rest of the city seems to have been experiencing for years.
Yes, that sounds drastic and reactionary. It’s all the rage these days.

PAUL: The detour and the reminder of where the team has been over the past two-and-a-half years and where it sits now is an important one and, while it has been largely ignored by the “teeth gnashers” and the “agents of harrumph” that have been aghast at the inactivity of the off-season, for the most part, the Indians have been pointing to this year as the developmental year that it should be to, as you so eloquently point out, “open the pantry and see what we bought”.

The idea of avoiding the scrap-heap signings is also well-placed (although I have at times convinced myself that Jack Hannahan’s glove at 3B is more compelling than Nix’s at 2B and could probably get on board with that Bonderman/Millwood signing because I really don’t want to see Dave Huff), but I think that this team sometimes values that “process” over “results” in as much as they arrive at a situation (like Spring Training) with a plan in hand and rarely stray from it.
Call it obstinance, call it being doctrinal...whatever you’d like, but LaCoste Nostra has a well-deserved reputation from devising a plan and sticking to it.

From 2003 to 2007, that certainly bore fruit, but I remember a couple of press conferences with Acta last year in which he made intimations that the likes of Donald and Gomez “weren’t supposed to be” in Cleveland - that the plan was for both to get their first tastes of MLB in September, not June or July. But in baseball (as in life), things happen that force events and improvisation upon any situation and, when those arise, the Indians always seem to be begrudgingly reacting instead of being proactive with a particular situation. By that I mean, they use the talking point of a player “forcing himself into a spot”, but rare is the example of an Indians’ player of the past few years legitimately “forcing himself” and not just sliding into a spot vacated by injury.

Perhaps it is that track record (and watching the way that things fell apart from July of 2008 to today...with a plan unquestionably in place) that makes me want the Indians to embrace some modicum of “bend” to their seemingly rigid plan. While I’m not intimating that they should be stocking up on retread players that are going to obviously take time away from realizing what’s been bought in the past few years and what sits in “the pantry” at present, a simple “competition” at a particular spot (like, say 3B or 2B) this Spring would be a welcome departure from the Indians going to Spring Training fully aware of how the team is going to look when it heads North and using Spring Training to justify those conclusions instead of using Spring Training to more fully come to those conclusions.

History suggests that those “competitions” may not only have a leader in the clubhouse, but a “winner” already tabbed before anyone steps under the Arizona sun, with the pieces on the chess board already lined up.

A Lazy Sunday with a Long Leash

In the midst of a pretty dark stretch of Cleveland sports, the brightening news that pitchers and catchers report in just over a week should be enough to get us past the Steelers in the Super Bowl (again), right? Since the Milwaukee-born-and-bred DiaBride has turned The Reservation gold and green for the day and as the DiaTot runs around in his Packer gear, pretending to be Aaron Rodgers (well, alternately with Grady Sizemore), let’s all don our cheeseheads (and we have them here), sip either High Life or PBR (there is plenty of both here) and root for a team that many on the North Coast can relate to, if not through recent success.

That lack of recent success on the shores of Lake Erie is something that has become a focal point in the printed word as of late, with Steve Buffum interviewing Scott Raab on...well, on a number of topics, but mainly LeBron, and a couple of the guys at LGT putting out some great pieces first, from Andrew Humphries, on why Indians’ fans are well aware of where their organization stands and why the continued beating that the team and city have taken nationally (and there’s another cheap shot from Heymann in the middle of another “WHAT WILL THE YANKEES DO WITH NO ANDY?!? piece) is unnecessary, then, from Adam Van Arsdale why hope springs eternal in the heart of every baseball fan around this time of year in the context of getting past Groundhog Day.

If you haven’t read all of them yet, they are all worth your time (well, not Heymann’s) because...really, what else are you going to do before 6:30 PM today besides attempt to remove whatever amount of inches of ice (and now snow after yesterday…at least here) have accumulated on your driveway/sidewalk over the past week...

With that, let’s get going on a Lazy Sunday as I have to get the summer sausage cut and the cheese curds to room temperature before the “Packer Party” begins in earnest as I attempt to allow my sons to enjoy a championship season from one of their “teams” (remember, their mother is from Wisconsin and their grandparents shower them with green and gold gifts) because...well, a championship season may not be in the offing on the North Coast for a while.

That’s not to say that brighter days may not be ahead and we’ll start there with (of all people) Paul Hoynes, who actually looks to be coming around to some perspective and logic (if intermittently) after all of the doom-and-gloom and potshots of the Indians’ off-season. Exhibit A of perhaps a different tone from the beat writer of the town’s only newspaper comes as a response in last week’s “Hey Hoynsie” that (once you get past the requisite idiocy), actually conveys a message worth pasting after a “question” comes about that the Dolans should sell and that fans should not go to games until they do.

Hoynes responds, in part, thusly:
You can go to the ballpark and watch this young team go through a developmental stage and see if they can turn themselves into a contender. Even the Indians great teams from 1995 through 2001 stumbled in the early 1990s.
If they do emerge as a contender, ownership has showed in the past it will spend to improve the team.
You can stop going to the ballpark, thus sending ownership a message of your disapproval of their operating plan. Believe me, it will make an impression.
Or you can keep writing me and complaining as if Indians fans are the only fans going through this situation. Check out Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore and Toronto.

Admittedly that line was bolded by me, but I do find it fascinating that people can complain about the Dolans’ cheapness, then wonder when Hafner’s albatross of a contract is set to expire as if those two issues are mutually exclusive.

That’s another topic (and probably one I hit on some time ago) for another day, but it is worth mentioning that the answer to the aforementioned “question” did not appear in the print edition of the PD that arrived on my doorstep last Sunday morning, just in the online version...and let’s just say that I don’t think that it’s a coincidence.

Regardless, what Hoynes writes in response to that “question” is something that you’ve been reading about here for the better part of a year, in that the Indians have positioned themselves with similarly-aged and similarly-advanced players once again to see if the success of 1995 to 2001 and 2005 to well, 2007 can be replicated, perhaps with sustainability closer to that of the first incarnation of the “new” Indians.

Without question, there are many answers that need to come in 2011 and much of the focus leading up to Spring Training has been on some of the more important pieces that figure to reveal themselves (good or bad) as 2011 marches on. It should come as no surprise (if you’ve been around here) that chief among those pieces is Matt LaPorta who, along with Carlos Carrasco, represents the biggest question mark whose answer is going to go the furthest in determining how quickly/slowly the Indians get back to an advanced level of competition and contention.

That being said, Jordan Bastian made MaTola the focus of his infield preview at the official site (and rightfully so) pointing out MaTola’s prospect pedigree and providing a quote from his manager:
When the Indians acquired LaPorta as the primary piece in the July 2008 trade that sent CC Sabathia to Milwaukee, the hope was that they landed the power-hitting first baseman who tore through the Minor Leagues. In 242 career games in the Minors, LaPorta has hit .296 with 56 homers, 181 RBIs and a .953 OPS.
“He’s done everything people were expecting him to do through the Minor Leagues,” Acta said. “He’s not rehabbing any injuries now. He’s just training for baseball. Hopefully he learned from 2010 and he can help us out this year.”

A lot of people likely forget what a monster LaPorta has been in the Minors and, realizing that there’s a big difference between Dunn Tire Park and Yankee Stadium (hello, Jeff Manto) and acknowledging that MaTola turned 26 last month, it leads us into a thoroughly-informational piece from Hoynes, in which he compiles snippets of quotes from MLB scouts (as well as the Indians’ GM, who is unsurprisingly optimistic on all counts) on some of the principals acquired in the CC, Lee, and Victor deal.

Hoynes leads the piece off with an acknowledgment that he hears the drum beat that I’ve been laying down since last off-season, once the notion that they punted on 2009 and 2010 with the Lee and Vic deals had been processed:
The idea behind these trades was to remake the Indians with talented young players who had as little big-league service time as possible. That way the team could develop and, theoretically, win together before the approach of free agency repeated the Sabathia, Lee and Martinez trifecta.
The Indians did all right with part of that equation. Brantley, Carrasco and Donald will enter this season with less than a year of service time. LaPorta and Marson have fewer than two years. Masterson has two years and 108 days.

Not too difficult to grasp and something you probably realized a solid 18 months ago, particularly if you’re coming around these parts…

Obviously, the Lowest Common Denominator crowd at cle.com didn’t take too kindly to Hoynes assertion (even that they “did all right”), so don’t wade into the comments section of the piece unless you want to lose time off of your life that you’ll never get back, an endeavor that Andrew Humphries of LGT puts out fair warning.

Regardless, the most fascinating part of the piece comes when Hoynes polls a couple of MLB scouts on those very players, with the opinions of the scouts on LaPorta jumping off of the page:
Scout 1: “Good effort guy, but defensive liability so he has to play a corner position. Has to impact the game with his bat. The power is there, but there are some holes in it. I wouldn’t give up on him.
“He had some injuries to his lower half [hip and toe] and that may have caused him to commit [start his swing] early. That will open some holes. Maybe he couldn’t stay strong through his swing because of his lower half.”
Scout 2: “He hasn’t developed quite as quickly as people thought. But a healthy LaPorta would be worth seeing.”

Remember last year, when it looked like LaPorta was swinging only with his arms and how he induced too much weak contact for the player that we had heard about?
There’s a pretty good explanation for it from Scout 1...

By no means is that to say that LaPorta is suddenly going to turn into a Jim Thome in his prime, but it certainly tempers the assumption that LaPorta is Pete O’Brien redux.

Again, the whole Hoynes piece is worth a read as there is glowing praise for Brantley from the scouts and some serious optimism for Carrasco putting it together and seeing his talent translate to success. Of course, not all of it is great news (in particular, Masterson as a starter seems to draw some skepticism from the scouts...probably deservedly so) but that line from Scout 1 on LaPorta that “I wouldn’t give up on him” is the one that struck me in terms of what 2011 ultimately will reveal.

Oftentimes, 2011 has been painted as a make-or-break year for LaPorta and the whole Hoynes piece is predicated on the idea that 2011 will be the year that we find out a lot about the players received for (most notably) CC, Lee, and Victor. However, if what this scout is saying is true, LaPorta should be on an awfully long leash from the Indians in 2011 and probably past it, based on his draft position, his prospect pedigree, and his cumulative MiLB numbers.

That idea of a “long leash” is an interesting narrative for the 2011 season as a whole as, if you go back to the manner in which the Indians assembled this group of young talent (starting with the CC trade and up to and including the 2010 Draft, headed by Drew Pomz), it’s not too difficult to see how these pieces line up on the board. More importantly, those pieces are starting to appear on said board with the idea that they’re not far off from what would be the presumed roster in, let’s say 2013, could be.
Remember that the Indians did this not too long ago or how optimistic this photo made you feel?

But back to the present tense, it’s not to hard to see how the Indians are lining these guys up, particularly with the lineup, and how (assuming health and some long leashes) how the lineup that is likely to be in place for what the Indians hope will be the next incarnation of a contender is close:
C – Santana
1B – LaPorta
2B – Kipnis
SS – Cabrera
3B – Chisenhall
LF – Brantley
CF – Sizemore
RF – Choo
DH – Hafner
Yes, I know that Sizemore is an “X” factor here and there’s a possibility that Brantley slides over to CF, perhaps with Nick Weglarz slotting in at LF for a short time, but that’s the lineup that most people have had in their mind since Kipnis burst on the prospect scene last May or so, right?

Sure, there’s a Donald here and a Phelps there with some Marson and Zeke Carrera sprinkled in as auxiliary pieces, but once the CC deal was done, with the CP Lee and Vic deals that followed, and as The Chiz continued his nice, linear path later joined by Kipnis, the pieces pretty much set themselves around the diamond.

Look at that lineup again and realize that 7 of 9 of those players will be in the Opening Day lineup (OK, maybe not Grady), with The Chiz and Kipnis likely to ascend at some point to a lineup that figures to be together for some time. Obviously, this is not breaking news, but it is interesting as to how the organization seemingly formulated a way to assemble a lineup and executed it to the point that we see today or at least how we’ll see it in August or so, presumably.

Of course, as has been discussed before, organizational depth or legitimate options past those 9 are not abundant at the upper levels in case of injury, but it bears mentioning again that, if those are the players that the organization identified to be a cog in a contending team, they should be afforded every opportunity to ingratiate themselves into MLB and potentially succeed. That may sound obvious in theory, but it presupposes a pretty strong stomach to get through the inevitable growing pains that will accompany those long leashes.

Remember how bad Brantley looked to start 2010, when he was pushed into extended duty after Sizemore went down?
How about Valbuena last year?
Yeah, those are the stretches that the Indians are going to have to (and should) endure with the players that they’ve already identified as potential “core” players going forward. While Valbuena looked to have some promise in 2009, he completely fell apart last year and now finds himself on the outside looking in at that list above. Seeing as how 7 of those guys will start the year in Cleveland (OK...6 with Grady’s knee), the Indians need to put those names into the lineup every day and allow them to evolve as they’re going to mature and develop as MLB players. When The Chiz and Kipnis are deemed worthy of a promotion (or when, you know, that Super-2 cut-off date passes), the Indians should handle them similarly.

There are going to be ups and downs and some of these guys might fall off the map the way that Valbuena did last year (though hopefully not as quickly), but all of those names have a track record in MLB or have been highly-rated prospects in the past few years, so the idea that those specific players (who again, looked to have been considered part of the future “core” for some time now) should have room to fail as well as (hopefully) succeed should rule the day in 2011.

As for the pitchers, it’s not quite as cut-and-dry of a list as you can certainly see that Carrasco and Masterson are going to be afforded the long leash that Carmona (who Jon Paul Morosi cannot let go of as a great fit for...wait for it...the Yankees) and Talbot (out of options) figure to be on as both CarCar and Masterson were targeted as impact arms when they were acquired and neither has anything left to prove below the parent club.

Certainly, there’s plenty for them to prove in Cleveland, like whether they can achieve consistent results to merit their inclusion in the rotation (and not the bullpen in the case of Masterson), much less at the top of said rotation.

Beyond those two obvious cases and Talbot because he projects as a 5th starter eventually...well, the Tribe could do a lot worse for a guy with just one year of service time accrued, there is the group of AAA (Tomlin and Gomez and Huff) who are going to get their chances, but feel more like placeholders for the high draft picks of the past few years (most notably Al White and Pomz, but also Joe Gardner) who the Indians have to hope will start to fill some rotational gaps (particularly if Masterson is better-suited for the bullpen) pretty quickly. Other than those recent draft picks, they have those secondary arms that they’ve accumulated via trade the last few years (Kluber, McAllister, Barnes, and further down Soto) that they’ll hope they can parlay into some effectiveness at the MLB level.

It looks more than likely that they’re going to add an arm before Spring Training (and I’m loving this public posturing to pressure Bonderman and Millwood to agree to deals, with the Indians fully aware that they’re probably the only team offering either player a MLB deal) and that arm likely buys some time for the likes of White to assert himself in AAA or at least for the “depth” starters to sort themselves out, but the likelihood of a veteran arm heading out to Goodyear is growing. Whether it be an arm with upside (albeit limited) like Bonderman as the Indians hope to pick the winning lottery numbers or if it’s simply an inning-eating body (which is all Millwood is at this point) to buy time, the starting five is likely to be known prior to Goodyear with many questions to be answered going forward.

Beyond the rotation, the bullpen figures to be in flux with bodies and arms figuring to arrive pretty constantly to fill in the rest of the bullpen around C.F. Perez. The names and ceilings are known and unknown and I gave up trying to predict bullpen performance long enough ago that I’m not going to assert much more than that there certainly seem to be a lot of big-bodied, hard-throwing reliever types that strike a lot of guys out up and down the organization. Though the piece is “old”, a great overview of what I’m referring to comes from TCF’s Al Ciammiachella, whose Prospect Rankings will start tomorrow at TCF, by the by.

Realizing that a lot of this feels like a long-winded way of saying “let the kids play”, I think that what gets lost a lot in the “let the kids play” strategy is that “letting the kids play” is going to come with some serious growing pains. This doesn’t need to be repeated to anyone who was paying attention last year and this piece may merely offer a bit of a simple overview of the organization that’s been hashed and re-hashed over again and again in this off-season of inactivity. However, it is worth repeating that the Indians seem to have the players that they assume to be the foundation of the next incarnation of the Indians in place at the MLB level (or at least close to it) with the only thing left to do is to see how these guys perform and ultimately see how this all plays out.

Stay tuned, the baseballs start flying under the Arizona sun next week…
Oh, and of course scream from the top of our lungs later today - dum-dum-da-da-dum...Go Pack Go!!

Can a Tiger Find His Stripes in Cleveland?

Since it seems as if the Bonderman-as-veteran-arm rumor seems to be gaining some steam, let’s make our first foray into the Hot Stove because…well, if your driveway looks anything like mine, you could use a little heat. Regardless of the facts that it’s February and that Pitchers and Catchers report in less than two weeks, this off-season has been so devoid of “news” or even “rumors” involving the Indians, let’s take the opportunity to rationalize what Bonderman (if added) represents as a player and what he would mean to the 2011 Tribe.

Is this jumping into thing a bit, since there have only been reports that the Indians are interested in seeking deal with Bonderman?
Maybe, but since I don’t know if I can write another comparison to teams of yesteryear or preach patience to see what these young players can do, let’s take the opportunity to pull up a stool to the Hot Stove…even if everyone else in MLB deserted their spots around the fire a couple of weeks/months ago.

Regardless, regarding Bonderman, a friend of mine e-mailed me to say that “if Bonderman isn’t the textbook Indians’ signing, I don’t know who is”, adding a snarky comment about Josh Tomlin to boot. But Bonderman certainly does fit the Indians’ profile of the past few years in terms of adding an undervalued veteran arm from the scrap heap and seeing if they can put some polish on someone else’s refuse.

In particular, Bonderman’s situation is interesting when you compare it to the last “bargain-bin” shopping purchase that the Indians found for their rotation, with some eerie similarities to Hot Carl Pavano and the career arc for each.

To start off this little comparison, realize that the ages are going to be different and the timeframes and leagues are not going to allow a true “apples-to-apples” look, but you’ll see that Bonderman over the last 5 years and Pavano, from his time in Florida to Minnesota, actually represent some interesting comps, starting with Bonderman’s best season…way back in 2006:
Jeremy Bonderman – 2006 (Age 23)
4.08 ERA (112 ERA+), 1.30 WHIP, 8.5 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 3.16 K/BB in 214 IP over 34 games
After that 2006 season, the then-23-year-old Bonderman signed a 4-year deal with the Motor City Kitties that paid him $38M through the end of 2010. Prior to the 2007 season, Baseball Prospectus wrote that, “Bonderman is as good a bet as any pitcher in the American League to win a Cy Young Award, provided that Johan Santana gets hit by a bus or something.”
Seriously…
Carl Pavano – 2004 (Age 28)
3.00 ERA (137 ERA+), 1.17 WHIP, 5.6 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 2.84 K/BB in 222 1/3 IP over 31 games
Certainly, Pavano’s 2004 makes Bonderman’s 2006 pale in comparison (and how crazy is it to see what Pavano did back in 2004), but just like Bonderman, Pavano parlayed this season into a 4-year deal with the Evil Empire worth $39.95M, nearly identical to the deal Bonderman signed after his 2006 season, with the $1.95M difference being the buy-out of Pavano’s 2009 option.

We all know what happened in the Big Apple in the ensuing years with the “American Idle”, so let’s not re-hash that again. Just realize, for the purposes of attempting to find apples-too apples, Pavano missed the entire 2006 season with an injury, so his 4-year total is being used in comparison to Bonderman’s 3-year total, a period during which Bonderman struggled to stay in the rotation consistently for the first 3 years of the deal, posting this line in that three-year stretch:
Jeremy Bonderman – 2007 to 2009
4.96 ERA (92 ERA+), 1.47 WHIP, 6.8 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 2.11 K/BB in 256 IP over 48 games
In this timeframe, Bonderman battled multiple injuries, including a sore elbow that caused his disappointing 2007 and a very serious shoulder clot in 2008. Unquestionably ugly and a significant drop-off from his 2006, but compare those numbers to Pavano’s as a Yankee:
Carl Pavano – 2005 to 2008
5.00 ERA (87 ERA+), 1.46 WHIP, 4.6 K/9, 1.9 BB/9, 2.5 K/BB in 145 2/3 IP over 26 games
After posting that three-year cumulative line, Pavano made his way out of New York and onto the North Coast, drawing howls of despair (from me, admittedly...among others) as nobody could figure out why the Indians were willing to guarantee THIS pitcher even $1.5M prior to the 2009 season.

That’s where the Indians come in and pick Pavano up, dust him off, and put some shine back on his apple. However, we’re still in the timeline of trying to figure out where Bonderman would fit in terms of re-establishing himself, as Pavano did in 2010.

Thus, entering last year, still on the road to recovery, Bonderman returned to the Tigers’ rotation for 2010 producing this line:
Jeremy Bonderman – 2010 (Age 27)
5.53 ERA (76 ERA+), 1.44 WHIP, 5.9 K/9, 3.2 BB/9, 1.87 K/BB in 171 IP over 30 games
Nothing to write home about for sure but interestingly, Bonderman experienced some success to start the season (he had a 4.06 ERA in mid-June through 12 starts and a 4.36 ERA at the beginning of July through 14 starts) until falling apart as the season wore on, posting a 6.68 ERA through his final 17 starts to ugly up his overall 2010 line.

That out there, how about comparing what Bonderman did in 2010 to the numbers that Pavano put up in 2009 as a member of the Indians and the Twins:
Carl Pavano – 2009 (Age 33)
5.10 ERA (84 ERA+), 1.38 WHIP, 6.6 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 3.77 K/BB in 199 1/3 IP over 33 games
Avert your gaze upward again and look at Bonderman from 2010 while you realize that this 2009 line from Pavano turned out to be what he used to re-establish himself (somewhat) in MLB in 2009, leading to a $7M payday from Minnesota for the 2010 season. Obviously, there’s a big difference in the BB/9 from Pavano in 2009 to Bonderman in 2010, but the ERA and the WHIP aren’t really that far off and while the advanced metrics (FIP, xFIP, SIERA) certainly favor Pavano in this comparison, it is worth noting that Pavano used this season as a jumping point for his 3.75 ERA in Minnesota this past year.

Certainly, I’m not here to suggest that Bonderman is going to be posting a 3.75 ERA for the Indians in 2011, only that the Indians were able to identify Pavano as a player who could be had on the cheap who was due for a rebound season. If we’re talking about the same Front Office and analysts having a hand in this decision, doesn’t it stand to reason that they surveyed what was available on the “third tier” market (and I’ll explain that term that I’ve used before) and decided that Bonderman was the one that they wanted to target?

What makes them think that?
Who’s to say, but it is worth noting that (with their possible attempted exploitation of the undervalued groundball pitcher) both Bonderman and Pavano had similar GB% in those last two years that I compared - Bonderman 2010: 44.7%, Pavano 2009: 43.2%) - and it stands to reason that the GB tendencies of Bonderman could have played a role. It is worth noting that Pavano bumped that GB% up to 51.2% last year, but also that Bonderman’s career GB% is 46.5% and Pavano’s is 46%.

That may just be a coincidence and the loss in velocity on Bonderman’s fastball is disconcerting (his average fastball was 93.3 MPH in 2006 and averaged 89.8 MPH in 2010), but if the Indians are looking to add a veteran arm that essentially allows them to slot the young arms who SHOULD be depth starters (Gomez, Tomlin, Huff, etc.) to start the season, why not Bonderman, for whom Bill James’ projections peg for a 4.58 ERA (James’ projections have Talbot at a 4.73 ERA), to eat some innings.

The question needs to be asked whether they need a guy like Bonderman, to eat innings, if 2011 is all about answering questions about the in-house talent and the difference for me lies in the fact that the assumed 5th starter candidates (without Bonderman) all look like 5th starters/AAAA fodder at this point in their career, with nothing they did in 2010 doing anything to change that perception.

With that in mind, I’d assert that the logic that was espoused in this space back in October still holds firm:
I’m not overly convinced that the likes of Talbot, Tomlin, Gomez, and Huff are much more than “Cleveland to Columbus” fodder and past Carmona, Carrasco, and Masterson (who, frankly, still could end up in the bullpen), the next group of arms is a fair distance away from legitimately contributing. To that end, Alex White excites me and Corey Kluber, Zach McCallister, and Yohan Pino intrigue me at some level (and in that order), but I don’t think that those guys are going to be ready when the season starts to be in Cleveland, just like I don’t think that Tomlin or Gomez should join Huff in some sort of less-than-compelling “competition” for the 5th spot.

Certainly the team needs to separate the wheat from the chaff, but I would allow some of that to continue to happen on the AAA level and see if the team could add an arm (or two) to that mix of the parent club to push guys like Tomlin, Gomez, Huff, and the group below them into a position where they’re forcing THEMSELVES into an opportunity instead of an opportunity being forced upon them, perhaps prematurely. Certainly, the Indians need to find what they have in their back-end-of-the-rotation grab-bag, but given that all of those guys have options (save Talbot), I’d utilize those options and add some legitimate depth in the rotation for next year. If Tomlin/Gomez/Huff or White/Kluber/McCallister/Pino force themselves into the conversation – terrific, but putting them squarely in the conversation when they may not necessarily belong there is what frightens me.

If Bonderman is able to allow them some time to allow those guys in AAA to sort themselves out and slot themselves for when a starter is needed (and a starter WILL be needed at some point…whether it’s to replace Bonderman or someone else), than Bonderman is the lottery ticket that the Indians just bought at the corner store.

Why Bonderman over the rest of the “third tier” arms?
Just as relevant to the conversation here is something that was written last November, when an off-season road-map (one that never made it out of the glove compartment apparently) was laid out and Bonderman was mentioned as a possible fit. In laying out particular pitchers that could be fits for the 2010 Indians, I wrote that the Indians were likely to be selecting from a “third-tier of FA pitcher – the scratch and dent section...included in this tier are the likes of Bruce Chen, Brandon Webb, Javier Vazquez, Chris Young, Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer, Jeremy Bonderman, all of whom come with injury or performance concerns and all who are likely to be available on a shorter, incentive-laden deal...but with good reason.”

Interestingly, we can now go back and look at the deals that most of these guys received (and, in full disclosure, I was hoping for Webb...although his velocity could be lower than Bonderman), and realize that all of those guys were likely on the Indians’ radar at some point with the decision to (perhaps) add Bonderman being affected by other teams’ offers, but also the Indians own preferences for the veteran arm that they would add.

Most of the names mentioned above signed incentive-laden deals and the Indians set the current industry standard for how to work one of these “scrap-heap signings” to their benefit in the case of Pavano. If you’ll remember, Pavano’s deal was for $1.5M base salary with $5.3M in performance bonuses that escalated with each start over 18 and every inning pitched past 130.

If the Indians add Bonderman, it’s likely that they’ll include similar incentives and hope to find the same success that they did just two years ago when they “inexplicably” added Pavano prior to the 2009 season. At that time, the Pavano signing was ridiculed, with the performance of Pavano since that time justifying the risk (low as it may have been) taken on Hot Carl and earning the benefit of the doubt (to a degree) for the veteran arm that is likely to join the ranks in Goodyear this Spring.

In a perfect world, would it be idea for the Indians to add more than Bonderman?
Of course, but within the realities of MLB, if the Indians add Bonderman, they assume little risk and likely buy themselves some time to learn more about their arms on the farm. With the current group of 5th starter candidates underwhelming and the layer beneath them (most notably Al White, but also Kluber and McAllister, among others) looking like they’ll need some time in AAA (like Gomez and Tomlin may as well), Bonderman would look to have a leg up and perhaps offers the Indians an arm to eat innings and buy time until some longer-term answers arrive from the farm as the Indians’ Front Office looks to catch lightning in a bottle one more time in the starting rotation.

A Lazy Sunday Spent Prospecting

With the calendar about to flip to February, meaning that Spring Training is inching ever so closer, and as the Indians are out in full force on their “Tribe on Tour” in an attempt to drum up some interest for the coming season, the big news of the week comes in the form of a couple of prospect lists emerging from various sources with the Indians not being as well-represented as some corners might have expected them to be, given the…um, roster turnover since July of 2008.

Specifically, there seems to be some concern brewing over the fact that the Indians placed only one player in MLB.com’s Top 50 prospects, “only” three among Keith Law’s Top 100 and that Law ranked the Indians as the 17th best team in terms of organizational talent. Certainly the organizational ranking by Law was eyebrow-raising (he had the Indians #4 last year), but it was something that MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian attempted to contextualize on his blog when he said that, “there is good depth and many players on the cusp of reaching the big leagues, but the club lacks a pile of players that make the top-prospect-list-makers drool all over themselves.”

That would probably be the case for most organizations, but for a team that is in the midst of a “Rebuild/Reload/Whatever”, most Indians’ fans want to see the Indians at or near the top of all of these lists, with the players acquired for CC, Lee, and Victor dotting the top of them (and they really can’t, by virtue of most of those players no longer being “prospects” having accumulated either 50 IP or 130 AB…but we’ll get to that) or the recent high draftees at least coming in high enough to keep them warm in the cold of January.

Bastian goes further to alleviate whatever fears may be out there (and he links some of the “fears” articulated to him via Twitter in the aforementioned linked piece) as he gets used to the nature of the Cleveland sports fan, attempting to talk some folks down off of the 480 bridge:
Rest assured, Tribe fans, the Indians’ farm system is in good shape. Sure, the jury is still out on the overall return of the CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee deals, but Cleveland’s Minor League system is widely considered one of the best in baseball. Last year’s Draft haul only added to that evaluation.
If you like going with Baseball America, then know that BA has the Indians ranked seventh in the 2011 organizational rankings (ESPN’s Keith Law disagreed, ranking them 17th). That’s the third year in a row that the Tribe has cracked BA’s Top 10 (third in 2010 and seventh in 2009). BA also rated the Indians’ 2010 First-Year Player Draft as the best in the game.

For some background on this, here are Law’s organizational rankings, listing the Tribe at #17, his ranking them at #4 in his organizational rankings last year, as well as his Top 10 Prospects for the Tribe this year, via the ABJ. For your further reading enjoyment as long as we’re talking ranking organizational talent on the farm, here is B-Pro’s ranking of the Indians as having the 3rd most organizational talent last year (B-Pro ranked them #12 prior to the 2009 season), with B-Pro’s organizational rankings for 2011 still not yet available.

Regardless, it was a near certainty that the Indians would drop in their organizational rankings, if only based on the players no longer eligible for these lists, most notably Santana, Carrasco, and Brantley along with Marson, Donald and, to an even lesser degree, Jeanmar and Tomlin. However, the list of players that graduated after 2009 (LaPorta and C. Perez most notably, among others) or younger players on the team despite exhausting their “prospect” status a couple of years ago (Cabrera, Masterson, among others) speak to how young the players are who are already in MLB for the Tribe.
By the end of the year, the team could have players in the lineup all of whom are 26 or younger, except for Choo, Hafner, and Sizemore. Additionally, the only pitchers that figure significantly into the 2011 rotation that are older than 26 are Carmona and Talbot (both 27) and Rafael Perez (29).

So if these young guys now on the parent club have “graduated” from prospect status and people are gripping about only The Chiz making the MLB.com list and only 3 players (The Chiz, Kipnis, and Drew Pomz) making Keith Law’s list when the Indians have been making trades for young talent for the better part of 2 ½ years, wouldn’t it be instructive to look at where the current group of Indians’ players (acquired via trade or drafted or however) have shown up on these prospect lists, even if it was when they were in the Brewers’ organization, the Phillies’ organization, the Cardinals’ organization, or while a member of the Tribe?

Just to keep the hand-wringing to a minimum, let’s do that and, for the purposes of “brevity”, I’ll use Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, Keith Law, MLB.com, and John Sickels for context here, listing the rankings only when the players have appeared in the Top 100 rankings of MLB for any of those rankings. As an aside, it is worth noting that John Sickels breaks up his lists to Top 50 hitters and Top 50 pitchers, so just be aware of that difference as it still makes up a “Top 100”, just not as cleanly.

Going back as far as I can find lists that are applicable (and BA goes back the furthest while I can only find Keith Law’s lists for the last two years) and announcing that while I’d love to provide links for each applicable ranking, in the best interests of my sanity and time...just trust me on these.
Let’s go around the diamond and I’m keeping this (for now) limited to guys that have been on these prospect rankings in the last three years:

Carlos Santana
Pre-2010 - #3 Keith Law
Pre-2010 - #8 B-Pro
Pre-2010 - #10 BA
Pre-2010 - #11 MLB.com
Pre-2010 - #5 John Sickels Hitting
Pre-2009 - #13 Keith Law
Pre-2009 - #33 B-Pro
Pre-2009 - #26 BA
Pre-2009 - #17 John Sickels Hitting
Not too much left up to the imagination here as Santana steadily rose up all of these lists from the time he arrived.

Lou Marson
Pre-2009 - #66 BA
Pre-2009 - #43 MLB.com
Yes, Lonnie Chisenhall is MLB.com’s 36th ranked prospect going into this year...two years ago, MLB.com had Louis Glenn Marson (who could a convoluted platoon partner for Hafner going forward, something touched on in the latest “Jon & Paul Plus Baseball”) at #43.

Matt MaTola
Pre-2009 - #30 B-Pro
Pre-2009 - #27 BA
Pre-2009 - #14 MLB.com
Pre-2009 - #29 John Sickels Hitting
Pre-2008 - #31 B-Pro
Pre-2008 - #23 BA
Pre-2008 - #19 John Sickels Hitting
Those are nearly universal top 50 rankings (remember, I can’t find Law’s list for Pre-2009 or Pre-2008) from the time that he was drafted until he was no longer a “prospect” - as determined by plate appearances. He’s been a major disappointment to this point, but let’s see where LaPorta stands after 2011 to see if these rankings were illusory or justified.

Jason Kipnis
Pre-2011 - #56 Keith Law
It will be interesting to see where The Kipper comes in on the BA, B-Pro, and Sickels’ lists for this year as he certainly asserted himself to the point that he was the 4th highest rated 2B by MLB.com and, according to Jordan Bastian, if the MLB.com “was Top 100, Indians prospects Jason Kipnis, Alex White & Drew Pomeranz would all likely be included.”

Jason Donald
Pre- 2009 - #69 BA
As is the case with Tofu Lou, it is often forgotten that Donald was, in fact, a Top 100 prospect (at least according to BA) in the off-season prior to him being part of the Lee deal.

Lonnie Chisenhall
Pre-2011 - #39 Keith Law
Pre-2011 - #36 MLB.com
Pre-2010 - #26 Keith Law
Pre-2010 - #43 B-Pro
Pre-2010 - #31 BA
Pre-2010 - #55 MLB.com
Pre-2010 - #25 John Sickels Hitting
Here’s a great example of how these prospect lists vary as The Chiz moved up in MLB.com’s ranking from last year to this (going from #55 last off-season to #36 in the most recent edition) and moved down in Law’s rankings for the same time period (#26 last off-season to #39 this past week).

Mike Brantley
Pre-2010 - #71 Keith Law
Pre-2010 - #46 MLB.com
Pre-2010 - #50 John Sickels Hitting
Like Donald and Marson, Brantley often gets overlooked in the context of being a “top” prospect as Law, MLB.com, and Sickels all had him in their Top 100 (or even Top 50) going into last year.

Nick Weglarz
Pre-2009 - #83 B-Pro
Pre-2009 - #57 BA
Wegz seems to have fallen off of the radar after getting some love prior to the 2009 season, but now that he’s in AAA, he could be a name that surprises in 2011. Of course, he could just as easily be a name that floats away.

Carlos Carrasco
Pre-2009 - #43 B-Pro
Pre-2009 - #52 BA
Pre-2009 - #28 MLB.com
Pre-2009 - #24 John Sickels Pitching
Pre-2008 - #68 B-Pro
Pre-2008 - #54 BA
Pre-2008 - #28 MLB.com
Pre-2007 - #37 B-Pro
Pre-2007 - #41 BA
Pre-2007 - #31 John Sickels Pitching
That’s three straight years on Top 100 lists (peaking on the MLB.com lists at #28 for two years in a row) and while the stagnation on these lists is noticeable, Carrasco was unquestionably a Top 100 prospect...and not just for a short time.

Justin Masterson
Pre-2008 - #53 B-Pro
Pre-2008 - #64 BA
Pre-2008 - #40 John Sickels Pitching
Masterson is an interesting one as the Red Sox moved him quickly up the ladder of the Minor League system and into their bullpen, which means that he didn’t really spend more than one year as a “top prospect”. In the year that he was, he easily made the cut of the Top 100 of multiple lists.

Mitch Talbot
Pre-2007 - #36 John Sickels Pitching
Yeah, back before the 2007 season, even Talbot Unleashed his own brand of Fury on one of these listings.

David Huff
Pre-2009 - #36 John Sickels Pitching
I’ll get to the “misses” on these lists (that I’m not listing here as they aren’t still on the 40-man), but Huff on a list, ranked higher on Sickels’ pitching list than Masterson was the previous year and just 12 slots behind Carrasco on Sickels’ Pre-2009 Pitching list.

Chris Perez
Pre-2009 - #67 B-Pro
Pre-2009 - #91 BA
Pre-2009 - #20 John Sickels Pitching
Pre-2008 - #69 B-Pro
Pre-2008 - #97 BA
Though Perez has always been a reliever (and relievers aren’t usually very highly rated on these lists), here’s a great example of a player that hangs around these lists at the bottom end of them and explodes onto the scene when promoted to MLB.

Alex White
Pre-2010 - #77 B-Pro
Pre-2010 - #65 BA
Pre-2010 - #31 John Sickels Pitching
Like his 2009 Draft mate Jason Kipnis, it will be interesting to see where White falls on the BA, B-Pro, and Sickels’ lists as you’ll remember (or maybe you won’t) that Jordan Bastian passed along that White (as well as Kipnis and Pomz) would have been on MLB.com’s list had it gone to 100 and Keith Law dismissed White as more of a reliever than a starter.

Drew Pomeranz
Pre-2011 - #60 Keith Law
Since Pomeranz (who was interviewed by B-Pro’s David Laurila in an interesting piece here) has yet to throw a pitch for the Indians, this is all based on reports prior to him being drafted so my guess is that he’s going to come in higher than this on BA’s list (as they LOVE them some high draft picks) and will probably come in around here on B-Pro’s list. Regardless, all of this is based on nothing having to do with Pomz throwing a pitch in the Minors yet, so we’ll see…

Jason Knapp
Pre-2010 - #82 B-Pro
Pre-2010 - #64 BA
Like Pomz, this one is still based largely on projection and I wouldn’t be surprised if Knapp shows up somewhere on the still-to-be-announced lists as his 47 K in 28 IP last year is likely to cause some scout somewhere to drool over his radar gun.

Hector Rondon
Pre-2010 - #51 Keith Law
Pre-2010 - #32 John Sickels Pitching
Often a forgotten man after he went down last year, Rondon figures to be out all of 2011 after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Nick Hagadone
Pre-2010 - #100 Keith Law
Pre-2010 - #91 B-Pro
Pre-2010 - #44 BA
Pre-2010 - #56 MLB.com
Seeing as how Hagadone was one of the more highly-rated players in the system going into last year for Hagadone and with news that he’s officially going to be transferred to the bullpen, it will be interesting to see if he sticks around on the BA or B-Pro lists for Pre-2011, based on projection.

All told, every single one of those players have been rated as Top 100 prospects at some point since prior to the 2007 season. The other “veterans” on the team have found themselves similarly on prospect lists through the years (listed without comment), and let’s look at those as an introduction to the point of this whole discourse:
Fausto Carmona
Pre-2006 - #50 MLB.com
Pre-2004 - #76 BA

Travis Hafner
Pre-2003 - #46 BA
Pre-2003 - #10 John Sickels Hitting

The BLC
Pre-2005 - #51 BA
Pre-2005 - #25 John Sickels Hitting
Pre-2004 - #44 John Sickels Hitting
Pre-2003 - #23 John Sickels Hitting

Grady Sizemore
Pre-2005 - #17 John Sickels Hitting
Pre-2004 - #9 BA
Pre-2004 - #11 John Sickels Hitting

Jayson Nix
Pre-2004 - #94 BA
Pre-2004 - #26 John Sickels Hitting
Hafner, Choo, Cabrera

Interestingly, Asdrubal Cabrera never was listed as a Top 100 player by any of the rankings that I could find and looking at these lists in the context of what these players became (and I’m talking about the former incarnation of Pronk, not the Pronk Lite we see now) as the only one of those players that ever cracked a Top 20 overall was Sizemore.

Of course, the Indians had some “can’t miss” players in the past like Victor and CC that panned out, but the highest that Clifton Phifer Lee was ever rated was as the 30th best prospect from BA prior to the 2003 season, which is only 23 spots lower than the #53 rating that Jeremy Sowers would receive prior to the 2006 season.

That’s the rub in all of this inexact science as the old BA lists are littered with former Indians like Atom Miller or Wes Hodges or Chuck Lofgren or Trevor Crowe (seriously...who came in at #60 on the pre-2007 B-Pro list and #64 on the BA list from the same year, with Dustin Pedroia coming in at #77) or Beau Mills (#87 on the pre-2008 BA list...ahead of Chris Perez), who did in fact finish in some of these Top 100 lists in a particular year

With the benefit of hindsight, you see how absurd the idea of a Pre-2006 prospect list looks with Jeremy Sowers at #17, putting him behind Marte, (#7 on the same list), and ahead of Anthony Reyes (who was #26), and Fernando Cabrera (#43)...and three of those players figured to contribute to a 2006 Tribe team that was coming off of the 93-win 2005 season.

We all know how that played out and these lists are an endless source of fascination, when you go far enough back and look at some of these lists, you see Marte ahead of...well, everyone and Mike Aubrey ahead of Ryan Howard and Hanley Ramirez or Anthony Reyes ahead of Matt Cain.
Even better – there’s Josh Barfield one slot ahead of David Wright on the Pre-2004 BA list.
This could go on and on...

Regardless, you get where this is going as these prospect lists are great conversation fodder and certainly the inclusion on any of these lists is a positive in terms of a particular player’s perception. However, all it takes is a cursory glance at past prospect lists to see if these ranking services have as many “hits” and “misses” as most organizations do as some of these players flame out while others who are ranked lower on these lists (or not ranked at all) surprise when ascending to MLB.

Don’t take that to mean that my assertion is that the Indians will be justified by their current batch of prospects when it all comes out in the wash. Rather the crash-and-burn of the likes of Sowers, Miller, Aubrey, Crowe, Lofgren, and Hodges have given me pause to simply equate the prospect ranking of a particular player to an assumed amount of success (if any) for said player.

Again, sometimes players surprise (Choo peaked at #51 on the BA list all the way back in 2005 and Asdrubal never made a list), others fail to reach the level of success predicted for them for reasons as varied as a pulley strain (Miller) to an inability to adjust to MLB (Sowers), while the rare special players fulfill their potential (the way that Sizemore, CC, and Victor did) and continue to develop until they attain the star status “expected” of them.

That’s not to discount these rankings or any prospect rankings as there certainly seems to be an order in any organization of highly-thought-of prospects (with the current group for the Tribe being Chiz, The Kipper, Al White and Pomz quite universally) and somewhat- promising guys that are either going to take the next step, simply be 40-man fodder, or disappear completely.

The truth is that I don’t know which guys, either on the parent club or in the Minors, fall into which category and neither do any of these other national lists. While this is treading over old territory, I know, the only way to accurately determine which of these young players (whether they retain “prospect” status or not) succeed in MLB is to get them up to the parent club (assuming they’ve “earned” it) and to find some gold among the iron pyrite.

Regardless of that fact (and that many people realize that), whenever these things come out, there is the requisite celebration or gnashing of teeth...but to what end?

In the Indians’ situation (as well as about 24 other teams in MLB), they need to not only assemble talent, but assemble talent that arrives all at once or only a couple of years apart from each other. In Acta, they seem to have a “hands-on” manager who seems genuinely excited about the future that lies ahead, sometimes at the expense of common sense. However, this organization assembled talent that arrived all at once from 1993 to 1995 and experienced success based on the contributions of those young players and did it again from 2003 to 2005 and experienced fleeting success based on the assembled young talent.

While there is some truth that not much can truly be gleaned from these lists, how about the fact that the current Indians are well-represented in the BA lists from 2009, with the specific players and rankings here:
2009 BA Top 100 Prospects
#26 – Santana
#27 – LaPorta
#52 – Carrasco
#57 – Weglarz
#66 – Marson
#69 – Donald
#91 – C. Perez

Beyond that, there’s Masterson the 2008 list (#64) that “graduated” and players that appeared for the first time on the BA Top 100 in the 2010 list:
2010 BA Top 100 Prospects (only those appearing for 1st time on BA list)
#31 – Chisenhall
#44 – Hagadone
#64 – Knapp
#65 – White

That’s 12 players, 7 of whom will be on the Opening Day roster and 3 of whom (Chiz, White, and Wegz) who are likely to ascend to the parent club at some point in 2011.

Further, we’ll add Kipnis and Pomeranz in a few weeks to that list of players that appeared in the BA Top 100 lists of the last three years when they are ranked in the Pre-2011 rankings as players that figure to play roles in the next incarnation of the Indians.

Seeing as how the Indians that appeared in the 2007 BA list were Atom Miller (#23), Chuck Lofgren (#54), Trevor Crowe (#64), and Brian Barton (#86) and knowing how all of that turned out, the influx of talent – though painful – puts the Indians back to where they need to be, attempting to get another group of young, similarly-aged and similarly-advanced players all at the big league level or just beneath it in an attempt to push open yet another “window of contention” when they’re still smarting from the last window slamming shut on their fingers so fast.

Is that enough?
With teams built like this and with the young players that make up those teams, only time will tell...

Stranded at Third Base

As we move ever so slowly closer to pitchers and catchers reporting (while ignoring odd leaps of logic on these Interwebs), there is one position that continues to stick in my head as the 3B situation has inexplicably become cloudier than it was when the 2010 season ended and it was as clear as mud back then. So as much as I’d like to focus on the fact that I think that Carlos Santana is going to provide a major lift to the Indians’ offense or that Carmona, Masterson, and Carrasco are going to provide some stabilization to a rotation badly in need of it in 2011, and realizing that more e-ink has been spilled on the Tribe 3B this off-season, the stunning realization persists that the Indians are exactly where they were when the off-season started (and perhaps worse off and more confused)...all of which unfortunately leaves us all unable to get past 3B.

Of course, getting past 3B is an issue that many men deal with at some point in their lives, but the new wrinkle comes in the (now-not-so-new) news that the Indians are now considering moving Jason Donald to 3B in an attempt to find a stop-gap at the Hot Corner. Since the assumption most of the off-season was that Donald would be the 2B in Cleveland until Kipnis forced his way onto the roster, the way that 3B is somehow all wrapped up with 2B, let’s (inexplicably) start at 2B as that is (inexplicably) how the Indians seem to be approaching the 3B situation.

Everyone have their bases straight here...yeah, me neither.
Regardless, the Indians have three middle infielders in Jayson Nix (a 2B), Jason Donald (primarily a SS throughout his MiLB career), and Cord Phelps (a 2B) as the most obvious options to play 3B in 2011. Given that the Indians have summarily dismissed Goedert as an option (and I’ll get to that dismissal) and Lonnie Chisenhall (ranked recently as the #36 overall prospect by MLB.com) is going to start the year in Columbus (I’ll get to that as well), that trio of middle infielders join Minor League signing Jack Hannahan in a convoluted “derby” to determine who will be the 3B to start 2011 with the assumed starter at 2B being intrinsically tied to it.

While most of these options are unappealing to most as they wait around for The Chiz and Kipnis to ride in on white horses to rescue these two positions, let’s take a step back and realize that Jason Donald is not that bad of a “placeholder” at either position, assuming some level of defensive proficiency can be reached. In his first exposure to MLB, Donald had an OPS+ of 94, meaning that he was below league average and while the “harrumph, harrumph” crowd gets their “harrumphs” ready, realize that there were only 19 2B/SS who were better than league average at the plate in 2010 with 30 teams still playing one of those two positions, or less than a third of the middle infielders in MLB posted offensive numbers that were better than league average.

Further attempting to provide some context, how about the fact that Donald actually finished 27th of the 61 players who played the majority of the season in the middle of the infield and who accumulated more than 300 plate appearances?

You know which middle infielders he outperformed at the plate in 2010?
JJ Hardy, Orlando Hudson, Marco Scutaro, Reid Brignac, Derek Jeter, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jimmy Rollins, Gordon Beckham, Chone Figgins, and I could keep going if you’d like me too...

Is this to say that Donald is a long-term answer in the infield?
Of course not, as the Lesson of Louie V (he of the OPS+ of 90 in 2009, followed by the OPS+ of 51 in 2010) applies here, but look at what Indians’ 2B have put forth for the past 8 years, in terms of offensive production in the context of MLB:
2010: .624 OPS (29th of 30 MLB teams)
2009: .704 OPS (22nd of 30 MLB teams)
2008: .658 OPS (28th of 30 MLB teams)
2007: .639 OPS (30th of 30 MLB teams)
2006: .745 OPS (10th of 30 MLB teams)
2005: .726 OPS (18th of 30 MLB teams)

Really, since Ronnie Belliard left after 2006, the Indians’ 2B have peaked at a .704 OPS, good enough to nearly crack the production among the top 2/3 of MLB. In case you’re wondering, Bill James’ projections has Donald posting an OPS of .714 and ZiPS projects an OPS of .687 for Donald.

Look again at those numbers from 2B above and realize that Bill James’ projection would be the best production out of 2B since 2006 and the moribund ZiPS projection would outpace the production of the Tribe 2B in 3 of the last 4 years!

Of course, a major factor in Donald playing at 2B in 2011 is a presumption that Donald will improve on this as a 2B when he looked like a fish out of water at the position for the parent club in 2010. That being said, here’s a factor that might have played into that whole “fish out of water” thing for Donald as a 2B – he had played all of three games in the Minors at 2B prior to 2010!

And...now, the (not-so-new) news comes that he may be playing 3B?
Care to hazard a guess as to how many games has he played at 3B in the Minors in his career?
Again, three.

Certainly, Donald looked horrible in Cleveland at his “natural” position of SS last year filling in for an injured Cabrera, but most projections had Donald moving across the bag to 2B at some point in his development and career. While he may have struggled in his first taste there, the idea of adding another position for him to learn as he’s attempting to adjust to MLB strikes me as odd. Maybe he does convert over to 3B smoother than...oh, I don’t know NIX, but shouldn’t there be more thought to this than simply a prolonged trial-and-error period, particularly in MLB?

Aren’t there paid employees at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario who should have been able to reasonably project whether Donald would be better as a 2B or a 3B prior to last year, given the gaping holes at each position last off-season?

The idea that Nix would pick up 3B crashed and burned, perhaps prompting this suggestion to move Donald to 3B, to clear a spot for Nix at 2B (you know, the 27-year-old with the career .635 OPS when he joined the Tribe...because the White Sox cut him), but this is all getting too confusing to follow. Maybe Nix is the best defensive 2B and this is me talking out of both sides of my mouth on this subject as I’ve been driving the bandwagon to create the best infield defense behind a groundballing staff as best possible, but the whole 2B/3B thing to start the year feels too much like the Indians trying to fit square pegs in round holes.

As a quick aside here, did anyone know that Jason Donald and Jayson Nix joined Matt MaTola and Lou Marson on the 2008 Olympic roster in Beijing?
Weird…

Nevertheless, there seems to be the idea that any configuration would be a short-term situation with Kipnis and The Chiz supposedly lined up for promotions at some point in the year. But is anyone else a little uncomfortable with how much they’re counting on those two (and particularly The Chiz to be the salvation at 3B)...perhaps a little too much?

After an off-season of inactivity and a “new” plan to slot Donald over to 3B, it is stunning how much this team is simply assuming that The Chiz is going to come and rescue 3B. The assumption that has proclaimed Lonnie as “The Answer” at 3B is a corner that they’ve painted themselves into, with the first coat being laid back when The Chiz was still in Kinston.

There really is no “Plan B” past putting The Chiz at 3B and, in the context of the Indians dismissing Goedert as an option at 3B (and really that’s what this Pluto piece does), how about Ross Atkins proclaiming that “to play third in the big leagues, you are talking about an .800 OPS along with playing a demanding defensive position.”

Hold on there...I understand “perfect world production” as much as the next guy, but let’s remember what we’ve been dealing with here in Cleveland at 3B before you make that proclamation. Not to wear out the gears on the silver DeLorean, but the Indians’ 3B OPS for the past decade has been as follows:
2010: .700 OPS (22nd of 30 MLB teams)
2009: .719 OPS (19th of 30 MLB teams)
2008: .703 OPS (25th of 30 MLB teams)
2007: .728 OPS (21st of 30 MLB teams)
2006: .688 OPS (27th of 30 MLB teams)
2005: .630 OPS (30th of 30 MLB teams)
2004: .815 OPS (13th of 30 MLB teams)
2003: .729 OPS (17th of 30 MLB teams)
2002: .636 OPS (29th of 30 MLB teams)
2001: .729 OPS (21st of 30 MLB teams)

So, for Atkins to assert that “to play third in the big leagues, you are talking about an .800 OPS along with playing a demanding defensive position” is all well and good as a criteria, but it comes off as arrogant in the way the quote is presented, as a dismissal of Goedert. Maybe Goedert’s glove is shaped like a frying pan, but in the context of what we’ve seen from 3B in the last decade (when the Tribe 3B surpassed an .800 OPS once and never came within 71 points of it in the other 9 years) and particularly with that 2010 number...yeah, that kind of rings hollow as a statement from anyone associated with the Indians in dismissing anyone as a candidate to play 3B.

Yet here we sit with the current group of contenders and all hopes pinned to The Chiz to pull the Indians out of this 3B abyss. Perhaps Jason Donald takes to 3B the way that Nix never did, but if you look at the way that the system breaks down going into Columbus, it’s hard to figure how Cord Phelps lookd like a 3B option going forward as he is unlikely to get significant reps at 3B in AAA to start the year because...you know, Lonnie Chisenhall is the 3B for Columbus.

To take that a step further, going back to last week’s “Sunday Notes” column from Pluto, he passed along that “the Indians want Chisenhall (at third) and Kipnis (at second) to receive regular work. That makes Phelps a swingman between different positions, although he is expected to play every day -- somewhere” mentioning 2B, 3B, and LF as places that Phelps could play.

So if The Chiz and Kipnis “receive regular work” at their respective positions and Phelps plays every day with the intent to make him a “swingman” by playing in the field every day, doesn’t that mean that Phelps will primarily play LF?

Isn’t Nick Weglarz the assumed LF in Columbus?
This gets even more confusing if you extrapolate out what Pluto says and it means in Columbus:
2B - Kipnis
3B - Chiz
LF - Phelps
If they’re all “playing everyday” with an emphasis on defense development (particularly for Chiz and Kip), that’s it, right?
Yes, Phelps will sub some at 2B and 3B, with Chiz and Phelps maybe being the DH if they don’t get the day off, but does that now move Wegz to 1B or DH and with Goedert assuming the opposite “position” (1B or DH) of Wegz?

If the idea to turn Phelps into a “swingman”, how is he going to get reps at 2B or 3B in Columbus with the team’s top 2 prospects (rightfully) being regulars at those two positions. Based on Pluto’s notes (which come from the Indians ever Sunday), it certainly doesn’t sound like he’s going to be getting a real shot at maybe even being a stop-gap at 3B, which gets more convoluted the deeper you get.

All of this moving around the diamond with these guys makes my head hurt and causes me to wonder if it isn’t just a better idea to pick positions for some of these guys and go with it. Maybe this conjures up too much of the “Broussard in the OF” or “Ryan Garko - LF” or even Nix as a 3B, where guys are trying to learn a new position at the MLB level.
Realizing that versatility is great in some guys...why do we force it on so many of these guys?

Not all of these guys are Casey Blake (whose versatility was woefully underutilized) and attempting to transform somebody into that seems to only stunt development. Give these guys a position and be done with it. If they’re legitimately “blocked” by someone in Cleveland, so be it...but let’s cross that bridge if we ever get to it.

The argument could be made that not all of these guys are young, with the exception of The Chiz (who just turned 22), as Nix is now 28, Donald is now 26 while Phelps just turned 24 with Kipnis turning 24 in April and it’s time for one of them to assert themselves at one of these positions, but how this all shakes out to start the season could go any number of ways.

If the Indians are suddenly thinking of Donald at 3B and Nix at 2B with Phelps being the “swingman” in Columbus, mainly playing LF, the only guy in that equation playing his natural position is Nix...you know, the now-28-year-old that had a .635 OPS before joining the Indians. Maybe Hannahan enters the mix at some point or maybe Donald and Phelps force the Indians’ hand in Goodyear (although this organization has been reticent to change a plan once one is devised) to become the two starting infielders out of the gate for the parent club.

Regardless, The Chiz and Kipnis can’t arrive soon enough to the Indians infield clean up this mess and stabilize two long-standing Tribe problem spots....which is hopefully something that they both can do.

Repeating History on A Lazy Sunday

As horrible as this off-season has been for Indians fans as we feel like that kid looking out of the window at recess time, watching everyone else have so much fun while we sit quietly away from all of the action, let’s attempt to gain some perspective again, if only to combat the pervasive “the Indians are on the cusp of walking through the desert for another 40 years” rhetoric that has become accepted as fact locally and (at least when they mention the Tribe) nationally.

Is it depressing to see three of the four other AL Central teams making prudent, high-upside deals as the Twins retain Pavano and Thome (at reasonable numbers and years) while adding a middle-infield import that should upgrade their team, as decimated as their bullpen has been with departures?

Of course, just like it’s painful to acknowledge the fact that the White Sox and Kenny Williams put on their annual rabbit-out-of-the-hat off-season, signing Adam Dunn to the deal that I think most will look back on as the best deal of the off-season, retaining Paul Konerko, replacing Fat Bobby Jenks with Jesse Crain, and keeping what looks like the best rotation in the AL Central intact and potentially healthy?

As much fun as it is to think about everything that could go wrong in Motown (with their perpetual “we’ll think about tomorrow some other time” contracts), even the Royals overcame their initial stumble out of the gates (with Francouer and Melky) to add some rotational fodder in Francis and Chen to deals that I wouldn’t have minded seeing the Indians taking on?

Even going outside of the AL Central, news that the Rockies signed Joe Crede to a Minor League deal has Tribe fans wondering why Jack Hannahan will be in Goodyear this Spring and not Crede, given the nature of both signing Minor League deals. Forget that I spend some days convinced that Jack Hannahan is going to be the 3B out of Spring Training because everyone else who is a candidate there feels like a square peg/round hole situation.

There’s plenty of time to get to that though as the season approaches and once the season starts and begins to flesh out as the performances of Francis and Chen will be on display in our division and the paths that Crede and Hannahan take in 2011 will be obvious once April begins. For now, let’s get into a Lazy One as I don my little green visor (Google tells me it is a “green eyeshade”) and pull out my leather-bound ledger to get off on some Tribe talk and run some numbers and attempt to provide some context for those numbers.

The reason that numbers and calculators come up coincides with the big news of the week of the arbitration signings and how they, in effect, set the 2011 payroll somewhere around $46M or so, and I’ll use the $46,413,000 that the IPI salary chart lists.

As I pull my hair out, let me just shreik “OH THE HUMANITY!”...am I doing this right?
Kidding aside and thinly-veiled shots at the “DOLANZ R CHEEP” crowd out of the way, take a deeper look at that link to IPI and check the salaries by year for the Tribe, with the last decade looking like this, with the inclusion of 2000 being important because it represents the first full year of Dolan ownership, but also because the 2000 payroll it was the highest payroll in Indians’ history…until the next year, when the Dolans would once again preside over the highest payroll in Tribe history. For your enjoyment, here’s an interesting link to an announcement of the sale in November of 1999, full of tidbits that I just don’t remember.

Nevertheless, here’s the payroll by year:
2011: $46,416,000
2010: $61,453,967
2009: $81,579,166
2008: $78,970,066
2007: $61,673,267
2006: $56,031,500
2005: $41,502,500
2004: $34,319,300
2003: $48,584,834
2002: $78,909,499
2001: $93,360,000
2000: $76,500,000

If you want to go back further, you can see that the shining beacon of Cleveland baseball, Mr. Dick Jacobs, presided over a payroll of $8,236,166 in 1992, which was less than half of the 4th lowest payroll of the Orioles.
Seriously, check this list out...

Of course, that 1992 team had guys like Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton, Sandy Alomar, Jr., Jim Thome, Charles Nagy, and Jose Mesa on the team that would finish 76-86 and still reek of unrealized potential and with the team’s highest paid players being Felix Fermin ($950K) and Joel Skinner ($700K)...no, really.

But wasn’t that the “Original Plan” back in the mid-1990s...to assemble a massive amount of young talent, allow the wheat (Thome, Belle, etc.) to separate from the chaff (Glenallen, Whiten, Jack Armstrong, etc.) and sign the players that distinguished themselves to long-term deals?

The payrolls increased slowly (1993 - $15.72M, third lowest in MLB for a team that would go 76-86 again; 1994 - $28.49M, 10th lowest in MLB in strike-shortened season and so on) as the players that the Indians identified as “core” players accumulated service time and were paid at higher rates (usually with long-term deals that gave them up-front money while buying out FA years) as the years progressed. As much as everyone remembers the Indians of the late-1990s, with John Hart wheeling and dealing and the Indians being major players on the FA market (thanks to the revenue stream provided by a new ballpark), the way that the Renaissance of baseball in Cleveland started was the accumulation of young near-MLB-ready alent and the identification of certain players as a “core” to build around.

As I remember, it worked out pretty well from those humble beginnings, essentially rescuing baseball in Cleveland and setting the stage for the “Golden Age” of the franchise. Not to continue to bore you with history as I’m sure you’re aware of all of this, stay with me here and take a look at what happened after the Indians started anew in the early-to-mid-2000s, after the roster had been purged and the majority of high priced “talent” found themselves elsewhere. Remember that whole idea that the optimistic view of the 2011 season would be to duplicate the performance of the 2004 team (80-82), with certain young players stepping forward with significant production?

Well, since most of the criticism of the Indians is that their roster consists of veteran question marks, a couple of players who are underpaid (by virtue of service time) and league-minimum fodder, check this:
2004 payroll - $34,319,300
Here’s the list of players on that 2004 team that DIDN’T simply make the league minimum:
Matt Lawton - $7.25M
Omar Vizquel - $6.25M
Bob Wickman - $6M
CC Sabathia - $2.7M
Ronnie Belliard - $1.1M
David Riske - $1.025M
Jake Westbrook - $925K
Lou Merloni - $560K
Scott Elarton - $480K
Tim Laker - $450K
Every other player on the team made $352K or less, including Hafner, Victor, Clifton Phifer and Blake.

What about the following year, for the team that won 93 games?
2005 payroll - $41,502,500
Again, here is the list of players on the 2005 team that made more than the league minimum:
Kevin Millwood - $7M
CC Sabathia - $5.25M
Arthur Rhodes - $3.7M
Aaron Boone - $3M
Jake Westbrook - $2.9M
Bob Wickman - $2.75M
Ronnie Belliard - $2.5M
Casey Blake - $2.25M
Jose Hernandez - $1.8M
David Riske - $1.425M
Alex Cora - $1.3M
Bob Howry - $900K
Scott Elarton - $850K
Victor Martinez - $700K
Juan Gonzalez - $600K
Scott Sauerbeck - $500K
As a quick aside here, do you notice where a lot of the money is spent on that 2005 team – in an attempt to construct a bullpen because of a lack of internal options? There is $9.25M on that list being paid to relievers (only one of which was “homegrown” in Riske), meaning that 22% of the payroll was tied up in 4 relievers as the Indians attempted to cobble together a bullpen, perhaps providing a glimpse at what would be the Achilles’ heel of the team for the next few years...if not 2005 specifically. To that end (and I know I’ve hit on this before as have others), the Indians certainly seem to be putting much more of an emphasis on that “homegrown” bullpen, with Jordan Bastian hitting on a couple of relevant names with some great information in this piece that lends some credence to the idea that a lesson was at least learned in terms of bullpen construction in the mid-2000s to what we see today.

Nevertheless, back to that 2005 payroll, realize that (again) Hafner and Lee find themselves below the names on list above, now joined by Sizemore and Peralta, among others on that 2005 team as players being paid league minimum on a 93-win team that had a $41.5M payroll.

What was that 2011 payroll looking like...$46M or so?
Compare the lists above to the one provided by Bastian of players on the 2011 Indians that will be pulling in paychecks above league minimum:
2011 payroll - $46,416,000
Again, these are the players that will be paid salaries higher than the league minimum:
Travis Hafner - $13M
Grady Sizemore - $7.5M
Fausto Carmona - $6.1M
Shin-Soo Choo - $3.975M
Chris Perez - $2.225M
Asdrubal Cabrera - $2.025M
Rafael Perez - $1.33M
Austin Kearns - $1.3M
Joe Smith - $870,000
Jensen Lewis - $650,000

Anyone else notice that the number here (10) is the same number on the 2004 team that was paid above league-minimum salary?

Probably not, but I think you understand where this is attempting to go in providing some context with the last two “rebuilding” processes that the Indians undertook at the beginning of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.

While the success of those two rebuilds is public record (and the sustenance of the rebuilds is the main separator, though not the only one), so is the salaries associated with the players that keyed those rebuilds and the manner in which the team built a team from the bottom up. Whether what we’re currently experiencing is going to replicate the “success” (as lasting or as fleeting as that may be) will be ultimately be determined by the talent on hand or just beneath the surface.

Ultimately, it’s on the young minimum-salary players to prove that they’re “core” players just like those linchpins of the 1990s did and the way that the players that we just said goodbye to did in the mid-2000s.

Around the diamond and on the mound, the Indians seem to have options that have shown enough talent to be highly considered – and just recently Chisenhall was named the 2nd highest rated 3B in MiLB, with Kipnis being ranked as the 4th highest rated 2B in MiLB and thank goodness because the situations at those positions are horrifying, made worse with the news last week that the Indians are considering moving Donald to 3B and made somewhat palatable when Andrew Humphries at LGT invoked every vaudeville comedy act (well, at least two of them) possible to point out the absurdity of both situations, evolving as they may be – but whether all of this potential is realized or not will determine how far the Indians move towards contention.

Ultimately, talent will determine if this team finds its way back to success, not payroll and there are certainly question marks up and down the roster as it pertains to future success, with Anthony Castrovince providing a nice synopsis of the area of biggest question - the starting rotation, putting a bow on where the Indians have failed (which of course, played a huge role in a lack of sustainability after 2007) and where the Indians almost have to succeed to be close to contention.

With that talent however, the situation really isn’t different from 1993 or 2004 as the group, as it stands right now, doesn’t look to have too many departing FA or pending FA in the next couple of years. Yes, Sizemore’s guaranteed years are up after this year (and I’ll get to him) but the rest of these guys are locked in for at least the next three years. As much gripping as everyone does about Choo being a FA, isn’t it odd that everyone sees Hafner as a guy who will be around forever...but that both he and Choo are under club control for the exact amount of years, through 2013?

Going further than that and keeping it associated with payroll, as IPI’s handy-dandy chart tells us, the only addition to the arbitration crowd (Choo, Perezes, Cabrera) next year will be Justin Masterson and guys like Carlos Santana and Carlos Carrasco won’t even be eligible for arbitration until after the 2013 season, so the “fixed costs” for a lot of these players (much of them being league-minimum) are known more than a couple of years into the future.

Given the Modus Operandi for this team in the past, wouldn’t you think that once some of these guys establish themselves as potential “core” players for the next team’s incarnation into (hopefully) contention, that long-term deals get bandied about?

Don’t forget that back in January of 2005, the Indians gave a 31-year-old Casey Blake a 2-year deal worth $5.4M with a club option for 2007 ($3.75M) that bought out his 2nd year of arbitration eligibility in an attempt to lock down known salaries for even the stop-gap guys when they felt that Blake was able to help them as a complementary player to what was then their burgeoning “core”.

Who among the current Indians (either in Cleveland or below) is going to constitute that “core” going forward?

That’s the big question that will be answered by as little questions find answers but in the process of finding those answers (big and small), the Indians shouldn’t be adding to their payroll simply for the sake of having a higher number because they shouldn’t be spending on the band-aids that aren’t going to help this team get to the level of competence where contention looks plausible.

To flesh this idea out, consider Kansas City GM Dayton Moore’s comments after the news that Gil Meche would be retiring because of shoulder problems, essentially giving up the $12.5M that was guaranteed to him (yeah, seriously) as Moore said that the Royals would not be spending that “found” money, explaining the rationale thusly:
“Our plan is not going to change with regards to the young players we have on the horizon. We aren’t going to do anything with long-term contracts that will restrict their transition to the majors. I don’t see a lot out there that’s better than what we have or will potentially have in 2011 or 2012.”

This is not the first time that I’ve mentioned this coming out of Kansas City (who just locked up Billy Butler in a 4-year deal that will pay him $30M AND buys out a FA year) and realizing that praising the Royals for anything is opening myself up to criticism, but doesn’t that sound like a more cogent and logical explanation than what the Indians have been spouting?

By the way, the Royals’ payroll figures to be about $40M in 2011 as they wait on their young players to emerge from the Minors to potentially form a “core” of their own, something that has been missing in KC for far too long...

Regardless and back to the corner of corner of Carnegie and Ontario, perhaps the financial climate has irrevocably changed for the Indians and we are witnessing the beginning of what could has been termed the “spiral of death” by some, but depending upon what happens in 2011, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Indians approached Cabrera, C. Perez, and Masterson regarding some deals that might buy out their FA years past 2013 and past 2014.

To be honest, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the Indians picked up Sizemore’s 2012 player option and attempted to add on some years to his deal if Sizemore shows any kind of resemblance to his former self as that would not be without precedent for the Indians, who did exactly that with CC Sabathia in 2005. In case you don’t remember that CC situation, with a $7M club option for the 2006 remaining, the team guaranteed that option prior to the 2005 season, adding two more years on the deal for $17.5M additional in 2007 ($8.75M) and 2008 ($9M) with incentives tied into those two extra years.

If Sizemore shows anything to start the season, the Indians could pick up that club option that represents a higher number (the club option is for $9M) than Grady would conceivably get on the open market, given his recent injury history. In exchange for that guarantee of $9M in 2011 (and remember, we’re talking about Grady showing something to justify this), the Indians could ask for Sizemore to add a couple of years to his deal just as they did with Sabathia, though they’d likely ask for a discounted rate due to Sizemore’s injury history of the past few years.

Earlier in the week, Grady showed up on some radars as Buster Olney had a nice, little fluff piece on Sizemore recovering from his knee injury, relaying all of the “it’s difficult to watch these guys play” and “I can’t wait to be out there again” quotes that litter any comeback piece. While the focus of the piece was supposed to be highlighting Sizemore’s comeback, much of the attention was paid to the following paragraph from the piece:
If Sizemore comes back and is a star again, a whole lot of logical questions will follow: Because Sizemore’s current contract has a 2012 option for $8.5 million, would it make sense for the Indians to pick up the option? Would it make sense for them to trade him, in their effort to rebuild their pitching?

Since Buster Olney has apparently been using Jim Ingraham as a resource for Indians-related material, let’s revisit this proviso in Grady’s contract that if he’s traded during this season, his club option for 2012 (which was bumped to $9M because of incentives previously reached, not the $8.5M that Olney references) becomes a player option, meaning that if a team acquired Sizemore during the 2011 season, the decision to exercise his 2012 would fall to Sizemore.

This is interesting in two ways, largely dependent upon Sizemore’s performance as if Grady shows some promise but is light-years away from being his former self and the Indians trade him, Sizemore could survey the FA landscape (for about a second) and exercise the $9M option that his new team would be on the hook for. Conversely, if Grady somehow turns back into the player whose rank in WAR from 2005 to 2008 was 17th (2005), 3rd (2006), 17th (2007), and 8th (2008) in all of MLB, he could decline the $9M option with the idea that he would earn more on the open market as a FA.

Regardless of how the Sizemore situation plays out over the course of the year, he still represents what the Indians have done and what they are likely to replicate over the next few seasons. Sizemore’s presence on the list of players from the previous incarnation of the Indians that remains on the Indians’ payroll still is the reminder of what kind of players the Indians target, the risks they do assume after they put a particular player in their crosshairs (remember that they gave him a 6-year deal after playing just one full season in MLB…and read this for some “WOW” moments and quotes with the benefit of hindsight), and the manner in which they are likely to build this next group of players into a contender.

As much attention is paid to total payroll and FA inactivity this off-season, retention of in-house talent once they prove to be worthy of long-term deals (or extra years) is where the Indians are likely to spend money at any point in the near future and the parsing of the group of players to find that next “core” figures to be on display on the field in 2011…and hopefully beyond.