Tapping the Brakes on A Lazy Sunday

With apologies to Andy Williams, sports fans stand at the precipice of what truly is “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” with the NCAA at our doorstep and Opening Day not too far down the front walk. There was a time in the not-too-distant-past (OK, maybe about 15 to 20 years ago…which I guess is a while ago) that waiting for the bracket announcements on Selection Sunday was an all-day affair. Before the advent of simply printing the brackets off of a website moments after the seeds were announced, I would spend the latter part of my Selection Sunday afternoon formulating some home-made brackets, then spend the entire announcement show furiously scribbling in the teams as they were announced. After copying the now-completed brackets down onto about four different sheets of paper, I would devise my “initial” bracket which would be affected by the glorious depth that the USA Today NCAA Tournament Preview section would provide the next day.

Now that the whole process has been filtered into a “science” created by the 4-letter word in Bristol, some of that has been lost and while more information is certainly at everyone’s fingertips, the NCAA tournament (and particularly the first wild weekend) begins a stretch of sports that is initiated with those non-productive Thursday and Friday afternoons, stretching all the way to the (unquestionably now-diminished) Monday night debut of “One Shining Moment”, now just a few short weeks away.

Nevertheless, between that first moment when “the ball is tipped” right down to the cutting down of the nets, Opening Day will be upon us (in less than three weeks) and with it comes all of the promise of another season of Indians’ baseball. From now until then, the Tribe will continue to gear up for April 1st as the roster starts to come into view as do expectations for the coming season.

With that, let’s get loose on a Lazy Sunday attempting to provide some context on expectations that seem to have emerged under the Arizona sun for a couple of youngsters who count themselves as some of the Indians’ top prospects…

Of course, the reference there the spell that The Chizard has cast over the North Coast as conversations over whether Lonnie Chisenhall should be the Indians’ Opening Day 3B have stretched from the Interwebs to the inanity of sports talk radio. While a great Spring story is just that and needed for a team in need of a good hopeful story, let me see if I have the most incendiary of the arguments for the Indians starting the season with The Chiz at 3B, and how they relate more to the organization than necessarily to Chisenhall. Here goes – “the Indians are stupid for not going with their best team on Opening Day because Chisenhall is their best 3B…RIGHT NOW” and “the Dolans are too cheap to allow the Indians to bring Chisenhall north with them and it’s only a matter of time before they trade him off with every other great player they have.”

First, let’s hold off on the designation of The Chiz as a great, or even potentially great, player and give the kid a chance to prove himself over more than 25 PA in Spring Training before he’s anointed as much more than the Indians’ 3B of the Future. Chisenhall is unquestionably a good prospect, with a short stroke who is able to make solid contact and whose future appears bright as an Indian.

However, in terms of this argument that The Chiz should be manning the hot corner for the Tribe on April 1st, let me put this in non-Indians related terms as clearly as possible with a very tangible example, and I’ll go slowly with this so I don’t lose anyone…

Going into 2010, Jayson Heyward and Buster Posey were two of the most highly-regarded prospects in MLB. Heyward started the season on the Braves’ Opening Day roster while the Giants waited until May 29th to call Posey up from AAA. Because of that two-month difference in service time accumulated – and here comes the important part – Heyward can become a Free Agent after the 2015 season while Posey will remain under the Giants’ control through the 2016 season. The Giants gained a full year of control over Posey (who will be 29 in that 2016 season) by delaying his first game played in MLB in 2010. Finally, remember that the Giants won a World Series last year despite holding Posey off of their roster for 2 months.

While nobody is suggesting that the Indians are going to win the World Series this year (Chiz or no Chiz…and Buster Posey was/is worlds ahead of The Chiz as a prospect), the bottom line is that if the Tribe keeps Chisenhall down until June or so, they control him through the 2017 season, when Lonnie will be 28 years old, instead of only through the 2016 season, as they would if he were the on the Opening Day roster.

Forget whether the Indians are going to contend this year or in 2017, the basic question is whether you would rather have two or three months this season of a 22-year-old Chisenhall or a full season of a 28-year-old Lonnie.

That’s it…that’s the end of the discussion, despite what some lazy sportswriters (and you’ll notice that Jordan Bastian seems to be the lone voice of reason out there) desperate for an angle or another way to pile on the Indians (as if it isn’t easy enough) have been involved in all Spring. Maybe 2017 feels like it is a long way away (because it is) and there is a sense among some fans that the Indians are always planning for a day in the future while not giving a moment to think about the present, but we’re not talking about the Indians going with a guy like Jack Hannahan at 3B to “block” The Chiz, we’re talking about a 26-year-old who just got his first taste to MLB and deserves a longer look…but we’ll get to that.

For now, in terms of that player control issue, is it unfortunate that this is the way that MLB is set up, causing most teams to exercise this “clock management” strategy?
Of course, but those are your two options with guys like Chisenhall – to allow him to start the season in MLB and lose club control over him a full year earlier than you would if you simply kept him in the Minors for about two to two-and-and-a-half months. That’s how the system is set up in MLB and the Indians are far from the only teams to utilize this “clock management”, particularly with the top prospects. If you don’t believe me, check how many of the players on the various top prospect lists make their MLB debut between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

But it’s a money savings for the Dolans, right?
Actually, with the way that the arbitration process is set up in MLB, the opposite is potentially true – and that would actually be the best case scenario for the Indians because it would mean that a player like Chisenhall is performing at a high level prior to or in his arbitration years, meaning he’d be getting more money through the arbitration process. That is to say that The Chiz is likely to perform better as a 26-year-old than as a 22-year-old in MLB and since the arbitration process relies heavily on statistics accumulated, the idea that a “more ready” Lonnie Chisenhall would put up better numbers once he did arrive to MLB, which would in turn make him more expensive in the coming years, if arbitration was broached.

However with the Indians, that point could be moot, if the Indians hold true to the manner in which they’ve dealt with their young players, buying out FA years in guaranteed contracts for more money upfrontthe Indians could add on years past 2017 for a guy like The Chiz. Which is to say that if his final year of club control is 2017 and the Indians approach Chisenhall at some point in the next couple of years to give him guaranteed money while buying out FA years (as has been their modus operandi), those FA years start a year later and the Indians would be controlling a player like The Chiz even longer into his career.

Obviously, that’s getting ahead of ourselves as the real question right now is whether Chisenhall is even the best option at 3B RIGHT NOW for the Indians, in light of all of this “Chizardry” that has so captivated the North Coast. To that end, Jon Steiner has a great piece over at WFNY playing the “PLAYER A, PLAYER B” game while asking that very question…among others:
Is Chisenhall the best option we have at third? I really don’t know—we just don’t have that much to go on. But let’s keep in mind his minor league numbers. He’s never played above AA, so we’ll use those numbers as a gauge. Which of these AA careers belongs to the superstar infielder?

	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
PLAYER A	0.307	0.391	0.497	0.888
PLAYER B	0.311	0.385	0.502	0.887
PLAYER C	0.373	0.432	0.642	1.074
PLAYER D	0.262	0.333	0.439	0.772

Player A is Jason Donald. That guy you’re already sick of and who was too crummy to be included in Cliff Lee trade.
Player B is Jason Kipnis. He’s good. I like him. But keep in mind he’s basically Jason Donald (whom I also kinda like).
Player C is Kevin Kouzmanoff. The guy who can’t really hit or field well enough for MLB at this point in his career.
And Player D is Lonnie Chisenhall.
I’m not showing you these numbers because I don’t like Chisenhall. I promise that I do. But the only real information that we have suggests that he’s less ready to hit at the MLB level than the rest of these guys. We must at least consider this when we start advocating that he be handed the opening day job. He is really young, and really unaccomplished, and the facts suggest that he might not actually be ready for the Big Leagues.

What stands out in that comparison…what Jason Donald did in AA, right?
You see the comparative numbers between Chisenhall and Donald in AA up there and while Donald was two years older than The Chiz when each was in AA (which should not be overlooked), here’s how the two line up in terms of each players’ second and third professional seasons, even if you’ve already seen the AA comp in the Steiner piece:
Jason Donald: A-/A+ in 2007 (Age 22)
.304 BA / .395 OBP / .473 SLG / .869 OPS with 31 2B and 12 HR in 574 PA

Lonnie Chisenhall: A-/A+ in 2009 (Age 20)
.258 BA / .325 OBP / .472 SLG / .797 OPS with 31 2B and 22 HR in 533 PA

Jason Donald: AA in 2008 (Age 23)
.307 BA / .391 OBP / .497 SLG / .889 OPS with 19 2B and 14 HR in 414 PA

Lonnie Chisenhall: AA in 2010 (Age 21)
.278 BA / .351 OBP / .450 SLG / .801 OPS with 22 2B and 17 HR in 524 PA

That’s not to throw cold water on all of this ChizMania that’s taken Cleveland by storm nor to discount the future that Chisenhall may have; rather it’s an attempt to point out that the Indians have a young(ish) player that figures to be their starting 3B in 2011 that has his own pedigree that compares favorably to that of The Chiz and all of this dismissal of Donald in favor of Lonnie reeks of favoring the “unknown” over the “known” as much as Donald remains an unknown in his own right.

It is important to remember that Donald was rated as the 69th best prospect by Baseball America after that 2008 season and, since Steiner told us to “keep in mind that he’s basically Jason Donald”, realize that Kipnis is the 54th best prospect, as currently ranked by Baseball America and you can see that they put up comparable lines in those years, spent mainly in AA, when both Kipnis (and here’s a nice MLB.com piece on prospects, heavy on Kipnis) and Donald were 23 years old.

Can Donald handle 3B from a defensive standpoint?
We’re about to find out, although early reports have been good and while many have derided Donald as a future utility IF (which may be valid), let’s realize that 91 players in MLB spent most of their time at either 2B, SS, or 3B having accumulated 325 PA last year, with Jason Donald’s 94 OPS+ placing him 48th among those players, right alongside what Jhonny Peralta (94 OPS+, will be paid $5.25M in 2011) and Brandon Inge (94 OPS+, will be paid $5.5M in 2011) put forth at the plate. While Inge’s value is tied intrinsically to his ability in the field (and given that we don’t know what Donald will look like at 3B), given that Donald’s first exposure to MLB left him in the middle of the pack among AL infielders (excluding 1B), doesn’t that merit at least half of a season to take a look?

As a quick aside, if you’re skeptical of that measure of OPS+, you should read this from Joe Pos on stats as he attempts to rationalize these “new” stats (of which he rightfully admits are sometimes too convoluted for consumption much less understanding), but Posnanski’s explanation on why things like OPS+ are comparable to the old “back of the baseball card” measures of a player should change your mind, if your mind still needs to be changed.

Anywho, back to 3B and which direction the Indians should take for this season, it would seem that (thankfully) Sonny Nix is completely out of the mix, as Bastian explains:
While Nix has worked out some at third base, he has spent the bulk of his time this spring -- during practices and Cactus League games -- manning second, which is his natural position. Nix got the starting nod at second base against the Padres on Wednesday.
“They told me I’m going to play more second than third,” Nix said. “But I’m still going over there and getting some work there occasionally. As of now, I’m going to play more second.”

While it’s true that Nix’s value is almost exclusively based on his above-average defense at 2B, Bastian drops this quote in from Acta on Nix - “right now, he’s battling with Orlando for that second-base job,” - which should indicate where Nix stands with the organization, and rightfully so.

For now, they’re going with Donald who, as long as his wrist is healthy and as long as he can show that he can handle it defensively and tell Lonnie Chisenhall that this Spring proved that he can be an impact bat…as his 25 PA in March showed. Now it’s time for him to go to AAA and take about 150 PA to make that remove any doubt that he can hit LHP (he had an OPS of .703 vs. LHP in AA, which is just below what Hafner – you know, the guy who shouldn’t face LHP – batted against LHP in MLB) and to force his way onto the 25-man roster in Cleveland. He needs to continue his own brand of “Chizardry” in Columbus and work himself into the 3B mix in Cleveland while the Indians need to ensure that they retain control over a 28-year-old Chiz six years into the future by keeping him in AAA for a couple of months.

For a little diversion while keeping this with players acquired for Clifton Phifer, Paul Hoynes had a piece on Lou Marson in which he casually dropped in that “Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said Marson has the potential to hit between 15 and 20 homers a year”…you know, that old “hitting guru” Charlie Manuel?
But that’s not the point, as the real puzzler comes when Hoynes presents the Marson conundrum thusly:
Acta and GM Chris Antonetti are still trying to decide if there are enough available at-bats to keep Marson sharp should he open the season behind Santana in the big leagues. Depending on how much Santana is used at DH or first base, it could work, but Acta would probably have to wear out a few pocket calculators to make it happen.

Let’s look past the tired “pocket calculator” line and allow me to put this out there again – if Santana is going to be playing 1B even one day a week, Marson should be the back-up catcher. If Hafner is going to need more than one day off a week, he should be rested to maximize his effectiveness, with LaPorta or Santana playing 1B and DH and with…wait for it…Lou Marson catching.

Is this that hard to comprehend?
Sure, it’s a convoluted platoon, but can you take a guess as to which Indians’ player posted the 3rd highest OPS on the team vs. LHP with at least 70 PA last year…yep, Lou Marson, whose blistering .759 OPS vs. LHP last year bested every semi-regular other than Shelley Duncan and Jason Donald.

So, if Hafner’s going to sit against LHP (and he should) and Santana needs time away from the tools of ignorance to keep him fresh and healthy, keeping Marson on the active roster and getting semi-regular playing time shouldn’t take a “pocket calculator” at all, just a simple substitution of Marson for Hafner with Santana and LaPorta moving around the diamond accordingly.

As for the other prospect (besides The Chiz) that made some waves this Spring, the Indians have already sent Drew Pomeranz down to minor-league camp and, in case you were wondering why, realize that he basically relies on two pitches – a fastball and a “spike curve” and while those pitches may have made some hitters look foolish in Spring Training, there’s this from Bastian:
In the pros, having a third pitch is important and that is what the Indians want him to focus on throughout the upcoming season. Pomeranz will likely open the year with a Class A affiliate and Double-A could be reached before the end of the year.

Yes, “having a third pitch is important”, particularly if the Indians plan on using him in the rotation. Sure, the Indians could use Pomz in the MLB rotation until the rest of the league catches up to the idea that he only throws two pitches, but the reason the Indians drafted Pomz (and not…say Chris Sale) is because they wanted a player who legitimately projects at the front-end of a rotation. A pitcher with two solid pitches generally does not…at least not in MLB.

Let’s remember that Pomeranz is 22, and doesn’t turn 23 until October and while everybody seems to think that Pomz is on the “Al White Path”, allow me to lay out another scenario that may look awfully tempting in terms of Pomeranz’s development…at least until the reveal.

How does this look for a potential line for Pomeranz in his first full professional season:
2.37 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 8.4 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, 5.14 K/BB in 27 starts and 159 1/3 IP
You’ll take that right? Now, imagine those numbers, with 13 games started in Kinston, 13 games started in Akron and with a final start for good measure in AAA…

Great, where do we sign up?
Now imagine him following it up with this in his second professional season, all in AAA, before getting called up on the basis of 15 starts to start the season in AAA:
1.37 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 5.00 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 1.86 K/BB in 15 starts and 97 1/3 IP
You’d take that, right…or did that K rate in AAA clue you into whose career followed that arc?

Yes, that is how Jerry Sowers, an SEC product who was the #6 pick in the 2004 draft, started his professional career with the Indians, with that success continuing in his second professional season in MLB, as he posted a 3.57 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP for the Tribe in 2006. Ultimately, Sowers was unable to transition into any kind of sustained success in MLB as hitters caught on to his limited repertoire and hammered Sowers into oblivion (or Columbus) with the promise that once sat on his narrow shoulders now looking laughable.

Just to further this, prior to the 2005 season, having never thrown a pitch, Sowers was ranked as the 90th best prospect in MLB by Baseball America and after his first professional season, he was viewed as the 53rd best prospect in MLB by Baseball America. Of course, Sowers was never really a darling of the scouting/prospect community because of his inability to miss bats and because “the next Tom Glavine” comes around every 3 months or so in MLB…with “the next Tom Glavine” who actually fills that shoe being the first.

Look at those prospect rankings for Sowers above and realize that Pomz has been rated the 61st best prospect in MLB by BA and while we’re obviously comparing two vastly different pitchers, Pomeranz does not arrive to the Indians as a finished product by any means as he struggled with BB at Ole Miss…oh, and he doesn’t really have a third pitch.

That’s not to say that Drew Pomeranz is destined to follow the path blazed by Jerry Sowers (and others) to arrive to MLB quickly, only to fizzle out as Pomeranz is a hard-throwing LHP with a swing-and-miss second offering (two things that Sowers never had) that can dominate. Rather, it’s a reminder that as much as we’d all like some of these guys to arrive with a bullet to MLB, some caution is necessary when pushing these guys as the Indians would like them to arrive to MLB as close to a finished product as possible.

That being said and with the word “caution” mentioned, it will be interesting to see what the Indians do if a player like Pomeranz (or Jason Knapp or Nick Hagadone) begin to dominate at all levels of the Minors this year, causing swings-and-misses at any and all stops. The reason it will be interesting is because the Indians may have “The Lesson of Atom Miller” somewhere in the back of their minds with the idea that these pitching prospects have only so many bullets in their clip before something can go inexorably wrong. There is a reason that the acronym TINSTAAPP (There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect) has gained so much traction in recent years as injuries and ineffectiveness befall too many terrific pitching prospects to count.

How the Indians strike that balance with Pomeranz (or Knapp) will be interesting as they certainly want them to arrive to MLB as prepared as they can be, but with the unavoidable fear that these pitching prospects (or any pitching prospects) could go KABLOOEY at any time. The Tribe certainly fast-tracked both Al White last year and Pomeranz and Knapp have much higher ceilings than those two, as unproven and as much as they may be unfinished products.

Despite those high ceilings that players like Pomeranz and Chisenhall unquestionably have and although the desire is for the bright future that these guys have in front of them to start as soon as possible in Cleveland, some restraint is necessary to ensure that they arrive to MLB to stay and ready to not just contribute, but to succeed. That “restraint” may be difficult if Talbot or Tomlin or Huff struggle out of the gate while Pomz dominates the Carolina League or if The Chiz continues his Spring Training numbers for the Clippers.

The future is coming for these guys…it’s just that “the future” shouldn’t start for them on April 1st of this year.

A Tangle in the Outfield

While the Indians play away under the Arizona sun, these first few weeks of Spring Training always strike me as a little odd as fans have been waiting for months for actual boxscores and reports on any and all happenings out in Goodyear. Once the games start, the information and the stats that fly out of Arizona, magnifying the difficulty in not putting too much credence in a couple of games or making judgments merely based on a couple of games. While fans have been waiting for something…ANYTHING, reining in emotions and snap declarations are difficult, despite the fact that our heads tell us that we’ve only “seen” a week and a half of games where most of the regulars play half of the games and half of the innings of those games.

This Spring has not been without its early storylines as the folks in Cooperstown have apparently requested a photo of The Chiz so they can get started on the plaque as he now sits on a 1.659 OPS in Arizona. Oh wait, that’s after 22 plate appearances?
Never mind, just the Spring fever talking…

Regardless of the compelling storylines that have emerged (for the moment), while the 3B spot (should be Donald, should have been Donald from the moment they signed The OC) and the 5th starter spot (should be Huff, with a leash long enough to either hang himself of show he finally belongs) have been dubbed as the spots to watch or the “position battles”, it is the outfield situation that is suddenly the area of the team that seems to be getting a little murky in terms of how the Indians are going to break camp.

First, the Indians announced (to the surprise of nobody paying attention) that Sizemore would likely miss Opening Day…and the news that he’s just been cleared to run the bases with about 3 ½ weeks before Opening Day means his return date is certainly up for debate. While WHICH Grady comes back to the lineup is more important than WHEN Grady comes back to the lineup, the fact that Lonnie Soloff “noted recently that Sizemore might be cleared for game activities the week following the completion of his baserunning program” does not inspire confidence that Sizemore will be ready for MLB action – after having, you know, not played baseball in about a year – perhaps into the latter weeks of April or even May.

Right now, that’s anyone’s guess and the assumption that the Indians would simply go with Choo, Brantley, and Kearns in the OF with Crowe as the undeserving back-up seemed to carry the day after the “announcement” that Sizemore wouldn’t be coming North with the team at the end of the month. Next, it was revealed that Crowe “battled” an elbow injury for the second half of the year last year, incorrectly blaming his struggles at the plate on the elbow, with the newest revelation regarding Crowe’s shoulder, which has been “fatigued” and (apparently) caused all of the elbow troubles…which, as you remember in this web, caused the imaginary drop-off in performance.

Nevertheless, with Crowe experiencing “rotator cuff soreness”, does anyone doubt that Crowe is going to be behind the rest of the team by the time that Opening Day comes around to the point that he’s not going to be a part of the Opening Day 25-man roster?

As much as I would enjoy that omission (not because of Crowe’s injury, because of his uselessness), suddenly the Indians find themselves down two outfielders who were thought to be in the mix (if you really want to include Grady here) coming out of Spring Training.

Think we’re done yet?
Not even close, as the biggest bombshell was dropped by Manny Acta last week when (and remember that this was written after the Indians knew that Sizemore was not making the Opening Day roster AND that Crowe’s shoulder wasn’t allowing him to throw) Jordan Bastian reported this on his blog:
An interesting item worth noting is that, until Tuesday, Acta has maintained all spring that the outfield would be Kearns in left, Michael Brantley in center and Shin-Soo Choo in right in the event that Sizemore was not ready for Opening Day. Acta has changed his tune some. The manager even suggested that the Indians might consider a platoon situation in left field.

Wait…what?
Of course, that little swipe by Acta could be a merely be a threat related to the Indians not finding out about Kearns’ DUI until he was scheduled for a court appearance in Kentucky last week. But asserting that the team considering a “platoon situation in LF” when Kearns is the likely LF to start the season is folly, considering what Austin Kearns (who would be the LF in the alignment without Sizemore) has done in his career against LHP and RHP:
Kearns’ splits - 2010
Kearns vs. LHP - .740 OPS
Kearns vs. RHP - .749 OPS

Kearns’ splits - Career
Kearns vs. LHP - .798 OPS
Kearns vs. RHP - .766 OPS
The Indians are considering a “platoon situation” for THIS guy, whose splits are virtually non-existent over 2,500+ plate appearances in MLB…yeah, not much sense in that one.

However, the success of Travis Buck in camp may be playing a role in Acta dropping a little crumb like that as the player most likely to benefit from the absence of Sizemore and Crowe could be Buck, a former top prospect with the A’s whose career was derailed by injuries and who now finds himself in Tribe camp as an NRI.

So could the Indians be considering Travis Buck and Austin Kearns in a platoon in LF?
One would hope not as Buck has posted these platoon splits in his MLB career, which – like those of Kearns – display no discernable platoon split:
Buck vs. LHP - .748 OPS
Buck vs. RHP - .756 OPS

However, if Sizemore is out until whenever, would the Indians consider giving Buck some starting time in LF? Maybe it wouldn’t be in a platoon, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past that Travis Buck posted an .850 OPS (127 OPS+) as a 23-year-old in a ½ season for the Athletics. Certainly he’s been atrocious since then, done in by injuries; but if he is healthy, it is worth noting that the only season that Kearns has outpaced that .850 OPS (127 OPS+) that Buck posted in 2007 was way back in 2002, when Kearns put up the best hitting line of his career as a 22-year-old in Cincinnati, posting a .907 OPS (134 OPS+) in 104 games that year for the Reds.

It bears watching if the Indians would consider Buck and Kearns in a competition for the LF spot in Sizemore’s absence with the “loser” of the competition slotting into the 4th OF role. Of course, Kearns signed on with the Indians as the RH 4th OF with versatility to play all three OF positions and if Buck can keep up his torrid pace in Goodyear (he has a 1.237 OPS with the small sample siren blaring), there is a possibility that Buck could be the Indians’ Opening Day LF with Kearns as the RH 4th OF that he was considered when he was signed in the off-season.

While I’m all for simply going with Choo, Grady, and Brantley straight out for all of 2011, the reality of the situation is that Grady’s starting the season on the DL and keeping Kearns and Buck (who can both play all three OF spots, regardless of which one is starting) would afford the Indians some insurance against Brantley coming out of the gate as he did in 2010 as well as allow the Indians to carry Shelley Duncan out of the gate, almost exclusively as a RH bat, where he does add value to a LH-laden lineup, as flawed as he may be otherwise as a player.

If all of this presents a rather unappetizing start for the 2011 season in the Indians’ outfield – “Lllllladies and Gentleman, YOUR starting Opening Day Indians’ LF…Travis Buck” – and the uncertainty around Grady’s effectiveness going forward scares you as much as it does me, realize that a legitimate option may exist in AAA…and I’m not talking about a position change for Jason Kipnis. Nor am I referring to Zeke Carrera, whose presence on the 40-man roster makes Crowe expendable as I wonder what number Carrera (.484 OBP this Spring in 9 games) will wear when he gets to Cleveland so I can get a “ZEKE” jersey.

Rather, Nick Weglarz is a MAJOR wild card in this whole OF alignment as he remains a forgotten prospect, stuck in the shadows of The Chiz and even Kipnis. However, now might be a good time to pass along that Wegz was listed as the #33 prospect in all of MLB by Prospect Project just a couple of weeks ago…I kid you not. You can take that (just like any of these prospect rankings) with a grain of salt, but Weglarz remains unfairly overshadowed by other prospects in the organization, largely because of his inability to stay healthy because when he has been healthy, Weglarz has performed throughout his climb up the organizational ladder at a very young age compared to his level of advancement.

To that end, how’s this for some perspective - Wegz turned 23 a couple of months ago and has 209 PA in AAA (.889 OPS there with 17 2B and 6 HR in 50 games for Columbus last year), while Kipnis (24 this April) has yet to see the regular season in Columbus. Certainly that’s a function of Kipnis being a college draftee and Wegz being drafted by the Indians as a 17-year-old Canadian, but the age and level of advancement for these prospects is incredibly relevant, as is their performance.

In terms of performance, did you know that the only players that posted a higher OBP than Weglarz (who got on base at a .390 clip) that were in AA or higher last year were The Axeman (.427 OBP in MLB/AAA) and The BLC (.396 OBP in MLB) and the only player above AA in the organization that bested Weglarz’s .503 SLG between AA and AAA was Santana again, who posted a .540 SLB between Columbus and Cleveland?

What’s always held Weglarz back has been a variety of ailments that have caused him to miss large portions of the last few seasons (games played in past 3 years - 87, 105, 106) and news that he has back spasms from a collision endured in Winter ball is disheartening, but not too many people talk about Weglarz as the legitimate option LF (among other positions) that he really is for 2011.

Unfortunately, as “set in stone” as most would like to believe the Indians’ OF looks to be for the 2011 season, the health of Grady Sizemore is going to play a major role in what the outfield alignment looks like. As much as the assumption that Kearns represented the placeholder for the Indians when he was signed, by the end of the season, the Indians may have relied more on two “unlikely” players – Buck and Weglarz – as 2011 reveals itself.

A Lazy Sunday with Real* Baseball

It is a sad day in Cleveland. Paul Cousineau has announced his retirement from the world of sportswriting. Saying that he wanted to spend more time with his family, Cousineau is currently in beautiful Shipshewana, IN with his wife, in-laws and two young sons. He’s enjoying his time out of the spotlight, and has no plans to return. At least not until tomorrow, when he will pull a Favre and quickly un-retire himself and resume his rightful place at the top of the Indians sportswriter mountain. So if those first two sentences gave anyone out there a heart attack, I apologize. Paul is away for the weekend, and I’m pinch hitting for him on this Lazy Sunday, the first of which we have “real” baseball being played with “real” stats and observations to analyze! Forgetting for a moment that me pinch hitting for Pauly C. is akin to Jamey Carroll pinch hitting for Albert Pujols, let’s jump right into this week’s links…

Your Cleveland Indians currently stand at 4-4 in Cactus League play after winning one and losing one yesterday in split-squad action. TCF colleague Adam Burke did a nice rundown yesterday of how various players have been performing so far this spring, and not a whole lot has changed since then. To update the competition for the last couple of open slots on the 25-man roster, both Travis Buck (.500) and Chad Huffman (.571) are working hard to stake their claim to a reserve OF role. The 5th starter competition is intense as well, with David Huff going three shutout innings yesterday and recording two strikeouts. Huff has thrown 5 innings so far this spring, allowing just two hits, no runs and striking out five. Meanwhile, Jenmar Gomez got roughed up in his start against Seattle, giving up four ER in 2 1/3 IP. The third amigo fighting for the final spot in the rotation is Josh Tomlin, who has matched Huff’s 5 scoreless innings so far in Arizona. The smart money here is on either Tomlin or Huff to break camp with the team, and it will be an interesting competition to monitor throughout the spring. As for the final spot in the bullpen, Vinnie Pestano had an impressive outing against the Pale Hose yesterday, striking out the side in order in his one inning of work, giving him 5 K in 2 innings so far this spring.

Paul Hoynes has a nice feature on Huff that talks about his struggles last year, both on the field and off. "Twittergate" is now pretty common knowledge at this point, and Huff and the club seem to have moved past it. Far more interesting for me is this little tidbit:

While he was in the big leagues, former Tribe catcher Mike Redmond introduced him to Mets lefthander Johan Santana. Huff asked Santana to show him his famous change-up. Its a pitch Huff has been throwing 50 percent to 60 percent of the time this spring. Along with his fastball, the occasional slider and curveball, it has helped him get off to a fast start.

Mike Redmond...the gift that keeps on giving. If Huff masters his changeup and is more effective against righthanders this year, he will at the very least have to send Redmond a fruit basket.

This brings us to the two players I consider the Most Important Indians (MII’s) for 2011. Conveniently, we have one position player and one pitcher. My MII position player for this year is 1B Matt LaPorta. It’s no secret that LaPorta has been a disappointment at the ML level since he was acquired from the Brewers in the C.C. Sabathia trade. His career OPS is .694, with 19 HR in 557 at bats. This after posting a career .956 minor league OPS, with 56 HR in 884 at bats. Clearly, something has been lost in the transition from AAA to The Show. LaPorta has struggled with various injuries, including hip and toe problems. Are these ailments sapping him of his power? Or does he simply not have the physical tools to be a presence in the middle of a major league lineup? Either way, we should find out in 2011 as LaPorta is now 26 years old and is running out of excuses. He finally had a normal offseason this past winter, and was able to work out and condition himself for the grind of a 162 game regular season. The Indians have two very important building blocks in the middle of the lineup with Carlos Santana and Choo. A healthy and mashing LaPorta would give them a 3-4-5 capable of contending for the division. If he can become the .280/.380/.480 guy that we envisioned when he came over from Milwaukee, that would make him a crucial building block in The Plan v2.0 that would still be under club control for quite some time. LaPorta is hitting a sluggish .158 so far this spring in 19 at bats. The Silver Lining Department reports that all three of his hits have been for extra bases, with a HR and a pair of 2B. LaPorta is saying that he feels better this spring than he ever has, and hopefully the numbers reflect that once the games actually count.

Moving on to the MII (Pitcher Division), we have a young starter that Pauly has waxed eloquently on in this very space at quite some length in the past. I’ll not rehash all of his points here again, but suffice to say that I think some people have given up on him a little early. It seems like he’s been around forever, but Car-Car doesn’t turn 24 until later this month. He posted a 3.83 ERA and 7.7 K/9 in 44 2/3 innings last season, and needs to take another step forward this year if the Indians are going to contend in the near-term. He has the talent to be a solid #2 starter in the major leagues; the question has always been his ability to manage the game from the mental side of the house. Age and experience will only help, and I still am really expecting big things out of a guy who was considered a top 50 prospect in all of baseball from 2007-2009. Carrasco had a solid outing in his first start of the spring, throwing two scoreless innings and striking out a pair. On a personal note, he left the club on Friday to head to Florida to be with his wife as she delivers their child. He missed a start yesterday as a result, but will be back early this week and still has plenty of time to get up to speed. Carrasco earning the #3 role (or better) in the Tribe rotation this year or next is another keystone in the development of The Plan v2.0,

Speaking of top prospect lists, the “Big Three”have their top 100’s out, and Kevin Goldstein, Keith Law, and Baseball America all agree that the Indians have at least three of the top 100 prospects in baseball. Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis and Drew Pomeranz appear on all three lists. Goldstein and BA both list Alex White as well, and Law has White in his “just missed” article. Law listed 10 players as having just missed the top 100, so for argument’s sake let’s say White is his #105 overall prospect. If you average out the rankings from those three sources (which are universally considered to be the industry standard), you'll see that the Indians have four of the top 74 prospects in all of baseball according to outside experts with no attachment to the club. This is not coming from internal sources like Antonetti/Shapiro, nor from writers like myself, Pauly C. or Tony over at IPI who were admittedly Indians fans before we started writing about baseball.

In addition to the four top players in the system, the Indians are pretty much universally regarded as having one of the deeper systems in baseball. Guys like Jason Knapp, Nick Weglarz, Chun Chen, Felix Sterling could leap into the top 100 next year with healthy and productive seasons. Baseball Prospectus has pulled together a spreadsheet compiling several top 100 lists, and those guys appear on a number of lists from around the industry. There is plenty of depth available, especially when it comes to power bullpen arms. No club can ever have too much pitching, and a number of the internal options could find their way to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario at some point in 2011 for a cup of coffee or more.

All of this should of course be taken with the caveat that prospects are what they are, and placement on any top 100 list is no guarantee of future success. One needs only to look to the Baseball Prospectus series on the top 50 “most disappointing” prospects of all time to see that (I’m looking at you, Andy Marte). But the core of this team is still very young, with Santana, Chris F. Perez, Asdrubal, Carrasco and others still shy of their 25th birthdays. So while there is talent in the pipeline, there is also plenty of reason for optimisim when looking at the youth movement already in Cleveland.

This seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone that I am headed to Arizona in two weeks to check out both the minor league and major league squads as they prepare for the upcoming season. It’s a trip that I took last year for the first time, and highly recommend it to any baseball fan that can make it. Better weather than Cleveland, better player access than in Cleveland, less stress over who wins and loses than there will be in Cleveland, and more prospects that you’ll see in Cleveland. Not to seem like I am running down my hometown, but spending a 75 degree day in March watching Chuck Nagy throw BP to Carlos Santana, Choo and Weglarz is a pretty darn good time. I’ll be posting several articles from Goodyear, as well as letting my consciousness stream away on the Twitter. So if you have a question for a prospect or player that hasn’t already been answered by Bastian or one of the other beat writers, send it my way (@alciammaichella) and I’ll be happy to try and get it taken care of. I promise not to tweet pictures of the Arizona sunset, or constant weather updates that make you long for the dog days of August while you’re digging out of another blizzard on the snowy North Coast.

In the “news that should surprise absolutely no one” category, Bud Shaw reports that Manny Acta has named Fausto Carmona as his Opening Day starter. The dreams of Fausto’s 2007 season becoming the mean for his career are long gone, but he put up a very solid 3.77 ERA in 2010, and his 3.1 BB/9 rate was the lowest since that magical 2007 campaign. I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Carmona, as his 2007 performance against the Yankees in the ALDS was probably the most memorable baseball game I’ve ever seen live. Carmona’s defeat over both the Yankees and the Canadian Soldiers had me convinced that he was going to be a mainstay at or near the top of the Tribe rotation for many years to come. He’s the #1 starter this year more by default than by proven himself to be an “ace” in the truest sense of the word, but it’s not unreasonable to think he can at least repeat his 2010 numbers.

Anthony Castrovice continues his fantastic work even though he’s not the assigned Indians beat writer for MLB.com anymore, taking a look at the media guide and extracting some interesting minutia. I for one was both intrigued and shocked to hear that our opening day starter’s favorite movie is Major League II. It’s a fantastic opportunity and I don’t begrudge him a bit for taking it, but a small part of me dies inside when I read a Castro article about the Red Sox in their role as AL East favorites. Fortunately he still writes about the Tribe on a pretty regular basis, and his replacement on the Tribe beat Jordan Bastain is fantastic as well.

Speaking of Bastain, he updated a variety of topics late Friday evening on his blog for MLB.com. Among them, he touched on the Sizemore situation:

Center fielder Grady Sizemore (left knee) took another step forward –pun intended?—in his rehab on Friday. Sizemore took part in outfield group drills, catching fly balls and fielding grounders. He also upped the intensity of his agility and sprint drills, nothing that the day’s excercises had him moving in ‘all directions.’ He also took part in batting practice as usual.

As of right now, there’s still no plan to move Grady from CF when he is healthy enough to play again. Sizemore’s status effects not only the top of the lineup and the OF defense, but the club’s bottom line as well. He’s one of the players that casual fans will still pay to see, and like it or not is especially key to the female demographic. Sizemore’s return will help put wins in the scorebook and fans in the seats, and I for one would be pleasantly surprised if he were available by tax day.

Moving on to some of the newest Indians in the tepee, Baseball Prospectus’ Christina Kahrl does a fine job pulling together her thoughts on the recent roster moves, from Durbin to Johnson to Lawson. She points out that Johnson’s recent success occurred under Acta’s watchful eye in Washington, when he put up a .291/.426/.405 line in 133 games in 2009. She believes that Johnson can be an effective part of the 1B/DH rotation once he’s back to full health, and I agree. Although he and Hafner both hit from the left side, Johnson has actually put up a higher career OPS against lefties (.857) than righties (.840). So he and Hafner are not mutually exclusive, and Johnson can start as well as be a valuable bat off the bench regardless of who is on the mound. Kahrl is also cautiously optimistic on the Durbin signing:

As for Durbin, it is perhaps a mild surprise that he lasted this long on the market, especially after giving the Phillies two excellent seasons out of three, wrapping a 19.1 ARP campaign in 2008 and a 10.4 ARP in 2010 around a -4.8 season in '09. What's sort of surprising is that Durbin has managed to improve his strikeout rate in each of the last three years, topping out at a very nice 21.6 percent clip last year. What makes that even more surprising is that he's not a power pitcher by any stretch, relying on a sinker/slider mix where his heat sits around 89-90 mph, providing his best value by getting spotted carefully against right-handers and weaker lefties. His flyball tendencies will no doubt lead to negative nattering, but happily the Tribe's home park isn't a high-offense environment.

So while the Durbin signing remains much maligned in Cleveland, writers on the national scene seem much more optimistic on his chances to improve the Indians in 2011. Add to that the potential that if Durbin does manage to put together a solid season, there’s a possibility that he could fetch draft pick compensation if he chooses to ply his trade in greener pastures in 2012. Bullpens being what they are, there will still be plenty of chances for the plethora of power arms in the upper reaches of the minor leagues to make their mark on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario this season. The talent will rise to the top, whether they begin the season down south in Columbus or not.

The Ides of March are approaching, the first week of spring games are in the books, and the 25-man roster is starting to take shape. If you’re not getting excited for Indians baseball now…well, I don’t know what to tell you.

Tomahawks On The Move

After a painfully quiet off-season, the Indians have suddenly gone into high gear with some additions and subtractions as the 40-man roster starts to come into shape and as the Indians start to make some moves on the edges of that roster. Suddenly, the Reservation is more active than it was all off-season and the Tomahawks are in the air to prove it…
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Starting from the top, it seems as if Aaron Laffey will be heading to the Emerald City, where he will be re-united with The Atomic Wedgie, Frank the Tank, Chris Gimenez, and The Game Boy as the Mariners attempt to…well, I’m not sure what to make of all of those former Indians in Seattle.

Regardless, Laffey’s departure comes as a bit of a surprise as the 40-man roster certainly included more expendable pieces than The Babyfaced Bulldog, particularly considering that Laffey has an option remaining, meaning that the Indians could have spent the season with Laffey getting time in both Cleveland and Columbus, utilizing him in a swingman capacity for both teams at the very least. One would think that Louie V or Trevor Crowe or even Jayson Nix represents a less likely option to contribute in 2011, but with the signing of Durbin, the Indians needed to clear a 40-man spot and they did so in sending Laffey off to Seattle.

Truthfully, Laffey has always held a soft spot in my heart since his performance in the 2007 ALCS and, with his youth and his groundball tendencies, the thought that Laffey would be able to contribute in some role (at least in 2010) has now gone out of the window. Lest you forget, here are the groundball numbers for Laffey, going all the way back to his time on the farm:
2006 (Kinston/Akron) – 62.5 GB%
2007 (Akron/Buffalo) – 62.2 GB%
2007 (Cleveland) – 62.4 GB%
2008 (Buffalo) – 54.4 GB%
2008 (Cleveland) – 51.1 GB%
2009 (Akron/Columbus) – 45.5 GB%
2009 (Cleveland) – 48.9 GB%
2010 (Columbus) – 45.1 GB%
2010 (Cleveland) – 49.3 GB%
While that number dropped precipitously in the last two years, Laffey always seemed to represent at least an average 5th man or a valuable long reliever (particularly with the glut of RH starters) and his remaining option makes this move puzzling.

After spending his first three years mainly in the Indians’ rotation (posting an ERA+ of 98, which is essentially league-average, and a higher ERA+ than any Indians’ starter not named Fausto posted in 2010), the Indians bounced Laffey around the rotation and the bullpen as well as moving him up and down I-71 until he experienced shoulder issues that derailed his 2010.

Interestingly, Laffey was never really involved in much of the discussion over who would emerge as the Indians’ 5th starter and the assumption that he would serve as the long man seems to have been sabotaged by the Durbin signing. That being said, it’s not as if Laffey was out of options and the Indians were forced into making this move, which makes him being traded all the more curious. Not curious as in “HOW COULD THEY TRADE AARON LAFFEY” as Laffey is a fungible part who has value, if limited value, but more pointedly as to why the Indians deemed Laffey to be the most expendable member of the 40-man roster.

At first blush, the return for Laffey certainly doesn’t look like a compelling reason to make the move as the Tribe receives Matt Lawson (not Matt Lawton), a middle infielder who is 7 months younger than Laffey (that means he’s 25 too) and has yet to see time above AA. While Lawson’s numbers from 2010 look decent (.811 OPS) while playing for two teams and is reportedly a good defensive 2B, this organization is teeming with upper level 2B and the fact that Lawson was a 24-year-old still in AA certainly colors the view of his performance there.

Interestingly, Lawson was one of the four players that the Mariners received from Texas last year in the…wait for it…Cliff Lee deal and where he fits into the organization (other than off of the 40-man) is questionable as the likelihood of him being promoted to AAA to play 2B is out of the question because of Jason Kipnis and Cord Phelps (not to mention Luis Valbuena) and there’s a good possibility that he starts the season in AA again, as a 25-year-old non-prospect.

All told, the 5th starter competition just lost one “competitor” (if you could even consider Laffey in that mix to begin with) as the middle infield depth in the organization now gets impossibly deep, if underwhelming beneath Kipnis and Phelps. Beyond that, Laffey leaves the organization as the pitcher drafted during the Mirabelli regime (2000-2007) with the 2nd highest WAR total accumulated by an Indian as his 1.6 career WAR falls just behind Jeremy Sowers career WAR of 1.7.

Regardless, Laffey leaves the 40-man and the organization, all while Trevor Crowe inexplicably lives another day on the 40-man roster…
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Back to the 5th starter competition, remember that whole “maybe the Indians can wait out Jeremy Bonderman and get him on a Minor-League deal” idea?

Yeah, scratch that as Bondo is reportedly ready to sit out the season because he doesn’t really feel up to competing for a rotation spot and, while this certainly raises questions as to how healthy Bonderman is, it would probably close the book on the Bonderman-to-the-Indians talk as the Indians are reportedly holding firm to their “Minor League Deal or Bust” strategy with Bonderman.

In terms of Bonderman’s willingness to sit out the season, the tact struck me as a little odd until realizing that Bonderman has made $41,330,000 in MLB, to say nothing of the $1,375,000 signing bonus that he received, having just turned 28 last October.

At this point, Bonderman could probably keep himself in shape and make himself available on the open market further into the season, when most teams don’t have the best-laid plans that they do in Spring Training. That way, he can wait until teams get impossibly desperate mid-season and see if he can latch onto a contender who may be looking for a veteran arm and Bonderman represents an upgrade in the minds of some team looking for rotational help for the homestretch and is desperate enough to consider Bonderman for the role.
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Speaking of players who found themselves on the outside looking in when Pitchers and Catchers reported, how about this from Phillies’ beat writer Todd Zolecki of MLB.com on the newly signed Chad Durbin and why he found himself without a contract at the end of February:
Chad Durbin spoke to Indians reporters today after taking a physical yesterday and signing a one-year, $800,000 deal with a reported $1 million in incentives.

He certainly wanted a more lucrative deal when he hit the free agent market last year.

The Phillies actually made him an offer in December worth more than $2 million guaranteed, including a buyout for 2012. Although no agreement had been reached, it was believed he eventually would resign. But then the Phillies signed Cliff Lee to a five-year, $120 million contract and everything changed. The Phillies pulled the offer and said he could come back, but only on a Minor League deal.

“You know, I’d take Cliff Lee over Chad Durbin,” Durbin said today.
Self-deprecation from Durbin aside…that is just a brutal misplay by Durbin and his agent. On one hand, you can’t blame them for thinking that Durbin would get in on the riches that were being doled out to comparable relievers, but when that bird in the hand flew away, the realization that the “two in the bush” simply weren’t there must have been beyond frustrating for Durbin.

As for why he likely overplayed that hand and rejected the Phillies’ initial offer, there is an interesting bit of analysis over at Fangraphs as Tommy Rancel compares the Durbin signing to the ones that were meted out to similar relievers this off-season:
Far from a relief ace, the right-hander has been a serviceable member of the Philadelphia Phillies bullpen over the past three seasons. His 3.62 ERA over that period was similar to Matt Guerrier and Jesse Crain, whom both received three-year guarantees. Of course, ERA can be misleading, and Durbin’s defensive independent metrics have him much closer to league average than stud reliever, but his 4.58 xFIP was in the neighborhood of Crain (4.46) and Guerrier (4.47). This is not to say Durbin should have received the same deals or the contracts handed to the former Minnesota pair were good ones, but an interesting comparison of similar players receiving different levels of dollars.

That last line (bolded by me) is the one that struck me as what Durbin received is probably more in line with reality and the fact that the Indians are the team with the reliever on the 1-year, $800K deal instead of the 3-year, multimillion guaranteed dollar deal is what should be taken from the whole Durbin signing.

At the end of the Fangraphs piece, Rancel opines that the decision to sign Durbin “is a curious one for a Cleveland ball club that is not expected to compete in 2011” then getting into the whole “they can flip him in July” idea. While the logic of adding Durbin to this incarnation of the Indians can probably be debated in terms of the Indians using 2011 to learn as much as possible about their own players (while I’m admittedly recycling the argument that I used on the Indians’ forum at TCF), even after with Durbin signing, there is still one spot open in the bullpen, which either Herrmann or Pestano (among others) can fill if they earn that chance in Goodyear.

Lest you think that Durbin is a waste of money, realize that any of the young arms are about $350K “cheaper” than Durbin, and he’s getting paid less than Joe Smith for the Indians to spend a couple of months to find out if he can be a solid bullpen contributor.

What’s relevant about the signing is that (just to use the two guys that were in competition for a final spot in the bullpen), Herrmann and Pestano have 49 combined MLB innings pitched entering their age 27 (Herrmnann) and age 26 (Pestano) seasons. Durbin has thrown more than that in each of the last three seasons for an NL contender, a period in which he’s posted a 3.62 ERA.

Will Durbin flame out, displaying why he’s still available at this point?
Maybe, but if he does, the team can call up whichever arm didn’t make the team out of Goodyear, their growth “stunted” by a solid couple of months by being used regularely in Columbus instead of sparingly in Cleveland.

Ultimately, adding Durbin acknowledges that bullpens are fickle beasts and expecting success from any reliever (much less those with such limited MLB experience) is a dangerous line to toe, particularly for a young team that needs to build momentum.

Maybe Durbin is terrible, but it costs the Indians less than it did for them to kick the tires on Jamey Wright last year, and “blocks” one reliever from breaking camp with the parent club. On the flip side, maybe Durbin can provide some stability and they can flip him in July after some of the young arms have sorted themselves out in Columbus, with a number of them CERTAIN to come up at some point because of injuries and ineffectiveness that probably won’t even include Durbin.
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Not content to shake up their pitching staff with the Durbin signing and the Laffey trade, the Indians added a bit more to their positional depth, by signing Nick Johnson to a Minor-League deal with a club or a mutual option possibly attached to the contract. That added “option” is extremely interesting as Nick Johnson is a known quantity with a proven record to get on base when healthy…but also a known quantity in his inability to stay healthy.

While the immediate reaction of the Johnson deal might have been to equate it to some speculation that the Indians were already readying “Plan B” for LaPorta not being able to get untracked or Hafner’s shoulder continuing to sabotage his career, that speculation certainly feels premature. It feels premature because Johnson recently had surgery on BOTH of his wrists and cannot swing a bat at “game speed”, meaning that he’s more than just a little bit away from looking like a viable option for the parent club.

Which brings it back around to that possible option for 2012 as it’s been noted here before how the Indians lack depth at 1B and at DH (outside of Shelley Duncan or perhaps Jared Goedert) at the upper levels of the Minors, so the addition of Johnson to that mix as insurance against LaPorta’s developmental stall and as Hafner enters the last guaranteed year of his deal in 2012 makes perfect sense for the Tribe. By no means is that to suggest that LaPorta shouldn’t be on the longest of leashes throughout 2011 and that Hafner shouldn’t be playing as much as his shoulder allows, but if 2011 turns into an unmitigated disaster for either, the Indians may have Johnson as a fall-back plan late in the year or (more likely) in 2012.

While it’s more likely that Johnson continues to battle injuries (because quite frankly, that’s his track record) and that he is a non-factor going forward for the Indians, the Indians took out a lottery ticket that he’s able to get healthy and recapture some of the success that he experienced as an OBP machine from 2005 to 2009 (when he posted a cumulative .873 OPS and a 131 OPS+ in those 5 years), whether that comes in 2011 or, with that potential additional option, in 2012.
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Off of this wild Indians’ player movement carousel and going around these interwebs, there was an interesting piece at B-Pro (subscription required) from RJ Anderson, analyzing the Indians of the past decade and pointing out some interesting correlations between payroll and winning percentage (and he actually has words of praise for the Tribe in that regard), but Anderson’s finish is what caught my eye:
Former general manager Mark Shapiro built successful Cleveland teams behind a few stars surrounded by strong supporting casts. Chris Antonetti’s teams appear headed toward a similar template. The Indians already have the star power, and they may have the role players in place as well.
--snip--
Cleveland’s potential to fill out the roster with cost-controlled players should allow the team to allocate more of its funds toward locking up its stars—an understated benefit given the Indians’ payroll restrictions—much as it did under Shapiro and even John Hart. These things seem to work in cycles, so don’t be surprised to see the Indians ascending the AL Central totem pole come 2012.

For a reference point, Anderson pegs Santana, Choo, and Sizemore as possessing the “star power” with the hopes that Asdrubal and perhaps even LaPorta and Brantley start to fill that role as pieces of a “strong supporting cast”. As Anderson says, “The rotation lacks an ace, but Carlos Carrasco appears likely to break camp with the team, which should only help” and unquestionably the evolution of that rotation is what bears watching throughout the season and beyond.

While I’m firmly behind the wheel of the Carrasco bandwagon (come on aboard…there’s plenty of room), this idea of a supporting cast is interesting as Kevin Goldstein of B-Pro (who ranked the Indians’ Farm System as the 7th best) had a recent chat, during which he noted that the Indians’ system as underrated, opining that the Tribe farm system is “not star-studded, but there are tons of future big leaguers there.”

“Tons of future big leaguers there” certainly sounds like a pipeline for a supporting cast, but given that Sizemore’s final guaranteed season is this year (and if anyone was surprised that he’s not going to be ready for Opening Day…well, you haven’t been paying attention) and with Choo under control for “only” three more years, that “star power” may be what’s lacking going forward. In particular, if you look at the players identified as possessing “star power”, he omits all of the Tribe pitchers and, while it simply may take time for the likes of Carrasco and Chris Perez to become known quantities, the need for more of those “stars”, particularly in the pitching department, is obvious.

Certainly, some potential “stars” are out there, most notably in Drew Pomeranz (and I see Al White as more of a solid MLB starter…not that there’s anything wrong with that, just ask Jake Westbrook) and, more tenuously, Jason Knapp. On the topic of Knapp, Jim Callis of BA had this to say on the “damaged goods” from the Lee deal:
No question, if healthy, Knapp could rocket up next year’s Top 100. He has a mid-90s fastball and a plus curveball. At the same time, he is still raw, needs more consistency and command, and has to prove he can hold up over a full season. He’s just 21 and his career could go in several directions. If everything comes together, he could be a frontline starter. It’s also possible that he could be best suited for the bullpen in the long run.

While certainly the “frontline starter” is the path that Indians’ fans prefer, the realization is that this year is when a lot of this separation is going to come for these young arms that have entered the system (either via draft of trade) in the last year-and-a-half. While it’s folly to label any of these players (Knapp, Hagadone, etc.) as “busts” if they get injured –or struggle, a break-out season by one or more of them in the Minor Leagues that would “rocket” them up these prospect lists certainly would allay some fears and take some of the bite out of the assertion that the Indians are standing at the edge of the desert, preparing themselves for a long, hot walk to nowhere.
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Finally in a programming note, I’ll be sitting out the upcoming Lazy Sunday as I’ll be in scenic Shipshewana, IN at an indoor water park with the in-laws as Shipshewana is the mid-way point between Milwaukee and Cleveland. Coming in to pinch hit for me will be my TCF colleague Al Ciammaichella, who is sure to be swinging for the fences with the likelihood of a HR pretty high…

A Lazy Sunday Finding Relief

After a week in which Old Man Winter took one last swipe at the North Coast (and my power for a couple of days), the sun is supposed to be shining today…and not just because the Indians play a team not named the Indians in Arizona this afternoon. With the Indians playing their Goodyear-mates, the Reds, and with the mountains of snow melting outside of my window, let’s get loose right away on a Lazy Sunday…

The big news of the week (and no, Trevor Crowe’s shoulder issues do not qualify) came late on Friday night as the Indians agreed to terms with RH relief pitcher Chad Durbin, most recently of the Phillies, to a one-year deal worth $800K guaranteed with another $1M available to Durbin in incentives. Nearly as soon as the signing was announced, the catcalls came from the gallery, wondering aloud what the point was in signing Durbin when the Indians are reportedly bursting at the seams with power arms for the bullpen.

Well, it certainly seems as if everyone’s memory of “just Chad Durbin” when he was a middling middle reliever/starter for the Indians a few years back (he appeared in 20 games for the Indians in 2003 and 2004) or as a poor back-end-of-the-rotation option in Detroit (starting 19 games of the 36 he appeared in for the Motor City Kitties in 2007) has created an overwhelmingly negative perception of Chad Durbin, essentially ignoring the player that he’s evolved into over the last three years in the Phillies’ bullpen. In fact, the initial confusion for some over whether the Indians were looking at Durbin to be a starter or a reliever is pretty indicative of the ignorance around Durbin and provides a decent explanation for the immediate dismissal of Durbin as an upgrade to the Indians bullpen.

However, since he’s become a full-time reliever at the beginning of 2008 in Philly, Durbin has posted the following line:
3.62 ERA, 117 ERA+, and a 1.37 WHIP in 226 IP over 194 games

While those numbers may not jump off of the page, realize that 17 MLB relievers in that 3-year stretch have posted a better ERA+ while throwing more than 200 innings. That criteria may seem a little convoluted, but if the issue with relievers is generally an inability to predict health from year to year as well as production, it means that Durbin has remained healthy and productive (if intermittently) in the last three years.

Given that track record of relative success, I’m not going to guess as to why Durbin still found himself on the outside looking in with teams already in camp or why he had to “settle” for an $800K deal with up to $1M in incentives from the Indians while other middle relievers backed the Brinks’ trucks up this off-season…and I’ll get to that. But let’s keep this with Durbin, who pitched in the 7th inning or later in 47 of the 64 games Durbin he threw in last year…think about that for a moment in the midst of this “Durbin is bullpen filler” talk while realizing that 29 of those appearances after the 7th inning came in either a one-run game or a tied game.

Additionally, in those 64 games, he accumulated a line of 3.80 ERA, 106 ERA+, 1.31 WHIP, 8.3 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 2.33 K/BB in 68 2/3 IP, which meant that he posted a higher K/9 in 2010 than any Tribe reliever who threw more than 10 innings not named Chris Perez or Tony Sipp. Going further, Justin Germano and Frank Herrmann had similarly impressive K/BB ratios, but struck out fewer batters than Durbin did. If you prefer more advanced metrics, Durbin’s 4.19 xFIP in 2010 was lower than any Indians’ reliever with more than 6 IP.

Certainly that’s not meant to intimate that Chris F. Perez needs to be looking over his shoulder as the closer because Chad Durbin definitely has his flaws (the jump in the OPS vs. LH hitters in 2010 is worth watching) and I’m not going to be the one to guarantee that Durbin will achieve any measure of success in 2011, but if Durbin is a veteran arm (who they can run out there pretty regularly in a variety of roles and even ideally flip him in July) that allows the young power arms in the Tribe system to mature INTO legitimate set-up guys instead of having that crown bestowed upon their heads, it certainly doesn’t do much harm.

Yet the fact that Durbin is 33 years old and found himself still looking for a contract with teams already in camp has led to an immediate dismissal of this addition as Durbin is painted as a “long reliever”, which is more than a little misleading as he threw multiple innings in 19 of his 64 appearances last year which may look like a high number until you realize that Tony Sipp threw multiple innings in 18 of his 70 appearances for the Indians last year…would anyone categorize Tony Sipp’s usage last year as a “long reliever”?

Is this a dip into the bargain bin?
Any signing this late probably is, though as much as I can’t figure out (much less get on board with) any plan that goes to Opening Day with Sonny Nix or Paul Phillips on the 25-man instead of Jason Donald and Lou Marson, I’m fine with a bullpen addition, as long as the addition has a track record of success (even moderate) and health, which Durbin does. Reason being that there’s a big difference between Durbin coming in to pitch a couple of innings a week and Sonny Nix being the everyday 3B for the first few months of a season. Given that the effectiveness of bullpen arms is essentially a crapshoot from year to year, even with a track record of success – even recent success, adding an arm like Durbin makes sense considering that a good number of alternatives (particularly those that are RH) have either just taken their first sips of an MLB cup of coffee or have yet to grab their cup of Java in MLB.

Given that the Indians are still a very young (if promising) team, is there anything more soul-crushing to a young team than seeing leads given away in the 6th, 7th, or 8th innings? Lest anyone forget, Tony Sipp and Rafael Perez were both inconsistent last year and, while I have no problem with them pitching the 7th and 8th innings, both are LH and given that Joe Smith should NEVER FACE A LH hitter (LH hitters OPS vs. Smith was .979 last year and .992 in 2009), that would have left the Indians with Jensen Lewis as the RH arm that was going to be the 7th/8th inning bridge to Chris Perez. That would be the same Jensen Lewis who spent much of last season between Cleveland and Columbus and, while he certainly closed out the season well in 2010, who as a cumulative 106 ERA+ over the last three years.

If Lewis turns into Jensen v.2009, the Indians options for another RH set-up guy that had spent time on the parent club became…well, Frank Herrmann (44 2/3 career MLB IP), Vinnie Pestano (5 career MLB IP), and maybe a guy like Jess Todd (28 1/3 career MLB IP). As much as I might like the long-term outlook for those three (as well as guys like Stowell, Judy, Putnam and others…who have never appeared in MLB), given the uncertainty of any bullpen, do you start to see where Durbin comes in as a RH option with a track record of health and relative success?

None of this is to suggest that Chad Durbin is some sort of magical stabilizing force that will translate to the Indians bullpen DEFINITELY not driving into the ditch that captured them in 2006 or 2008 (most notably), but if you’ll remember how I was inexplicably scared by the bullpen last week, realize that I wasn’t alone in taking all of this talk that “the bullpen’s fine…finally” was premature, as no less than Castrovince asserted something similar while sitting in Bastian’s chair earlier in the week:
Beware anybody who offers assurances, positive or negative, about a Major League bullpen. Nobody really knows what they’re talking about. That's why it helps to have depth, and this is one area where - on paper, at least - the Indians possess such a luxury. Acta was asked if he thinks there's such a thing as "momentum" carrying over from one season to the next for a bullpen. After all, Tribe relievers posted a 2.95 ERA after the All-Star break last year - the second-lowest such mark in the AL and the fourth-lowest in MLB.

Of course the numbers after the All-Star Break are a positive sign, but AC’s right and the aside about “on paper” is telling because as much as we’d all like to think that Herrmann, Judy, Pestano, Stowell, and the other cast of characters is ready to step right into the Cleveland bullpen on Opening Day and thrive, the presence of Rafael Perez and Jensen Lewis (who were SO good down the stretch in 2007 and have gone through their share of career hiccups since) are instructive in terms of relying too much on any reliever from year to year, much less young ones, regardless of MiLB statistics or pedigree.

Truthfully, I’m probably more optimistic about the Indians’ pipeline of power arms than most and realize that 2011 is the year that many of them will arrive topside. However, from a realistic standpoint, success for relievers is volatile and assuming that any (or all) of these guys is going to arrive in Cleveland and dominate is delusional. While the sheer volume of arms that seems to be coming is comforting, isn’t one of the goals of the 2011 season (maybe not a publicly stated one) to get off to a fast start and perhaps even generate some interest locally to a sports scene in need of one?

Remember that idea again of how soul-crushing some bullpen implosions can be to a team, particularly to a young one, particularly early in the season?

It a main reason that one of the “suggestions” for Indians’ additions posited here back in October was for a veteran RH reliever with the reasoning for such being presented back then as such:
Though the Indians are touting the performance of the bullpen in the second half, let’s realize that the RHP that figure into the 2011 bullpen past Chris F. Perez are Joe Smith, Jensen Lewis, Justin Germano and a bunch of promising AAA pitchers, like Vinnie Pestano and Zach Putnam.

Do you really feel comfortable that one of those guys can assume that 7th or 8th inning RH role for 2011?

Maybe this is from the experience of watching the bullpen deep-six the 2006 and 2008 seasons (among other reasons), but I don’t and I think that a priority this off-season would be to add a RH reliever to the late-inning mix to assist Rafael Perez and Tony Sipp in serving as the bridge from the 6th to the 9th innings, when necessary.

I’ll still stand by that, regardless of the glowing reports that have come out of Goodyear and this intimation that the bullpen will be the “strength” of the team when Jensen Lewis and Joe Smith were tabbed as the teams’ RH set-up guys heading into Goodyear. In that piece from last October, my suggestion was to bring in a guy like Jesse Crain with those hopes being dashed when Crain signed an inexplicable THREE-YEAR DEAL with the White Sox for $13M.

Don’t think that Crain was the exception to the off-season rule however as Matt Guerrier signed a 3-year deal worth $12M with the Dodgers, Scott Downs signed a 3-year deal worth $15M with the Angels, Rafael Soriano signed a 3-year deal worth $35M with the Yankees, and Joaquin Benoit signed a 3-year deal worth $16.5M with the Tigers, the final contract providing the lead-in to a great piece in last week’s print edition of SI by Tom Verducci about how middle relievers were suddenly the prettiest belles of the ball this off-season:
Joaquin Benoit didn’t have a job last year until Feb. 15, and when he found one, it was through a minor league contract with the Rays. He was pitching filler—just another arm that was aging (he turned 33 last year), damaged (he missed 2009 because of rotator-cuff surgery), mediocre (4.79 career ERA) and not good enough to start or close games.

Instead of committing multiple years to set-up guys (who may or may not outperform Durbin) like those aforementioned teams did, the Indians took a chance that Durbin is able to sustain some level of success in 2011 while providing some rubber-armed veteran presence to a bullpen that figures to be pretty fluid throughout the year.

To that end, there’s going to be a lot of player movement in the bullpen (as there always) is and there will be a TON of opportunities for these young arms to get opportunities. For some perspective on this, the Indians used 13 relievers last year (not including Marte) and the year before that, they used 23 relievers. Chad Durbin will be one of those relievers in 2011, likely along with all of the young arms that people are (rightfully) optimistic about with the idea that those young arms can start the season in AAA, attemping to separate themselves and forcing their way onto the MLB roster, much in the way that Frank Herrmann did last year. Really, does anyone think that Chad Durbin is going to ostensibly block a gaggle of arms for the Indians all season long if he’s not performing for the Tribe?

For some context on this idea, realize that the Indians signed Jamey Wright to a minor-league deal last off-season that turned into a $900K deal when he made the 25-man roster out of Goodyear. At the end of May, he was sitting on a 5.68 ERA and do you know how many innings Jamey Wright pitched last year for the Indians?

It was 21 1/3 innings over the first two months of the season…among the 484 1/3 innings that Indians’ relievers threw in 2010, or about 4% of the innings “available” to the Tribe bullpen last year. Given that Wright (although signed to a minor-league deal) was guaranteed that $900K deal as soon as he made the 25-man roster was moved on from as quickly as he revealed himself to be an underwhelming option, isn’t a similar strategy likely to be employed in terms of Durbin?

All told, the Indians added a veteran RH arm with a track record of health and relative success (no small feat) over the last three years at a low cost with the idea that he’ll either provide some stability to the 7th and 8th innings beyond simply having Jensen Lewis as a RH option and allowing some of the young arms to slot themselves accordingly in Columbus instead of being asked to assume the role of RH set-up guy out of the gate.

If Durbin works out fabulously, the Indians can always move him to a contender in July, with the young players having spent the first half of the season jockeying for position to take a step up the bullpen ladder. On the flip side, if he completely flames out (justifying his lack of a contract with teams in camp for two weeks), the Indians can move on from him at any point in the season.

Interestingly, in thinking about the Durbin signing in terms of that old “Plan” for the off-season back in October, the other “suggestions” for the Indians’ Winter (outside of the contract talk) as past that identified “need” for a RH arm in the bullpen, I was hoping for an upgrade in the infield defense, a RH OF, and a veteran arm for the rotation.

As Bonderman and Millwood remained unsigned and still possible, the Indians pretty much checked three of those off with Durbin, The OC, and Kearns. Though my suggestion for an upgrade in the infield defense was Kouzmanoff, realize that the notion was completely contingent upon him being DFA’d and for the Indians to be able to sign him to a low-risk deal. Of course, the A’s did not designate K2 for assignment and decided to keep him in his third year of arbitration eligibility, in which they will pay him $4.75M.

Now is a good time to mention that The OC’s contract is for $1M guaranteed as well as pointing out the 2010 numbers for each:
Kouzmanoff – 2010
.247 BA / .283 OBP / .396 SLG / .679 OPS (83 OPS+) in 586 PA

O. Cabrera – 2010
.263 BA / .303 OBP / .354 SLG / .657 OPS (78 OPS+) in 537 PA

This is pointed out not to make light of the assertion that Kouzmanoff was a good idea (and remember, my interest in Kouzmanoff was ONLY if he was DFA’d, which he was not), but rather to point out that the Indians did have every intention of adding an infielder and it’s likely that after surveying the 3B possibilities, the Indians went to Plan OC, still likely keeping Jason Donald (which was in my “Plan”, just at a different position) in the lineup at 3B.

Is it the ideal situation?
Of course not with everyone playing out of position, but if the idea was to get Jason Donald into the lineup on an everyday basis and to shore up the other position with a stronger (albeit diminishing) defensive player, the Indians accomplished that with The OC. Even if I’d rather see Cord Phelps start the season as the 2B in Cleveland with The OC as the super-utility IF, the Indians did add another piece that fit their needs in Uncle Orlando with a low cost deal that brings them some relative stability.

In terms of stability, the return of Kearns as the RH OF certainly looks like a better move than my suggestion to add Matt Diaz, with the idea that Diaz was a RH who mashed LHP who could provide some protection against the all-LH OF and the LH Pronk. Of course, Matt Diaz made his way to Pittsburgh on a contract for 2 years and $4.25M, which really isn’t that bad of a deal, while the Tribe went with Kearns on a 1-year deal that will pay him $1.3M.

Although Kearns doesn’t bring the prowess vs. LHP that Diaz does, given that Grady is likely start the season on the DL with his effectiveness still in question going forward, Kearns (with his ability to be more than simply a “platoon” player, unlike Diaz) certainly looks like the more prudent addition, particularly given the fact that he knows the role that he’s being signed to fill and is comfortable in being the 4th OF, something Diaz may not have been willing to concede to.

As for the final “suggestion” to add a veteran starter, the two names that I specifically mentioned were Zach Duke and Brandon Webb, whose eventual contracts served as a microcosm of a starting pitching market gone mad – as it usually does. To wit, Duke signed a $4.25M deal with the Diamondbacks (who acquired him via trade) with club options for 2011 (for $3.5M) and 2012 (for $5.5M with a $750K buyout), this coming a year after he posted a 5.72 ERA and a 1.65 WHIP for the Pirates. Meanwhile, Webb (who has pitched 4 MLB innings since the end of the 2008 season) will make $3M guaranteed with $5M more available to him in performance and roster bonuses, with news that he will have his first bullpen session just hitting the wire this weekend.

That “opportunity” to add a starter with upside to a low-risk deal has not presented itself, but that doesn’t mean that it may not come yet. As camps roll on towards mid-March and if teams like the Cardinals and the Yankees opt to go with their “internal options” or the flotsam and jetsam they brought to camp, it will be interesting to see how the situations with Bonderman (who still interests me) and Millwood (who interests me not as much) evolve as the Indians could have either player fall into their lap on a low-risk, low-money deal with expectations for them falling in line with other players who have signed multi-year deals with other teams for millions of dollars.

While I’ll stop short of saying that that Chad Durbin fell into the Indians’ lap, inking Durbin does represent a signing that may pay dividends for them, allowing their younger arms some time to mature into their eventual roles. Whether the moves they have made with veterans to complement what they hope is their burgeoning “core” remains to be seen, but they spent $3.1M in guaranteed money to The OC, Kearns, and Durbin, with little to no risk or commitment to any of those players past their low guaranteed salaries.

Is it finally time to start playing baseball?