Net Asset Value on a Lazy Sunday

The All-Star Break is nearly upon us and (as usual) I’m not going to delve too deeply into the absurdity that is the All-Star Game or the manufactured “debates” over who got snubbed and which players are going to be playing in Arizona in a couple of days and who won’t as the glorified exhibition game that MLB foists upon us (while attempting to make it more meaningful than it should be) as the outrage that all of the selections and snubs seems to generate just doesn’t interest me. Perhaps there are people out there who have been DYING to see the best players from MLB play in an exhibition game in mid-July, but I’ll take the ride that the Indians have been taking me on over the manufactured pageantry and hollow story lines that accompany the All-Star Game every day and twice on Sunday.

With that out of the way (and with the word “Sunday” invoked), let’s get going on a Lazy Sunday as I have a day ahead of me that figures to be anything but lazy as The DiaBride and I continue to pack up our current house to ready The Reservation for a new address, one that fits 3 kids and 2 adults a little more realistically. Nevertheless, though you may be reading this as I huff and puff away in our sweltering attic, maybe you’ll be having a Lazy One because here comes the only part of my day that figures to be such…

Driving the pace car for the day is Anthony Castrovince, who comes correct and in full effect, examining whether or not this Indians’ team is “sponge-worthy”, a variation of the “Blonde-worthy” question a couple of weeks ago. Regardless, AC examines what the Indians are likely/unlikely to do in terms of adding a piece (which is worth the click and a full read), with quotes from Antonetti providing a real glimpse into a possible plan:
“We’re open in any way we can to improve the team, whatever that might be,” Antonetti said. “Especially with Choo suffering the injury that he suffered, we’ll probably focus most of our efforts on improving our offense and getting a little more consistency there.”
--snip--
“It’s so hard to put percentages on external acquisitions because there are so many variables in play,” Antonetti said. “The benefit that we have with our internal options is we control those unilaterally, which guys we bring up, provided they’re healthy. Externally, so many things have to come together.”

Read those two quotes again from Antonetti and tell me that the Indians focus isn’t maximizing the offense in Choo’s absence by attempting to utilize internal options instead of searching for an external option that may or may not be there, and may not even be all that pressing of a need if Choo truly is going to be ready by the 2nd week of August, as he is telling “friends”. Regardless, Castro sums it up pretty well when he wraps the piece up with the idea that,“The Indians might, indeed, make a move before the July 31 deadline. But I don’t expect that move to be of much impact to either their long-term prospect pool or their short-term run-production. What you see is what you get with this injury riddled club, and what you see might very well be enough to keep hanging around in the Central standings.”

Of course, that’s not going to make the “THE DOLANS SAID THEY’D SPEND WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT AND NOW IS THE RIGHT TIME” crowd, but does “spending” mean adding a Josh Willingham (who’s been out with an Achilles issue for nearly a month and had a .714 OPS prior to his injury) for the $2M that he’s owed or another limited player of Willingham’s ilk?

There might be fits out there (Mike Cuddyer intrigues me as a versatile RH bat with some pop), but the Indians are far from alone in looking for offensive help and would be bidding against a good number of teams with the idea that they can add someone is predicated on other teams making players available, something that has not happened to date. Don’t take this as an attempt to lower expectations or as a call for the Indians to sit on their hands while the teams around them perhaps augment their roster (though this month will be just as telling as to what the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins end up doing as it will the Tribe) as the Indians are far from a perfect team. Obviously, the Indians’ best chance of improvement is getting healthy in some places and getting back to being effective in others as a return to form from Sizemore would have the same effect that the return of Pronk has had and an early return from Choo (assuming effectiveness) could be just as uplifting for the team.

That being said, if the Indians do decide to make a move, I received a thought-provoking e-mail from reader John Woods, regarding the Indians perhaps dealing from positions of strength – namely their middle infield depth, their starting pitching, and their bullpen – to make more substantial additions at a “weak” spot on the parent club. The idea behind Woods’ premise was that there are certain players (particularly in Columbus, as noted by Adam Van Arsdale at LGT) knocking down the door that really have nowhere to go now or in the near future because of other prospects that sit higher on the organizational ladder or whose chance is unlikely to come this year…if ever.

Though many point to the recent success of Dave Huff and the (since-promoted) Luis Valbuena as guys that could be used for trades to upgrade the parent club, the question is whether the Indians could ACTUALLY sell a couple of their once-tarnished prospects as “ready to turn it around” in MLB to another team that may have a desirable piece. Frankly, I’m a little leery that other teams are scouting the likes of Huff or Valbuena (just to use them as examples) and thinking that those guys just need a shot in MLB to stick. So, the attractiveness of those types of players may not be any kind of shiny lure at the end of a fishing line that’s going to draw much interest in the waters of MLB. This idea that the Indians can turn their former prospects into impact players reeks too much Costanza going into Big Stein’s office (“I think I’ve figured out a way to get Bonds and Griffey…and it wouldn’t cost us that much”) for the next few weeks for me to handle, but that doesn’t mean that the Indians shouldn’t explore the opportunity to be bold and maybe step out of the comfort zone that they’ve already crossed with the promotions of White and Chisenhall.

To that end, I wonder if the most desirable path that the organization could take would be a different approach that still falls into their wheelhouse as the Indians have developed a reputation for identifying undervalued prospects in other organizations with their list of larcenies being well-documented. For the past few years, the Indians have seemed to part with their own flawed players at the MLB level (usually before they were about to get expensive), netting more useful organizational pieces in the process.

Of course, we know of Ben Broussard turning into Asdrubal and ½ of a season of Austin Kearns turning into Zach McAllister, but the Indians spun Ben Francisco (a 4th OF who is “earning” $1.18M in Philly) to net more prospects from Philly and flipped Kelly Shoppach (in the 2nd year of a $5.5M deal in Tampa, where he has a .593 OPS) to the Rays for a pitcher that – though he may not be in the rotation for much longer – provided the Indians with about a season-and-a-half of starts while the arms beneath him ripened. Ryan Garko had all of 165 MLB plate appearances after the Indians dealt him for a now 23-year-old pitcher in Scott Barnes who has struck out 85 hitters in the 82 1/3 innings he’s thrown for Columbus this year. But even the guys bemoaned a “great” losses have turned out to be traded with good reason as for as much hand-wringing that happened during Franklin Gutierrez’s Gold Glove season, he now has a cumulative .686 OPS in 3 years as a Mariner, with Seattle on the hook to pay him $5.5M next season and $7M in 2012.

Though there may be valid complaints about the Indians as an organization, they do seem to have a pretty good idea of their own players’ strengths and weaknesses and, more importantly, their ceilings, their attractiveness to other organizations willing to cast a blind eye to their warts, and the cost-effectiveness of keeping certain players. They may have been relatively blind-sided by one Josh Tomlin, about whom a scout gushed this to B-Pro’s John Perrotto, “He’s a surgeon, kind of like a poor man’s Greg Maddux” and while Tomlin was under the glare of the bright lights all week, with AC profiling him as well at MLB.com and comparing anyone to any kind of “man’s Greg Maddux” has to be put in the column of hyperbole, most of the times the Indians are not one of these organizations that has too many of these “pleasant surprises” in terms of prospects panning out at the MLB level, particularly recently.

Regardless of anything related to Tomlin, the hope would be is that the Indians can be as honest about their current cache of upper-level prospects as they have been in the last couple of years with their former prospects. With guys like Garko, Francisco, Broussard, Gutierrez, and Shoppach, they realized their limitations and their limited future with the team (particularly in relation to salary) and acted aggressively in selling high (or at least at the right time) on nearly all of those guys. To that end, the question becomes what current prospects in AAA are perhaps overvalued by others that are in the Tribe’s organization or who may be an ancillary part down the road and whose value may be greater in what the organization could net for them instead of what that particular player figures to contribute for the Tribe in the coming years. As good as the Indians have been in identifying their own players at the MLB level whose usefulness had leveled off and whose greatest value was tied into what the organization could get for them, it now becomes a question of whether the Indians can be brutally honest with themselves about their own prospects (which they love to have stockpiled) and perhaps part with a player who may project as a useful MLB player, but whose value to the Indians could be less because of other players within the organization.

If you read that last sentence carefully, you know where I’m going with this as I’ve been in Cord Phelps’ corner more than most (even driving the bandwagon from time to time) and think that the problem with the Indians’ handling of Phelps was calling him up to mainly sit on the bench or to allegedly play a part in a platoon that never materialized, when he had never done so in his baseball career. You can point to his defensive “yips” or say that “he’ll be back…he just needs more seasoning”, but the Indians had a hole at 2B (and still have it) and Phelps represented an upgrade. With that being the case, perhaps the fact that they were so reticent to play him regularly and so quick to send him down (as I fail to see Hannahan’s value on the roster presently) may be telling as to how Phelps is viewed in terms of the team’s future.

By that I mean that Phelps performed equal to the level that Jason Kipnis had in AAA prior to his call-up (while Phelps moved all around the field in Columbus) and reportedly Phelps is the more polished fielder at 2B. By all reports, if the Indians called up Kipnis, it would be to play nearly everyday, just as The Chiz had before taking a ball off of his cheek, and since Phelps arrived to basically watch The OC sneak him dirty looks while serving as Uncle Orlando’s caddy for a couple of weeks, maybe Phelps isn’t in the Indians’ long-terms plans as much as his recent numbers in AAA would indicate. If he isn’t, and Kipnis truly is thought of as the “2B of the Future” and the Indians feel that some amalgamation of The OC/Valbuena/Donald can hold the fort down until Kipnis arrives with the latter two fighting it out for Utility spots once Kipnis does arrive, where does that leave Phelps, other than as a 24-year-old middle IF with an cumulative .886 OPS in AAA in 521 PA over the last two years? While THAT player looks like one I’d be more than happy to find a spot for in Cleveland, if Phelps is heading back to Columbus to be groomed for a Utility IF job that he’ll be competing with Jason Donald and Luis Valbuena for, is that the best use of Phelps as an asset?

Perhaps Kevin Goldstein was right at the beginning of the year when he wrote that Phelps’ “Perfect World Projection” was that of a “solid, but unspectacular everyday infielder”, but I can’t help but think that six years of club control for a player like that is valuable in this world in which Miggy Tejada and The OC still get work.

Of course, this is just talking about one player and one particular situation (and please don’t take this example to mean “TRADE CORD PHELPS”), but if the Indians have a “master plan” somewhere at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario (and I’m betting they do), they know where they have all of these chess pieces lining up. While I certainly understand the value of depth and the threat of attrition/injury to any player, if the Indians wanted to be bold this month, they would perhaps take an asset that might be more valued in places other than the Indians’ Front Office and move that piece for something that might be more valuable to the Indians’ organization, not just now but into the future. If the Indians would be looking to make that move (and I could make a similar argument that Kipnis could be the “overvalued” piece as I just did with Phelps and that the Indians could look at moving Kipnis if they feel that Phelps is on par with him as a prospect), the hope would be that they could add something that would represent more than just the rent-a-player that they are (rightfully) reticent to chase.

Don’t take this as a call for the Indians to move all of their top-tier prospects in order to make a move for 2011 (particularly if you’re moving prospects for 3 months of a flawed player like Jeff Francoeur or Ty Wigginton) and I’m not going to pretend to know how Cord Phelps or Jason Kipnis is viewed in Front Offices around the league or what they would bring in return if they were traded. But, particularly at the 2B position, the Indians have two similarly-aged players whose value needs to be maximized, with the 2011 pennant race perhaps presenting the perfect time to do so – to “sell high” on a player, as the Indians have done so well in the recent past.

To take this idea of “selling high” on particular players in another direction and onto the parent club, if the Indians have a high degree of confidence in the arms from Columbus arriving and thriving, perhaps the Indians parlay the eye-popping as the numbers for Rafael Perez and Joe Smith this year (and both of those guys are going to have higher price tags next year because of their arbitration eligibility) into another team overpaying for one of their middle relievers with great ERA’s…which is a pretty bad number to look at to judge a reliever. While generally I’d be loathe to even entertain the idea of breaking up the bullpen (one of the strengths of this team), Smith and R. Perez really have been middle relievers for the most part this year and, though they provide insurance against youngsters like Vinnie Pestano or Tony Sipp doing what so many young relievers have done in the past (which is regress…quickly), you have to wonder what Smith or Perez would net the Indians in a market desperate for relievers.

Again, don’t take this as some sort of Bobby Valentine-esque suggestion that the Indians should be selling off their bullpen arms because (despite what Valentine may think) the Tribe IS in the AL Central race, but if a guy like Chen Lee or Nick Hagadone is ready (and ready NOW) to contribute at the MLB level, the Indians could perhaps deal from a strength to fill a weakness on the roster. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that the Clippers should be promoted en masse to step into an AL Central pennant race, but if the Indians are creatively going to add to the parent club with pieces that could continue to fit into the puzzle past this year who may be made available for certain reasons (like Logan Morrison, who would cost the Indians some major pieces), they need to be honest about certain players on their own team and where they are most valuable while balancing what is available to them internally.

Truth be told, I tend to think that there are enough internal options to upgrade the roster (utilized correctly…and Phelps wasn’t), but if the Indians want to add a player that represents a LEGITIMATE upgrade and a piece that could help them down the stretch, moving Dave Huff or Luis Valbuena isn’t going to allow them to add that piece, their 2011 AAA performance considered. Castrovince is probably right when he writes that if the Indians do make a move, it won’t be “of much impact to either their long-term prospect pool or their short-term run-production”, but the Indians seem to have a glut of desirable pieces in particular spots in their roster that can be used creatively to tweak the roster for the short-term without making big dents into the plans for the short-term and the long-term.

Maybe that will lead to some surprises and bold strokes that we haven’t seen for a while from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario (though I’m not holding my breath), but what we’re starting to see at the MLB level is the fruit borne from the draft (Chiz, Tomlin, Pestano, Sipp) commingling with these players that were added in recent deals (basically everyone else on the roster) as the Indians suddenly have a logjam of players in MLB and AAA, with the Indians perhaps being able to free up that logjam by using some valuable assets that can help the team not only this year, but beyond. In terms of who would fit that profile of players that could help the Indians this year and beyond, I’m not going to even venture a guess. But if the Indians have been “cleared” to add payroll, what if they targeted players approaching arbitration whose current teams may be looking for some salary relief this year and in the next few years of who have a glut of players (like the Indians do) at a position that the Indians could upgrade?

At the end of the day, the question becomes whether the Indians could (or would be willing to try to) turn one of the legitimate prospects at 2B (Phelps or Kipnis) or the glut of relievers into something that fills an obvious need on the Indians for 2011 and beyond. The answer to that is elusive, but if the Indians really do know more about their own prospects than the ones they’ve been pilfering from across the league for the last couple of years, it could be the bold move (executed prudently and making the right decisions on players) that could build momentum for the rest of the season and into the seasons to come. Maybe “bold” moves or moves outside of their comfort zone aren’t something that we’ve come to expect from the offices of Carnegie and Ontario, but 2011 has been full of surprises.
Perhaps a couple more are still coming…

Tomahawks Rising Once More

Remember that whole idea that July was “Moving Day” in a baseball season?

As Hafner’s walk-off Grand Slam soared into the Cleveland night, the Indians found themselves winners in 6 of their last 8 as the team has shown that they’re not willing to let injuries to players derail what certainly feels like a magical season. Just when it seemed that the persistent flaws on the team – inconsistent offense with an inability to capitalize on opportunities and a spotty performance from a pitcher not named Masterson, Carrasco, or Tomlin (although McAllister gets a bit of a pass in his 1st start) – the Indians continue to put together a stretch of games like the one they’re currently enjoying that causes a simple phrase like “What If?” to carry more meaning than most Indians’ fans ever thought possible.

Just when it looked like the team was heading down toward the canvas for good after that series in Northern California (that cost them their best player coming into the season), the Indians simply pulled themselves off the canvas once more and started throwing punches again. Maybe this team has a little Chuck Wepner in it, but they’re surviving and thriving through a portion of the schedule that could allow them to build some serious momentum heading into the final two months of the season.

Thus, after watching the pile-up at home plate tonight on TV and after taking in Wednesday night’s gem at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, and because there were a couple of things floating around in my head (other than Mitch Talbot this week), I thought that I’d let loose a couple of quick Tomahawks, if only because the good feelings are pervasive, so let’s allow them to pervade…
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Not sure who has noticed this (though yours truly, who said that the “platoon” to replace Choo was “doomed to fail), but here is what Travis Buck, Austin Kearns, and Shelley Duncan have combined to do in games in which they were the RF since Choo’s injury, heading into Thursday’s tilt against the Jays:
.307 BA / .357 OBP / .487 SLG / .844 OPS as a group in the 43 plate appearances

It is true that the total is only in the 11 games since The BLC went down, but since that group started out 0-7 in the first 2 games as a “platoon” (with Duncan striking out 4 times in the 2nd game in which the troika were asked to handle RF), they’ve done their best to quiet the calls for another bat for the OF. Now that Buck is healthy once again, it will be interesting to see how Acta employs Buck and Kearns out in the OF (and I wouldn’t mind seeing Mike Brantley get a few days off here and there as he has a .204 BA / .263 OBP / .301 SLG / .564 OPS slash line in 114 PA over the past month) as the Indians attempt to fill the hole created by a Jonathon Sanchez fastball. Since Choo’s injury, I’ve felt that the team would be best served giving RF to one player (and they seemed to do that, starting with Buck until his injury, at which point they turned to Kearns), so how the plate appearances shake out from here is anyone’s guess.

Of course, buried in Thursday morning’s paper is this bombshell (which has some bearing on the whole RF situation), as Hoynes reports that “Outfielder Shin-Soo Choo had the cast removed from his broken left thumb Wednesday. Choo is telling friends he could be playing by the second week in August.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa…the second week in August?
Isn’t this the guy that was supposed to be gone for 8 to 10 weeks, perhaps putting in jeopardy whether he’d even be coming back this season?

Maybe Choo is being overly optimistic to “friends”, but the second week of August is really only about 4 weeks of baseball from now (with the All-Star Break removing 3 days of games from the schedule in there) and if Choo’s timetable for return is really in 4 weeks, how involved should the Indians be getting in acquiring that OF bat that seems to be at the top of everyone’s list?

By that I mean that the trade market probably won’t develop until the last full week in July (and do a Google search on a team…any team, with the keyword “buyer” or “seller” after the team name and see how many articles are written about how teams don’t know which they’re going to be) and if Choo’s going to come back a couple of weeks after that, perhaps the best course of action is for the Indians to look to perhaps add any kind of RH bat (regardless of position) or even stand pat and continue to promote from within. Reason being is that buried in all of this nonsense about Jeff Francoeur and Ryan Ludwick being players that could help the Tribe are the actual performances of Francoeur and Ludwick, particularly recently.

Want to know what Jeff Francoeur has done in about the last 2 months after his hot start:
Frenchy since May 5th – 55 games
.238 BA / .285 OBP / .360 SLG / .645 OPS in 235 PA

So, that’s the upgrade that the Indians should be looking to make?
Sorry, I’m not seeing that being much better than Buck or even Kearns, even considering Francoeur’s right-handedness as the Royals are apparently not talking to teams about Francoeur and, if Choo REALLY is targeting the 2nd week of August as a return date, is acquiring Francoeur as a two-week platoon partner and a RH PH really what’s going to put the Indians “over the top” in the AL Central?

Maybe you prefer Ludwick, the former Indian who is still close with certain members of the team…but if you do, check this:
Ludwick since May 23rd – 43 games
.262 BA / .327 OBP / .349 SLG / .678 OPS in 169 PA
Better than Francoeur, but again, that’s in the NL (where Ludwick has a career OPS that is more than 100 points higher than his AL career OPS) and Ludwick is still owed about $3M on his current deal. Given what we’ve seen from Buck, Kearns, and Duncan recently, is THAT how you’d like to see the Tribe spend money, particularly if Choo’s ready to take back the reins in RF a couple of weeks after Ludwick would be acquired?

Lest anyone forget, Travis Buck has a .669 OPS in 122 PA and Kearns has a .604 OPS in 126 PA and while those numbers don’t look that great, compared to what Francoeur and Ludwick have “contributed” as of late, is the difference that great that the Indians should be looking to add payroll or part with a prospect (however obscure) to get either of those guys into the fold?

Perhaps you could make a case that Buck and Kearns are playing over their head recently (and I’d listen on Kearns…if not Buck) and maybe Frenchy could be a platoon partner with Buck, but the truth is that this trade market is going to take a while to shake out and, while it does, there is suddenly the possibility that Choo (according to him, at least) could be on the fast-track back into the lineup. While so much has been written about how the Indians need to find another option for RF because of the severity and recovery time for Choo’s finger, if Choo is TRULY ready to come back to the team in the second week of August, the Indians have more flexibility to add a piece to the team going forward.

Whether they do or not - and what team is even willing to talk trade - remains to be seen as the news that Choo could be back in about a month is cause for celebration and reason to turn a blind eye to what “available”, mediocre OF around the league might be had for…
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Want more good injury recovery news?
No, not that the Indians WILL send Fausto out on a rehab start as this also came through in the various notes section, again (buried) from Hoynes as, “Right-hander Alex White (right middle finger) will stay in Cleveland over the All-Star break. He is scheduled to play catch at 120 feet on Friday. If things go well, he could be throwing off the mound coming out of the break.”

Not trying to pretend to know what steps need to be taken from White “throwing off the mound” to “pitching off of the mound” at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, this represents another chance to exhale. While visions of Atom Miller’s finger danced in too many heads on the North Coast, if White is “throwing off the mound” next week, the Indians’ cavalry for their starting rotation (read: Talbot’s spot) could get their lead horse back.

As great as it is to see Gomez and Huff pitch well in AAA, it’s important to remember that White leapfrogged both of those guys to get the extended call earlier in the season. Likewise with McAllister and Barnes (who, let’s ALL remember came over in deals for ½ of a season of Austin Kearns and Ryan Garko and who are both 23 years old and have put up some eye-catching numbers in Columbus), as nice as it is to dream on that duo as evidence of more thievery for the organization, White is the one that topped all of the pre-season prospect lists, with the pedigree and the production to back it up.

Lest anyone forget, in White’s first 4 starts in Columbus, he struck out 28 and walked only 5 in 23 2/3 innings, during which he compiled a 1.90 ERA and a 1.01 WHIP, then came up to Cleveland and struck out 13 (though he walked 9) in his first 15 IP during 3 starts before succumbing to the finger injury. As I said, I have no idea what “throwing off the mound” means (other than it seems to be missing an “of” in the sentence), but if White is able to return to the Tribe rotation this year, it strengthens one of the pillars of this 2011 club.

The promotion of White represented a paradigm shift for the Indians’ deep thinkers (or at least the way they acted) and White returning to the rotation to possibly settle one of the spots in the back-end-of-the-rotation could represent another shift for the Indians, one in which their path to the AL Central title becomes easier to envision.
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Speaking of the AL Central title, it is worth pointing out that the Tribe took 2 of 3 from the Yankees (in case you hadn’t heard), winning a series in which the Bombers threw Sabathia, Burnett, and Hughes. Certainly, Hughes was coming off of his injury and CC dominated the Tribe, but those are the Yankees’ top 3 starters coming into the season and the Indians won the series against that trio of pitchers.

Of course, the accolades do not belong to the offense for the series win, but instead to 2/3 of the front of the Tribe’s rotation as Tomlin and Masterson compiled this total against the Yankees, the highest scoring offense in MLB that was not missing any pieces or parts (unlike the Indians) from their offense:
Tomlin/Masterson vs. Yankees on Monday/Wednesday
15 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 11 K, 3 BB

Coming into the Indians’ series, the Yankees had scored 4 or more runs in 19 of their previous 26 games and hadn’t lost a series in a month, since being swept by the Red Sox in Boston at the beginning of June. Yet here come the Indians, battered and bruised as anyone, with their often-overlooked, always-discounted, young, talented starting rotation ready to try to “tame” the Yankees. While Carrasco’s off-the-rails outing on Tuesday was a quick reminder as to what New York usually does to opposing pitchers, seeing Tomlin and Masterson dominate the loaded Yankee lineup (in entirely different manners) is a reminder as to why this Indians team has a legitimate shot of just sticking around in the AL Central, but taking control of it as well.
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Taking control is certainly what the Indians seem to be doing as they remained dormant for 8 innings of tonight’s game, as their lockdown bullpen came to the rescue of a rookie starter. However, when the final opportunity presented itself (and many were squandered before that), the Indians did what they’ve done for the majority of the year – some how, some way won the game.

Perhaps at this point, it is no longer reasonable to ask how…and more advisable to sit back and enjoy the ride we’re being taken on.

Frustration and Fury

While much of the hand-wringing in recent days has been reserved for the periphery of the roster (Kearns, Hannahan, Durbin, etc.), there is a very real issue emerging in the starting rotation – and it has nothing to do with Fausto Carmona’s inability to pitch out of the stretch or even with belly flop over 1st base in Cincinnati. Rather, with the Indians still in 1st place after the 4th of July (and I’m going to keep writing that just as a not-so-subtle reminder amidst the dark clouds that people seem to enjoy pointing out), the continued struggles of Mitch Talbot could be leading to a permanent change in the starting rotational mix in the very near future.

Though so much attention has been paid to the struggles of Carmona and as fantastic as the front-end-of-the-rotation has been (with Masterson DOMINATING the LH-laden Yankee lineup, Carrasco getting the star treatment at MLB.com, just prior to his non-DP induced trainwreck, and Tomlin being compared favorably to Mark Buehrle) the Indians need the back of the cars on the rotational roller coaster to stop jostling around so much if the Indians are going to remain in contention for the AL Central for the 2nd half of the season. With the offense still…ahem, struggling most nights and with the continuity of a lineup being a pipe dream at this point as the injuries mount, the starting pitching is going to dictate the success or failure of the 2011 Indians and, to this point, the Tribe’s back end of the rotation has muddled through the 1st half of the season…and worse.

Certainly it seems as if the Indians caught a “lucky break” with Carmona apparently unable to run 90 feet without injuring himself as he can now be moved away from the mound in an Indians’ uniform. To that end, color me confused as to why Acta seems so pleased that he’ll “only” miss one start when this is the perfect opportunity for Carmona to head off on some rehab starts to work on his issues, both mental and mechanical. When Carmona faceplanted in the Cincinnati dirt, my first thought was that this was the option that didn’t seem to exist for Carmona (to get him out of the rotation for a while to right himself), though the Indians’ public statements don’t seem to acknowledge that he would benefit from some time in Akron or Columbus to work on his approach.

With Carmona, that is the most frustrating aspect of his 2011 season as his stuff seems to be there, but his approach (both mental and mechanical) is not and the result is a pitcher who can’t help but watch the avalanche build strength and envelop him on the mound. Why the Indians would rush him back into the rotation as he currently exists is beyond me, but it will be worth watching as to whether their statements that he’ll miss “one” start are backed up by their actions in returning him to action as it would almost seem as if this injury could constitute a “found” option for Carmona to allow him to hopefully improve his consistency.

If we’re on the topic of “options”, it’s going to lead us to the crux of the issue at hand as Talbot, despite having a couple of good outings, has been largely disappointing and actually currently qualifies as one of the worst starters currently toeing the rubber on a regular basis in the AL and even in all of MLB. Lest you think that sounds overly harsh, realize that there are 63 AL starting pitchers who have thrown 50 or more IP on the season, and here is where Talbot ranks in some pretty important categories:
ERA – 5.60 (60th of 63)
WHIP – 1.74 (62nd of 63)
FIP – 5.32 (62nd of 63)
K/BB – 1.50 (56th of 63)
BB/9 – 3.74 (56th of 63)
HR/9 – 1.53 (62nd of 63)
Line Drive % - 23.5% (60th of 63)

So, here’s a guy at the bottom of the list for ERA, WHIP, and FIP with bottom-of-the-barrel peripherals who gives up a lot of home runs and, not to forget this, a lot of hard hit line drives. You can pull the cord on the small sample size siren if you’d like but the only AL starting pitcher that comes in BELOW Talbot in FIP and WHIP is the now-in-AAA Kyle Drabek, meaning that Talbot is perhaps the worst starter in the AL currently in a rotation by a couple of varied statistics.

In the interest of full disclosure, Carmona is below Talbot in both ERA and HR/9 and maybe Talbot’s been unlucky (his BABIP is the highest among AL starters at .353), but there’s a certain time when Talbot’s spot in the rotation becomes untenable because his underwhelming numbers go further back than simply Opening Day of 2011:
Talbot’s last 12 starts of 2010
5.40 ERA, 1.73 WHIP with 28 BB and 38 K in 56 2/3 IP

Talbot’s first 10 starts of 2011
5.60 ERA, 1.73 WHIP with 22 BB and 33 K in 53 IP

What does that tell us?
This is it…this seems to be Mitch Talbot, and while there may be a longer leash for a pitcher who simply figures in as a 5th starter, over his last 22 starts and 110 IP for the Indians, he has a 5.48 ERA and a 1.73 WHIP with a 5.8 K/9 and a 4.1 BB/9. Even for a 5th starter in AL, that’s not good enough to merit his being handed the ball every 5th game, particularly for a team that’s in the pennant race in July.

In this new “Age of the Pitcher”, he’s now a guy that has an ERA+ of 82 over the last two seasons as an Indian and, just for some perspective on that, there have been 81 pitchers that have thrown 200 innings or more in the last two years exclusively as a starter. Using ERA+ as a comparative tool, Talbot is the 3rd worst pitcher among that group, with Zach Duke and the historically bad Kyle Davies being the only starting pitchers logging more than 200 innings combined to underperform Talbot over the last 2 years.

It is true that Talbot has “only” a cumulative 4.70 ERA and a cumulative 1.55 WHIP in 212 1/3 IP over the last two seasons, but after Talbot came out of the gate quickly in 2010, he’s devolved into a subpar pitcher, even by 5th starter standards. With pitchers in Columbus thriving, the question becomes how long the Indians are willing to keep Talbot in the rotation to see if he can fight his way back to respectability. Certainly, it’s not clear that McAllister or Gomez or Huff represent immediate upgrades over what Talbot’s ceiling is as both Gomez and Huff have thrown MLB innings and have failed to take full advantage of their opportunities the way that Josh Tomlin has.

However, with McAllister about to get his 1st start tomorrow in place of Carmona and with Gomez and Huff (and Scott Barnes, though I think he’s further down the list of options) outpitching McAllister recently in Columbus, you have to wonder if these guys are going to start jockeying for position for a spot in the Indians’ rotation with the spot up for grabs not being Carmona’s, but Talbot’s.

It is true that Talbot does not have any options and that the Indians would risk losing him if they attempted to sneak him through waivers or whether he would have that much more success in the bullpen than Chad Durbin (I know…I’m setting the bar low there) or Frank Herrmann is up for debate, but with the Indians in a pennant race and with compelling arms in Columbus that are about to see some innings topside, you have to wonder if Talbot’s starts are going to start to take on the urgency of a man pitching for his job and his life in the organization.

Despite his obvious struggles recently, particularly in the context of what the rest of the league is doing on the mound, I do find it odd that Talbot largely goes unnoticed as a major concern going forward. While Kearns and Phelps (who apparently has become the whipping boy due to his defensive miscues…despite the fact that he’s played only intermittently and is still cutting his teeth in MLB) have targets on their backs and Chad Durbin is burned in effigy (OK, maybe he’s not burned in effigy) and cries persist that the Indians can’t carry Kearns or Phelps or Duncan on this roster because the Tribe is in 1st place, those guys represent bench players (the way Acta is using them) who are going to have a limited bearing as to whether the Indians stick around in the AL Central or not.

Meanwhile, Talbot represents 20% of the rotation and has a 5.48 ERA over his last 110 IP. That type of performance may have been acceptable for a non-contending team attempting to develop players, as the Indians were in 2009 and 2010, but for a team that needs to be maximizing every spot on their roster, the idea that 27-year-old Talbot’s recent output on the mound is something that the Indians should endure (5th starter or not) is hard to digest.

With the top of the rotation cruising along to carry the team and with McAllister arriving to get his 1st chance to perhaps lay claim to Talbot’s spot in the rotation (and does anyone doubt that Talbot would have already found his way to the bullpen if Alex White’s finger didn’t go “SPROING”?), with more AAA pitchers lined up behind McAllister to attempt to pitch themselves into the Indians’ plans, the way that Josh Tomlin already has this year. Where that leaves Mitch Talbot remains to be seen as he can certainly “save” his spot in the rotation by pitching at a sustained level that he hasn’t for over a year, but his leash has to be getting shorter with each bad outing.

As we saw when Carmona went airborne in the Queen City, these things have a way of working themselves out in baseball as players separate on their own. That being said, I’m just not going to be surprised if things “work themselves out” in the Indians’ rotation with Talbot left on the outside looking in…and at a moment not too far from now.

Moving Day on A Lazy Sunday

Now officially at the halfway point of the season (no…seriously, add up the W-L total), the Indians still find themselves at the top of their division despite the cavalcade of obituaries that have been written about the team in the past month. The excitement of the hot start was tempered by their June swoon and yet the Tribe has emerged to go 8-6 in their last 14 games and, while that may not cause any Cleveland-area printers to fire up their machines for playoff tickets, given the performance over the previous 22 games (6-16), it’s a step in the right direction.

Really, isn’t that what this season is about…steps?
In their last 162 games (the first 81 this year, the last 81 in 2010), the Indians are 81-81 and (again) while that may not mean that anyone needs to start blocking off Euclid Avenue for a ticker-tape parade, the express elevator that this franchise seemed to be riding downward since the end of the 2007 season seems to be heading upwards just as quickly. Don’t take that to mean that the Indians are right back where they were in the Fall of 2007, but they’re still at the top of their division in July and have the opportunity in a flawed division to, at the very least, stick around.

Of course, whether they’re able to stick around for the final half of the season is going to largely depend upon the sustainability of the success of the front-end-of-the-rotation and the back-end-of-the-bullpen as well as the offense finding some rhythm for the team to find its pace. That said, there was a great analogy from a Tom Verducci article on SI.com in which he compares the month of July in a baseball season to “moving day” in a golf tournament, explaining the comparison thusly:
What a Saturday is to a golf tournament (moving day), July is to the baseball season. It’s the one month that forces clubs to decide whether they are playoff worthy or not -- to determine whether they are buyers or sellers. As such, you are at the mercy of the schedule this time of year.


Given what we’ve seen from the Indians this season, I can’t tell you how much I love this analogy as the Indians were the surprise of the “Thursday round”, as pundits all over decried the Indians as a mirage who would come flying back to Earth eventually, the way that so many early-round leaders in golf tournaments do. In the month of June (and Jordan Bastian has all the sordid details so I don’t need to go too far into them), the Indians fell back to the pack…again, as so many early-round leaders in golf tournaments often do on Friday, perhaps overwhelmed by their surprising position or simply as they revert (or is it regress) to what they actually are.

So here we are, stepping up to the tee box on “Moving Day” as the month of July figures to reveal perhaps what the true 2011 Indians’ season will be remembered for. As high as the hopes were in April and May, the depths that they plumbed in June were just as extreme. Perhaps the Indians’ 2011 season is no different than that of the 2003 Royals, a team whose path Rany Jazayerli describes in a piece at Grantland writing, “the Royals shocked everyone by winning 16 of their first 19 games. They led the division by seven games at the All-Star break. No one thought it would last, and it didn’t. They coughed up the lead by August and finished seven games back.”

After the month of June, the overwhelming feeling on the North Coast is that the Indians were sure to follow a path blazed by those surprising Royals (and, let’s face it…they still might), but the recent resiliency that the team has shown, particularly since the injury to Choo has been both a revelation and a reason for hope. Playing in NL parks without Choo and with Hafner limited to one plate appearance a game (don’t say at-bat, because it seems like more often than not he walks), the Indians have shown some toughness as their recent performance has given birth to the idea that the Tribe is not willing to step aside and let the Tigers and White Sox battle it out for the AL Central, as so many pundits predicted as the Indians were being swept by the Giants…who can sweep the Tigers with a victory in Motown today.

If July is really going to be instructive as to what the rest of the season holds, the question emerges as to whether the Indians can hang around and perhaps take advantage of what looks like a largely favorable schedule. While I realize that one of the favorite traditions on the North Coast is to examine the Browns’ schedule and say (with a great amount of certainty, I might add) which games are “winnable” and which are not, here’s what the month of the July looks like for the Indians heading into today’s tilt on the shores of the Ohio River:
Remaining July Schedule
CIN – 1 game
NYY – 3 games
TOR – 3 games
BAL – 3 games
MIN – 4 games
CHW – 3 games
LAA – 3 games
KCR – 3 games

Yes, those are the “mighty” Bronx Bombers there at the top to visit the corner of Carnegie and Ontario (allowing “lifelong” Yankee fans from North Ridgeville to North Royalton to don the pinstripes and act obnoxious at an “away” park) tomorrow, and the Yankees are the divisional leaders in the tough AL East, but do you know how many of those teams past the Yankees on the schedule currently have records over .500?
One…the LA Angels, at 43-41.

Remember that period of the schedule that put the Indians through the gauntlet that would provide some insight as to whether the Indians were as good as they looked in April and May? Well, they weren’t as good as they looked in April and May and they aren’t as bad as they looked in June, so July represents an opportunity to take advantage of a schedule that looks favorable…and not just because of the opponents. Of those 24 games, 16 of them will be contested at the friendly confines of Carnegie and Ontario and, more importantly, the Indians’ offense may actually be able to consistently score some runs as Toronto, Minnesota, Baltimore, and Kansas City have 4 of the 5 worst team ERA’s in the AL. With no Choo, with Sizemore looking more lost than he ever has in his career (how much is attributable to injury is debatable) until just recently, and with Brantley oftentimes looking like he needs to catch his breath, the Indians need to get that momentum going again on offense to see if they can win some of the games that their pitching staff is putting them squarely in place to win. Whether the Tribe staff can keep up this torrid pace is another seemingly debatable subject as, while voices local and national continue to sing that the Indians pitching isn’t this good, they now have a starter with a 2.85 ERA on the season in Masterson, one of the hottest pitchers in the league in Carrasco, and a bullpen who seems to enjoy being counted out and overlooked. Going back to that July schedule, it is worth noting that Minnesota, Los Angeles, White Sox, and Royals are all in the lower half of the AL in terms of team OPS, so the Indians’ pitching staff may find some breathing room after they attempt to tame the Yankee lineup this week.

Could the Indians use this July “Moving Day” to push themselves back up that leader board, or at least keep their name at the top?
One would think so at first glance, but don’t take that to mean that the Indians aren’t still a flawed team, that still needs MUCH more consistency from their offense and needs their back-end-of-the-rotation to at least tread water (on top of the current pleasant “surprises” remaining pleasantly surprising) or at least be able to run down the 1st base line without pulling a “hide-your-eyes” fall, but the Indians have endured some major obstacles to this point and are still treading water, with their heads above it.

What happens if the month of July progresses and the Indians still find themselves topside given that, as Verducci writes, July is the “one month that forces clubs to decide whether they are playoff worthy or not -- to determine whether they are buyers or sellers”?

Well, seeing as how that is still a solid four weeks away (and a lot can happen to a lot of teams in four weeks…including the Indians), I still think it’s WAY too early to talk trade market, particularly given that so many questions still need answers for this Indians team. That said, the trade market seems to be the topic of conversation – albeit somewhat forced – in terms of the Indians and as I have always found it all to be a little sensationalistic and unnecessary (though no more unnecessary that the All-Star game or All-Star team “predictions” or “debates), those feelings were reinforced on Friday of this past week.

If you’re wondering why, Friday was July 1st and I accidentally found my radio dial on the Cleveland sports talk station (not the Akron one that has the always tremendous Dan Patrick show…and this is a good read explaining why the show is enjoyable) when I got into the car in the morning and listened as Buster Olney and Mike Greenburg were celebrating the fact that it was July because July is the…wait for it…month that the Trade Deadline comes about. Not that there are so many teams still within sniffing distance of their division lead (they actually seem sad about this because it means there aren’t as many obvious “sellers” to attach rumors to) or that baseball has unquestionably reverted back to a beautiful game, based on pitching, gap doubles, and defense instead of waiting for the 3-run HR.

They were excited about the Trading Deadline being 30 days away and the conjecture and the created theater that July 31st allows them to fabricate at The Mothership, with all of the little satellites that orbit around Bristol and the “news” that emanates from there to throw it into another gear. Perhaps I’m overly callous to this because the Indians have been “sellers” for the past three years and July 31st has represented some sad days for Tribe fans, but the Trade Deadline always seems to be so tailor-made for the sports-talk radio crowd, the “did you hear” or “what about this guy” that it usually represents sound and fury…signifying nothing.

Bringing that around to the Indians’ situation, when I see a name that legitimately gets me excited as an obvious and major upgrade over what the Indians have that isn’t going to throw out the baby with the bath water, I’m all ears. But Ryan Ludwick and his ilk (assuming Travis Buck, who had settled into an “everyday” role quite well, is healthy) don’t strike me as obvious or even legitimate upgrades or much more than more expensive, equally flawed “upgrades” and when teams like the Twins are unlikely to deal pending FA like Mike Cuddyer (as Jon Heymann notes), I wonder where this “big bat” to save the season is going to magically appear from.

For some context, fish around the 2010 MLB Trade Deadline Home Page (sponsored by Mike’s Hard Lemonade apparently) or even just read the recap from last year and show me the big bat that changed the balance of power last year…was it Lance Berkman and Austin Kearns to the Yankees or Ryan Ludwick and Miggy Tejada to the Padres (who are mentioned as the only “sellers” in the aforementioned Heymann piece) or maybe it was Rick Ankiel to the Braves.
No? Must have been Jorge Cantu and Christian Guzman to the Rangers…

Look, I get it that the MLB Trade Deadline is fun and ESPN “insiders” make their hay and their page click quota this month, attaching names to teams and creating rumors to make these Interwebs swirl…but for what?

Yes, in Cleveland we know the backside of the hand of July 31st (and here is the 2009 MLB Trade Deadline Home Page, but be prepared for sadness) and it would be great to be on the other end of that phone line to make that ONE big move to push the Indians past this imaginary threshold into a REAL contender. Sure, let’s add Jose Reyes and Heath Bell to this current team and NOW we’re talking, right?

Maybe in some perfect world in which the Indians are the ones that “basically print money” (and read this again if you’re having trouble summoning your hatred for the Yankees and their financial situation as they arrive tomorrow), but the reality in which the Indians operate is one in which they are a young, still developing – and flawed – team that probably needs to stay the course as they continue to rise from the ashes of 2008 and 2009.

Staying the course does not mean remaining inactive as the Indians have already started to make moves to improve the team and while most Indians’ fans would like to see the Indians go out and add a big bat, and a top-of-the-rotation starter and maybe a back-end-of-the-bullpen arm, the truth is that the Indians are going to continue to rely on their internal options until those internal options prove to be incapable of helping the team, at which point the Indians may go out and make improvements to the roster externally.

This is nothing new around these parts as Al alluded to this exact scenario a number of weeks ago as he sat in the captain’s chair, and it’s one that was articulated very well by Jordan Bastian as he surveyed the trade scene for the Tribe:
Internal options will likely continue to be Cleveland’s answer for issues at primary roles on the club. If the Indians do swing trades, it seems more probable that the moves would be to improve the reserve roles throughout the roster. Playing a role is the Tribe’s reluctance to part with its top prospects.

Highly-regarded prospects such as left-hander Drew Pomeranz and second baseman Jason Kipnis, along with players such as Chisenhall and White, are not going to be moved. They are viewed as integral pieces to Cleveland’s upcoming core, and the club is not going to mortgage that future for one playoff run this season.

That does not mean the Indians will not consider dealing prospects.

“There’s always a balance,” Antonetti said. “We’d measure the talent we feel we’d be getting back, the potential impact on this year’s team, their potential contributions to our team going forward and then weigh that against the acquisition cost both in terms of dollars and players.”

Given what we’ve seen in terms of production from some of the Tribe’s ballyhooed prospects this season, anyone really want to move Pomz, Kipnis, Chisenhall, or White for a rent-a-player for a team that may be more than “one player away” from obvious contention, particularly when that “one player” has not shown himself to even be available on the Trade Market?

As I said, it’s still VERY early to talk all trade as Indians’ fans – as much fun as it may feel to be prospective buyers – as the Indians right now should be focused on making those incremental improvements without unnecessarily sacrificing fungible assets (and I would take a flier on Mike Cameron to take Austin Kearns’ spot as a RH bat, despite how horrible he’s been this year as Kearns has been just as horrible and Cameron was at least decent in the recent past and has a reputation as a solid defender) and growing momentum in the month of July with the players that are playing everyday for them.

That’s not to say that the Indians should pull a Norman Dale and assert that “my team is on the floor” to the detriment of all, as they should be looking to improve this team anywhere and everywhere they can throughout the month of July. Maybe that means Jeanmar Gomez or Zach McAllister (and I suppose we’re about to see one of them in light of Fausto’s belly flop in Cincy) or Josh Judy sticking around or Zach Putnam arriving (though the bullpen has certainly been a strength and I’m not sure who deserves a demotion) or maybe the Indians promote Jason Donald to replace Jack Hannahan. Maybe there will be a call to promote Jason Kipnis, but Phelps has a .906 OPS in his last 9 games and (from the credit-where-credit-is-due department) the OC has as many XBH (4) in his last 6 games as he had in his 27 games…so maybe Acta is starting to figure out how to integrate these young players, while maximizing the roles of the veterans.

Regardless, even if Gomez or Putnam or Zeke Carrera or Donald arrives, those moves may invoke some warm-and-fuzzies or remove some of the whipping boys from the roster, but wouldn’t all of those be exactly what Bastian wrote, “moves…to improve the reserve roles throughout the roster”?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it doesn’t include the earth-shattering move that some Cleveland fans are looking for (nay, demanded) as a sign that the Dolans are “serious” and that the Indians are going to spend money when the “time is right”. To that end, wouldn’t money spent on extending Asdrubal or Masterson or Perez to long-term deals past their FA years a better use of funds, when compared up against paying Ryan Ludwick $3M for the rest of the year, compared to continuing to cut checks to Travis Buck?

Regardless, as important as this July may look at a passing glance in Cleveland, to examine it in the context of the entire AL Central is to truly appreciate what this “Moving Day” could mean for the future, both immediate and long-term, of the division. Since it has been about two months since sizing up the division, perhaps it is instructive to look to see how the futures of the different teams of the AL Central could be affected in the next 30 days as Verducci writes in the impetus for this piece that July is the “one month that forces clubs to decide whether they are playoff worthy or not -- to determine whether they are buyers or sellers.”

Given that the Twins are mentioned as potential sellers in every outlet that gets put on “paper”, what does that mean for the darlings of the AL Central…that team that “does everything right”, other than win a playoff game?

What if the Twins decide to move Liriano or Kubel or even Cuddyer, as their reinforcements from the Minors have underwhelmed and as the two players upon whom they’ve bet their future continue to spend more time in the recovery room than on the baseball field?

Could the Twins be on the precipice of another long-term dip in the standings?
And what of the White Sox, who are specifically mentioned in Verducci’s column, as he writes that the White Sox are one of the teams that need to make a move in July, writing, “Of their next 22 games, the Sox play nine against the teams they are chasing (Indians and Tigers) and the other 13 against losing teams (Cubs, Royals and Twins).”

Time to make a move” for sure for them…but what if they don’t?
Ken Rosenthal reported earlier in the week that “White Sox general manager Ken Williams frequently has spoken about how attendance influences his trade activity” and if you’ll remember the comments of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf prior to the season, there is a very good chance that the White Sox blow it up, right along with the Twins, if they’re unable to make up considerable ground in the month of July. Given their aging lineup and Williams’ trigger finger (with pressure being perhaps applied by ownership), is it hard to picture the White Sox as “sellers” as the month wears on if they don’t “make a move” in the division?

If you don’t remember the comment from Reinsdorf before the season, that the White Sox went out of their comfort zone and how attendance is going to dictate their profitability, he said “If this team bombs and we draw 2.2 million people again, we are going to lose a lot of money. We are betting that we’re going to be good.”

In case you were wondering, the White Sox are .500 heading into July 4th and are on pace to draw 1.92 million people to The Cell. Remembering that Reinsdorf presided over the “White Flag Trade”, anyone want to guess how this ends if Chicago loses more ground this month?
Here’s a hint…it won’t be pretty on the South Side.

Obviously, the Tigers are going to attempt to add an arm and the Royals are going to continue to integrate their young players onto the parent club, but this July of 2011 could change the landscape of the AL Central…and not just for this year. If two of the teams that are universally considered to be among the cream of the AL Central crop year after year (although that “cream” is often curdled) become “sellers” on the Trade Market, it could push the Indians into a commanding position in the division, and not just for this year.

The destiny of the 2011 season is in the hands of the Indians with the opportunity to assert the organization as the odds-on favorite in the division for the coming years (regardless of whether a “big bat” or whatever is added before the end of July) as the Indians enter a month that has the potential to be a franchise-altering month.

Moving Day indeed…

Throwing Tomahawks and Kitchen Sinks

Now that my ears have finally stopped bleeding after having to listen to Bobby Valentine – as he waxed poetically about how a (then) 1st place team is probably going to start selling off their bullpen arms (and probably more) because Mark Sha-PEE-ro knows what he’s doing – for 3 hours on Sunday night, it is comforting to know that Bobby Valentine is as close to the Tribe manager’s chair as I am…and the distance between each of us and the helm of the Good Ship Wahoo is probably going to remain the same.

Frankly, I don’t watch a lot of ESPN (or any of it really), so I don’t know if Bobby Valentine is good or entertaining on TV most of the time or if he’s reasonably insightful at any time as he’s breaking down baseball or other teams. What I do know is that he came across as the know-it-all blowhard he has always been purported to be over just 3 hours and, as his “analysis” dipped further into the abyss, I began to question why anyone would willingly go to him (or ESPN) for insight or information on baseball at all. Unfortunately, we were all forced there on Sunday night as my pre-existing opinions and views on ESPN were reinforced as the Mothership flies further and further away from my line of sight.

Regardless, as much as Valentine’s laughable opinion that the Indians “had some good bullpen arms that contenders would want” (and I’m paraphrasing there) hung in the air on Sunday night, the Indians recent performance certainly feels like a team whose once-firm grip of the AL Central has not just loosened, but broken free entirely. That said, it certainly does not look as if the Indians are ready to simply go quietly into the night as the organization acted decisively (or is it prematurely) in promoting top prospect Lonnie (apparently not short for Alonzo) Chisenhall from Columbus.

Since watching the move go down was akin to watching the kitchen sink break free from the wall and catch some air as the organization begins to throw everything that they have through this still-open window, let’s get some Tomahawks in the air to go along with the kitchen sink that was just thrown…
__________

That’s right Cleveland, Lonnie Chisenhall has arrived in an Indians’ uniform to save our fair season (or at least that’s what some would have you believe) as the Indians bypassed the more obvious promotion of Jason Donald to get their highly prized prospect onto the field for the parent club. While I’m as excited as any about The Chiz’s arrival, there’s not much question that he remains an unfinished product (with Al pointing out Lonnie’s struggles against LHP) even if he came out both barrels blazing in the desert…against RHP.

Chisenhall is an interesting case study as he’s been talked about in revered tones for the past three years and, this pains me to say it, I think a good deal of that has to do with Chisenhall representing something that had been in such short supply – an early-round pick by the Indians that gradually climbed up the ladder, posting consistent numbers on his ascent. Unlike Trevor Crowe or Beau Mills or Jerry Sowers or Dave Huff (who all hit their limited ceilings relatively quickly), Lonnie represented that first sign that “things had changed” for the Indians’ drafting, with Al White and Drew Pomz following him as 1st round picks that the Indians could point to as likely starters for the Tribe.

That said, as much as we’ve heard about The Chiz, his performance in the Minors is not one that shrieks out that this is the next coming of Evan Longoria or Ryan Zimmerman or David Wright just waiting to burst onto the MLB stage. By that I mean that those three put up monster numbers in MiLB (all at young ages) while Chisenhall has been consistent in the Minors, if not consistently overwhelming:
Chisenhall by Year
2008 - .794 OPS in Rookie Ball as a 19-year-old
2009 - .797 OPS in A+/AA as a 20-year-old
2010 - .801 OPS in AA as a 21-year-old
2011 - .779 OPS in AAA as a 22-year-old

More than most, I would love Lonnie to arrive in Cleveland and have the type of impact that those players have had, but the fact is that he has never posted an OPS at a particular level over .780 since he has left Kinston. Of course, numbers only tell us so much about any young player and scouts have universally and perpetually raved about Chisenhall’s “sweet swing” and the ages listed above mean quite a bit as The Chiz has always been the youngest regular position player on his team. That’s important because while numbers for guys like Jerad Head or Matt McBride may quicken the pulse, the fact that those guys are 28 in AAA or 26 in AA tempers any real thought that they’re legitimate options in MLB, much less impact players on the horizon.

Does that mean that Chisenhall is about to come an impact player?
Watching him stroke doubles into the gap in Chase Field certainly gives all of us something to dream on, but the reality of the situation is that he’s likely to be a solid-to-good player at the hot corner for the Indians for the foreseeable future with that “future” starting on Monday. Don’t discount that in the context of the 2011 season as “solid-to-good” is a lot more than what can be said about what we were seeing with Hannahan/Everett/The OC at 3B this year as each player proved/are proving themselves to be the flawed veterans that everyone knew they were when they were signed.

Regardless, back to Chisenhall, who immediately becomes the best hitter the Indians have had as a 3B (platoon split considered) since Casey Blake and the Blake mention is interesting as it was a comparison that was invoked by Ben Lindbergh at B-Pro, regarding Chisenhall’s prospect pedigree and perhaps his ceiling:
Chisenhall didn’t debut with the same sort of hype that a true blue-chipper commands, and for good reason, since little about his record suggests outright stardom. Above-average is well within his reach, though (at least eventually), so his arrival is something to celebrate, if not to salivate over. As Kevin Goldstein suggested, his perfect-world projection looks like a more consistent Casey Blake; Blake peaked close to the five-win level, and Chisenhall might have the same sort of ceiling, though he’s likely to approach it earlier and more often than Blake did.

Realizing how (inexplicably) reviled Blake was in Cleveland, given the black hole that has existed in Cleveland at 3B since Blake left, that’s a breath of fresh air, as is the thought that another former Indian 3B perhaps provides an interesting comparison for Chisenhall – Travis Fryman.

This has been brought up before in this space, but Chisenhall’s former manager in Mahoning Valley moved quickly through the Tigers’ system despite never having a breakout season in the Minors (he had a .710 OPS in AA as a 20-year-old and his highest MiLB OPS was .723 in the first half of his 21-year-old season in AAA), before he debuted in Detroit as a 21-year-old. From the time he broke into MLB as a precocious infielder, he posted an OPS somewhere between .766 and .865 every year as a Tiger, compiling a cumulative .779 OPS in 8 seasons manning 3B for the Motor City Kitties.

That may not be what how you remember Fryman at the plate, but given what we’ve seen at 3B in Cleveland, if that’s what the next 8 seasons turn into for Lonnie as an Indian, would you take that?
Every single day…and it is interesting to note that the most HR that Fryman hit as a Tiger was 22 and never hit 40 2B in a season during those 8 seasons in Detroit. As much as many Clevelanders may remember Fryman only from his days donning the Chief, Fryman’s best two seasons statistically were as an Indian, when he was 29 years old in 1998 and when he was 31 years old in 2000, so his years in Detroit are probably more instructive as a possible career arc for Chisenhall.

Is all of that pointed out to discount Fryman’s career or Chisenhall’s potential?
Of course not as Fryman was a solid, steady contributor who generally batted 3rd or 5th for the Tigers (although those Tigers weren’t particularly good teams) for a stretch of seasons in which he was a constant presence for them in the lineup and on the field. He won one Silver Slugger award as a Tiger and made a couple of All-Star Games (though what does that really tell you), but generally he was a good – not great – player for the better part of 8 seasons in Detroit.

That said, perhaps putting Fryman (or Robin Ventura) up there as a model of what Chisenhall might be – instead of assuming that he’s going to go Longoria/Zimmerman/Wright from Day 1 is just attempting to put the proper context of who Lonnie Chisenhall is and who he could be as the PD irresponsibly posts headlines from their columnists that “Lonnie Chisenhall is the best young hitter I’ve seen in years”. Which gets to the point that too much is being pinned on this kid to be the savior for a muddling offense and as much as it represents an upgrade over the Adam Everetts and Jack Hannahans of the world, let’s hold off on any grand pronouncements that the only local paper in town seems intent on doing in their attempt to stay relevant.

What the Lonnie Chisenhall promotion means is that the current Indians’ Front Office (not the previous one helmed by the current Team President) has acted quickly and decisively now to add their top prospects – ready or not – to the parent club as the opportunity afforded to them by their fast start is something that they’re trying to capitalize on. Maybe you wanted to see Cord Phelps sooner (and I did) or maybe you wonder what took the Indians so long to jettison Adam Everett, but the fact of the matter is that the calendar has not yet flipped into July and the Indians have promoted The Chiz, Al White, and Bobby Phelps (among others like Gomez, Zeke, and Judy) as they pushed the fast-forward button on ingratiating their top young talent at the MLB level.

While you may say that this doesn’t represent anything different than what happened in 2007, remember…Asdrubal didn’t arrive in 2007 until August and Rafael Perez and Frank the Tank had spent time on the parent club in years past. The Indians have an opportunity in front of them (…still, thanks to the struggles of the AL Central) and they’re promoting from within to see if answers can be found internally before perhaps exploring the trade market…if the Indians are still in contention at the end of next month.

As B-Pro’s Lindbergh wrote in his aforementioned piece regarding the promotion of players that have already made it to Cleveland, “most of those players entered 2011 on track for 2012 debuts, but the Indians have made a reasonable response to a fluid situation, doing all they can to maximize their success in the short term while leaving their long-term plans intact”.

And those “long-terms plans” remaining “intact” should not be overlooked here as the “present” is starting to resemble the “future” that has long been envisioned on the filed.
Ultimately, this is a very good thing as the chess pieces are starting to line up on the board and these players (Chiz, Phelps, etc.) are playing in meaningful games in June and July in a pennant race instead of cutting their teeth in meaningless August or September games.

Maybe the Indians jumped the gun in promoting Chisenhall as the idea that improvement, even if it ends up being incremental, carried the day and that the Indians wanted to get the “lineup of the future” one name closer to fruition. After the series in San Francisco, the Indians’ offense looked like desperate times had arrived in the Indians lineup. Whether calling up Chisenhall constitutes as “desperate measures” can be debated away. What can’t be debated is that Chisenhall (warts and all) represented an upgrade over what had been seen from the Indians’ 3B for the last month or so.

How much of an upgrade or where Lonnie Chisenhall’s career arc goes from here will now start to find some answers, with those answers coming in an Indians’ uniform…
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Going back to that idea of desperation, the Indians now find themselves staring squarely in the face of replacing Choo for 8 to 10 weeks, so until September…maybe. As these Interwebs churn, there seems to be some talk of the Indians exploring internal options past Kearns and Buck, with the names of Jerad Head and Chad Huffman being bandied about as perhaps being possible options. Since I’m not going to defend any plate appearances given to Austin Kearns and feel that Buck should be simply given the keys to RF for the next month or so to see if he will sink or swim, let me illuminate you as to why Head and Huffman are (or at least should be) non-options for the Indians in RF.

First, consider the birthdays of the following players:
Jerad Head – 11/15/82
Travis Buck – 11/18/83
Chad Huffman – 4/29/85
If you’re having trouble with the math, Head is a full year older than Buck, who is only 1 ½ years older than Huffman.

Next, career MLB numbers for the trio with total MLB plate appearances listed:
Head – N/A
Buck - .247 BA / .322 OBP / .411 SLG / .733 OPS in 782 PA
Huffman - .167 BA / .286 OBP / .167 SLG / .452 OPS in 21 PA
Small or no sample size for Head and Huffman, that’s not the point that I’m trying to make here…

This is…as we look at AAA numbers for the trio, again with total AAA plate appearances listed:
Head - .296 BA / .357 OBP / .508 SLG / .865 OPS in 337 PA
Buck – .289 BA / .373 OBP / .440 SLG / .813 OPS in 668 PA
Huffman - .267 BA / .356 OBP / .442 SLG / .799 OPS in 1,244 PA
Head, who will be 29 this November, has 337 PA above AA and Huffman has a career .799 OPS with over 1,244 PA in AAA…and THESE guys are the ones that some want to give a shot to over Travis Buck.

Is this the devil you don’t know being preferable to the devil you allegedly know, or what?

Realizing that everyone’s looking for the next Casey Blake (and there’s the 2nd time Lacey Cake makes an appearance here) as a late-bloomer who just needs a chance, Blake actually thrived in AAA for a full 4 seasons before coming over to the Tribe in 2003. Also, Blake was joining a 2003 team that was simply looking for a warm body to start the season at 3B, not one to enter a playoff race in late June.

Do you want Head (55 K in only AAA 60 games this year) or Huffman (63 K in only 69 AAA games this year) get any kind of leash to stick in RF in Cleveland this year?

If these guys are the answers that some are coming up with, they’re asking the wrong question as Buck should be put out in RF…above TRUE 4A fodder like Head and Huffman and past-their-prime OF like Kearns. Perhaps the argument could be made for Zeke Carrera as the 4th OF because of his speed and defense, but the best internal option that the Indians have to replace Choo is Buck…every day, and no numbers from Columbus by players on the south side of 25 are going to change that fact. If you’re still thinking that a platoon is a good idea, just forget about it as if there is a kernel of truth to what Buck told MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian, that he “played every day basically my whole career, or for the majority of my career. I’m finding out how tough it is to be a bench player”, let’s see if playing every day for a month or so can resuscitate his once promising career.

Don’t take this comparison to non-prospects or that quote as a method to anoint Travis Buck as THE ANSWER in RF for the Indians, as he unquestionably has his flaws that shouldn’t be looked past. That said, he’s the best internal option that the Indians have (and not by a small margin) as a defensive RF (and this is where Shelley Duncan exits any conversation over who can and/or should play RF right now) who may actually have some upside if he can re-capture the success that he experienced as a rookie in Oakland.

In the interest of long-term viability from the position, the Indians should absolutely be exploring adding a piece on the trade market (and they’re not alone as this piece is a nice primer on the RF trade market) because of the length of Choo’s DL stint, but while that shakes out, the Indians should be playing Buck every day as they plan for Kearns to eventually make his way off of the roster and recognizing the “options” in Columbus for what they are…non-options.
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You want some sunshine in the midst of all of these dark clouds?
How about these numbers for what is now the unquestioned front-of-the-Indians’ rotation over their past few starts, not including Carrasco’s Wednesday afternoon start:
Cookie Carrasco – Last 4 Starts
0.61 ERA, 0.77 WHIP, .432 OPS against with 21 K in 29 2/3 IP

Justin Masterson – Last 4 Starts
2.08 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, .646 OPS against with 17 K in 26 IP

Josh Tomlin – Last 3 Starts
2.70 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, .630 OPS against with 12 K in 20 IP

That’s the good news and one of the main reasons that the Indians COULD remain in the AL Central race despite their offensive struggles, which unfortunately (and here’s the bad news) led to the Indians only going 6-5 in those 11 games, another damning indictment of what the ineptitude of the offense has done to this team.

Regardless, the trio of Carrasco, Masterson, and Tomlin have pitched well enough (particularly recently) that you can think that the Indians should have a conceivable shot at winning a good portion of their starts. Of course, that hasn’t happened recently because of the offense and maybe you want to still assert that the performance of that troika is unsustainable, but we’re about to go into July and each of those three pitchers has an ERA under 4.00.

The Tigers have one pitcher with an ERA under 4.00 and while he may be Justin Verlander, the Indians are the only AL Central team with three pitchers with sub-4.00 ERA as the White Sox and Twins have two each while the Royals only have two starting pitchers with sub-5.00 ERA’s. Obviously, the middle-to-back-end-of-the-rotation for each team is going to play a large role in what happens in the AL Central race, but the Indians have a developing front-to-middle-of-the-rotation in Carrasco, Masterson, and Tomlin, for whom success has now been sustained over nearly ½ of a season…if not longer.

Though the bullpen will have its hiccups (and Pestano’s Monday night reminded us that even the most formidable reliever is not invincible), the Indians are going to have to ride the arms at the front of their rotation and the back end of their bullpen for a while longer as the offense continues to find its footing.

Whether it can or not, to watch the development and maturation of Carrasco, Masterson, and Tomlin (particularly recently) with the knowledge that Al White may still come back in 2011 is enough to brighten up even the darkest of days that the Indians have had recently…and they’ve had quite a few.
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Still just 1 game out of the AL Central race (but with that gap widening and confidence in this team shaky at best), the Indians return to their home state to meet up with the Reds, a team that they swept just a month ago. There’s no question that the Reds are looking to return the favor as the Indians try anything and everything to pull themselves out of this tailspin as the sense of urgency coming from the offices at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario grows with each passing day…

Here Comes the Cavalry

It is finally upon us. The day that some had called for since spring training is here. Lonnie Chisenhall, universally regarded as one of the top two position prospects in the Indians system, has been called up to the active roster. Veteran utility infielder Adam Everett is the 25-man casualty, designated for assignment and flying back East as the team prepares for another interleague series in Arizona. Everett hit .217 in his 60 at bats with the Indians this year, with one double and one RBI. He will not be missed on the field, although by all accounts he was a good guy to have around the clubhouse.

Chisenhall is of course the real story here, as his hot spring with the bat had some calling for him to be the opening day third baseman. Those calls only intensified when Jason Donald got hurt, but the job went to veteran journeyman Jack Hannahan. Chisenhall was sent down to AAA Columbus to continue his seasoning, a move that made sense considering he had not had a single AAA at bat prior to 2011. The move made even more sense when Chisenhall hit just .247/.347/.395 in April with 2 HR, hardly setting the world on fire. He picked things up in May though, going for a .278/.374/.444 line with 3 HR and 14 RBI. He went on the DL in mid-June with concussion-like symptoms after banging his head sliding headfirst. In his 5 games since returning from the DL, Chiz went 9-21 with 2 HR, a 3B and 14 RBI. That, combined with a dreadful teamwide offensive slump at the big league level, convinced Indians brass that it was time to give the kid a shot.

Chiz is being thrust into a difficult spot in Cleveland. His minor league numbers suggest that he should find success vs. RHP, but will likely struggle against lefties. He's shown almost a platoon-level split in AAA, with a .292/.380/.455 line against righties but put up just a .200/.282/.360 line against lefthanded pitching. And that's in AAA, not against major league pitching. His overall line of .265/.352/.427 with 7 HR and 44 RBI is solid, but his numbers weren't as good as those of switch hitter Cord Phelps, who has found major league pitching poses quite a challenge. Chiz is going to be asked to not just tread water, but to step right in and contribute offensively at the big league level. Jack Hannahan's .214/.304/.333 line should not be too difficult to live up to, but Hannahan did that while playing outsanding defense in the field. If Chisenhall comes up and is worth an extra win with his bat but takes away two wins with his glove, then what? Chisenhall's glove has been getting better reviews this season, but he's far from a gold glover at the hot corner. Will his bat make up for it? I sure hope so.
We've seen Alex White, Cord Phelps and now will see Chisenhall at the major league level this season. Vinnie Pestano had virtually no major league experience before 2011. Kipnis is hitting well in Columbus and will be in Cleveland before the end of the season. Relivers Zach Putnam and Josh Judy are at the cusp of an extended major league audition. The cavalry is coming, there's no doubt about that. But how effective will they be? Will they be like Patton's tanks rolling through the Ardennes Forrest against the Germans? Or will the be more like the Polish lancers that futily rode against the Panzers in September 1939? One way or another, we're going to find out. And before anyone feels the need to "correct" me, I'm well aware that is George C. Scott to the left astride his Sherman tank and not actually General Patton.

Whether Chiz, Phelps and any other prospects who are called up this year manage to stem the tide and keep the Indians in first place remains to be seen. Regardless though, there's a benefit to the club down the road. Even if they have limited success this year and the Indians miss the playoffs, the kids will be gaining valuable experience that they will be able to use next year when the Indians should again be contending for the Central Divison crown. The only way to learn how to hit major league pitching is to get reps hitting major league pitching. Phelps looked overwhelmed for a week or so, and then settled in at the plate and started looking much more comfortable. I expect it will be much the same for Chisenhall. He should continue to find success against righthanded pitching, but will likely struggle against lefties at the major league level. The key to his long-term success will be overcoming those struggles and figuring out a way to hit lefties. If not, I'm afraid this could be more Poland than Patton.