Falling Behind in the Arms Race

While the collapse is nearly complete – or at least we all hope that it is – the range of emotions (anger, apathy, etc.) on the North Coast is as varied as the opinions as to what the Indians should/could do (clean house, blow it up, even sell the team with the hope that it stays in Cleveland) to re-emerge into relevance as I can ever remember.  You’ve seen the pieces, ranging from the cogent (and, to answer the question in the piece, I’m thinking that an “organizational re-assigment” is in the offing for Radinsky soon – as much as that feels like merely a nominal gesture – with Belcher coming down from the Front Office to replace him) and even-handed to the irrational that devolve into pandering (and no, there are no links there), so I’m not going to re-hash everything that’s been written in the past week as it’s more than a little depressing to think about, much less re-hash.

That said, the overwhelming feeling that I just can’t shake of late is that for the last couple of years, these Indians teams kept making me think that they were simply new incarnations of the 2004 team – full of promising youngsters looking to assert themselves as legit MLB players, who together would be ready to make that next big step that the 2005 team into a 90-win season – but that step simply hasn’t come and if they’re taking any kind of step, it seems to be backwards, particularly as of late.  Surely, that’s colored by the events of the last two weeks, but the growing fear is that we’re looking at an assembled collection of players that will be stuck in that 2004 mode (promise and potential, but not realized production) forever here, or maybe worse.

Because as the Tribe now sits on the 3^rd worst run differential in ALL of baseball (now worst in the AL), there is a sense that the big step forward that the team took in 2005 and later 2007 may not be coming any time soon.  And the reason that I keep coming back to for that step looking so far away is because of the current Tribe’s rotation…and what’s on the horizon for that rotation.  Look, I’m going to spare you the gory details about the Tribe rotation as of late, but it was interesting that the 3 players that were called up to “reinforce” the rotation came from the Kearns deal, the Westbrook deal, and off of the scrap heap as it struck me that the Indians continue to have no drafted and developed starting pitching options – viable ones at least, if you’re thinking of Dave Huff – that are anywhere close to contributing, some 3 or 4 years after the rebuild/reload/whatever.

Even more glaring however – when compared to those Indians’ teams of the mid-to-late-2000’s – this incarnation of the Indians lacks that one “stopper” in the rotation, the one that existed back in the early-to-mid-90s, who wore his hat a little crooked and always showed signs of becoming the aCCe that emerged in 2007 (though he disappeared for a few crucial months in 2008) and is now currently and regrettably on display in the Bronx.  Because a little less than a decade ago, it’s important to remember that Millwood was a “scrap-heap” signing, Westbrook emerged from middle relief, Fauxberto came out of nowhere as a young(ish) arm, Byrd was a veteran “add” to the mix, and Lee was largely inconsistent until the start of that 2008 season, while CC was the anchor in the rotation, the top-of-the-rotation starter that settled the rest of the rotation and essentially prevented the type of long losing streaks that we just saw with this Tribe.  On this Indians team, a “stopper” like that simply doesn’t exist and, as much as we’d like to convince ourselves that Masterson or (gulp) Ubaldo is capable of that, it doesn’t look like a top-of-the-rotation stopper is on this Indians team or, more acutely, anywhere close to Cleveland.

And if you’re talking about a missing “piece” for a team that thought it was going to contend, there it is.  So while this past Sunday’s post focused on LaPorta and Carrasco as the missing “pieces” for this Tribe team, in that the 2012 team needed a RH bat (MaTola) and a top-to-middle-of-the-rotation starter (Carrasco) and the failure of those two players to develop/stay healthy left the Indians scrambling for unsuitable back-up plans, let’s take a step back and remember why those “unsuitable back-up plans” (like Lowe, Damon, etc.) were still necessary and why LaPorta and Carrasco even found themselves in the Indians’ organization.

As much hand-wringing and teeth gnashing as there’s been about the “tear-down” of 2008 to 2010, an unquestioned reason that the Indians felt they had to make all of those trades was to infuse the upper levels of the organization with talent because there was a crevasse of talent below that 2004 to 2009 team due to poor drafting, stalled development, or injuries to key prospects.  Essentially, the Indians looked at their farm system back in those dark days in 2009 (in particular) and decided that they needed to re-stock with upper level talent because…well, because very little homegrown talent existed and, for teams like the Indians, the only way to fill holes that aren’t filled internally is by trading for close-to-MLB-ready talent or to sign scrap-heap veterans and hope for the best.

So they infused players at the upper levels, with the two main players in two of the three main deals meant to anchor the lineup (LaPorta) and the rotation (Carrasco) and when those players – LaPorta and Carrasco – hit snags in their development (or worse) via injury or…um, pitch recognition, the Indians were in the same place that they were back in those summers of 2008 and 2009, with no homegrown talent to fall back onto, particularly in terms of the starting rotation.  Yes, they had added Masterson – and his 2011 was a sign of brighter days ahead – but in essence, moving Vic and CP Lee for Masterson and Carrasco was deemed necessary because the Indians had produced nothing more than back-end-of-the-rotation flotsam and jetsam (at best) in their drafts and international signings for the better part of a decade

In case you don’t remember (or if you’ve blocked those Trading Deadlines from your memories), the Indians cleared the decks of any and all veterans in a little more than a year and in the process, they targeted arms – lots of them – when those trades were made.  All told, 18 players were added from the time DeRosa in early July of 2009 was moved until Westbrook went to St. Louis a year later, with an astonishing 14 arms making up the bulk of the 18 players added.  In the present tense, Masterson, McAllister, and Kluber all came as a result of those deals as well as C. Perez and a gaggle of other arms, both interesting (Barnes, Hagadone, etc.) and forgettable (Jess Todd, Yohan Pino, etc.).

But those 14 arms haven’t really been augmented by too much internally (yes, Pestano is phenomenal and Sipp is here) in the rotation by any kind of drafted-and-developed players and that’s where the Indians find themselves, painted into an undesirable corner in terms of expectations for the rotation’s present and future.  Maybe you can point to Atom Miller’s perpetually gnarled finger, Rondon’s fractured right elbow (after Tommy John), or Austin Adams’ shoulder injury as reasons that the Indians had to turn to Chris Seddon to make a start while they wait for Fauxberto to return, but the Indians lack of internal reinforcements for the rotation today is stunning and depressing. 

As a quick aside here, the invocation of Chris Seddon as an example is not meant to besmirch Seddon (who was actually pretty good in AAA and is LH) as much as it is to point out that the Indians STILL don’t really have young drafted-and-developed arms that figure into the MLB rotation any time soon, other than as the “depth” options that always underwhelm and unfortunately, with the arms from the trades already in MLB for the most part, it’s been that way for a while.

By that I mean, do you want to know the last 6 pitchers drafted by the Tribe to start games for the Indians since the beginning of the 2009 season?

Josh Tomlin – 54 starts

David Huff – 48 starts

Aaron Laffey – 24 starts

Jeremy Sowers – 22 starts

Alex White – 3 starts

Scott Lewis – 1 start

That group goes back to the 2009 season, so in the last 4 seasons for a team that was unquestionably rebuilding (with opportunity seemingly aplenty), those are the only pitches drafted by the Tribe to start games for them.  As we sit here, one of those pitchers is currently in an MLB rotation, and it’s Laffey up in Toronto, where he’s getting a chance because of an impossibly ravaged rotation.  Two of those pitchers (Sowers and Lewis) are out of baseball, two are in bullpens (either in MLB – Tomlin, or AAA – White) or is in Columbus (Huff) just waiting for the day when he’s removed from the 40-man roster.

That sextet started only 25% of the games since the beginning of 2009 and again, for a team that was in rebuild mode for a good portion of that where you would think that there would be MANY opportunities, that’s pretty incredible.  Yes, you can include Gomez and Fauxberto in there if you’re including the International FA signings, but…unless you see Tomlin or Huff starting a game anytime soon (and I don’t) or see Gomez or Fauxberto in a serious discussion for this team’s rotation in 2013 more so than just being back-end-of-the-rotation fodder, that doesn’t look to be changing any time soon, to the point that Chris Seddon was seen as a more viable option for even a spot start than any of the homegrown, on-the-40-man-roster arms that are (still) in Columbus. 

Certainly, it can be argued that the lack of homegrown depth and quality took a MAJOR hit when Alex White and Drew Pomz made their way to Colorado a little over a year ago and you’ll get no argument here as each was a 1^st Round Pick, a highly-touted arm that moved quickly through the system with the idea that they would augment a rotation so obviously in need of internal contributions.  But this is where the Indians changed course, creating that now-well-publicized “window of contention” with the Ubaldo deal, moving White and Pomz for 2+ seasons of Ubaldo, aligning Jimenez’s control with that of Asdrubal (prior to his extension) and Choo.

The Ubaldo deal was made with the idea in mind that the Indians were acquiring that ready-made “stopper” in the rotation that either didn’t exist or was going to take a while to develop in Pomeranz…if you’ll remember how long it took CC to really assert himself as a consistent bona-fide ace.  To that end, the Indians “went for it”, although it should be noted that – at the time the Tribe traded for Ubaldo – they had every indication that Carrasco (who had a 4.25 ERA on July 22, 2011) and the player formerly known as Fausto would be in the mix for 2012 and 2013…at least, meaning that they felt they were actually dealing from a position of depth to acquire that “bird in the hand” with the cost coming as “two in the bush”.

What has transpired since that trade has been beyond catastrophic for the organization, as Carrasco went under the knife, Fausto was exposed as being the Dominican Don Draper, and Ubaldo didn’t come close to resembling the front-end-of-the-rotation “stopper” that they thought they were getting.  And slowly, you could see the “window” closing a little with each start by Josh Tomlin or Jeanmar Gomez (depth starters if everything goes according to “plan” from now to then) and now by Chris Seddon as the starting pitching depth quickly turned shallow.

Though Adam Van Arsdale has a marvelous piece over at LGT on“windows”, complete with charts of players that may be ascending to Cleveland, arguing that the Indians window shouldn’t be tied to Ubaldo, the trade of White and Pomeranz – which destroyed the rotational depth, along with Carrasco’s injury and Fausto’s...um, identity “issue” – signaled that the Tribe thought that the pieces (when they made that move) in the rotation allowed them to move their top two starting pitchers in the Minors for what was thought to be a top-of-the-rotation arm.  But what’s more troubling is the rotational depth (or lack thereof) contained within one of Van Arsdale’s compelling charts, as the unspoken issue with the Tribe going forward is not confined to LF or to 1B, but is unquestionably in that starting rotation, where there is simply no real help on the horizon other than what look to be complementary pieces.

As I’ve often said, I’m (obtusely) optimistic about the offensive pieces in place, but the Indians lack of arms – and I’m talking “impact” arms that project to be more than “depth” options or back-end-of-the-rotation fodder – is glaring and it’s one of the reasons that I thought guys like Vargas and/or Maholm should have been targeted in the Trade Market.  Ultimately, they didn’t have the ammo (in terms of prospects) to get those guys, or at least Maholm, which…again, comes back to drafting and the lack of legitimately compelling options above the High-A level for the Tribe.

So what’s the solution, other than crossing fingers?

Since it’s pretty unlikely that the Indians are about to add an “impact” arm in FA, you’re left with either going into 2013 with the Masterson/Ubaldo/McAllister/Kluber/Gomez/Fauxberto mix or you’re looking at targeting players via trade (likely for Chris Perez or…gulp, Choo) to augment the rotation, with the hope that they can step into the rotation and contribute right away.  That seems like an awfully tall order as arms like Gio Gonzalez (who, in hindsight, should have been the target last July…and he may well have been with the A’s asking for a guy like Kipnis in return) rarely are moved without a heavy prospect price being paid for them, a “prospect” price that the Indians simply can’t afford right now.

Of course, from an organizational standpoint, it comes back to drafting and attempting to find that “next CC”…which about 29 other teams are also doing. And it isn’t simply as simple as plucking some HS arm out of California or Arkansas or Oklahoma and waiting for them to ascend to the top of the parent club’s rotation as the difficult thing to do is to project that high-school arms that often become the Sabathias, the Halladays, the Becketts, the Cains.  This is laid out in great detail in this fantastic piece from SI’s Tom Verducci on Dylan Bundy (just ranked as #3 prospect in baseball by Kevin Goldstein…with Lindor checking in at #7) and how the Orioles are attempting to get him to MLB injury-free and as quickly as possible because of the attrition rate for minor-league HS arms: 

There is no sports genus with a greater risk-reward ratio than high school pitchers. Like supermodels, they look great, but the chances of entering into a long-term relationship with one are slim. Teams keep drafting them for their visceral gifts, but the toll of throwing so hard so young, their incomplete physical development and the few opportunities to measure them against top competition leave teams spending millions on veritable lottery tickets.

Major league teams signed 102 high school pitchers taken in the first round from 1981 through 2000 (not including supplemental first-round picks). Yet only 15 of those 102 pitchers won 20 games for the team that drafted them, a group that included Dwight Gooden, Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia and Josh Beckett. For every one of those brass rings, there were three total busts. Of those 102 high school first-rounders, 44 never reached the majors.

“Generally they are high risk/high reward,” says Padres G.M. Josh Byrnes, who used three first-round picks this year, including supplemental choices, on high school pitchers. “We realize there is some power in numbers. Hopefully one or two deliver.”

That idea of “hopefully” becomes the pervasive thought with these arms that may or may not develop as it is worth noting that the Indians took THREE High School arms in the 2001 Draft, all in the first 35 picks in the draft, with a fourth HS pitcher taken by the Tribe with the 51^st pick in the draft.  You probably don’t remember them because none of them – Dan Denham, Alan Horne (who did not sign with the Tribe), JD Martin, and Jake Dittler – made any kind of impact on the Tribe and whether that’s due to “misses” in drafting or development, the Indians have made other high picks for HS arms in the ensuing years.

Most notably, Atom Miller was the 31^st pick in the 2003 draft, with Chris Archer (now a highly-touted 23-year-old pitcher in the Rays’ organization who made it to Tampa by way of Chicago in a couple of trades) being drafted in the 5^th Round of the 2006 draft.  Though both of those guys are not in the Tribe organization anymore, the Indians have drafted high-ceiling HS arms fairly highly in the recent past with TJ McFarland a Fourth Rounder in 2007, who is now a 23-year-old that just was promoted to Columbus (where he has struggled) after dominating in Akron for the 1^st half of this year and Trey Haley, a bonus baby Second Rounder in 2008 who is now a 22-year-old in High-A ball and performing well, as well as Dillon Howard the 2^nd Round pick in 2011 and Mitch Brown the 2^nd Round pick in 2012.

Now, whether any of these young arms develop in the way that (frankly) most young arms don’t – which is to say they succeed and become legitimate ace-material – remains to be seen, and the answers won’t be visible for quite some time.  In the interim, the Indians are left doing what most teams around MLB do with starting pitching – seeing if they can find “broken” pieces attached to live arms (think Esmil and this new guy, improbably named Fabio) and “fix” them to the point of effectiveness.  But doing that seems to be much easier for relievers and while the Indians have made McAllister and perhaps Kluber into some interesting pieces going forward by adjusting their mechanics, the team is still lacking in front-end arms for now and for the future.

Maybe Masterson and Carrasco can re-capture some of their 2011 success that unquestionably led the Indians to make the Ubaldo move and maybe one of these young starters emerges in a way that Westbrook and Lee did those many years ago or maybe even one of the young, high-ceiling arm explodes in a way that CC (the 20^th pick of the 1998 Draft) did over a decade ago, debuting after only two full minor-league seasons. 

But those are all “maybes” and for the Tribe, as they currently stand, there are too many “maybes”, particularly in the rotation going forward to see a consistent starting staff in place going forward that projects contention…contention that suddenly seems much further off.

A Lazy Sunday When A Plan Goes Awry

And just like that, it was gone…

In the course of about 10 days, the Indians’ 2012 season has not only flown off of the tracks – it has now exploded into a fiery mess, leaving scorched earth all around it, threatening to burn anything remotely close to it, with everyone running for safety or attempting to explain how this could have possibly happened so profoundly and so quickly.

The descent has been meteoric and horrifying and in the course of those 10 days, the thought of contending in 2012 became regrettable, then laughable, with the entire team, organization, Front Office, and ownership so acutely in the crosshairs of a fanbase and a city that it’s jarring to think about the fact that the Indians were 2 ½ games back in the AL Central after beating Verlander and the Tigers.  As a result, the usual chorus of naysayers has been joined by a much more concerning anthem of doubt from even the staunchest of defenders of the teardown of 2008/2009 and the build-up to today.

Because what happened after that “Verlander Game” was the bottom falling out (in Minnesota, then KC…no less) with the inactivity at the Trading Deadline thrown in for good measure as every fan watching ESPN’s Bottom Line became depressed, then enraged, at watching the Indians stand pat as 4PM on Tuesday came…then went.  Because the Trading Deadline sat right in the middle of those two series in Minnesota and Kansas City (ones that I used to point out not that long ago to assert – laughably so in hindsight – that maybe the season wasn’t lost just yet), the Indians’ worst week on the field in recent memory coincided with their worst week off the field since Vic and CP Lee packed up their things and headed out of town.

If you think I’m being hyperbolic about how quickly things changed, realize that this was the intro to John Perrotto’s always terrific “On the Beat” at B-Pro earlier this week:

The Indians, if for a fleeting moment last Thursday night, seemed to have seized the type of momentum that might vault them to the top of the American League Central standings. Trailing the visiting Tigers and Justin Verlander, 3-1, in the seventh inning, the Indians struck for four runs, including back-to-back home runs from catcher Carlos Santana and designated hitter Travis Hafner, two players Indians manager Manny Acta said needed to increase their production during his pre-game meeting with the media, and went on to a stunning 5-3 victory.

“Our best win of the season,” Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis said, and it was hard to argue. The win drew the Indians within 2.5 games of both the Tigers and White Sox, who were tied for the AL Central lead.

Yet Acta warned not to get too excited about one victory. “With the way we’ve played this season,” Acta said, “we’re fortunate to be in the position we are in. We’re going to have to play better the rest of the season if we’re going to win this division.”

The Indians didn’t exactly heed Acta’s word. They followed their stirring victory with five consecutive losses, getting swept in a three-game series by the Twins in Minneapolis, then losing twice to the Royals in Kansas City.

The Indians now find themselves seven games behind the White Sox and four games behind the Tigers in the division, and also six games out in the AL wild-card standings. While the Indians didn’t tear apart their club by dealing players like closer Chris Perez and right fielder Shin-Soo Choo at Tuesday’s non-waiver trading deadline, they also did not make any roster upgrades.

The lack of movement was not surprising. In days leading up to the deadline, general manager Chris Antonetti said, “Any moves we make will be designed to help us in both 2012 and 2013.” So with it beginning to look like it is “wait until next year” for the Indians, the White Sox hold a three-game lead over the Tigers in what figures to be a two-team race in the AL Central.

Read that opening again (and read the whole piece really, as he has some great quotes from scouts on Maholm, Vargas, Headley, and Lowe that are fascinating with the benefit of hindsight) and think back to that night a couple of Thursdays ago – Hafner and Santana hitting HR against Verlander, “our best win of the season”, and so on and so on – and realize that just a week later, the Indians were starting Corey Kluber against the cellar-dwelling Royals, with the worst record in the AL, and getting outlasted by a team that is so grossly mismanaged by Ned Yost and is painfully short on pitching…yet somehow doesn’t look that much worse than the current Tribe team.

And because of the precipitous fall off of the cliff, everything came into question – and justifiably so – in the course of just over a week, from the off-season that looks painfully regrettable, to (again) questioning what exactly ownership and the Front Office are doing in terms of a plan, and ultimately where this team is going in the short and the long term.  After last season’s trade for Ubaldo that seemed to signal a newfound aggressiveness at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, the Indians slinked back into an all-too-familiar mode of preaching patience in a “plan” and getting through a seemingly open “window of contention” when all visible signs pointed to skepticism…or worse.

Suddenly, in just over a week, all of the rhetoric that had been spoken since CC was sent off to the Cream City and since Vic and Lee headed off towards the East Coast – that a group of similarly-aged and similarly-controlled players of talent would head the next contention group – looked ill-conceived because the players that the Indians looked to be leaning on looked bright in some spots and dull in others and largely average on the whole.  After nearly “boasting” a .500 team last year, the 2012 team looked to be similarly aged and similarly talented…but just “averagely” talented, something pointed out over a month ago.

As this realization crept in, the terror of being just “average” for this “window” descended upon the region as the rotation continued to blow up and the offense scuffled, looking like it needed more than just “one big RH bat”.  And while it’s worth a major analysis of what has happened since that fateful day in late July of 2009, when El Capitan sat in front of his locker, crying for the place he was leaving, the constant mention of that “one big RH bat” sticks with me and it’s something that has stuck with me, particularly this season.  It sticks with me because as people continue to bemoan what’s happening in LF or (wrongly) cast their frustration upon Casey Kotchman, the Indians DID have that “big RH bat” in their long-term plans for this team when the rebuild started in earnest, it’s just one that never arrived…in fact, it’s still sitting in Columbus more than 4 years after arriving.  And because Matt LaPorta never arrived as that middle-of-the-order RH presence to play either LF or 1B (and this indecision became part of the problem), the current team was left incomplete and, lacking a secondary plan, exposed.  Because once they put all of their “big RH bat” eggs into LaPorta’s basket, once all those eggs were strewn about, broken and a mess, they had no other direction to go towards.

While I realize that this is a topic that I’ve beaten to death (then took a couple of more kicks at) over the years, when the Indians made their moves to trade CC, Vic, and Lee, they attempted to find answers for 1B/LF (LaPorta), LF/CF (Brantley), SP (Carrasco, Masterson), while building bench depth (Marson, Donald) and taking some fliers on some young arms (Bryson, Hagadone, Price, Knapp).  Certainly, I’m not going to sit here and analyze those deals on the whole again today, but it is worth noting that the failure of Carrasco and LaPorta to be on this 2012 team is what ultimately sunk this team…because the Indians cast their lot with those two as highly-regarded youngsters to front their rotation and anchor their lineup and what this 2012 team needs is…wait for it…someone at the top of their rotation and in the middle of their lineup.

Though I’m not sure many people remember this, Carrasco was LIGHTS-OUT last June and his importance on the team going forward was no great secret as this was written in this space last June:

That said, it all starts – and has started – with Masterson and Carrasco starting to show the potential as legitimate pillars of a rotation and (this is important) seeing that “potential” actually turn into production, something that has started to materialize this year…How the right arms perform in the coming weeks and months will play a role in whether the Tribe is able to pull themselves out of this tailspin and whether they can assert themselves once again as an AL Central contender. 

Of course, we all know by now that Jimenez was added to that cadre of “arms” about a month later, but everyone realizes that Carlos Carrasco’s last start as an Indian came 3 days after the Indians added Ubaldo, right?

With Carrasco’s personal catcher (Marson) in tow, he had the look of a blossoming front-of-the-rotation starter but – as young pitchers often do – Carrasco went down and the Indians were stuck with the likes of Tomlin, Huff, and Talbot to carry them down the stretch last year and, short of any compelling options in the upper minors, going with a similarly uninspiring middle-to-back-end-of-the-rotation in 2012 because once Carrasco’s elbow went “SPROING”, the Indians simply didn’t have another arm that matched his potential sitting there, something made more pronounced with White and Pomz dealt less than a week earlier.

But even more than Carrasco’s injury and absence in 2012 hurting the team, the fact that the Indians are playing Kotchman and Damon/Duncan/Cunningham/Rottino/Zeke in their everyday lineup while the lineup aches for a RH presence in the middle, the stalled development of Matt LaPorta is so glaring in hindsight as he was supposed to be either the 1B or the LF (and again, that indecision may have played a role in his stalled development) that it’s worth taking a look back to a time when this rebuild/reload/whatever started some 4+ years ago.

Because with the Trade Deadline deals of 2012 now consummated and being analyzed, it’s worth revisiting where LaPorta sat in the mid-season prospect rankings in 2008, at least according to Matthew Pouliat (now of Hardball Talk) as Pouliat wrote this of the Indians’ newest acquisition:

5. Matt LaPorta - OF Indians - DOB: 01/08/85 - ETA: Sept. 2008
Previous rankings: 2008 #14
.288/.402/.576, 20 HR, 66 RBI, 63/45 K/BB in 302 AB (AA Huntsville)
.375/.375/.563, 1 HR, 4 RBI, 4/0 K/BB in 16 AB (AA Akron)

Baseball teams still aren’t allowed to trade draft picks, but the Brewers certainly had their eyes open to the possibility of dealing LaPorta from the moment they made him the seventh overall selection last season. David Price, Matt Wieters and perhaps Rick Porcello have to be the only other 2007 first-rounders Cleveland would have looked at as a fair return for CC Sabathia, and all three of them cost much more than LaPorta in the form of a signing bonus. The Indians have left LaPorta in the outfield since picking him up, but he’s likely to overtake Ryan Garko next year and establish himself as the team’s long-term first baseman. He gives it his all, but he just doesn’t have the range to be of much use in left or right. His bat could make him an All-Star in his best years. Besides the obvious 30- to 35-homer power, he possesses a fine eye at the plate that could lead to OBPs in the .380-.400 range. 

That was written 4 years ago and I admittedly bolded that last sentence just to evoke a long sigh, which I’m sure you’re letting loose right now…

Regardless, go back to that mid-season ranking in 2008 and realize that ahead of LaPorta on that list were Price, Kershaw, Rasmus, and Wieters with Scherzer, Andrus, Maybin, Heyward, and Porcello rounding out the Top 10. 

Independent of the names around him, what’s most interesting in this write-up to me is the idea that the Tribe was using him in LF when he arrived, but there was an assumption that he would likely end up at 1B…which is a point with LaPorta’s stalled development that I don’t think gets enough attention.  Forget those Votto-esque projections that are up there (and you have to remember that this was a widely accepted outlook for LaPorta’s offensive future…even if there were unquestionably critics and skeptics) and remember that the Indians put most/all of their eggs in LaPorta’s basket.  And now, getting nothing from 1B AND LF when they were banking on from LaPorta to produce from one of those positions and in the middle-of-the-lineup, you start to see how much this “miss” hurt the Tribe (present tense) and how their indecision on WHERE to play him may have cost them dearly. 

Because lost in the disappointment of Matt LaPorta (present tense) is the fact that he crushed AAA pitching in 2009 in AAA (.299 BA / .388 OBP / .530 SLG / .917 OPS) as a 24-year-old in Columbus and while you may already be rolling your eyes with “Quad-A” in your head, remember that he came up and played in 52 games for the 2009 Tribe.  During that 2009 season, he experienced some success, posting a .750 OPS (he would not post a season with a higher OPS in coming seasons) and hitting 20 XBH in less than 200 PA.

But, as usual with the Cleveland Indians, as they finished up a largely inconsequential 2009 season, something was about to go horribly for LaPorta and for the Tribe.  In case you don’t know what I’m referring to – or have forgotten (and I did) – here’s the write-up of LaPorta’s injuries as the 2009 season drew to a close:

Matt LaPorta limped his way through the final weeks of the 2009 season because of a lingering left hip issue. And hyperextending his left big toe while running into the wall at Fenway Park on the last day of the season didn’t exactly help his health.

LaPorta, slated to be a regular in the Indians’ lineup at first base and/or the corner outfield positions next season, had two surgical procedures performed in Vail, Colo., on Tuesday to address both matters. As a result, LaPorta, who will need four to six months to recover from the surgeries, will likely be behind in Spring Training camp and perhaps at the start of the 2010 regular season.

A key acquisition in the 2008 trade that sent CC Sabathia to the Brewers, LaPorta had a left arthroscopic hip surgery performed by Dr. Marc Philippon, and he also had his left big toe joint stabilized with sutures by Dr. Thomas Clanton.

“There is a real possibility that Matt will be behind at the start of Spring Training and potentially the start of the year,” head athletic trainer Lonnie Soloff said. “But he shoudn’t miss a great amount of time, if he misses any at all.”

Soloff said the big toe injury, which is commonly referred to as “turf toe,” was the more serious of the two. LaPorta was chasing down a home run ball when his foot slammed into the wall, causing the injury and ending his season a few innings earlier than expected.  The great toe is the last body part to contact the ground with running activities,” Soloff said. “That being said, the success rate of surgery with the effective rehab is higher when the injury is addressed acutely. So, in Matt’s case, it was. It was handled approximately eight days after the injury occurred.”

Now, it should be noted that LaPorta suffered that toe injury in the last game of the season, when he was inexplicably in LF in Fenway (Andy Marte was the 1B that day) and it seems that the toe injury isn’t the only one that occurred from LaPorta being bounced around the field…and I don’t just mean him playing LF on the final day of the 2009 season.  Because this is how Eric Wedge explained LaPorta’s lingering hip issue on September 24, 2009…or a little less than 2 weeks before Wedge put him in LF in Fenway, where LaPorta suffered the toe injury:

“I’ll tell you what happened. I guarantee you it’s from him moving from the outfield to the infield. It’s happened before. You’re using different muscles at first base. You’re doing a lot more squatting, a lot more bending. I’m sure that had something to do with it.”

When LaPorta was called up from Class AAA Columbus, he played 21 of 23 games in left field (17 games) or right field (four). He didn’t make the move to first base until Sept. 14 when the Indians were in Minneapolis.

“There’s no way to do it any differently,” Wedge said. “There’s no transition to it.”

In case you can’t tell, there is an onus of blame that belongs on somebody’s shoulders for the indecision in his position and ultimately in putting him in the OF that day in Boston (again, Andy Marte was playing 1B) on the last day of 2009, with an injured hip no less, when he broke his toe running into the wall.  And while I’m not going to sit here and say that LaPorta was destined for greatness and was done in by positional uncertainty or from doing “a lot more squatting, a lot more bending” when they moved him to 1B, he actually had a decent 2009, and I have this sneaking suspicion that toe injury (and the hip injury) changed the way he swung and changed the course of his career, to the point that he’s an afterthought for the Tribe’s future plans today.  Maybe pitch recognition had as much to do with his stalled development as anything else, but the “headliner” in the CC deal didn’t thrive in MLB the way that most predicted that he would and he finds himself among a glut of older “prospects” in AAA looking for a chance that probably isn’t going to come to them, or at least for longer than a few weeks down the stretch here.

But while teeth are gnashed and wails are heard throughout the North Coast as to why the Indians found themselves where they did in the off-season, gambling on Grady staying healthy, picking up Fauxberto’s option, trading for Lowe, and signing Kotchman then Damon, what gets lost is that the best-laid plans were there for LaPorta and Carrasco to be on this team by now and the Indians simply lacked – largely as a result of the extended poor drafting planning or other “constraints” – suitable back-up plans that led them to add the players that we saw them add this past off-season.  Because for every Kipnis and Perez/Pestano that arrives and thrives and for every Brantley and Masterson that takes those necessary steps towards effectiveness, there are an equal amount of players that “stall” or get injured or simply don’t meet expectations.

For the Indians, two of the three big trades that they made in 13 months were supposed to address the glaring issues in the future of their starting rotation and for their organizational crevasses at OF and 1B…glaring issues that still exist as Carrasco eyes a rehab start (hopefully soon) with a 2013 return as the target and as LaPorta wails away in Huntington Park, and nowhere else…with some awful July numbers to boot.  While “everyone” plots out the path to success for the Indians as “building with young players and locking them up as they’re able”, when those players that are assumed to be a cog in either the lineup or the rotation fail to come through on expectations – be it via talent or injury – the Indians are stuck grasping at straws…“straws” that this year were named Lowe and Damon.

The other option to fill those voids created by injury or disappointment is to attempt to find useful players to fill out the rotation and/or lineup from unexpected places and that’s what we’re about to see for the remainder of the season as Zach McAllister will look to establish himself in the way another former Yankee prospect (Jake Westbrook) did with the last incarnation of the “winning” Tribe and the pitcher acquired for the aforementioned Westbrook (Corey Kluber) attempts to make enough of an impression where he asserts himself into the rotation going forward in a manner that hasn’t happened consistently enough since that dark day in July of 2009.  Similarly, we’ll see Zeke Carrerra and maybe Tim Fedroff get a chance in LF and some amalgamation of Canzler/LaPorta/Anderson/etc. get some time in the LF/1B/DH role as the Indians try to see if one of their long-standing organizational “holes” can be filled by a surprising player the way that Coco Crisp did back in the 2004 season.

But short of having those points of “interest”, it certainly feels like the string will be played out in a Tribe season that not too long ago looked like one in which they could have contended.  And while that was only “visible” by squinting awfully hard and ignoring the obvious holes on the team, to know why those holes existed is not simply attributable to an off-season in which opportunities were missed (though they were) and during which long-shot gambles were placed on admittedly flawed players.   

Rather those holes were created by players that the Indians were counting on simply not staying healthy and/or effective enough to arrive with the rest of the assembled talent currently in place and the Indians’ lack of a back-up plan (and poor drafting that created the massive holes that needed to be filled when they made the CC/Vic/Lee deals with the onus of blame for the situation squarely on the organization) for those possibilities and their inability to find that “lightning in a bottle” that they all too frequently seem to be chasing.  With very little about to ascend to the parent club – outside of the players you’re about to see – and with no obvious answers to some very hard questions, it’s going to be an interesting time to see how the Indians approach the final months of the season and their off-season.

Because after the last 10 days or so, everything seems to lead to a question with the organization – from the team, to the Front Office, and to ownership – and answers are unfortunately what seem to be in short supply.

Tomahawks Cutting Through the Gossamer

The Trading Deadline (the first one at least) has come and gone and the Indians’ roster on Tuesday night looks like the Indians’ roster of Monday night and while the rumors flew as sports-talk radio (and much of the silk of the Interwebs) spewed nonsense and vitriol, the Indians were ultimately neither buyers or sellers.  So while the gossamer (fancy name for spider silk) flew the last couple of days regarding whether Choo would still be an Indian or if Masterson was really on the block (with Castrovince nailing the schizophrenic frenzy of this time of year), I often remember what the editor of “The New Yorker” said to Elaine Benes – in a classic episode of “Seinfeld”, when asked to explain a particularly vexing cartoon from his magazine – when he said, “one doesn’t dissect gossamer”.  

But that’s exactly what we do – dissect “gossamer” – for the course of days, weeks, and (now seemingly) months as the MLB Trading Deadline has somehow become the pre-packaged equivalent of the NFL Draft, where very sharp lines are drawn as to what an organization is doing (or not doing) on a random day at the end of July, with a little less than 40% of the season still in front of us?  We take these “whispers” from sources and track all of the movement (or non-movement) on the “bottom line” because a 4-letter word that emanates from Bristol tells baseball fans that THIS is the most important day of the baseball season…you know, just like the NFL Draft has grown from a cottage industry into a year-round corporation.

Could the Tribe have gotten this guy…

What were the packages offered for that guy…

Were some of the Tribe veterans on the Trade Block…

What exactly are they doing down there…

And when the Trading Deadline passes, “winners” and “losers” are immediately pointed to and teams are criticized for sitting on their hands or are lauded for their aggressiveness, we all know (all too sharply, after the Ubaldo trade last year) that the games are played on the field and not in the “Transactions” page in late July.

So while that answer from the editor of “The New Yorker” that “one doesn’t dissect gossamer” was as infuriatingly incomplete to Elaine as it is to all of us today as we sit wondering where this organization thinks it is heading and what kind of “window of contention” we’re actually talking about, let’s attempt to make some sense of the last couple of days.  Because as much fun as it is to guess and play these games about which player would look good in a Tribe uniform or as horrifying as it is to think about the day when Choo moves on from Cleveland – and I think that’s coming this Winter – at the end of the day, the Indians are sitting essentially where they were prior to the Deadline. 

Yes, they picked up Lars Anderson from Boston for Akron knuckleballer (and my TCF colleague Brian McPeek had a great line about how the move would immediately spun by some as trading the “next RA Dickey” for the “next Matt LaPorta”…which it has been), but it’s a move that I don’t have much of an issue with.  Unless you think that LaPorta/Canzler/Weglarz are more than Minor-League fodder, Anderson (who, it should be noted is 3 years younger than LaPorta and Canzler) represents a potential option at 1B past 2012.  Don’t take that to mean that I think that Lars Anderson is the answer the way that LaPorta (who was the same age as Anderson when he was acquired by the Tribe, with Anderson already having spent some time in AAA and MLB) was once thought to be, but it’s a low-risk move that could benefit Anderson and the Tribe.

Certainly, most fans wanted more than a “low-risk move” and wanted a grand pronouncement of which direction the Indians’ organization were heading on a random afternoon in late July, but I think it’s been articulated in this space pretty well for the past couple of weeks that the Indians’ offense is young and full of promise and potential and that the pitching is what was needed – for longer than just a couple of months – with the Indians lacking the ammo (in terms of prospects) to make an impact move. 

That’s not to say that I think that there were missed opportunities, because I’ll get to that, as soon as I get some of these Tomahawks in the air…

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While not specifically related to the Indians, there were some really interesting pieces from Baseball Prospectus this past week (and I’ll plug spending any $ that you pay to ESPN and re-directing to B-Pro if you’re a baseball fan that enjoys “steak” more than “sizzle”) and the most interesting article came from Dan Evans, a former MLB GM, who provides an inside look at the week or so leading up to the Trade Deadline. 

The whole thing is unquestionably worth a read, but this is what I found to be the most pertinent part as it relates to what we saw happen with the Tribe from last Friday through 4 PM on Tuesday:

In many organizations, deciding where the team stands at the deadline is the most difficult part of the process. There are 17 teams within five games of a playoff berth today, and herein lies the tough call. Are we a buyer or a seller? This conversation isn't comfortable, as it requires a sit-down with ownership about where you are as a franchise. This is a critical phase, since you need to come clean and then find out what direction ownership wants to take. If you are the general manager, it also is a job review of sorts, since your work is under inspection. This chat requires some preparation, because you have to go into the meeting with a plan. For some GMs in fragile stages of their contracts, it can be the beginning of the end of their employment.

Everyone likes to talk about what you're looking to add as a contender, but the other path is the much more difficult one. If you are one of the 13 or so clubs who woke up today with little or no chance to play in the postseason, you have to evaluate who is part of your nucleus for the following year and beyond and whom you might consider moving to try to contend in the future. This is where your scouts and minor-league staff become critical decision makers if you're doing it right. If they can evaluate well and are realistic about your personnel, you can make shrewd moves. If not, two years later you'll still be waiting for guys to get out of Double-A. It is extremely tough to communicate with your staff if you are going to change course, but if there is a distinct plan, they will be part of the solution, not the problem.

Evans gets a little into the difficulty in adding a pitcher around this time – which I think is VERY relevant, particularly when you look at what it took to net some of these arms on the trade market – but I think that this Trading Deadline forced the Indians to ask some very difficult questions about their own players and where they stand as an organization.  It’s been well-documented (here and elsewhere) that the Ubaldo deal signaled – or at least was supposed to signal – the “opening” of this “window of contention”, but the Indians have muddled around the .500 mark since that trade and to look at their “window” leads us to another great piece from B-Pro about the A’s – who traded away Gio Gonzalez in the off-season – and how they’re suddenly staring into a window of contention, and what these “windows” exactly mean, particularly to small-market teams like the Tribe and the A’s.

Contained within THAT piece is a link to a seminal article written by Nate Silver (some 6+ years ago) on how teams should approach the Trading Deadline, dividing them into “categories” based on the likelihood/unlikelihood of making the playoffs and the coming years.  In part, his definitions of those “categories” are what makes the piece so intriguing for the Tribe…and remember this was written after the 2005 season:

Category I. Rebuilding: 82 projected wins or fewer.
Optimal Strategy: Sell

Ordinarily, the teams in this group will be happy to trade what veteran talent they have if they can get favorable prospects or cash flow in return; a playoff appearance is just too unlikely.

However, the clubs toward the right-hand edge of Category I might consider becoming buyers if at least a couple of the following circumstances coalesce:

- The team has a handful of good young players who might be capable of a breakout season;

- The team plays in a weak division;

- It looks to be a good buyers' market;

- The team can build without compromising its future--that is, without trading good prospects, and without making long-term contract commitments to veterans.

- There are external, economic factors that would tend to reward aggressive behavior, such as the negotiation of a TV contract or stadium deal.

A team like last year's Indians, for example, merited an exception to the rule. The Indians were a young club playing in what looked to be a weak division, and weren't too far from Category II status, coming off an 80-win season. They were able to sign Kevin Millwood to a reasonable, one-year contract. It almost worked, but they still missed the playoffs by two games, and finished third from the bottom in American League attendance. Over the long run, this strategy is going to miss a lot more often than it hits.

--snip--

Category II. Fringe Contender: 82-87 projected wins.
Optimal Strategy: Buy or Sell

Teams in this group have a natural tendency to stand pat. The thinking seems to be: we're fielding a reasonable baseball club, and we think we can contend with a couple of good breaks. Look what happened to the White Sox last year. We certainly aren't about to break the bank.

In fact, however, standing pat is the worst alternative for these clubs. Whether to buy or sell is conditioned on some of the same factors that we've described above, but either strategy is superior to holding. Buying is likely to produce a reasonably good return; although a team with 85-win talent will make the playoffs occasionally, a team with 90-win talent will make the playoffs more often than not. On the other hand, if buying isn't feasible, then selling needs to be considered. Going from 85 wins to 80 doesn't hurt as much as going from 85 to 90 helps, and there is nothing worse for a baseball team than to be caught in the 84-78 netherworld.

This is fascinating stuff to think about in the context of where the Indians sit right now and while Silver wrote the piece as it pertains to decisions to be made in July, I think that the performance of this club down the stretch – and particularly Masterson and Ubaldo – are going to force some very difficult decisions about which “category” the Indians fall into this off-season even more so than in the past week.  While arguments were made over the last couple of days to clear the decks (and some of the “arguments” were pretty compelling), to see the Indians send out feelers on Choo, Perez, and even Masterson leads me to believe that they’re gauging the market for each with the idea that one or two (I don’t think all three) could be moved in the off-season as the Indians attempt to load up with an eye towards 2013.

Then again, we all thought that eye was focused on 2012 when the Ubaldo deal was made this time last year…

__________

While the Indians essentially decided to stand pat – or at least put off a large organizational decision until the off-season – that doesn’t mean that there weren’t some deals that were consummated over the course of the last week that didn’t raise some eyebrows in terms of players that the Indians had (or at least should have) targeted and what kind of package it took to pry those players loose.

Most notable was the trade between the Cubs and the Braves that sent LHP Paul Maholm (under club control through next year) and 4^th OF/LHP masher Reed Johnson to Atlanta, as those two players would have filled the Indians’ needs – short-term and long-term – pretty neatly by adding to the rotation for today and tomorrow and by upgrading from the troika currently roaming around LF.  And while the cost for the Braves looks like a couple of Minor-League arms (and one injured one at that), let’s realize that Atlanta gave up a 21-year-old RHPin Aroldys Vizcaino that throws in the upper-90s that ranked #62 on Kevin Goldstein’s pre-2011 prospect list who had already made it to MLB as a 20-year-old last year.  Though Vizcaino may end up in the bullpen and while I realize that he’s been hurt and doesn’t figure to contribute until next year…yeah, that young, fireballing arm is still something that the Indians don’t have unless you’re talking about them giving up a Carlos Carrasco (who is 4 years older than Vizcaino and not under club control for as long) for that duo. 

Remember the idea that the Indians lacked the ammo (in terms of prospects) to make the additions that they may have felt were necessary?

Yeah, that even applies to a package that could have netted them Paul Maholm and Reed Johnson…

That’s not to say that there still weren’t other deals that looked attractive that I would have liked to have seen the Indians in on, although most fall into that “buy-low”, “low-risk” column of the ledger in that they could have helped the team past this year.  Most notable among those was Travis Snider being dealt from the Blue Jays to the Pirates for RP Brad Lincoln.  Over at SI’s Hit and Run, Jay Jaffe had an interesting perspective on the move, invoking some names that are going to look familiar…particularly over the last couple of weeks:

The Pirates brought up Starling Marte for a look on Thursday, and had been discussing him as the key player in a potential trade for the Indians’ Shin-Soo Choo. The acquisition of Snider won’t necessarily stop that from going down, but note the contrast: Marte is 23, with two-thirds of a season at Triple-A and 22 big league plate appearances under his belt, while Snider is just eight months older, with a ton more upper-level experience. Because of his yo-yoing, he won’t even be arbitration eligible until after the 2013 season, making him somebody who should have a reasonable shot of becoming a lineup staple.

Snider was a classic “change-of-scenery” player and though he had stalled in Toronto will be interesting to see if the Pirates just found a long-term answer in one of their corner OF spots in Snider.  To acquire him, they gave the Blue Jays a useful bullpen piece in Brad Lincoln, who was another stalled former 1^st Round Pick, who found some success in the Pirates’ bullpen this year and is under Toronto’s control through 2017, but likely profiles as more of a middle/middling reliever than anything close to a back-end-of-the-bullpen option.

The Pirates continued their buy-low day by netting Gaby Sanchez (a now-regrettable “target” in these parts in the off-season…for Chris Perez, no less) for a 4^th OF and a throw-in arm.  Despite Sanchez absolutely cratering this year, he’s still a RH bat that posted a cumulative .783 OPS over the 2010 and 2011 seasons and he’s still under club control through the 2015 season (though it may be longer now since he spent some time in AAA this year), so he might have represented a long-term option for the Tribe at 1B, or even a RH platoon option at 1B going forward.

While both of those players probably would have “earned” the same snickers that accompanied the Lars Anderson deal, the Indians had some opportunity to augment their club past 2012 with either and whether they were “outbid” by their former co-worker in Neal Huntington or if they simply didn’t have the interest in either, we’ll never know.

Because we’re just dissecting gossamer over here…

__________

As for what the Indians – who are in a tailspin right now thanks to their…surprise, PITCHING – do now, it would seem that some of the moves are already being made.  Corey Kluber will take Josh Tomlin’s spot in the rotation (finally) and it remains to be seen if Derek Lowe will make another start or two before giving way to Fauxberto (who got shelled in AAA) or if we’ll have a Chris Seddon sighting in the next couple of weeks.

Lowe and Damon will probably make their way out of town as the parade of Klubers and Fedroffs take their place in the hopes that the Indians can glean something from the final two months of performance from players that are/were on the cusp of the 25-man and the 40-man roster.  Most important for the Indians is to have Masterson and Ubaldo gain some level of consistency at the top of the rotation, to have the engine that has driven the offense (Choo, Cabrera, Santana, Kipnis, and Brantley) to continue to produce and for all components that figure into next year (most notably that 8^th inning man/future closer) to stay healthy down the stretch.

The difficult decisions that were heaped upon the Tribe brass after the meltdown in Minnesota to those moribund Twins are still going to exist when the season ends and, with what looks to be the second “fade” in the division in full swing, it’s going to be a semi-interesting final couple of months leading into what could be one of the most important off-seasons in the history of the franchise.

A Lazy Sunday Riding the Coaster

Remember Thursday night?

When the Indians – in what was being called their biggest game of the year – stared down baseball’s best pitcher and their divisional rival and exploded in the 7^th inning as the momentum of a season seemed to shift at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario?

Since then, the Indians have been outscored by a 23-5 margin by a team that had been outscored by 106 runs in their previous 98 games in the Twins…and they looked bad doing it.  Up and down…up and down, and as this team continues to astound (Thursday’s game against Verlander) and confound (Friday’s game with Tomlin likely punching his ticket to the bullpen or Columbus and Saturday’s debacle), the Indians find themselves trying to figure out what they’re going to do, with the full knowledge that making any significant upgrades isn’t going to magically turn this team into a cresting juggernaut, but with the pang of a feeling that this AL Central is still inherently flawed as the White Sox (with the tenuousness in their staff) and the Tigers (who always fail to impress when they play the Indians) still look “catchable” for the Tribe…as hard as it is to see this Indians team going on an extended run to catch/pass either or both.

With that said, let’s get loose on a Lazy One attempting to rationalize what’s going on here and what might be coming…

Starting off, a member of another Front Office had this to say about the Tribe’s situation/quandary as they told B-Pro’s John Perrotto:

On the Indians: “Chris Antonetti has a tough decision to make in the next few days. Is he is a buyer or a seller? I know they are still close enough to be considered a contender, but I don’t see them as a playoff team, and I think it would be foolish for them to make another Ubaldo Jimenez-type trade this year.”

And while that looks elementary in these parts or to anyone who’s been paying attention, those three sentences really encapsulate what the Tribe is facing.  I certainly don’t think that they have the prospects to make “another Ubaldo Jimenez-type trade”, but I also don’t think that it should preclude them from looking to upgrade the team for 2012 and for beyond.  Apparently, that’s what they’ve been doing while they’ve been looking as everyone from Buster Olney on down has intimated that the Indians are looking for players that they would control past this season.

This represents a good bit of news, as it’s something that I intimated earlier in the week, when making a case for adding a Jason Vargas (good write-up at LGT on Vargas here) or a Paul Maholm in that they would immediately upgrade the Tribe’s rotation and either (or someone like them that is similarly controlled) would help past this year.  While I know that I’ve made my feelings well-known on adding a starting pitcher (and one that can hang around longer than the next couple of months), the recent performances of Tomlin and Lowe have put a greater sense of urgency on that…and I’m not just talking about for 2012.

Reason being is that if you look at the current group of players going forward (or who is assumed to be on the cusp of contributing…which is basically nobody save Lonnie coming back and some bullpen arms), the hole is in the rotation.  It was something that was fleshed out very clearly by Adam Van Arsdale of LGT, when he took a look at what the 2013 team could/should look like.  To see the likes of Kipnis, Choo, Cabrera, Santana, and Brantley leading the offense with Lonnie coming back makes me (somewhat) confident in the offense going forward, even if there are no obvious internal answers to the ongoing issue in LF (though I’m intrigued by this Fedroff “kid” – who is a not-all-that-young 25 – to see if they can catch him on a hot streak) or 1B.  But the rotation next year is Masterson, Ubaldo, and McAllister (he of the 14 games started…in his career) and a number of question marks…as if Ubaldo and McAllister aren’t still question marks.  Sure, you can say that Fauxberto has a $7M option for next year that’s still out there and Carlos Carrasco is supposed to be ready for the start of 2013, but if we’ve learned anything about counting on starting pitching depth…it’s to not count on any starting pitching depth.

While the offense garners the attention of the teeth-gnashers and the wailers, the rotation still sits 4^th from the bottom of the AL in ERA (4.77) and the bullpen is still second from the bottom (4.09 ERA) and while the reason for those poor overall numbers are easily traceable to the back-end-of-the-rotation (particularly recently) and the front-end-of-the-bullpen, this team isn’t going to stick around – or run off a sustained winning streak – with the current pitching situation, particularly at the back-end-of-the-rotation.  Maybe that means that a guy like Corey Kluber comes up to replace Tomlin for his next start (if a trade isn’t consummated before Tuesday) with Fauxberto assuming Lowe’s spot in mid-August, but does that back-end-of-the-rotation garner much more optimism?

Realizing that I’ve been banging this drum (sometimes feeling lonely while doing it) for a while now, the struggles of the 2012 team were put into some terrific context against the 2011 version through 98 games earlier in the week by Jordan Bastian.  Though I’ll ask you to excuse the MASSIVE cut-and-paste, when legwork and research like this is done, it should be seen (nearly) in its entirety:

Cleveland’s offense has been nearly identical to the one pieced together at this point last season. The on-base is up and the slugging is up (the Tribe is drawing more walks and striking out less), but the team has scored the same amount of runs (425) and belted the same amount of home runs (90) through 98 games as it did in 2011.

That’s a problem. The offense was supposed to be improved — not the same. That said, the glaring difference between the Indians through 98 games this year and the Indians through 98 games last year rests within the team’s pitching staff.

Rotation (through 98 games)

2012: 36-42, 4.70 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 580.1 IP, 617 H, 368 K, 229 BB
2011: 36-36, 4.32 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 591.2 IP, 612 H, 379 K, 163 BB

Bullpen (through 98 games)

2012: 13-7, 4.09 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 294.2 IP, 250 H, 282 K, 114 BB
2011: 15-11, 3.39 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 281.1 IP, 252 H, 230 K, 103 BB

The rotation is averaging fewer innings per start, putting more pressure on the Tribe’s middle relievers. That’s why you see the spike in bullpen ERA. The rotation has also experienced a big jump in walks issued, creating more traffic and, naturally, more damage caused by the hits allowed.

Offense (through 98 games)

2012: .256/.332/.401, 90 HR, 178 2B, 406 RBI, 425 R, 628 K, 353 BB
2011: .249/.319/.393, 90 HR, 171 2B, 403 RBI, 425 R, 733 K, 311 BB

Record (through 98 games)

2012: 49-49 (-4.0 in ALC)
2011: 51-47 (-1.5 in ALC)

There are clear needs in the offense, but the Indians could also benefit from improved middle relief and starting pitching. Those are a lot of holes to fill before the Trade Deadline, and it’s unlikely that the team is able to address all three areas.

As for the pitching…

“Of course we need pitching help. Everybody knows that,” Acta said. “That’s a priority.”

Now, what’s most interesting to think about is that the 2012 offense is on par with the 2011 offense and the 2012 pitching has been worse than the 2011 offense through 98 games…or right around this time last year.

Anyone remember what the Indians added at this time last year?

They added pitching in Ubaldo and while the presence of Ubaldo has not had the type of impact that the Indians had hoped, to look at the recent past – in terms of the team identifying needs and moving pieces to upgrade the parent club – likely provides a clue as to what could be in store, if the Indians do still decide to make an addition.  Now, with some starting pitchers having already been dealt, it’s possible that the Indians still find that piece that slots into the rotation now and beyond.  While I don’t think that they have the prospects to net a James Shields from Tampa – or someone of his ilk – upgrading that back-end-of-the-rotation makes a run for the next couple of months more feasible and certainly sets the team up better going past this year.

Because going back to the idea that Acta calls the pitching a “priority” and remembering that earlier linked piece from LGT, projecting the 2013 team that Van Arsdale put together, that “priority” seems so much more pronounced to me, particularly when you consider that the quintet of Choo, Kipnis, Cabrera, Santana, and Brantley are all performing at a pretty high level.  If you think that’s hyperbole, consider that each of those five players are ranked in the top 49 in the AL in terms of OPS.  Only five teams (including the Tribe) have five or more players ranked in the top 50 in OPS with Texas, Chicago, and New York leading that list with 6 players in the top 50 in OPS in the AL and the Tribe and the Twins (!) topping the Tigers, the Angels, the Blue Jays, the Red Sox, among others that don’t boast that relative “depth” in their lineup.

That’s not to say that the Indians couldn’t use an upgrade in the lineup, as they certainly could, but for as much talk as there has been about the inability of the offense to produce consistently, the glaring hole in the back of the rotation – for today AND tomorrow – burns brighter than any for me.  And if the Indians are looking to make a move for a player that is not a rental player, adding a pitcher that could fit into the rotation to stabilize that rotation because this team simply won’t be able to even think about sniffing contention into August with Lowe and Tomlin going the way that they are right now.  Because “right now”, that duo has the 2nd and 4th worst ERA among starters in the AL in the past 30 days (and Ubaldo has the 6th worst) and for the Indians to go on the run that they’re going to have to, any effort to sustain a winning streak is going to be stopped by one of those two (or three) or both (or all three).

Reading that last bit about how dreadful the rotation has been and seeing these last couple of games in Minnesota, you might think that the case is slowly being laid out here to “sell” to attempt to re-load for another day.  But the two most desirable pieces to move would be Shin-Soo Choo and Chris Perez and while I think a case could be made to trade one (depending upon return), unless they Indians are netting a player that immediately steps into their lineup or rotation when they arrive, I can’t see how that could be taken as anything but a step-back for this team that still looks set up to compete in the coming years because (particularly in the case of Choo) as Castrovince noted, “the Indians would be extremely hard-pressed to replace the production provided by Choo, especially given their organizational outfield abyss. I’d imagine it would take a huge haul to prompt them to move him.”

And even if you’re talking about a “huge haul”, it starts to cloud this issue of “windows” and expectations of when (or even if) the Indians are setting themselves up to win.  Maybe that issue of “windows” has been clouded by the first couple of games in Minnesota and the Indians start to look to make a move, and try to move a player like Perez to see if the Giants (or someone else) would overpay for him. 

And, as a quick aside, if the Giants are foolhardy enough to give up Brandon Belt (a 24-year-old 1B who was recently mentioned as a “change-of-scenery” guy who doesn’t seem to be on Bruce Bochy’s Christmas Card list) or Gary Brown (an OF ranked one spot behind Lindor in Kevin Goldstein’s pre-2012 rankings and in AA) for Chris Perez, I’m all for it as the reasons to move Chris Perez aren’t hard to list – about to get more expensive via the continuation of arbitration, the volatility of reliever, the overvaluation of “closers”, etc. – without even getting into the whole idea to “sell high”.

But let’s be honest about the fact that the Indians are in the position that they are largely because of the work of Chris Perez (and, even more notably, Vinnie Pestano) in the back-end of their bullpen and I’d be more inclined to move a guy like Perez in the off-season, hopefully finding a situation similar to the one that allowed the Athletics to pry an everyday OF in Josh Reddick out of Boston for their closer.  Because if the Indians can continue to graduate these young arms into their bullpen, I don’t think there’s much question that Pestano could slide up that bullpen ladder with a scout telling B-Pro’s Perrotto that “I don’t know if people around baseball realize what a weapon he (Pestano)  is. He’s a lockdown eighth-inning guy, and I'm sure he could be a good closer if he got the chance.”

Whether that “chance” comes in the next week or in the next year remains to be seen and really, that’s a conversation for another day as the Indians are living day to day right now with the rumor mill spinning at full tilt and with the Tribe’s playoff outlook looking bleaker with each crushing loss.