Celebrating CyKluber on a Lazy Sunday
On June 6, 1944, the biggest invasion fleet in the
history of the world set forth from the Eastern ports of England, bound for the
beaches of Normandy, France. D-Day, as it is commonly referred to now, featured
the combined arms of the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, all under
the care of U.S. General (and later President) Dwight David Eisenhower. Ike was
ultimately responsible for the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers, and
ultimately the fate of the free world. The Supreme Allied Commander wrote two
speeches in the days leading up to D-Day, one to use if the landings were able
to secure a beachhead, and one to use if the liberating forces were thrown back
into the English Channel in defeat. Thankfully for the men and women of
occupied Europe, Ike never had to use that second speech. The landings were
successful and the Allies would roll into Germany, crossing the Rhine in March
of 1945 and bringing the War in Europe to a successful conclusion on May 8,
1945 (V.E. Day). What does D-Day have to do with baseball? Very little, to be
honest. But earlier this week, I started writing this column and realized that
I’d have to prepare two versions; one for Corey Kluber’s successful Cy Young
campaign, and one if Felix Hernandez was selected as the 2014 AL Cy Young Award
winner. The stakes are a little (lot) lower than they were back in 1944, but
anytime I can work Eisenhower into the opening of a Lazy Sunday (especially the
week after Veterans Day), you can be darn sure I’m going to take advantage.
So as all Indians fans are surely aware, Corey
Kluber is your 2014 AL Cy Young Award winner, completing one of the more unlikely Cy Young campaigns in recent memory (but still behind Cliff Lee's 2008). He was the 2nd best
pitcher in all of major league baseball in 2014, and the single best cyborg.
It’s possible that Felix Hernandez was actually the best human pitcher in
baseball this year, losing out only to CyKluber and the alien life force known
as Clayton Kershaw. The award came as a bit of a surprise to some, and a major
shock to the system for Mariners fans who had talked themselves into King Felix
winning the award back in June or July. Ultimately, it was the arguments made
by most Indians fans that helped Kluber win out. He pitched in front of the
worst defense in baseball, which actually ended up helping Kluber with the
voters who embrace some of the more “advanced” statistics like FIP (fielding
independent pitching). He accumulated more WAR (wins above replacement) than
Felix, 7.4 to 6.8. He also had more wins than Hernandez, which probably helped
him in the minds of the “old-school”
voters who still value statistics like wins and RBI over
those new-fangled WAR, FIP, OPS+ etc. The stats themselves were close enough
that either choice could be defended, as Anthony
Castrovice breaks down for MLB.com. Castro also includes
the video from the hit-turned-error that shaved four earned runs off of
Hernandez’s final mark as well as the hit-turned-error-turned-hit that added
three earned runs onto Kluber’s tally. Change one (or both) of those scoring
decisions, and the final ERA race becomes even closer. I’m glad Kluber won and
think it was the right decision, but I probably wouldn’t have gone off the deep
end had the final result been flipped. If you want to read well-thought
out, reasoned take on the voting from a Mariner fan, the always-reliable USS
Mariner put together a solid piece less than 2 hrs after
the award was announced. If you want to read complete and utter nonsense
expelled from the mouth of an idiot, then click here.
Getting back to intelligent, reasonable analysis, August
Fagerstrom of the Akron Beacon Journal and Fangraphs put together a really nice
piece looking at how the voters gave Kluber the Cy Young based primarily on FIP,
whether they knew it or not. And that’s a big deal for those who value advanced
metrics becoming more mainstream. As Fagerstrom explains:
This seems big.
There’s a consensus as to why Corey Kluber just won a Cy Young Award and, at
the risk of sounding over dramatic, it feels like something of a revolutionary
consensus. This reminds me of when Felix won the Cy Young in 2010, despite a
13-12 record. Seemed like that was a turning point that helped the national
audience realize pitcher wins don’t matter. Perhaps this will be something of a
turning point that ERA isn’t the end-all-be-all, and a turning point that helps
legitimize FIP to the mainstream.
Fagerstrom took a look at the rationale behind some
of Kluber’s supporters amongst the voters, and found that while they didn’t
mention FIP outright, many talked about the superior defense in Seattle, as
well as the park effects of Safeco benefiting the King. As an aside, if you’re
not following August
on Twitter, you’re doing yourself a disservice. He’s an
excellent writer with some really insightful stuff, and I highly recommend you
read his stuff.
I don’t have much more to add to the Kluber news,
but I will say this; the Cleveland Indians won one Cy Young Award between 1956
(the first year of the award) and 2006. After going 1 for 50, Indians pitchers
have now captured three of the last eight AL Cy Young Awards. That’s a pretty
nice little run they have put together, and there’s no reason to think that
Kluber can’t continue to contend for the award in the near future. He’s under
club control through at least 2018(!), and isn’t even arbitration eligible
until 2016. If you want to read more about the Indians young, cheap and
downright adorable Cy Young Award winner, the
good folks over at Let’s Go Tribe have an excellent rundown of links from
around the interwebs that are worth checking out.
Moving on from Kluber (but not really), Baseball
Prospectus has come up with a somewhat complicated formula to measure how
well-off a franchise is when it comes to “core talent.” They call it Core
Team Value, and it looks at youth, performance (by WAR) and
club control to try and figure out what teams are set up best for the future at
the major league level. The Indians come in at…wait for it…#2 in all of
baseball, behind only the big-money Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles. They
have five “core” players that were considered for the sample; Michael Brantley,
Corey Kluber, Yan Gomes, Carlos Santana and Cookie Carrasco. So that’s not even
considering the potential contributions of young, talented players like Danny
Salazar, Trevor Bauer, Jason Kipnis or Cody Allen, not to mention uber-prospect
Francisco Lindor. All of those players are also under club control for several
years to come. And you could even get really rosy eyed and predict some sort of
a bounce back year for Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn in 2015. As BP’s Jonathan
Judge put it:
Cleveland did
extremely well in these rankings last year, ranking fourth in the league for
roster core quality. I didn’t comment on it at the time, as Cleveland had just
enjoyed a Cinderella season and its team WARP obviously reflected that. But
here we are for a second year in a row, and Cleveland not only maintained its
top-quartile status, but moved up. It did so by coaxing strong performances
from additional core assets for a second year in a row. Whereas last year
featured superb production from Jason
Kipnis and Carlos Santana,
this year the club added outstanding performances from Michael Brantley and Corey
Kluber (both 6+ WARP). In a fairly weak division, this emerging roster
core has the needle trending up.
This team is young and talented, of that there can
be no doubt. There’s no guarantee that 2014 success will beget a solid 2015
season, of course. Fausberto Carnandez
going from Cy Young contender in 2007 to Lake County in 2008 is recent
enough evidence of that. But the Indians are in a very good position for the
2015 season and beyond. They have a deep, restocked farm system with a couple
of crown jewels acquired in recent drafts. They’re trending upwards (again,
just like we thought in 2007) in a division where
the other teams are either treading water or getting weaker. Young, affordable
pitching is never going out of style (even if power is at more of a premium
right now) and that’s something that the Indians have in spades. Combine that
with a solid bullpen and a balanced lineup, the team has to be considered a
potential playoff contender even without major additions this offseason. We’ll
again pop over to the impartial experts over at Baseball Prospectus, who think
that the Indians are being underrated by the sharps in Vegas
when they put the club at 28-1 odds at winning the World Series next year:
Cory Kluber
headlines a rotation that features perhaps the most intriguing collection of
starters in all of baseball. Armed with a great arsenal and much improved
command, Carlos Carrasco appears to have blossomed into a legitimate no. 2
starter. Danny Salazar bounced back from a disappointing start in 2014 and
could be primed for a breakout season, and few teams in baseball round out
their rotation with better pitchers than Trevor Bauer and T.J. House.
Offensively,
Cleveland can expect to be better at crucial positions. Some combination of
Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor should outproduce what Asdrubal Cabrera
provided—at least with the glove—and with a full offseason to recover from an
oblique injury that never went away, Jason Kipnis is a strong rebound
candidate. If the Indians can add a mid-tier bat—a Colby Rasmus or Alex Rios
type fits— they should have enough thump in their order to compensate for a
weak defense. Their pitching alone gives them a pretty good chance to reach the
postseason, and once you get there...
Speaking of divisional clubs treading water, the
Tigers were to prevent their best offensive player (in 2014 at least) from
departing by inking DH Victor Martinez to a 4-year contract. They are paying
Martinez $68 million for his age 36-40 seasons, which is $12 million more than
the Indians risked in paying Nick Swisher for his age 32-35 seasons. Victor has
been healthy and productive throughout his career of course, but he posted
“just” a .785 OPS in 2013. That’s not bad, but it’s not what the Tigers are
paying for. It’s no secret that the Tigers are firmly in win now mode, and this
deal definitely helps their team in 2015. But it’s not without risk, even next
season. Fangraphs
Dave Cameron listed Vic as one of his free agent “landmines,”
explaining that a team signing him is paying for what amounts to an outlier
season when it comes to power production. Even if Victor does produce at a
level commensurate with his pay (and even with the Tigers, I can’t find myself
rooting against Vic), the Tigers have some significant payroll obligations for
players on the clear downside of their careers. They will owe a combined $76
million in 2018 for a 40-year old Victor Martinez, 35-year old Justin Verlander
(88 ERA+ in 2014) and a 35-year old Miguel Cabrera. They’re committed to pay
Anibal Sanchez and Ian Kinsler at least $10 million, and that’s if they buy out
the final year of both of those contracts. That makes for $86 million obligated
in 2018, and that’s for three players on the active roster. The Indians entire
payroll in 2014 was less than $86 million. Does Mike Ilitch care? Probably not,
as he’s in it to win it in the very near future. But the long term
ramifications could be severe. Let’s look to Fangraphs one last time today,
as Jeff Sullivan shows us a present-day glimpse of what the future could hold
in Detroit:
The natural,
kind of obvious conclusion: the Tigers are positioning themselves to resemble
the Phillies. The Phillies are in the dreadful part of the cycle after having
made the playoffs five years in a row. The Tigers have finished first in their
division four years in a row, and they’re good enough to make it five. It sure
looks like, within the next few years, the situation in Detroit is going to
turn pretty ugly. But they can worry about that when they get there, if they
even still have all the same front-office personnel, and besides, before it
sucked to be a Phillies fan, it was pretty damn special. Since the Phillies won
the World Series, they might say it was worth it. The Tigers put another $68
million toward buying an era a trophy.
Is it worth it to strip the farm system barren and
sign aging players to contracts that would be crazy even if they were paid in
Monopoly money if it results in just one championship? That’s a question that
neither Indians nor Tigers fans can answer as of right now, because the last
title for either team was 30 years ago. Are the Tigers in a better spot to end
that drought in 2015? Probably, but with the potential departure of Max
Scherzer, their lineup is going to have to stay healthy and productive in order
to compensate for a weakened starting rotation. Regardless of 2015 though, I
think the Indians are in a much better spot over the long haul thanks to their
stable of young, controlled talent.
Last week in this space, I talked about potential
moves that the Indians could/should make this offseason to bolster their
chances for 2015. I talked about Brett Anderson and Brandon Morrow as potential
arms to take a flyer on, but didn’t mention former Indians ace Justin
Masterson. Well, it appears that the Indians and Masterson’s camp are talking
about a potential return to the North Coast for the big righty. Jordan
Bastian reports that the Indians are one of several teams that have contacted
Masterson about a short term deal, a far cry from the 3 year, $45 million extension
the club offered him in March. Masterson struggled to a 7-9 record with the
Indians and Cardinals in 2014, including a career-worst 5.88 ERA and 4.50 FIP.
His K/BB ratio fell from 2.57 in 2013 to 1.68 in 2014. In short, it was a
terrible season at a terrible time for the 29-year old right-hander out of
Beavercreek, OH. But could there have been an underlying reason(s) for the
sudden and steep decline? As we all no doubt remember, Masterson dealt with an
oblique injury down the stretch in 2013. That injury reportedly lingered into
spring training last year, which began a chain reaction leading to knee and
shoulder issues that kept Masterson from reaching his full effectiveness at any
point last year, as Bastian details for us:
The oblique
injury led to tenderness in Masterson's ribcage area during Spring Training
before this season, but the pitcher kept quiet about the issue…
During the
season's first half, Kluber and Tomlin pointed out to Masterson that his stride
in his delivery had lengthened. Masterson was compensating for the soreness in
his side and the result was inflammation in his right knee. Cleveland traded
the pitcher to St. Louis on July 30, but the issues persisted to the point of
needing an MRI exam.
The Cardinals'
staff discovered the scar tissue in Masterson's side and also found an
impingement in his right shoulder. The pitcher received a cortisone shot in his
arm and underwent a minor procedure to break up the scar tissue. All of the
issues combined offer possible reasons behind Masterson's diminished velocity
and his uncharacteristic pitching line (7-9, 5.88 ERA in 128 2/3 innings).
Masterson has been an “every other year” guy with
the Indians, pitching much better in odd years than even for whatever reason.
Could he be in line for a big bounceback season in 2015 now that he’s healthy
again? Much like we talked about with Brett Anderson, it could be an attractive
deal for both sides. Masterson would be back in a familiar location with a team
and organization that he’s comfortable with, including The Pitcher Whisperer.
He could rebuild his value and look for a multi-year deal in 2016, in Cleveland
or elsewhere. The Indians would get a guy they know is a leader in the
clubhouse at a rate far cheaper than they anticipated paying just eight months
ago, and the contract would carry very little risk for the club. If he’s unable
to regain his starting form, Masterson could even be used as a power arm out of
the bullpen the way he was in 2013. There are a number of teams interested in
Masterson (a dozen, according to his agent which should be taken with a grain
of salt) so the reunion might not happen if another club offers Masty a longer
term deal or more upfront money than the Indians are willing to shell out. But
having a healthy and effective Masterson in the middle of the rotation would be
an incredible luxury that seemed impossible a year ago, and would provide
insurance in case 2nd half Cookie Carrasco turns into a pumpkin and
regresses to the guy we saw prior to the 2014 all-star break. Fan-favorite
Justin Masterson propels Indians past Tigers for AL Central title would be a
poetic and welcome headline in September of 2015, and something for Indians
fans to dream on during a cold and snowy winter…