A Farewell Kiss on A Lazy Sunday

With another fantastic Fall weekend on our doorstep here on the North Coast and as the Indians assure themselves of a maximum of 98 losses with their little 2-game winning streak (which has pushed them back from the 4th pick in next year’s draft to currently sitting on the 6th position), the final brushstrokes are being put on the canvas of the 2010 season. Lest you think that this one is going be hanging in some gallery, much less in plain sight of anyone…it will not as it is destined for the trash bin and the end is thankfully coming near for the Tribe’s season of nightmares.

Seeing as how the end of the year is rapidly approaching, it is accompanied by the end-of-the-year recaps coming from all angles for all teams. While we’ve obviously already read the “Dear John” letter from Vince Grzegorek, another (perhaps more clinical and certainly much less entertaining) autopsy comes as the Indians go under the microscope in the “Kiss ‘Em Goodbye” series.

If you’re unfamiliar with the “Kiss ‘Em Goodbye” series that is put together by Baseball Prospectus and ESPN, the eulogy consists of a little write-up by Buster Olney giving an overview of a particular team that is (obviously) not making the playoffs, a more exhaustive analysis of “What Went Right”, “What Went Wrong”, and “What Won’t Happen Again” by a B-Pro writer, a “Rumor Central” piece by some ESPN lackey, and an “Organizational Future” piece by the consistently terrific Kevin Goldstein of B-Pro.

In the recent piece in which the collective group has puckered up and said their farewell to the Tribe, the Olney intro is pretty superficial as it notes that the Indians’ rotation is lacking (shockingly mentioning that CC and Lee are doing pretty well this year) and saying that “given that the Indians have so little margin for error, they needed production from their handful of pricey stars”, going on to mention the Sizemore injury, the Hafner shoulder “issues” and Kerry Wood’s strange tenure as an Indian.

Olney hits on what he sees as the “building blocks” with Santana, The BLC, CF Perez, and a rejuvenated !Fausto¡ (which, not so coincidentally are the same four mentioned in the “What Went Right” section), but finishes the his bit of the piece with the realistic view that the Indians need to “find more starting pitchers, and Cleveland is hopeful about what it saw from Carlos Carrasco in the last month of the season” before hitting on the big finish that, “until the Indians’ rotation stabilizes, Cleveland probably won’t be in the AL Central conversation in September.”

Of course, this is not an earth-shattering analysis as you only have to look at the players that the Indians have been targeting in trades and in the Draft for the past two years to see how they’re attempting to “find more starting pitchers”. Between Carrasco, Masterson, Talbot, White, Pomeranz, McCallister, Pino, Kluber and the litany of other arms (and those are just some of the guys who figure in as starters) added to the organization in the last two years, there’s no question that it still all goes back to the pitching issues (and specifically the rotational questions) with the Indians going forward as the needle seems to flip from “they don’t look to be all that close to cobbling together a consistent rotation” to “maybe these guys just need time to mature and thrive” on a nearly weekly basis.

This is, of course, where I drop in Carmona, Carrasco, and Masterson’s numbers for September – 2.35 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 63 K and 21 BB in 80 1/3 IP – and try to take a look at that glass and call it half-empty, attempting to avoid Gomez’s September (7.78 ERA, 2.03 WHIP) and ignoring that Tomlin has allowed nearly as many earned runs (34) as batters he has whiffed (39)…even with his most recent complete game.

This is pretty well-worn territory around these parts and for the sake of everyone involved and since this is worthy of more than just this cursory look, let’s get back to the “Kiss ‘Em Goodbye”. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, I’ll spare you what the ESPN “Insider” had to say in the “Rumor Central” category as nearly all ESPN coverage has devolved further and further into what “Entertainment Tonight” and “TMZ” are in terms of actually reporting the “news”.

Since we’ll avoid the ESPN “Insider” section (seeing as how I forgot my Haz-Mat suit to wade through the mindless toxicity for what passes as “insight”), let’s get right to the most intriguing part of the entire piece as it comes from Christina Kahrl of B-Pro, who lists the main component of “What Went Wrong” for the 2010 Indians as “injuries, injuries, and more injuries”, pointing out specifically the injuries to Sizemore, Cabrera, and Santana.

Given what we’ve seen recently from the “offensive” side of the Indians (see what I did there?), does anyone know that Cabrera played in 90 games this year, Santana played in just 46, and Sizemore played in only 33 games?

Certainly, the performance before the injuries to Cabrera (he had a .689 OPS when Jhonny broke his arm) and Sizemore (.560 OPS before being shelved) don’t merit the assertion that any promising seasons were “derailed” by injury, but the issue of when Sizemore’s injury occurred remains up for debate (as it was intimated at one point that it happened in Spring Training and he attempted to fight through it) and Cabrera’s .689 OPS is actually not that far off how he has started the last few years.

For those players a certain track record exists in MLB that justifies the “injuries, injuries, and more injuries” as a card to play for the Indians (and I’ll note that my season ticket folder had Choo, Sizemore, and Cabrera on the cover), but how about Carlos Santana?

While everyone remembers the manner in which Santana burst on the scene, with hype surrounding him unseen in these parts since…well, probably Victor or CC, Santana proved to be the first Indians’ youngster in recent memory to ascend to the parent club and actually, you know…perform right off of the bat. For an organization that constantly has to preach the virtues of “making adjustments” and “let guys ease into things” (for as long as I can remember) because nearly ALL of their prospects struggle when they arrive from the Farm, Santana came to Cleveland and showed that the talk that accompanied his arrival was justified by impacting the team immediately.

That being said, you know who has 90 more plate appearances than Santana did this year?
Luis Valbuena…hell, Rusty Branyan strode to the plate 2 fewer times than The Axe Man did this year for the Tribe. Santana, for as much as he is being counted on as a pillar in the lineup going forward, has less than 200 MLB plate appearances and while he certainly seemed to have an impact on the club in terms of record, his impact on the lineup was not as profound as you might think:
Opening Day to June 10th (Prior to Call-Up)
Team Record: 23-36
.246 BA / .325 OBP / .367 SLG / .692 OPS averaging 4.1 runs per game

June 11th to August 2nd (Santana on team)
Team Record: 22-25
.250 BA / .322 OBP / .401 SLG / .723 OPS averaging 3.9 runs per game

August 3rd to Now (After Injury)
Team Record: 18-30
.244 BA / .312 OBP / .358 SLG / .670 OPS averaging 3.7 runs per game

Certainly other factors and situations with particular players affect those batting lines and (more specifically) the runs per game that exist independent of Santana’s presence, but the Indians’ offense was not evoking memories of the 1995 lineup with Santana in it, his presence simply made it more palatable and exciting to watch.

That being said, while it is true that the Indians were 22-25 with Santana on the team and 41-66 without him on the squad, the overall offensive numbers show that the return of Carlos Santana is not a panacea for this offense and that the Indians need to count on more than Santana to escape their current offensive doldrums if they hope to be a productive offense in 2011 and beyond.

Don’t get me wrong, certainly Santana’s return will help, but looking at Santana and the other players that have been missing – and more importantly, the players that have replaced them in the lineup – starts to shed some light on how this Indians’ offense (which actually looked to be a strength of the team in Goodyear) came to the current state. Just to use Sizemore, Santana, and Cabrera as examples, here is how their replacements fared in 2010, putting their performance into the proper context:
Crowe
.255 BA / .308 OBP / .341 SLG / .648 OPS in 446 PA
There are 182 players in MLB with more than 425 PA.
Among them, Crazy Eyes ranks 170th in OPS, 158th in OBP, and 168th in SLG.

Marson
.197 BA / .273 OBP / .291 SLG / .564 OPS in 284 PA
There are 279 players in MLB with more than 275 PA.
Among them, Tofu Lou ranks 275th in OPS, 274th in OBP, and 274th in SLG.

Valbuena
.181 BA / .268 OBP / .246 SLG / .514 OPS in 282 PA
Again, there are 279 players in MLB with more than 275 PA.
Among them, Louie the Fifth ranks second to last in OPS, 275th in OBP, and dead last in SLG.

Maybe you want to use Brantley as the replacement for Sizemore (and, trust me, you really don’t if you want to feel better about this team, given that Mike Brantley ranks 271st in that list of 279 MLB players with more than 275 PA) or think that Donald was the replacement for Cabrera (which isn’t really true as Valbuena stuck around because of Cabrera’s injury and was about to be replaced by Donald when Cabrera was hurt), but you start to see the point here. Essentially, when the team went to the Junior Varsity (or, in the cases of Marson and Valbuena, who both were the Opening Day Starters, the de facto “Varsity”), the Indians dipped into what can currently be seen as the shallow end of the talent pool.

That’s not to say that these players have no value (except for Crowe, who is indisputably without value) as Marson is a solid back-up C at the very least who is still 23 and could be mature into a defense-first starting backstop in the league and Valbuena…well, he hits RHP very well (.891 OPS vs. RHP, .446 OPS vs. LHP), but it gets to that idea that everything needs to go right for the Tribe, regardless of whether we’re talking about a year that they think that they contend or not, and when they start trotting out Plan B (much less Plan C or D) on the field, bad things are going to happen.

What is interesting is that there seems to be this pervasive idea (admittedly put forth here) that the Indians’ offense is fine and that it lines up very nicely for the future with Santana, LaPorta, Donald/Kipnis, Cabrera, The Chiz, Choo, Brantley, and Sizemore figuring in as the presumed lineup that will take shape over the course of the next year or so. However, the fact remains that while that list looks good on paper, those players need to reach the potential that’s become expected of them and they need to remain healthy or else this team devolves very quickly into the Trevor Crowe crowd.

As a quick aside on Crowe, did everyone see this from Terry Pluto this morning:
After Shin-Soo Choo, what Indian has the most at-bats? It’s Trevor Crowe, who entered the weekend hitting .256 (.651 OPS) with 2 HR and 31 RBI in 406 at-bats. He also leads the team by hitting into 13 double plays. He’s had the opportunity to establish himself as a possible regular, but he’s shown to be a backup -- especially at the age of 26.

Since Pluto stops short of saying it, inferring that Crowe is better off as a “backup”, I’ll take that next step and point out that a 26-year-old OF with a .651 OPS who has no instincts in the field and seems to be generally more concerned about HOW he looks while making a play than he is about, you know, MAKING the play shouldn’t be a viable MLB player for the Indians, affordability or not. The hope is that 2010 represented the first and perhaps last shot for players like Crowe and their ilk, where an opportunity was extended to them (despite a Minor League track record that did not justify it) and the player turned out to be the marginal MLB player who should not be counted upon to hold a spot on the 25-man roster (and probably the 40-man roster) going forward.

Back to that presumed lineup, don’t take this a cup full of mud on your cereal (as I do remain optimistic about nearly all of that “presumed” lineup), but as much as the pitching gets the teeth-gnashing and the wringing of hands, this team needs the offense that looked to be “lined up” to start producing and to improve nearly across the board. While certain bright spots may exist, there are more players that need to make that adjustment to MLB and make it in short order to make this offense viable for next year.

Unfortunately that “presumed” lineup for 2011 consists nearly completely of players that are coming off of injury (Santana, Sizemore), players coming off of disappointing years perhaps exacerbated by injury (LaPorta and Cabrera), players that are either still adjusting to MLB (Brantley and Donald), players that have barely made it to AAA (Kipnis and The Chiz), a part-time DH (Hafner), and the one bright spot – Choo.

That doesn’t take into account the idea that 3B is still a hole and that those players that are “still adjusting to MLB” are likely to do so into next year. To go further on that, and I don’t mean to continually be the bearer of bad news, Mike Brantley’s numbers since he was most recently called up to play in the everyday lineup are .283 BA / .317 OBP / .358 SLG / .675 OPS and while the SLG is not a surprise, let’s hold off on extolling Brantley’s “readiness” to be a lead-off hitter based on those 39 games (19-game hitting streak or not, because his OBP was .309 during the streak) and see if he’s able to improve that .317 OBP which, I might point out, is lower than the OBP mark put up by Jason Michaels in both 2006 and 2007.

Back to the injury front, the issue that seems to still exist is something that Kahrl addresses in the aforementioned “Kiss ‘Em Goodbye” piece when she indicates this as “What Won’t Happen Again”:
Injuries, or so you’d have to hope. The Tribe was below average offensively at eight of nine lineup slots, and while prospects like Santana, LaPorta, and Brantley should get established enough to help reverse that next year, they desperately need Sizemore to revert to the form that made him one of the game’s rising stars.

Given the uncertain nature of how Sizemore and Santana will recover from their injuries (and you would assume that Cabrera and LaPorta, assuming his injuries are lingering, would be fully healthy), the issue with recovery time and expectations now starts to affect how the Indians approach the off-season.

That is to say, if Sizemore’s recovery is going to extend into the 2011 season (and I’ve seen no indication that it is supposed to, just figuring that these are, after all, injuries to Indians…which have a history of “lingering”), do they look for a LF who could be playing every day for ½ of the season so they don’t have to leave it up to the likes of Trevor Crowe to start the 2011 season?

Additionally, how aggressive do the Indians get with finding a RH bat to augment Hafner at DH and should they be looking for a guy who can share time at 1B (because of LaPorta’s hip) or LF (because of Sizemore’s knee) or C (because of Santana’s leg) or are they confident enough in the recovery of all three to simply let it ride with those internal options and, frankly, hope for the best?

If the approach is the former, the likes of Mike Napoli jump out as a backup catcher/part-time 1B/RH partner for Hafner, but even mentioning names feels premature given the uncertain nature over the recoveries to those injured players.

Whether “injuries, injuries, and more injuries” are truly to blame for the Indians’ offensive struggles for 2010, the idea that “recoveries from injury, recoveries from ineffectiveness, and recoveries from inconsistency” are on the docket for 2011 in the Indians’ lineup. If they are not, the 2011 lineup (which looked to be moderately “set” going forward) may start to resemble the squad that’s been on display for much of this year, full of placeholders, non-prospects, and young players struggling (as usual, given that they are Indians) in their first exposure to MLB.

A widespread “recovery” is needed for the Indians’ offense to cement a turnaround for 2011 and while the names and the pedigrees may elicit confidence for the future, the performances and injures sustained by some of those names in 2010 have done little to project that the offensive trouble that’s been on display all year at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario is going to be remedied any time soon.

The Diff

On a day in which the Twins’ “hungover” lineup (a day game after clinching the Central) can best the Indians…well, would you say “C” lineup for Chris Gimenez or “D” lineup for Drew Sutton and just a few days removed from the whole “the Tribe just needs to win one more game to avoid 100 losses” thing, the Indians’ season has officially bottomed out as even the most ardent fans are struggling to feign interest in playing out the string this year. Thus, while all of us would like to spend the day reveling in the triumphant return of “Fire Joe Morgan” to the Interwebs (for a day…and this is the funniest thing that you will read today), the sweep of the Indians at the hands of the Twins over the last couple of days has forced some serious reflection.

This is not “new” news, but the Twins captured their 6th AL Central crown in the past 9 years and while that was not an unexpected outcome in the Spring, how about the manner in which this 2010 Twins’ team overcame a mountain of adversity to get to this point?

The day after they clinched the Central, Craig Calcaterra summed up that “mountain of adversity” thusly:
The Twins lost their All-Star closer to Tommy John surgery in March. They lost their MVP candidate first baseman to a concussion in July. Their reigning MVP catcher’s OPS is down 150 points from a year ago. Going in and along the way there was much reason to doubt. In the end they become the first team to clinch.

Success was predicted for the Twins prior to the season, but if someone would have said that Nathan would have missed the year, Morneau would have been out since the All-Star Break and that Joe Mauer would have 9 HR with a week left in the season, where would you have placed the Twins’ chances to contend, much less clinch, even in a weak AL Central.

This is not meant to heap praise on the Twins (as the assembled Cleveland announcers and press corps has done enough of that to make me want me stick my finger down my throat) nor is it meant to proclaim that the Twins have figured out how to compete in an unbalanced marketplace, considering that they’ve won a total of two playoff games in four trips since 2003. Rather, it’s meant to put into perspective how the Twins have somehow persevered and succeeded, even with lofty expectations, when everything seemed to go against them, something that the Indians in recent memory (notably 2008) were unable to accomplish.

You remember that, right?
WAY back in 2008, when the popular WS Champion pick, YOUR Cleveland Indians were deep-sixed by injuries to Martinez and Hafner as Carmona completely fell apart and every single bullpen arm (notably Betancourt and Perez) worsened while CC counted the days until Free Agency.

Compare what the Twins are doing this season to what that 2008 Indians’ team did…and don’t you dare say that the Indians were “broken up” too soon that year because that notion is revisionist history at its very worst.

What is most intriguing about the Twins this year is how they got to this point and how, despite monumental mistakes in terms of player trades and letting players simply walk away, they have never failed at putting complementary pieces around their “core” group of players and the Twins just keep rolling on.

To look at the Twins’ offense this year, figuring that Morneau has been out since July and Mauer has been significantly less effective, consider the OPS+ numbers for what you would have to consider the the complementary Twins offensive players:
Delmon Young – 116 OPS+
Michael Cuddyer – 102 OPS+
Jason Kubel – 102 OPS +
JJ Hardy – 93 OPS+
Orlando Hudson – 93 OPS+
Denard Span – 86 OPS+

Nothing too impressive there (though I know that I’m omitting Thome), but even Delmon Young, with his “breakout season”, is sitting on that OPS+ of 116 after posting a cumulative OPS+ of 96 in his first two years as a Twin while the main player he was traded for (Matt Garza) has a 3.89 ERA (109 ERA+) in his first three years as a Ray. Even the auxiliary player dealt for Young (Jason Bartlett) had outperformed Young in his first two years (Bartlett's OPS+ for 2008 and 2009 was 109) as a Ray, so the Twins traded a front-to-middle-of-the-rotation starter and a serviceable middle infielder for a player whose “breakout” year involves 18 HR…and yet the Twins just keep rolling on.

Just to use the Young deal as an introduction here, it stands to reason that there is no “perfect” organization (and I’ll have you notice here that the Rays are about to slash payroll significantly in 2011, regardless of what happens in the playoffs), and the the Twins are by no means a “perfect” organization. To wit, the three players they acquired for Johan Santana (the winter before CC was dealt) that have played in MLB have all found their way out of Minnesota. Carlos Gomez was dealt to Milwaukee for JJ Hardy and Kevin Mulvey was the PTBNL last August when the Twins acquired Jon Rauch, meaning that the Twins have Hardy and Rauch to show for Santana not quite two years after making the deal. Beyond that, the team let Torii Hunter walk after the 2007 season, meaning that they had no return to show for him, outside of draft picks.

You wouldn’t know that from where the Twins have finished in the standings however because (and I don’t mean this to turn into a love-fest or admiration from afar of the Twins…I really don’t), but the Twins have soldiered on through the losses of Santana and Hunter (with little to nothing to show for them), the injury and long road back for Liriano and just this year have made it through Nathan’s injury, Morneau being gone for the last two months and the player that they just signed to an 8-year, $184M deal falling back to his career numbers after what could have possibly been an all-too-perfectly time career year.

As a quick aside on that “player that they just signed to an 8-year, $184M deal”, check this:
Mauer’s first 4 full years
.318 BA / .408 OBP / .451 SLG / .852 OPS with an average of 12 HR per 162 games

Mauer 2009
.365 BA / .444 OBP / .587 SLG / 1.031 OPS with 28 HR in 138 games

Mauer 2010
.331 BA / .407 OBP / .473 SLG / .880 OPS with 9 HR in 133 games

That’s not to discount Mauer as a player or his value behind the plate, but he is now 27 years old with his recent deal keeping him under contract for $23M per year through the 2018 season, at which point he will be 35 years old. While I’ll stop short of intimating any kind of Pronkian future (as we are talking about the Twins, who simply overcome adversity and the Indians, who are overcome by adversity)...they, um, they might that want that one back eventually.

But I digress and to get back to the matter at hand, the manner in which the Twins have been constructed is to rely on their middle-of-the-order presences (Mauer and Morneau) and generally complementary pieces around them to pester the opposition into defeat while generally average starting pitchers give way to a consistently outstanding lockdown bullpen, which has always been anchored by Nathan.

All of which makes this year so intriguing as the Twins have won without Mauer at full strength and simply without Nathan and Morneau for half the season. While it is true that Liriano has finally re-emerged as the pitcher that everyone was hoping that he would one day be once more, that maturation is not all that different from the roller coaster ride that has been the renaissance of Fausto Carmona. Liriano has unquestionably been much better than Carmona, but the rotation past him is a reclamation project that the Tribe pulled off the trash heap last year and a pitcher in Brian Duensing who started the year in the bullpen. Just as amazing is the fact that the bullpen consists of six (SIX!) relievers that have appeared in 40 or more games, all of whom have an ERA+ of 124 or better. Throw in the fact that a seventh (Matt Capps) was acquired mid-season and has posted a 193 ERA+ in 24 games and it becomes amazing as to how the Twins find these guys to plug in and…say it with me, just keep rolling on.

Going further, the amazing aspect of the Twins’ success this year is where those “guys” are coming from and where that production is coming from, and (just to keep this in the proper context and mildly related to the Indians) here are the Twins’ players listed by WAR (Wins Above Replacement), listing only those who have compiled a WAR above 1.5, and how each player was acquired by Minnesota:
Twins 2010
Mauer: 5.3 – Amateur Draft
Pavano: 4.8 – Free Agency
Liriano: 4.8 – Trade
Morneau: 4.0 – Amateur Draft
Duensing: 3.8 – Amateur Draft
Thome: 3.0 – Free Agency
Slowey: 2.1 – Amateur Draft
Baker: 2.1 – Amateur Draft
Valencia: 2.0 – Amateur Draft
Crain: 1.6 – Amateur Draft
Hudson: 1.5 – Free Agency

Notice a trend there, even among those “complementary pieces” that fill out the rotation and the bullpen?
You’ll notice that Cuddyer, Kubel, and Span (all also acquired the Amateur Draft) are not listed because…well, because they’re not having good years and if you’re wondering how much those three FA cost the Twins this year, that number is $13.5M, with all three players working on one-year deals and with Pavano earning the lion’s share of that money with his $7M salary.

For some (sickening) perspective, here are the Indians’ players listed by WAR (Wins Above Replacement), listing only those who have compiled a WAR above 1.5, and how each player was acquired by Cleveland:
Indians 2010
Choo: 6.4 – Trade
C. Perez: 2.6 - Trade
Santana: 2.2 – Trade
Carmona: 2.1 – Amateur Free Agency
Hafner: 2.0 – Trade
Peralta: 1.9 – Amateur Draft
Branyan: 1.6 – Free Agency

Outside of the alarming notion that there are only 7 players on this list (compared to 11 for the Twins), only 4 of the Tribe contributors are currently playing for the Tribe…but, really that’s an ancillary point. The main point lies in the idea that the Twins have somehow mastered the art of finding and developing complementary pieces that do their job and the players that they develop are kept around while they are useful (and if you’ve never noticed, the bullpen just plugs in new pieces and parts with somebody making an incredibly fortuitous decision as to when to hold onto a particular player or let one go), they are also cheap and under club control because they’ve been drafted and developed by the club.

Perhaps if the Indians of the past few years had those complementary pieces to plug in, the lifeline of the Tribe may have taken a different path, but that’s a topic that’s been beaten to death, exhumed, and given the ol’ “once over” again…

Maybe Gardenhire does have something to do with all of this (and Posnanski never hesitates to posit that opinion), but what the Twins have done is not live from one “window of contention” to the next as most other small-market teams have done. They’ve drafted well, were the beneficiaries of incredibly fortunate to draft Joe Mauer with the #1 overall pick, and added pieces and parts to what looks to be a machine capable of finding spare parts to replace what looked to be irreplaceable parts.

Whether any of the good fortune and amazing perseverance that the Twins have shown this year will translate to the playoffs (and it should be pointed out that the Twins are 46-20 against the AL Central and 38-30 against the rest of the AL this year and were 46-27 against the AL Central and 29-43 against the rest of the AL last year) remains to be seen as the Twins represent the small-market model by which a team strives to contend year with the idea that “anything can happen in the playoffs” not quite bearing fruit for them.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, the strategy seems to fall more in line with the idea to load it all up for one run, with the idea that the team will be built to succeed not only in the postseason, but to line up with the superpowers of the AL and stare them in the eye.

Ultimately, the Indians have won more playoff series (one) than the Twins in the past eight years, despite making it to the playoffs only once to the Twins’ four trips, with Minnesota’s fifth trip coming the next few weeks. While neither teams’ “strategy” has resulted in the achievement of the ultimate goal, watching the Indians and Twins (the teams, not the strategies) face off on the field this week, there should be no question as to which most fans would prefer.

A Lazy Sunday with “The Keys”

On a morning when most red-meat eating sports fans that populate the North Coast are down near the lakefront eating…well, red-meat and quaffing away at something that will sufficiently lubricate them by 1:00 PM, Indians’ fans (all couple hundred of us these days) are left to dissect an Indians-Royals series with the cellar in the AL Central on the line.

Despite some interminable rain delays, the Indians have taken the first two from the Royals as their climb out of last place has reached the 62-win “plateau”. Of course, that means that the Indians need to win only one more game in their final 14 to be assured of avoiding a 100-loss season and (while anything is possible with the current Indians’ team) it would seem that the Indians will finish the year with a loss total somewhere in the low-to-mid-90’s.

Nevertheless, those 14 games remain and while most eyes are fixed on the Orange and Brown and/or the Scarlett and Gray, the Indians’ season…say it with me…rolls on in earnest and as long as it does and it is Sunday, we’ll keep the white sphere rolling with another Lazy one.

And with that, we’re off…
Starting from the top, whenever Anthony Castrovice has broken open the mailbag and is working the Inbox, that’s where we’re going to get started and, as usual, AC doesn’t disappoint. As a quick aside, is it wild to anyone else that Castrovince’s “Inbox” is must-read material while the “Letters” to the other beat writers are simply fodder for humor and satire because of the (borrowing a phrase here) anachronistic nature of some of the other beat writers?

Regardless, let’s all enjoy AC and the Inbox before he moves onto bigger and better things as a sports journalist, which is inevitable and deservedly so. Back to the matter at hand, the lead topic for the “Inbox” is one Matt MaTola and what can be gleaned from his 2010 season and how it relates to his future potential:
… the Indians don’t like to judge a player on his first 500 at-bats, and LaPorta will have every opportunity to show improvement next season. He has shown the raw power to hit -- and even mis-hit -- balls out of the ballpark. But his general inconsistency has clearly demonstrated his immaturity as a Major League hitter. He’s been accused of being pull-happy.

Whether LaPorta’s inconsistency is derived from a lack of focus, lingering issues with the left hip or the simple acclimation process many young hitters go through at this level is a question I can’t answer. All I know is the Indians have to hope for more from LaPorta next season, or the CC swap will receive even more scrutiny than it has already.

This is the LaPorta conundrum in a nutshell as he’s been wildly inconsistent and prone to “Peraltan” (and this should find a place in the Indians’ dictionary, along with the already-minted “Sowersian”) periods of ineffectiveness at the plate, looking bad on swings-and-misses and showing none of the power that was purported to be MLB-read a solid 2 ½ years ago. Among his hits (and there haven’t been many this year), only 6.5% of them have gone for extra bases and if you want some context on that, 6.3% of Tofu Lou Marson’s hits have gone for extra bases and 6.1% of the hits by Trevor Crowe (who should not be counted on to be much more than an easy DFA decision going forward) this season have gone for extra bases.
No, seriously…

The addendum to that is that MaTola is not far off from his 26th birthday and his season compares not too favorably with an older former top prospect that is likely seeing his last couple of weeks in an Indians uniform:
Marte – 2010 (Age 26)
.212 BA / .288 OBP / .363 SLG / .651 OPS in 163 PA
LaPorta – 2010 (Age 25)
.220 BA / .304 OBP / .361 SLG / .665 OPS in 385 PA

While I’m not going to enter the realm of calling LaPorta a “bust” at this stage in his young career, he certainly has firmed up his spot on the “disappointment” side of the ledger for 2010. Of course, there remains the possibility that his hip issues have robbed him of some of his power or have forced him into some bad habits at the plate, and if that is indeed the case, the Indians better hope that LaPorta heals quickly and can translate his AAA success to MLB in short order for next year. Going further on this, Jon Steiner has a great piece on LaPorta at WFNY, in which he paints the situation pretty accurately:
In 579 big league plate appearances (about a full season), LaPorta has a .232/.306/.384 line. Those are numbers you might tolerate from a slick-fielding SS who saves runs with his glove, but not from a lumbering first baseman with little-to-no defensive value. In short, LaPorta must adjust next season, or his big league career could be in serious jeopardy.

MaTola has shown power in the Minor Leagues, but this year his numbers have paled in comparison to even what “place-holder” Ryan Garko did in his final full year as an Indian (.273 BA / .346 OBP / .404 SLG / .750 OPS…as a 27-year-old, by the by) and if LaPorta was seen as an upgrade over the likes of Garko and Jordan Brown (whose slap-hitting tendencies simply aren’t suited to translate for a LF/1B/DH in MLB), well…that “upgrade” isn’t too evident these days.

Certainly, the pedigree is still there for LaPorta as a top pick/former top prospect who has mashed in MiLB, but his importance to the future success of this team (in the short and long-term) cannot be underestimated as a RH bat (and supposedly a power RH bat) to this lineup going forward. To that end, let’s think about what the 2011 lineup figures to look like, and I’m listing these players in order of how much confidence I have in them in 2011 and not as a proposed 2011 batting order:
Choo – Left
Santana – Switch
Hafner – Left
Cabrera – Switch
Sizemore – Left
Brantley – Left
…you picking this up yet?
LaPorta – Right
Donald – Right
Fill in the 3B – Probably Right

Sure, Santana is a switch-hitter, but everyone knows that he posted an OPS of 1.002 as a LH hitter and a .582 as a RH hitter this year, right? By no means am I saying that this will be par for the course for Santana (MiLB OPS as a LH hitter of .879 and a MiLB OPS as a RH hitter of .960), but the team is otherwise completely devoid of RH power (and Weglarz and The Chiz are both…wait for it…LEFT-HANDED), unless LaPorta is able to step into that void…something he needs to do in short order.

The LaPorta “issue” is emblematic of the MAJOR issues facing the Indians going forward as Vince Grzegorek absolutely nails (in a “Dear John” letter saying goodbye to the Indians’ season for Yahoo! in a piece that you must read) when Vince captures the importance of the recently-acquired prospects in the grand scheme of things as to how the Indians find themselves where they are and where they’re going:
We get it. You had to trade Lee, Martinez, and Sabathia. You couldn’t afford to sign them. Economic landscape of baseball... blah blah blah. We get it. (It’s here that I’d add you didn't have to fork over $57 million over four years to Travis Hafner, but whatever.)
Really, we get it though — small market team, narrow window, gotta trade and draft well, build through the minors, everyone has to stay healthy. This year wasn’t unexpected. We knew you would be bad. But...
... well, it’s almost time for those prospects and acquisitions to come through. Probably not next year, but definitely the year after. You had to unload your gaudy soon-to-be free agents but you had better show us something in return. Brantley, Santana, LaPorta, Carrasco and others need to play and produce and not turn into Trevor Crowe or Marte or Jeremy SowersPart II.

Admittedly, that last line was bolded by me for emphasis and I will say again to please click on the piece as Vince does completely nail the tenor of the season and avoids the easy cheap shots at the organization that so many of those that write about the team are so quick to simply fall back on, putting together an accurate assessment and recap of the nightmarish season that still hasn’t ended.

Again, what stands out is the realization that “Brantley, Santana, LaPorta and others need to play and produce” will ultimately determine how quickly/slowly this “Reload/Rebuild/Whatever” starts to bear fruit or dies on the vine, with the future of the Indians perhaps at stake.

Among all of the players that have been acquired over the past two years, the two most important pieces are the aforementioned LaPorta and Carlos Carrasco, mainly because the complementary pieces acquired via trade are nice (and don’t mistake that for me calling Santana or CF Perez just “complementary pieces”), but the middle-of-the-order hitter and the front-end-of-the-rotation starter are what you’re looking for when you’re trading reigning Cy Young Award winners.

As much as Jason Knapp is claimed as the “key” to the Lee deal, Carrasco’s importance to the return to contention for the Indians is much more critical and his recent success hopefully serves as a harbinger of things to come, as Terry Pluto writes, “at 23 with a 93 mph fastball, excellent control and a sharp slider he can throw at any point in the count, he seems ready to take a prominent spot in next season’s rotation.”

For the sake of the Indians and their short-and-long-term future, they had better hope so (and here’s where I drop in the fact that the collective numbers for Carmona, Carrasco, and Masterson in the month of September are a cumulative 1.72 ERA, a cumulative 0.97 WHIP, and 56 K against 16 BB in 68 innings over 10 games), and if what a scout tells B-Pro’s John Perrotto on Carlos Carrasco is true, the Indians may have a young pitcher who has turned the first proverbial corner towards effectiveness:
Indians right-hander Carlos Carrasco: “He looks a lot more confident than he did when he was up in the big leagues last September. He throws 93 mph but the big difference is that he’s throwing his curveball and changeup for strikes now. If he can keep doing that, he’s going to be a very effective starter for a long time.”

While the “going to be a very effective starter for a long time” line conveys a bit of a dismissive view of him, (and I don’t know how many times this has to be repeated, but I’ll keep repeating it) he’s 23 years old and if he’s progressed to this point and the Indians control him for 6 years as a “very effective starter”, some optimism does return in terms of Carrasco’s future, something that didn’t exist at this time last year.

The 2010 Indians find themselves in the bed that they’ve made and while the “analysts” at FanGraphs fall all over themselves over Kyle Drabek’s debut (in a piece that is interesting to note in that it mentions that Drabek really doesn’t have an effective change-up yet) and the Phillies’ return for Lee has amounted to the “key” to the trade being demoted from AA to Single-A, another player being arrested on cocaine possession, and the third player (a pitcher no less) having hip surgery after posting a 4.82 cumulative ERA as a 21-year-old in A+/AA, there’s no question that the returns for CC and Lee are going to determine where this team goes from here.

Chief among players that are going to determine the short-and-long-term future of this team are LaPorta and Carrasco and, while that may scare the pants off of you, those two players are going to be given every opportunity to justify their inclusion in those trades and the prospect pedigree that led them to be ostensibly the main players acquired for the two biggest trading chips in the breakdown of the Indians’ team of the mid-to-late-2000s.

If LaPorta turns into a middle-of-the-order presence from the right side of the plate, things get a lot easier for the Tribe going forward, just as the future of the rotation looks much brighter if Carrasco’s brief stint with the Indians this year is a glimpse as to what’s coming and isn’t remembered as simply being a tease.

That may be stating the obvious, but it cannot be stated forcefully enough that those two players are the key players for the success (or, let’s be honest…for the failure) of the Indians over the next 3 to 5 years as we’ve seen that the pipeline was essentially dry and covered in cobwebs when both were added to the organization and their presence as “ready” or “near-ready” contributors to the middle-of-the-order or the front-to-middle-of-the-rotation will go a long way in determining what the Indians’ 2011 and 2012 season looks like and whether the Indians truly are stuck in a vortex that will continue to drag them down or if the seeds of success have already been sown and simply need time to germinate and bloom.

While optimism can be gleaned from the recent performance of Carrasco, the same cannot be said for that of LaPorta (who, as Rick Manning said, “did what you’re supposed to do” to a fastball down the middle last night) and the importance of BOTH of those players to turn into more than “mistakes” or “miscalculations” on the part of the Indians will ultimately determine whether better days are on the horizon because it’s always darkest before dawn or if the Indians are on the precipice of an extended period of darkness.

Falling Tomahawks

While the calendar tells us that it is not yet Fall, that Autumn feel is pervasive in Cleveland and I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it. Give me the 2 months between Labor Day and Halloween every year to remember why I love the North Coast – flush with clambakes and weekend days filled with something simmering on the stove (chili, pasta sauce, brisket) all day, some Oktoberfest in hand from GLBC (cider from Patterson’s Fruit Farm for the kids), with the promise of a Pumpkin Roll from Heinen’s for dessert and you can count me as one happy camper.

There is no better feeling than simply throwing on a sweatshirt/sweater and a pair of jeans and enjoying the best time of the year in Cleveland, with another layer of clothing being thrown on at night to accompany some friends around a fire pit. With the Indians’ season listing to a finish, the Browns’ season spiking itself in the starting blocks, the Cavs’ pending season perhaps evoking memories of Wes Person and LaMond Murray, and the local government officials providing more embarrassment to a region in need of no more, Fall in Cleveland is a reminder as to why we brave the brutal winters, soldier through the losing sports seasons, and hope for better days ahead...when a sports championship trophy is showcased on a finally-and-fully-developed lakefront.

Sorry, that’s the Oktoberfest talking...
Nevertheless, let’s get some Tomahawks in the air before the leaves start falling and force us to remember the by-product of these beautiful Autumns – raking and more yard work.
Let ‘em fly...
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In a season that has been short on bright spots (Santana’s debut, CF Perez’s recent dominance, the return of ¡Fausto!, the consistency of Choo, and the return to “effectiveness” for Hafner), a shining light shone out from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario this weekend.

That “shining light” came in the performances of Carmona, Carrasco, Masterson against the Twins as the trio (yes…Talbot “started” the Sunday game, but Masterson ostensibly served as the “starter”) put forth these performances against the playoff-bound Twinkies:
Carmona – 9 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 7 K, 1 BB
Carrasco – 7 1/3 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 4 K, 3 BB
Masterson – 7 IP, 1 ER, 5 H, 6 K, 0 BB

While a weekend is just a weekend is just a weekend and not too much should be gleaned from 3 games among 162, that’s a cumulative 0.38 ERA, 0.73 WHIP with 17 K and 4 BB in 23 1/3 IP for the three pitchers who obviously figure into the 2011 rotation. Most encouraging about the starts are the manner in which each player succeeded – limiting baserunners (and, most notably, walks) and missing bats – en route to limiting the team with the 5th highest OPS in MLB and the 6th most runs in MLB on the season to a lost weekend at the plate...at least against those three starters.

Obviously, the Indians lost 2 of 3 to the Twins, but if we’re looking at performances of individual players and not just tallies in the win-loss column, the performances of Carmona, Carrasco, and Masterson begin to provide some optimism (and perhaps confidence) that the Indians DO, in fact, have some internal rotation options that project to be more than just middle-to-back-end-of-the-rotation fodder.
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To that end, here’s what a scout told Baseball Prospectus’ John Perrotto on Fausto Carmona, his conditioning, and his repertoire:
“You can tell he has started taking the game seriously again this year. He lost weight and got the bite back on that hard sinker. He’s also greatly improved his changeup. He doesn’t strike out as many as you’d think for a guy who throws hard but he compensates by getting lots and lots of ground balls.”

With the “taking the game seriously again this year” line, I can’t tell if I’m happy to read that or sad, given what we know about how 2008 and 2009 and how the SEVERE regression of Carmona from 2007 was a major contributing factor in where the Indians sit today.

Regardless, getting the “bite back on that hard sinker” and improving his changeup portends that better days may indeed be ahead for Carmona (signed on club options through 2014), although the idea that he had allowed his weight get away from him, affecting his performance and the direction of the franchise as a result, make this evaluation more bitter than sweet.
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If you notice what the Indians’ 2011 rotation looks like (Carmona, Carrasco, Masterson, Talbot, Gomez, Tomlin), it looks decidedly RH and, unless you see a turnaround for Dave Huff in terms of organizational standing and don’t think that Aaron Laffey is destined for the bullpen (I don’t and he is), the Indians are largely bereft of LH options for the rotation for 2011 and probably for 2012.

While the handedness of the 2011 rotation may not really matter, in terms of whether the team is legitimately looking to contend in 2011 or just attempting to get a better read on pitchers like Gomez and Tomlin, while perhaps getting a look at Alex White (also RH), given that the Indians are likely to explore the open market for a veteran pitcher, should they be looking to target a LH one?

With the unfortunate exception of Jason Johnson, the Indians have built a decent track record in terms of adding and utilizing veteran pitchers when they are relatively cheap (and Millwood really wasn’t cheap when he was a “reclamation project” making $7M) or when they are looking to resurrect their career (as in the case of Hot Carl Pavano, although his success came a year after he was an Indian) and have signed them generally to harmless one-year deals in the hopes that they will either exceed expectations or buy the organization developmental time in terms of their young pitchers.

All of that being said, back to the idea that the Indians could be looking to add a veteran LHP, what would be out there in terms of options?
Given that CP Lee probably isn’t making a valiant return to Cleveland to doff his cap again for the home faithful, the types of players that likely fit into the Indians’ “needs” (in terms of expected years and dollars) are either going to come via the second tier of FA or perhaps from a group of players who could be non-tendered by their current clubs.

On the Free Agent front (and here’s the whole list of FA), as much as I’d love to say to go out and get Ted Lilly (cumulative ERA of the last 4 years of 3.60, ERA+ of 116), he is going to likely command a multi-year deal at a high annual salary, two factors the Indians probably aren’t going to be interested in at this stage in the “Reload/Rebuild/Whatever”. Beyond that, if the Indians are looking for an innings-eater and preferably one who would be LH, one option may be Bruce Chen. I know...I know...BRUCE CHEN!?! Is that what we’ve come to?

Well, perhaps – and don’t forget that I still think that the Indians’ first option is probably Westbrook, and seeing as how Jake’s another RHP, this is designed to look at LHP options – but let’s remember that Chen is still only 33 and while his ERA (4.67) and his FIP (4.58, which is a career low) aren’t going to win many beauty contests, he would provide the Indians some LH depth in their rotation.

Would he be a better option than just letting Gomez or Tomlin get a long leash?
Probably not, but if you’re looking for LH rotation options that legitimately could be on the Indians’ radar, Chen is at least a step up from other FA like Doug Davis, he of ERA of 53+ with a WHIP of 1.98 in Milwaukee this year.

On the non-tender front, perhaps the Indians look at guys like Zack Duke, Ryan Rowland-Smith, or even John Lannan, which is an interesting name because of the connection with the Nationals, although none of those guys look like anything more than shots in the dark or picking through another team’s detritus.

If anything, maybe that little trip through what might be available on the FA market and sorting through some non-tender candidates is the idea that the Indians shouldn’t be worrying about handedness and more concerned about getting a viable veteran option to plug into the rotation.

While Westbrook is the most obvious candidate of a veteran innings-eater, guys like Hiroki Kuroda, Aaron Harang, Vincente Padilla would be the guys that you could look at on the high end with the likes of Rodrigo Lopez, Freddy Garcia, Dave Bush, and Jeremy Bonderman falling more in line with the types of arms that can truly be classified as “reclamation projects” if you’re adding an external arm to the 2011 rotational mix. Past that, you’re into damaged goods territory with Brad Penny, Erik Bedard, Ben Sheets, and the like.

Perhaps the Indians have some sort of trade idea up their sleeve, but the pickings are slim in the trough that the Indians figure to feed from this off-season in terms of fattening up next year’s rotation.
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If you have a remaining interest as to how the Indians finish the season and how it relates to more than just the AL Central standings, MLB Trade Rumors has a “Reverse Standings” page that shows how the projected 2011 MLB Draft order is stacking up. Go ahead, bookmark it (if anyone still does that) or do whatever you want with it, just don’t ask me who the 4th pick in the 2011 MLB Draft looks like in September of 2010.

Hey, if the NFL Draft is the most exciting thing about the Browns’ season, perhaps the Indians are just capitalizing on the town’s obsession with draft position and what may one day be...
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Speaking of the NFL (and this is just slightly off-topic), the beginning of football season always has me feeling like a bit of an outsider as I’m more than happy to watch some Browns’ football (plus the requisite Packers’ game for The DiaBride) on a Sunday and Ohio State games are necessary Saturday activities. However, sitting in the barber shop yesterday listening to two guys break down the Redskins’ offensive line and the Chargers’ secondary made me realize how out of the loop I am in terms of NFL-mania that has undeniably swept across our great nation.

Thankfully, I didn’t feel quite as alone as I normally do when I read this from Craig Calcaterra on the start of the NFL season:
“Being a baseball fan these past several days has been like belonging to some tiny religious sect that worships and exalts austerity at Christmas time. Everyone in America is celebrating the return of their gambling, beer drinking and fantasy sports pretext, and I couldn’t care less.”

So….this and forgive me if I don’t know who Jamaal Charles or Arian Foster is or where they came from, but the fact that makes me feel like somewhat of a lesser American Sports Fan always bothers me this time of year.

That is, of course, until the next Oktoberfest is popped open...

A Lazy Sunday with Old Friends and Issues

As most of the North Coast tries to find a shipping address for the flower arrangement that they’d like to send to Jacory Harris while wondering whether the Browns can put any kind of pressure on Josh Freeman, the Indians’ season rolls on in earnest…if anonymity, as they attempt to win 5 more games (among their last 20) in the season to avoid the 100-loss mark. If you’re surprised that those are the kinds of “goals” being set for the team…well, you haven’t been paying attention (and perhaps rightfully so) and have focused on wins and losses instead of what really matters down the stretch here – and that would be gaining momentum into 2011.

To that end, if you’ll remember how important Carmona, Masterson, and Carrasco are to the future of the team, here are the recent numbers for each…with the Small Sample Size siren blaring:
Carmona – 0.53 ERA, 0.76 WHIP, .390 OPS against, 13 K, 6 BB in 17 IP over 2 starts
Masterson – 2.95 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, .682 OPS against, 29 K, 20 BB in 42 2/3 IP over 7 starts
Carrasco – 2.18 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, .706 OPS against, 14 K, 6 BB in 20 2/3 IP over 3 starts

That’s obviously cherry-picking (which is easy to do this time of year, but it’s all we have for guys like Carrasco) and nothing new, if you’ll remember the piece from earlier this week (and Terry Pluto hits on it a little bit today), but we know what we’d like to see out of that trio coming down the stretch and, frankly, recently we’ve seen it. None of this is “new” news and what’s been happening on the field for the Tribe is actually going to take a backseat today in light of what’s happening with some former Tribe players whose current contracts (originally signed as Indians) are on the verge of expiring.

And with that (and the promise that I’ll compare the countering opinions Paul Hoynes and Joe Posnanski here in a little bit…in the first time those two names appear in the same sentence), we’re off on a Lazy One…

By “former Tribe players” with current contracts expiring, obviously this is going to be a bit of a glimpse into what’s happening with Victor and Clifton Phifer and, while that topic is akin to taking another couple of swipes at that horse that they’re preparing a grave for, the context of what those two players are looking for in FA and the Indians’ roster with and without those two players is where I’d like to put the focus today.

Particularly relevant is the recent news that the Red Sox put in their initial offer to Martinez, which was only a 2-year deal, something that was obviously met with contempt by Victor’s agent:
With catcher Victor Martinez’ future as a Red Sox up in the air after this season, Martinez’ agent, Alan Nero, acknowledged that the offer the team recently made -- a two-year deal - is not what his client is after.
“More than anything else, when a team comes to you and says we’ll give you a one year deal or a two year deal, they’re not telling you that they see you as a long-term piece of their organization,” Nero said.

This is all posturing by an agent and attempting to negotiate in the arena of public opinion, but it is interesting to note how positional value (that is, where Victor is likely to play) is obviously going to play a role in how many years he’s going to get, something even more pertinent than how much he’ll get in annual salary. To that end, Pete Gammons thinks that the Red Sox brings up that exact topic when commenting on the Victor as a Red Sox topic:
I do think that the whole Victor Martinez may get dragged out dramatically because I know the Red Sox aren’t going to sign him for four years as a catcher. Let’s face it, his worth as a DH is a lot less than what it is as a catcher. I think that’s going to play out to see if someone is willing to give him four years as a catcher.

This, of course, raises salient points about Victor in Cleveland past 2010, which is when his current contract, signed as an Indian, was going to expire. The question with Martinez (be it in Boston or Cleveland) is where he’s going to play and here’s what I wrote just prior to Victor being traded last year:
With emotion removed from the equation, the biggest factor in extending Vic past the 2010 season is position and the players that are currently in the organization that would seem to be jockeying for the C or 1B position that Victor would almost certainly play. This is relevant because, inarguably, the Indians’ 4 best position player prospects playing at AA or above are:
Carlos Santana - AA Catcher
Matt LaPorta - AAA 1B/LF
Mike Brantley - AAA LF/CF
Nick Weglarz - AA LF/1B

Obviously, these names represent prospects and prospects are just that, but the positions that they play may hold the key as to how prudent it is to extend Victor seeing as how all four of these players figure into 2011 plans at the very latest and each impacts a position that Victor could find himself playing.
--snip--
That being said though, the Indians have to weigh the potential and projectability of these players (taking into account their affordability as young players at the same time) when determining whether committing more years and dollars to Martinez past 2010 is a sound baseball and financial decision.

We all know how this played out...or at least how it is currently playing out as Santana and Brantley have taken steps to asserting themselves into the future mix during this season while LaPorta and Weglarz remain either unsuccessful or unproven at MLB to this point as Martinez will look for a 4-year deal on the open market at a number that will probably come with a $12M to $13M annual price tag. Given that he’s 31 and that Hafner still sits squarely in the DH spot, Victor’s role on the Indians (if he hadn’t been traded) becomes murkier and (as evidenced that I wrote the piece BEFORE he was traded), it wasn’t like that should come as a surprise.

Am I suggesting that the Indians made the right move in moving Victor last year?
Not through my tear-stained Victor jersey I won’t...at least not definitively, but the Indians acted last July for a variety of reasons to quickly move towards another “window of contention” (and I’m starting to hate that phrase as much as you are) and Victor’s possible role in that is not any clearer now than it was last July.

Who know what Victor will get on the open market and whether he truly wanted to stay in Cleveland (as other past Indians have, then changed their minds when presented with more money), but it is important to contextualize what he’s likely to earn and what position he’s likely to play while he’s earning that money in terms of what the Indians will be doing at the same time.

What’s done is done and Victor and Lee were moved last July and when you start to read about Clifton Phifer, you start to wonder if trading El Capitan became a decision prompted somewhat by what Jason Stark has heard on one Mr. CP Lee:
One baseball man who goes back years with Cliff Lee has zero doubt that no matter how upbeat the Rangers may say they are about re-signing Lee, he will be a Yankee this winter once the free-agent fine print is written.
And why is that, you ask? Not because Lee has always wanted to live on the Upper East Side or because he’s a big fan of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s because the Yankees are, obviously, the best bet to outbid the rest of civilization.
“Cliff,” our source said, “would go to Siberia if they offered him the biggest contract.”

This is coming out a full year after Lee was an Indian, but this shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise as the reports that Sabathia and Lee are tight and that Sabathia has been greasing the entry way for Clifton Phifer to the Bronx is no great secret. That being said, if the Indians knew that Lee “would go to Siberia if they offered him the biggest contract” and looked at the assembled “talent” around him last July and saw the likes of Crowe and Brown as the “reinforcements”, the decision to move him becomes defensible.

Who they received is the point of contention for most, and it still remains too early to accurately frame the return, but if Lee was going at the end of 2010 and the Indians were in the “talent” shape that they were in (and that is ABSOLUTELY their own fault), the decision to move Lee sooner rather than later does start to hold up.

As a quick aside here and back to Stark’s piece, why is it that the Indians had the two top pitching guys who wanted the biggest dollar amounts instead of say, Joe Mauer or Roy Oswalt or any other player who wasn’t simply looking to go to whichever team offered (will offer) the biggest contract. I know that it’s well within their right to do so and I’ll never begrudge a player for taking more money when it is available to them, but the way that the trades of Sabathia and Lee get framed locally (if I hear “well, whenever these players get good, Dolan will just trade them like he did everyone else”, well...I don’t know what I’ll do), isn’t it worth noting the proper timeframe of these decisions?

That is, there was no way that Sabathia or Lee was staying here once they had their Cy Youngs in tow, despite all of the lip service that may present a different story. Sabathia said he wanted to stay in Cleveland, then that he said he wanted to stay in Milwaukee, then he wanted to go to the West Coast to be near his family, then he was rumored to favor the NL so he could bat and he ended up…with the Yankees and a HUGE contract, that he can opt out of next year if he so desires, despite the contract running through 2015 with guaranteed money.

Just to take another turn from the aside, I just want to point out that Paul Hoynes has a little “rant” on why “Wins” is the most important stat for a pitcher in determination of the Cy Young (something that would favor CC and his 19 wins) and, while I will let you make your own decision on that, let me just point out that Joe Posnanski wrote a piece comparing CC and Felix Hernandez which included this little gem, “the meaning of pitcher victories mostly can be summed up with one wonderful word: Bubkis.”

I’m not going to further this debate other than linking the two pieces (and JoePos has written extensively on the subject) and asking you which writer’s opinion and analysis you value more and what that means if they stand on opposite sides of the aisle on this one.

But I digress…from my digression…

Back to the matter at hand in terms of the Indians trading Sabathia and, later, Lee and Martinez and wondering whether it was truly is prudent in hindsight, without drawing conclusions on the players received for them because of the lack of a truly fair amount of time to evaluate them.

That is, the Indians could have kept Sabathia through the 2008 season and “gone for it” and kept Lee and Martinez and Lee through this season instead of placing the final sticks of dynamite to the roster last summer as they did. Unfortunately, the conversation goes back to revenue (as it always does) and goes back to the mistakes that the Indians made in terms of the dollars committed outside of these players and the lack of a supporting cast developed by the team.

However, on the issue of revenue, and more specifically revenue sharing, there is a tremendous piece from “It's About the Money” (which, in full disclosure is a Yankees’ blog) on what has been hit on ad nauseum in this space regarding the success and sustainability of the majority of MLB teams. Truthfully, I could link the whole piece and struggled not to quote it forty times in the Lazy One, but it presents a fantastic look at how the Tampa Bay Rays (used as the “Shining Example” of how small-market teams can thrive) were “built” and how Revenue Sharing had little to do with that (a decade of ineptitude and high draft picks were most “helpful”) and calls into question whether other small-market teams can reasonably build through the draft as the Rays have, stating thusly:
For one thing, few teams can afford to play losing baseball as consistently as the Rays did for a ten-year stretch in order to amass the high draft picks that are the heart of the Rays’ current team (the Pirates can and do play this badly, but other teams have occasional runs of competence).
--snip--
Even given that the Rays were terrible enough for long enough to have high draft picks for many consecutive years, they still got amazingly lucky to have chosen so many good young players in the draft. The Rays’ heavy reliance on the draft (and their apparent lack of interest in signing international players outside of the draft) does not seem like a strategy that’s worthy of emulation.”

The piece goes further to frame the Rays’ ascent in the context of the Revenue Sharing debate, using some of the numbers that are now readily available to assert this about the burgeoning Rays’ roster in 2007 and the team’s bottom line:
If the 2007 Rays are a “shining example” of anything, it is that a baseball team does not need much money to build a winner. All a team needs to emulate the Rays is the kind of consistent on-the-field failure required to amass a series of high draft picks, plus a dose of the kind of luck required to consistently select championship-level players in the draft. If revenue sharing is required at all in this process, it is required in only a modest amount sufficient to prop up the team during the lean period (10 years in the case of the Rays) while the team loses ballgames and alienates a percentage of its potential fan base.

If you’re absolutely engrossed by this stuff and haven’t yet gone to the piece to read it in it’s entirety, I would encourage you to do so, but I’ll keep pulling out some of the relevant snippets and how it relates to the Indians of the 2005-2009 “Era”, if not directly:
In baseball, there’s a rule of thumb for young teams: time is money. The 2007 Rays proved that it doesn’t take much money to assemble a good young team. But the 2008 Rays prove that it can take money to keep a good young team together long enough for the team to start winning.
--snip--
Unfortunately, the 2008 Rays represent the high point of our discussion of what revenue sharing is able to accomplish. Unfortunately, even when a team like the Rays gets lucky enough to break through and achieve success, revenue sharing does not provide what the team needs to sustain success.

Putting the whole thing in the context of the 2007, 2008, and 2009 Indians, the piece provides a compelling comparative look for the Indians adding payroll every year from 2004 to 2009 and how we’re now seeing what could await “shining examples” like the Rays or the Brewers just a few years from now while the upper echelon of teams rides right along the mountain top, poaching players like CC and Clifton Phifer and Carl Crawford and, eventually, the James Shields and David Prices of the MLB landscape.

The piece comes to the big finish on revenue sharing as it is currently constructed by asserting “how the system punishes success” in that it “pays more to the 2010 Pirates than it does the 2010 Rays” when the “current version of the Rays need revenue sharing more now than ever before” and continues on with the money quote (and again, think of this in the context of the Indians of the past 5 years or so) when it hammers it home:
Instead, we have a system of revenue sharing where billions of dollars have been invested in the potential success of teams like the Rays, but no one has thought about how these teams might sustain this success.

Success stories like the Rays don’t come around all that often (we’ll need another year at least to determine if the Reds and Padres are capable of repeating this year’s surprising performances). The Rays got lucky with their draft picks and built a terrific team. But baseball will do nothing (or at least, not enough) to help that team stay together.

And…boom.
Watching CC go for the Yankees (with Lee about to join him) and Martinez about to hit the open market, how does that last line strike you, in that “baseball will do nothing (or at least, not enough) to help that team stay together” and how does it frame the decisions made by the Indians in the past 2+ years?

The solution for Revenue Sharing is not as easy as Ken Rosenthal saying that “The Pirates and other such teams can start by signing their best homegrown talents instead of trading them the moment their salaries begin to rise” as that represents the “easy” criticism of a team already in the crosshairs. Rather, this “sustainability” idea is the one that needs to be rectified because we’ve found out all too quickly in Cleveland what happens when some of those “best homegrown talents” that were signed become anchors around the neck of a franchise or how the failures of any kind in player development can deep-six a team that seemed to have such a limitless future BECAUSE of player development.

So, it gets back to a fascinating question, which is – what if the Indians DID have the financial werewithal to keep CC, Lee, Westbrook, and Victor as long as they would have liked to?

Talk all you want about whether the Indians were right to make the trades that they did in the last 2+ years, but take a look at the projected 2011 roster (assuming that this still pretty fluid) and how each player was acquired:
C: Santana – 2008 Trade
1B: LaPorta – 2008 Trade
2B: Donald – 2009 Trade
SS: Cabrera – 2006 Trade
3B: Nix – 2010 Waiver Claim (and I’m just taking a guess here)
LF: Sizemore – 2002 Trade
CF: Brantley – 2008 Trade
RF: Choo – 2006 Trade
DH: Hafner – 2002 Trade

SP: Carmona – International Signee
SP: Masterson – 2009 Trade
SP: Carrasco – 2009 Trade
SP: Talbot – 2009 Trade
SP: Gomez/Tomlin/Huff/etc. - International Signee/Drafted
Closer: Perez – 2009 Trade

Maybe they go the FA route with the rotation, but you get the gist of it as the financial reality of MLB and the way that revenue sharing could not help the Indians, coupled with their own financial mistakes (some of which became mistakes because of injury or regression) and miscalculations were too much for this organization to overcome and leave us sitting here hoping that the team can win 5 of their last 20 games to avoid 100 losses while 2007 feels light-years away.

However, when you figure that nearly ALL of the 2011 team will be populated by players acquired in the latest talent swap-out, you can start to see that the Indians didn’t mire in this looming cycle (created both by the organization and MLB) and have already turned that page pretty decisively in the past two years to create the type of “core” that emerged from 2004 to 2007. Whether their decisions bear any success will be determined in the next two years as some of the recent trade acquisitions have been very successful (Prage Perez and The Axe Man, Carlos Santana), with the jury out on others – some leaning positively (Brantley, Masterson and Carrasco…for now, and Donald) and some not so positively (LaPorta and Marson), but the die has been cast for this franchise, as it will be in other small-markets propped up as “shining examples” of how an organization can do things correctly and “beat the system”….just like the Indians were three LONG years ago.

Starting to Come Together?

After a brief trip out of state and a longer shelving due to the virus that just wouldn’t go away, I’m back on the horse and ready to revel in the Indians…wait for it…perhaps climbing out of the cellar. Nothing like a West Coast trip (with nobody watching) for the Indians to breathe life back into what many took to be the corpse of a season to bring us all back to the brink of optimism after emotionally punting on 2011 and 2012. Nevertheless, the Indians find themselves back around mediocrity and, while some of that can be attributed to the teams on their schedule, the more pertinent topic is the reason that the Indians find themselves in the win column recently, albeit intermittently – the rotation. That’s right, after much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over how the Indians’ rotation looks like a subpar AAA rotation, it is worth noting that heading into Wednesday night’s tilt with the Angels, the Indians starters had posted a 2.30 ERA in the month of September with a WHIP of 1.11with 35 K to 11 BB in 47 innings pitched over the first 7 games (pitched by 6 pitchers) of the month.

Unsurprisingly, the team went 4-3 in those games and while the caveat of who they were playing (Mariners, the preseason darling because they were built on defense and…um, a little help here and the Angels, whose fall from the heavens despite some aggressive moves is amazing to watch) applies here, there are unquestionably some bright spots coming from the rotation as of late for the Tribe.

While Fausto Carmona’s Post-All-Star Break ERA of 4.84 and Unleash the Fury’s of 5.54 do less than inspire confidence, Justin Masterson and Carlos Carrasco have started to emerge as pitchers whose floors may be back-end-of-the-rotation fodder, but whose ceilings are well above that. Of course, the small sample size siren is blaring, but after a season in which the Indians’ rotation resembled a contest to see who could get to Columbus the quickest at times, the recent performances have been comforting, particularly in light of where they’re coming from and how they’re coming.

For our first feature in Small Sample Size Theater, Carlos Carrasco has arrived to the Indians as a completely different looking pitcher, using command and poise(!) to post an two-game line of a 119 ERA+, 3.38 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 10 K, 3 BB in 13 1/3 IP. It obviously bears mentioning that Carrasco has given up 3 HR in just 13 1/3 IP, which was a major problem for him last year in Cleveland as well as in Columbus to start the year, but he has shown an ability miss bats, which is not a skill that’s been seen in the Cleveland rotation with much consistency for a while.

True, two starts is two starts for Carrasco, but this guy is 23 years old and struck out 130 while walking only 46 in 150 1/3 AAA innings and had posted a 2.08 ERA, 0.84 WHIP, 44 K, 8 BB over 47 2/3 IP in his last 8 AAA starts with just 1 HR allowed (he gave up 15 HR in his first 102 2/3 IP), so the potential that always seemed limited by a lack of poise or confidence or whatever you want to chalk it up to is finally being scratched and he’s thrived against MLB competition…well, the M’s and the Angels.

Back to his numbers from AAA, look again and notice how he struck out more batters than allowed baserunners in his last 8 starts in AAA…dramatic pause for you to re-read that…and now realize that he’s struck out 10 MLB hitters while allowing 15 baserunners in his first two starts this year in MLB. For some context to that, Dave Huff struck out 37 hitters while allowing 135 baserunners...but isn’t that kind of the point?

After Sowers, Laffey, and Huff nibbled and gutted their way through 5 innings, how refreshing is it to see a young Indians’ pitcher come up and miss bats and show signs of having dominant stuff not reliant on luck or on stranding runners or getting by on guile?

Beyond Carrasco, the other live arm in the rotation belongs to Justin Masterson, who over his last 7 starts has posted a 2.95 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 29 K, 20 BB in 42 2/3 IP while limiting opposing hitters to a .682 OPS against. Lest you think I’m just cherry-picking numbers and dates here (as I am wont to do), included in there are 2 games in which he surrendered only one fewer run than inning pitched (4 ER in 5 IP and 5 ER in 6 IP), so it’s not as if he’s been a lights-out starter, only that he has the capability to be that lights-out starter when he’s on. He’s certainly not “on” every time he takes the pill, but he does have a 4.13 ERA since the All-Star Break and, while that may not cause any calls to Cooperstown, his pre-All-Star Break ERA was a full run higher at 5.31.

It has been reported that he’ll be moved to the bullpen soon as his inning count is reached, but if you’re looking for a pitcher with the kind of repertoire that can dominate an opposing lineup for 7 innings on any given night, Masterson (who is still only 25) has shown that he has the ability, if not the consistency. Perhaps that consistency will take a while to emerge (and everyone remembers how these pitchers arrive to MLB as finished products, right?), but in terms of Masterson’s future role, I’m in full agreement with my TCF colleague Steve Buffum , who feels that Masterson stays in the rotation until five better options emerge for the rotation.

Unless you can name those five starters for Goodyear for next year, Masterson (inconsistency and all) stays in the rotation because let’s be honest about the fact that if/when he moves to the bullpen to start a season or in June or July, there is no going back to the rotation and the die has been cast on Masterson’s role. If the Indians were fighting for a playoff spot or (as Buff says) five better options obviously exist, maybe the Indians consider moving Masterson to the bullpen, but now represents the perfect time to explore and exhaust his usefulness in the rotation to see if he can harness his obvious talent and contribute 200 innings in 30 games instead of 60 innings in 50 games.

Perhaps this is putting the cart before the horse here and extolling the virtues of a couple of young, inconsistent starters on the basis of what we’d like to see and there certainly should be some caveat for granting these types of pitchers the benefit of the doubt based on potential, much less recent performance. After all, Carmona has a 5.47 ERA over his last 8 starts with a 1.62 WHIP to boot as he’s struck out only 28 and walked 15 in his last 49 1/3 IP. So, even with the “Renaissance Fausto” that has emerged from the Dark Ages of the last two years, he’s been far from fully recovered. However, Carmona, like Carrasco and Masterson, does possess that repertoire and has achieved results that project as more than just the fringe starter/middle relief pitcher that the Indians have been far too reliant on since CC and CP found themselves in other uniforms.

If you want to see the key for the next year or two for the Indians, look no further than Carmona (26), Masterson (25), and Carrasco (23), all of whom fit the bill of possessing the potential to be a front-to-middle-of-the-rotation stalwart, something obviously currently missing from the organization, outside of these three and a few hopefuls in the middle-to-lower levels of the Minors.
That may be a terrifying notion, given the inconsistency that we’ve seen from all three, but if the Indians are to find a modicum of success in 2011 or 2012, it isn’t going to be because Huff, Laffey, Sowers, Gomez (who I do like), Tomlin, Kluber, McCallister, or any other organization arm suddenly “figure it out” because those pitchers project as fringe starters/organizational depth/middle relievers, something that we’ve found take a team to about 3rd place.

Sure, you can group Alex White, Joe Gardner, Matt Packer, or even (yet-to-throw-a-pitch-in-the-organization) Drew Pomeranz as guys who project as top-to-middle-of-the-rotation starters, but a lot can go wrong between Kinston and Cleveland (paging Atom Miller) and even in a perfect world, those guys are a few years away from appearing, much less thriving for the parent club.

Back to the trio of Carmona, Masterson, and Carrasco, consistency may be an issue (understatement alert), but if you’re looking for starting pitchers that are going to be more than just back-end-of-the-rotation fodder, there is a distinct difference between an arm like Carrasco and that of Josh Tomlin

That’s not to be totally dismissive of Josh Tomlin...well, maybe it is, but Tomlin’s numbers since he has arrived in Cleveland (95 ERA+, 4.14 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 21 K, 11 BB in 41 1/3 IP) don’t scream that he’s built to last and thrive in MLB. Sure, he may be a nice role filler/swing starter/middle reliever/depth option or he may even evolve into a decent back-end-of-the rotation guy, but in speaking to a friend about Tomlin, he summed it up as well as I would have hoped when he said, “Look, I like Tomlin...I’m rooting for the kid to succeed and not just because it would be a nice story and something that this team could use in a legit rotation arm. But I’m not going to emotionally invest myself in Tomlin in the way that I didn’t emotionally invest myself in Scott Lewis…because I just don’t see it. Maybe that’s callous…but “IT” just doesn’t jump out at me for Josh Tomlin.”

Even the other rookie starter who arrived and has thrived with Tomlin still has me scratching my head a bit as Jeanmar Gomez is only 22 (Tomlin is 25) and has posted a line of a 129 ERA+, 3.07 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 23 K, 12 BB in 44 IP. The problem is that I think that Gomez still may be pitching over his head a little bit, given his 5.20 ERA in AAA this year prior to his call-up. However, a level of talent is there as he posted a 3.30 ERA in Kinston and Akron in 2009 as a 21-year-old, but he could project as more of a 4th or 5th starter/depth option for the team for the next couple of years unless he shows potential in MLB that he was never able to harness at any level in the Minors…which is a pretty high branch to reach.

That being said, that “ability” to be the 4th or 5th starters/depth option may be a valuable skill for the organization as Aaron Laffey’s velocity and groundball rates both bottom out and David Huff is so far out of contention for getting another shot in Cleveland that I’m wondering if it’s time for the Indians to call Neal Huntington to see if he’s interested in a Dave Huff-for-Andy LaRoche swap (a quick nod to reader Ken Feigert, who points out that LaRoche is expendable with Pedro Alvarez on the scene and could join a burgeoning list of 2011 3B candidates, none of whom inspire much confidence) because Huff has no cheerleaders pleading in case, either from the Indians’ dugout or Front Office.

So, where does all of that leave us with about less than a month of baseball to play in terms of the 2011 rotation?

In looking at the usual list of suspects, it does make sense to bring in a veteran…you know, perhaps one that has a history with the team, who did the Indians a favor when they were trying to move him. Put your hand down Millwood, I’m not talking about you…

Regardless, realizing that we’re still playing September baseball and much can change from now to then (although probably not much will), I could see the Indians going into Spring Training with the rotation looking something like this:
Carmona
Masterson
Carrasco
Vet(brook)
Talbot

As for depth past that, Gomez and Tomlin can be among the first calls, along with Corey Kluber and Zach McCallister with the likes of Alex White, Scott Barnes, Matt Packer, and even Joe Gardner and Drew Pomeranz hopefully pushing their way into quick promotions, but I fear (well, maybe not “fear”) that the shelf lives of Huff and Laffey are nearing their expiration dates as Indians.

You could ask what the difference was between that list of a potential starting five for 2011 and the 2010 rotation (the one with the 4.51 ERA, 12th of 14 AL teams) and I would answer you that Mitch Talbot is no longer the #2 starter, but the #5 starter (and rightfully so) as the talent of Carmona, Masterson, and Carrasco will be given long leashes to find that consistency that has eluded them.

Maybe they’ll hang themselves with those long leashes and that may not elicit a lot of confidence, but the only way that the Indians are going to pull themselves out of this hole that they find themselves in is from the development of the pitching that they currently have in house. At a certain point, the cream needs to rise to the top and the final month of the season represents a good opportunity for Masterson and Carrasco to build off of while Carmona looks to get on that roll again to carry some momentum into 2011.

Right now, any momentum into 2011 is going to feel like a strong wind in the sails of the Tribe that have remained limp for the better part of the last month…

The Laziest of Lazy Sundays

On vacation in the Laurel Highlands for the long weekend, I will be taking my Labor Day one day early and pass on a Lazy Sunday while somebody passes me another cold one...

Obviously, this is not what my weekend looks like with two young boys and our friends' two little kids in tow, but I'd like to envision myself doing this at some point in my life in the next...I don't know, 15 years.

Enjoy the long weekend (because we all need a break from the Tribe) and I'll see you next week...

Opportunity Knocks: Anybody Home?

As most of Northeast Ohio is ensconced in Scarlet and Gray or Brown and Orange, the Indians’ season rolls on in infamy and coming off a month in which they posted the worst record in the AL (11-18 in August), besting only the Pirates and Cubs in the month, the extended auditions roll on. From the time that Branyan, Kearns, Peralta, Westbrook, and Wood exited stage left and Sizemore and Santana exited stage right, the Indians have been dipping into the shallow well of their upper levels in the Farm System (and in other places) in an attempt to cobble together some pieces and parts that figure in for 2011 and beyond.

While the pitching staff remains a crapshoot, with only Carmona, Talbot (out of options), Justin Masterson (in some capacity), Chris Perez, and maybe Rafael Perez assured of a spot in the 2011 staff, most of the performances of the pitchers since the opportunities came fast and furious in the organization are based on wildly small sample sizes. Thus, as much as I’d like to assert that Carlos Carrasco WILL be in the 2011 rotation on the basis of one start, a much larger body of work is necessary to dissect to find out which of these players is really asserting themselves.

With position players, the sample sizes are much larger and conclusions can start to be drawn on the performances of a number of players who either obviously figure into 2011, who have their foot in the door (if not more) and are attempting to establish themselves as a legitimate regular for 2011, and the players who are hanging on by a thread to a starting spot, much less a roster spot.

That being said, if opportunity has been knocking for the players on the Indians since…let’s say the All-Star Break (because the stats are easy to find), which players have thrived, given the opportunity to take a hold of a starting spot or a roster spot for 2011. As I said, the position players can really be broken down into three segments, with their performances and what those performances mean being presented thusly:
The “Sure” Things
Pronk Lite
.377 BA / .455 OBP / .571 SLG / 1.026 OPS with 2 HR and 9 2B in 77 AB
Big League Choo
.311 BA / .389 OBP / .432 SLG / .822 OPS with 2 HR and 12 2B in 148 AB
Asdrubal
.258 BA / .324 OBP / .348 SLG / .672 OPS with 2 HR and 8 2B in 155 AB
That heading is a little tongue in cheek, if you simply check out the amount of AB for Hafner and how they compare to the other two names on the list, but if you want the three players who are currently in the Tribe lineup who will unquestionably be in the 2011 lineup, assuming health, that troika represents the only players playing now assured of a spot coming out of Goodyear next Spring.

Seeing those numbers for Hafner is pretty jarring, as is the realization that he posted the 17th highest OPS in August among all MLB players. However, Andy Marte has as many HR as Hafner since the All-Star break in fewer AB and the batter on display now in the DH hole is a far cry from the Hafner of 2005 to 2007. Obviously, that is no great revelation, but Hafner’s success is tied intrinsically to his ability to get on base and to the Indians giving him enough rest to remain effective and producing at a level that he has been since the All-Star Break. Hafner has excelled in the last 2 months, but he’s a much different player now – call him Pronk Lite (and hold your tongue on any intimation of a double entendre there having to do with his appearance) – and needs regular rest to remain that different, and effective, player. If the second half to date has shown anything on Hafner, it is that he can still contribute to the Indians, just not as an everyday fixture in the lineup, and certainly not at a level commensurate with his salary.

If Hafner remains a wild card, in terms of health and usage, it runs in stark contrast to the consistency for Choo (whose Pre-All Star Break numbers were a line of .286 BA / .390 OBP / .475 SLG / .865 OPS), and his steadying influence on a wildly inconsistent lineup. The BLC has firmly established himself among the elite hitters in the AL as he currently sits on the 14th highest OPS in the League and the 7th highest OBP among all qualified AL players. In a season that has been racked with uncertainty and frustration, Choo has remained the only real “sure” thing in the Tribe lineup and his 2nd half has done nothing to refute that, only strengthen it.

As for Asdrubal, if there has been a disappointing season to point to for a player that looked to be on the verge of breaking out, it belongs to Cabrera. Even before his arm injury, his OPS of .689 underwhelmed and he has continued at the same pace after returning. While his on-base ability has been average this year, it is a significant downgrade (2009 OBP was .361) and he has been completely bereft of power, with his SLG down significantly from his career number going into 2010 (.411 SLG), which either means that Cabrera has regressed significantly this season at the plate or that he has simply never been able to get untracked as the injury interrupted his season. His current numbers are actually lower than those from the 2008 season, in which Cabrera struggled out of the gate and was sent to AAA. His defense alone merits his inclusion on the roster going forward, but 2010 has been a lost year for Asdrubal and hopefully it represents the aberration in his career instead of the beginning of a trend.

Looking for the Toehold
Mike Brantley
.274 BA / .344 OBP / .368 SLG / .711 OPS with 2 HR and 3 2B in 117 AB
Matt MaTola
.217 BA / .292 OBP / .357 SLG / .649 OPS with 4 HR and 6 2B in 143 AB
Jason Donald
.240 BA / .295 OBP / .349 SLG / .644 OPS with 2 HR and 6 2B in 129 AB
The disappointment here is obviously LaPorta, who has shown glimpses of the power that he has shown in the Minor Leagues, but has lacked any kind of consistency in terms of getting on base regularly or driving the ball. He’s posted a .760 OPS since being recalled and put in the everyday lineup, but the disparity between that .760 OPS and the one since the All-Star Break (.649 OPS) show how streaky MaTola has been at the plate. He will continue to get chances due to his pedigree and the fact that he represents the promising option at 1B in the organization. Additionally, him not breaking Goodyear as the 1B next year would be a MAJOR surprise but the end to LaPorta’s honeymoon period is not far off and with 537 MLB Plate Appearances now under his belt and with him turning 26 in January. LaPorta may not have as long of a rope as previously thought, particularly if he is unable to find success...and, more importantly, consistent success.

While the numbers for LaPorta are similar to that of Donald after the All-Star Break, the reality is that expections for LaPorta dwarf those for Donald, who has quietly put together a pretty solid, if uneven, season. Overall, he sits on a .702 OPS (95 OPS+) and while that may not overwhelm, for a 25-year-old middle infielder getting his first taste of MLB, it should be taken as a positive step. That’s not to say that Donald’s performance to date has guaranteed him of anything, by way of a position, going forward, but his defense at 2B is improved (and markedly better than it was at SS) and his 18 2B (tied for 5th on the team) show that he may hold some value. He still walks far too infrequently and strikes out too much (18 BB to 65 K on the year), but Donald figures into the 2B mix and probably starts the 2010 season as the starting 2B.

While those other two seem to be in the 2011 lineup despite not seizing the opportunity in front of them as of late, Mike Brantley seems to be the one young position player who has taken the opportunity presented to him as of late and run with it as his numbers since his return from Columbus are essentially in line with what he’s always done in the Minors – high OBP, low SLG. His “high OBP” isn’t inordinately high, but it certainly represents an improvement over his initial stint with the team to start the year (.229 OBP, .416 OPS in his first 9 games) and his brief return (.231 OBP, .445 OPS in his next 17 games), as he’s posted a .341 OBP and a .750 OPS since being recalled at the beginning of August. Given his age (he’s still 23) and his .388 Minor League OBP, Brantley figures into the Indians’ OF for 2011 and the last month of the season has allayed fears that he would be overwhelmed at the ML level. Don’t get me wrong – his adjustment to MLB hasn’t come without some red flags, as he’s struck out 26 times in 206 PA after striking out a total of 103 times in the last 3 seasons in the Minors over 1,323 plate appearances, but Brantley is one of the young players who at least seems to be trending in the right direction as this season winds down...an unfortunate rarity for the Tribe.

Fighting for their Lives
Sonny Nix
.291 BA / .329 OBP / .455 SLG / .784 OPS with 5 HR and 7 2B in 134 AB
Andres Marte
.254 BA / .324 OBP / .403 SLG / .727 OPS with 2 HR and 4 2B in 67 AB
Luis V.
.178 BA / .213 OBP / .200 SLG / .413 OPS with 0 HR and 1 2B in 45 AB
While a couple of these players (Nix and Marte) have asserted themselves offensively (relatively speaking) since the All-Star Break, I’ll stand behind the notion that defense should play a major role here and defense is obviously not included here in these numbers. Nix at 3B looks to be woefully out of position, but his recent numbers suggest that he does have some value to the team as a cheap, versatile RH bat who can provide some pop. If anything can be taken from usage patterns for the 3-headed monster (and I do mean “monster”), it is that Andy Marte’s days are numbered in the organization as the situation would seem ripe to simply get him out there to play and, as you can see by the AB, he’s played in ½ of the games that Nix has since the Midsummer Classic, with a portion of those at 1B. As for Louie the Fifth, his numbers since returning are worse than in his first stint with the team (.514 OPS in his first 49 games this year) meaning that...well, to be charitable, Valbuena is likely to spend 2011 in AAA and it won’t be just to improve his ghastly defense.

Perhaps the Indians can take something from the recent strong to mildly strong performances of Nix and Marte, but I don’t anticipate the 2011 3B answer to obviously emerge from this trio as the defense of the best offensive player to date (term used loosely) leaves much to be desired in Nix and the lack of a consistent opportunity for Marte doesn’t leave much to the imagination as to where he sits in the pecking order. As for Valbuena at 3B...well, given that Cord Phelps will be playing 3B in the Arizona Fall League and perhaps in Columbus in 2011 (with Kipnis at 2B in Columbus next year), it will be interesting to see where Valbuena and Phelps factor into the mix here as Tony Lastoria points out that Phelps did play 3B while he was in college at Stanford.

David S. Duncan
.215 BA / .294 OBP / .346 SLG / .640 OPS with 3 HR and 5 2B in 107 AB
Crazy Eyes Crowe
.240 BA / .296 OBP / .333 SLG / .630 OPS with 1 HR and 9 2B in 150 AB
Evaluating the “performance” of these two since the All-Star Break is not something I’m interested in exploring too exhaustively. Neither of these players should be on the team in 2011 as an alternative (read: a better player) should be found to take Duncan’s RH role as a 1B/LF/DH for 2011 and Trevor Crowe...well, he can just go away now. Some will point to his 9 2B since the Break, but Crowe is a no-field, no-hit, no-instinct 5th OF who turns 27 in November. After an underwhelming Minor League career, he has underwhelmed in Cleveland in his first stint and while that can be said for many players currently on the Tribe (Brantley, LaPorta, Donald, Marson, etc.), each of those players have a Minor League track record of success to merit multiple looks. Crowe does not.

So, um...yeah, maybe adding a veteran to this OF mix (preferably a RH one who could also DH) is becoming more and more of a priority with the play of these two down the stretch.

Pile Jumper Gimenez
.216 BA / .326 OBP / .432 SLG / .758 OPS with 1 HR and 5 2B in 37 AB
Tofu Lou Marson
.186 BA / .262 OBP / .288 SLG / .550 OPS with 1 HR and 3 2B in 59 AB
This may sound strange in light of what was just written about Crowe, but I don’t have an issue with either of these guys being on the team next year. Certainly not both, but I can see that either player has merit for inclusion on the 2011 roster. Perhaps that’s a function of simply being excited about Carlos Santana coming back to relegate these two to a back-up role or back to AAA, but Marson’s defense has impressed as of late and Gimenez has value in his versatility...plus, he’s actually hitting the ball, albeit in a short timeframe. All told, I still think that Marson’s trade bait at some point and could start 2011 in AAA with an eye towards building up that trade value. Additionally, Giminez is not much more than a pile-jumper but to paraphrase the great Ty Webb, “baseball teams need pile-jumpers too, Chris” and Gimenez is perfectly capable back-up C who can play other positions as well as injecting some personality into this very young team.

Taking an overview, the numbers bear out what we’ve all seen with our eyes and unsurprisingly tell us that 3B and a RH OF are squarely in the mix for where the team needs to make upgrades going into next year, as is adding a RH complement to Hafner at DH to keep him rested.

While the 3B issue is one that will probably attract a far more attention, the Indians should look to add that RH DH who can play some OF from time to time if they’re looking to upgrade the offense for 2011. While names like Pat Burrell, Marcus Thames, and Bill Hall would all make sense (please, keep your Jose Guillen suggestions to yourself), I wouldn’t be surprised if the Indians went more of a capable OF route with players like Reed Johnson or Xavier Nady as insurance against Sizemore not being ready out of the gate in 2011.

Those names may not generate too much excitement, but the auditions taking place for the last two months in the OF, at 1B, 2B, and 3B figure to last into next year and perhaps even beyond. Unfortunately for the Indians, none of the players have taken the opportunity that’s been afforded to them to nail down a position for 2011 and beyond as picturing guys like Brantley, LaPorta, and Donald as viable long-term options takes some squinting.

The auditions roll on in earnest as the Indians play out the string in 2010, hoping that somebody…anybody…makes themselves indispensible to the team’s future plans with extended plate appearances or innings.