Fit and (No) Trim

In lieu of anything related to player movement happening with the Tribe, there was a bit of news that broke as the Indians announced some tweaks to their uniforms, with the four jersey and hat combinations now available to the Tribe looking like this:

The two on the ends are obviously the same as they’ve been for some time, with the big changes coming in the road grays and the new red hat that goes along with the Sunday “Creams”. Since I’ve devoted far too much time to this topic already (and here’s the post from last January that you want to click on before you continue), let’s dive into this a little bit as it seems that somebody down at Carnegie and Ontario was noticing my…ahem, suggestions.

To wit, here is the proposed new road uniform combination that I suggested back in January:



And the just announced new road uniform:


Soooo…if anyone wants my address so my “consulting fee” or some sort of royalty check can be sent for every time they sell one of these, just shoot me an e-mail…

Seriously though (and that was kind of serious), I’m a HUGE fan of the new road unis for obvious reasons and think that it represents a huge improvement and a return to a classy look, summed up by what I wrote back in January:
The script “Cleveland” on the road jerseys always felt like a little overkill to me as the script “Indians” is great in that it harkens back to the old uniforms of the 1940’s and 1950’s (to the right), but the script Cleveland comes off as a little forced. To me (and maybe just because I’m a child of the 1980s), I still think that the block “CLEVELAND” looked a lot better and cleaner, particularly in gray, before they fouled up the whole look with those racing stripes going up and down the arms and legs.

The one issue that I have with the new road unis (and you probably picked it up by the comparative photos) is that the Block “C” hat that they’ll be using with the road unis (and the “Creams”) is that it still doesn’t have the white outline that would finish it off so well. Am I alone in thinking that the trim makes a HUGE difference here?


As for the Red Hat, I suppose it represents another hat to sell and I’m not really all that against it as those Sunday “Creams” needed some dressing up to begin with and when they wore a Red Hat with the Sunday “Creams” as part of the MLB “Stars and Stripes” campaign (again, which is simply to sell more hats), it doesn’t look all that bad.


Again, however…where is the trim?
A sharp white outline around that blue block “C” would improve that hat immeasurably and would make it look like more than the unfinished project that came out as a result of the new uniform project:


All told, the results are pretty solid…which makes sense because they were following the script laid out last January. Once they add that white trim (and it looked like they were going to on the front of the 2011 schedule), they’ll finally have this uniform thing pretty close to being locked down.

Now…back to those royalty checks or at least a consulting fee…

Lazy Sunday Cornerstones

While Daylight Savings “Fall Back” generally buys most people an extra hour of sleep, the concept of turning one’s clock back one hour is lost on two little boys, whose internal clocks had the Reservation jumping at 5:00 AM this morning. While it has allowed an impromptu trip to the Double-D (what “America runs on”) and has given me an early start on tracking Free Agency and when the press conference will be called in the Bronx for CP Lee to don the pinstripes, Daylight Savings is just a clock issue around here, which means more tired eyes…from The DiaBride and your humble host.

That all being said, let’s get off on a Lazy Sunday having to do with another “clock” issue for a player who was once thought to be a cornerstone for the Indians as well as two players who have now assumed that role of “future cornerstones”.
And with that, we’re off…

As I said, the “clock” issue that transpired this week is that the clock seems to have finally run out on one Andy Manuel Marte as a Cleveland Indian. As expected as it was, if you want to call it “news”, have at it, but it is true that Andy Marte has been outrighted off of the 40-man roster, meaning that he can pursue other opportunities (assuming such opportunities exist…and perhaps he has been plotting his revenge –“Count of Monte Cristo” style as LGT’s Ryan Richards brilliantly implies) and that he is gone from the Indians…maybe. Of course, Marte could find himself in Goodyear or Columbus or somewhere else related to the Indians as time goes on and as Marte and the Indians survey the scene; but short of that return, it looks as if Andy Marte will be gone from our collected focus, nearly five years after entering it.

While there is a feeling that a retrospective in pictures should be in order, with The Avett Brothers’ brilliant “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” playing softly over images of the career arc of Marte, from hotshot prospect to erstwhile relief pitcher, let’s be honest about this and realize that never has so much ink been (figuratively) spilled over a player who never amassed 900 PA over the course of five years with any team, much less one with a career OPS+ of 69. While the reasons for that are long and (frankly) undistinguished, Marte remains a polarizing figure among Cleveland fans, with some feeling that the Indians simply whiffed when they acquired Marte and that he represents one of the greater MLB busts of the decade while others feel that Marte was used so sporadically and so inconsistently (particularly in his first few years in the organization) that, as Ed Carroll of Deep Left Field says, “No prospect could develop the way the Indians handled Marte.”

If you thinking I’m going too far with the “greater MLB busts of the decade” idea, let’s all remember that Marte was the #3 prospect in all of MLB according to Baseball Prospectus going into 2004 (Baseball America had him at #16), in front of both Prince Fielder and David Wright, among others. If that blew your mind, here he is as Baseball Prospectus’ #1 prospect in all of baseball heading into the 2005 season, the same year that Baseball America listed him as the 9th best prospect in baseball, one spot ahead of Hanley Ramirez. While his stock dropped a little heading into 2006 (when he joined the Indians) as B-Pro dropped him to #7 and Baseball America pegged him as #14, one spot ahead of Ryan Zimmerman, Marte had just completed three years in the top 20 prospect lists of both major publications, all before his 23rd birthday.
“Road Full of Promise”…yeah, that was Marte.

All of that being rehashed, I’ll be honest and admit that I’m tired of writing about Andy Marte and attempting to figure out whose cat he killed among the Tribe brass or whether everyone in baseball simply missed on this kid, blinded by the terrific upper-level production of a 20-year-old, then a 21-year-old in consecutive years and ignoring the warning signs that may have existed. In the end, it’s probably a combination of both – he is not as talented as he was purported to be and the Indians soured on him so completely that opportunities that seemed tailor-made for him to get consistent playing time never resulted it in much more than sporadic use and a jarring reminder that he remained an “option”…albeit in name only.

Could he have been better with the Indians given a longer leash?
Who knows, but one thing stands out to me with Marte – after arriving as that top prospect in all of baseball – in that he compiled 858 PA as an Indian over five years with the organization.

858 PA in five years…want some perspective on that?
His 858 PA with the Tribe from 2006 to 2010 is merely 56 more than Alvaro Espinoza accumulated as an Indian (and Espinoza was on the team only four years compared to Marte’s five years) and is less than half of the amount of PA than what Paul Sorrento piled up in one fewer year as an Indian. For some positional and timeframe perspective, Casey Blake had nearly 4 times the PA as Marte (3,358 for Blake, 858 for Marte) as an Indian in playing six years for the Tribe, only one more season than Marte donned the Chief.

In the ultimate indication of how Marte was perceived in the organization (particularly at the end), Trevor Crowe has 681 PA (80% of the PA that Marte has as a member of the Cleveland Indians) to date and has racked up that total in merely a two-year stretch as a horrible baseball player at a position of lesser need than 3B. Crowe, (allegedly) one month younger than Marte, has a career OPS+ of 74 and has failed to show that he has any type of future with the team, but his 479 PA in 2010 is only 16 fewer than Marte received in his FIRST THREE FULL YEARS in Cleveland, when Casey Blake (whose most valuable asset was his versatility) was anchored to 3B as Dellichaels, Garko, and Ben Francisco all were given significant and extended looks as Indians.

While it may sound like it, I’m not here to argue that Marte was wronged or that he will become the next Carlos Pena or Phil Nevin after a change of pace. Instead, let’s all acknowledge that something went horribly, irreparably wrong from 2006 to now with Andy Marte and the Indians, and we may now only be closing the final page in this page-turner that was compelling for all of the wrong reasons.

Andy Marte is, for all intents and purposes, gone and the player that some wistfully thought would be a cornerstone of the next incarnation of the contending Indians in the mid-to-late-2000’s (a team that did contend...just without any contributions from Marte) leaves only a trail of unanswered questions and unfulfilled promise (assuming it was ever there) in his wake. The idea that Marte would be a 25 HR “cornerstone” in the lineup is long gone and all that will likely remain is that wonderful 9th inning against the Yankees, the one that I can’t help but smile about as a parting shot of Marte.

On that idea of what is often thought to be a cornerstone and attempting to (finally) move past The Dominican Dandy (as he was once lovingly dubbed in happier days), Jon-Paul Morosi of FOX Sports asserts that the Giants won (and will continue to win) because of their “cornerstones” of Buster Posey and Brian Wilson. He makes this assertion because he says that the Giants have “a near-automatic closer who’s nails in the postseason, and a young hitter who grinds and inspires” comparing them to another duo that came upon the scene in the late-1990s’ –Rivera and Jeter.

While his intimation that Wilson and Posey are the new “Mo” and “Jeets” (and I will now flog myself for typing the word “Jeets”) feels a little presumptious (and, by his own admission, it is), how about the big finish to the piece, in which Morosi says that the Giants are alone in MLB in terms of being absolutely set at Catcher and Closer for the next few years, detailing it thusly:
Think about it: How many teams can say, right now, they have zero interest in upgrading at the need-to-have positions of catcher or closer?

The Phillies, now that Brad Lidge is right. The Twins, as long as Joe Nathan returns healthy. But that’s it. For every other team in the majors, there’s a compelling case to change personnel at one position or the other.

Excuse me...Jon-Paul? Um, down here...
Remember us? Yeah, the Indians are still in Cleveland...you must have forgotten about our lowly Tribe because I’m pretty sure that I have yet to see “a compelling case to change personnel” for the Indians, in terms of their Catcher (The Axe Man) and their Closer (Chris F. Perez) that figure to be in place for 2011.

While it’s true that the original FOX Sports story is dripping with hyperbole and projection, isn’t it interesting to compare the two “cornerstones” (Morosi’s words, not mine) of the current World Champs and the players who play the same position for the Tribe, and how their 2010 numbers stack up:
Posey vs. Santana – 2010
Posey (Age 23)
.305 BA / .357 OBP / .505 SLG / .862 OPS (129 OPS+) with 23 2B and 18 HR in 443 PA

Santana (Age 24)
.260 BA / .401 OBP / .467 SLG / .868 OPS (144 OPS+) with 13 2B and 6 HR in 192 PA

Wilson vs. Perez – 2010
Wilson (Age 28)
1.81 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 11.8 K/9, 7.2 BB/9, 1.63 K/BB in 74 2/3 IP

Perez (Age 24)
1.71 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 8.7 K/9, 4.0 BB/9, 2.18 K/BB in 63 IP

Certainly, that is not meant to assert that the Indians are close to winning a WS title simply because they have a catcher and a closer that “they have zero interest in upgrading” as CLEARLY the starting pitching is the seperator (to begin with) between the two organizations. However, if those are two “need-to-have” positions, at least the Indians have those spots locked down (theoretically) for the next couple of years.

If you’re comparing the two (and sites were asking the question as recently as mid-May as to whether Posey or Santana was better/would be better), it goes past the idea that the catchers have a preternatural ability from behind the plate and that both closers...um, can we say, walk to the beat of a different drummer en route to their effectivenes, to the point that B-Pro did a Q & A with each and put them together in one piece.

As a quick aside here, after some MLB calculations, CF Perez is Super-2 (as is Jenny Lewis, which could be the end of Lewis in Cleveland as they may not be all that interested in keeping Lewis around at a higher-than-minimum-salary rate...though I think that they should), so his price tag just got a bit higher. Although, as I’ve said before, I’d be reluctant to get into multi-year deal negotiations with Perez, even with his Super-2 status:
I still go year-to-year right now with Perez, simply given that volatility of relievers and with the idea that there are no guarantees (Ferd Cabrera v.2005, Jenny Lewis v.2008) for success from one year to waterfall into the next for relievers. Maybe Perez is that exception (and, truthfully, I hope that he is), but I’d exchange numbers with Perez’s people and sign him to a one-year deal.
--snip--
In Cleveland we’ve become so USED to the idea that we HAVE to lock all of these guys up because that’s what has been done. In reality, with positions like relievers and with players who are still relatively unproven (sorry, as great as that post-All-Star break ERA is, it is still less than 30 innings of MLB), the idea to go year-to-year (or simply delay a decision on a long-term deal) is a luxury that the Indians have, and in the case of Perez, they should use it.

It should be made clear that Perez is under club control for four more years (unlike Choo, also in his first year of arbitration, who is under club control for three more years) because of the Super-2 designation, so let’s stop any crying from the rooftops that Perez is soon to be a member of the Yankees/Red Sox/etc. before it even starts. At this point, let’s just say that this is good for Perez in that he’ll get paid four years of arbitration eligibility, but the spectre of arbitration shouldn’t cause the Indians to jump into bed with a multi-year deal in hand...yet.

But I digress…back to that Giants/Posey/Wilson and Indians/Santana/Perez “comparison”, as stated above, starting pitching is the difference between the two teams and while it is something that I hit on a few weeks back in terms of the Giants’ high draft picks that were pitchers erasing the organizational mistakes and serving as the engine that drove the World Series floats, Anthony Castrovince puts another nice bow on it in terms of bringing the comparison to the Tribe:
The Giants are world champs primarily because they drafted well. In the first round in the last decade, they took Matt Cain in 2002, Tim Lincecum in 2006, Madison Bumgarner in 2007 and Buster Posey in 2008.

Right there, the Giants provided themselves with the pieces that would fill three rotation spots and a catcher for the middle of the order.
--snip--
As if the message hasn’t been hammered home enough, I’ll hammer it home again: The Indians have to hope they got it right with Alex White, Drew Pomeranz and their other prominent Draft picks in recent years.

The Indians don’t have the money, the market or the reliable fan support to compare to the Giants, but they do have the ability to build this thing from within, as the Giants (in some ways in spite of themselves) did. You have to hit on your No. 1 Draft picks, and you have to have some luck -- something the Indians haven’t majored in, to this point.

“Luck”…like the 2008 start and CC being traded from a 37-51 team that was supposed to contend for a WS title, the 2009 start and Lee being traded from a team that was 42-60 after adding Kerry Wood, Grady’s elbow then knee, Carmona’s spare tire, Hafner’s shoulder?

Yeah, I guess that hasn’t been the Indians’ strong suit the past few years and here’s hoping that White, Pomeranz, and others are able to make Atom Miller, Jerry Sowers, and Dave Huff merely answers to obscure trivia questions and not the trail-blazers to a well-worn path leading to obscurity.

Nevertheless, keeping it with Castro as the seque for the rest of our trip around the globe...well, not really around the globe, but Castro has a piece that confirms that the Indians will be quiet in the FA market, passing along this quote from the Tribe’s new GM:
“The bulk of the improvements to the team are going to have to happen internally. And then, whether or not we’ll have the ability to be opportunistic in the free-agent market and at what level, that’s going to be determined by a bunch of variables that are still unclear at this time.”

Yep...everybody ready to wait on the rest of the market to shake out?
If you think that it’s going to be quiet without too many compelling storylines this offseason, consider that Cliff Corcoran of SI.com has a little snippet about the Tribe in his AL Central Hot Stove Report in which he devotes 85 words on the off-season outlook for the Indians, compared to 441 on the Tigers, 438 on the Twins, 356 on the White Sox, and even 239 on the Royals...yeah, I did the word count. In those 85 words, he comes to the conclusion that the Indians “have made it clear they won’t be players this winter” and that “they’ll work to continue to establish their prospects in the majors and wait for Travis Hafner’s contract to expire after the 2012 season”.

Though brief...that sounds about right and in the best small dose of reality out there, Adam Van Arsdale of LGT sums up what the Tribe is likely to do this Winter when he writes that:
Instead, we will once again be targeting the Austin Kearns and Shelley Duncan’s of the world. Which is ok, in some respects. We have had a fair bit of success with these guys in the past. And the key is not that we produce a 90-win roster in 2011, which is highly unlikely, but that we get value out of roster. Value in a 1-year player is at least partially encapsulated by the potential to sell high on him mid-season...making Cleveland baseball’s version of an amateur day trader.

That’s just about it (and that “day trader” line is great) if you’re looking at what this off-season is going to look like.

If they’re looking for a 3B to keep the seat warm for The Chiz, the likelihood is that they’ll look to flip any 3B they acquire when (or is it if) Chisenhall is ready. The same could be said with any RH bat they may add or any arm – starter or reliever – that may find themselves in Goodyear next Spring with the Tribe.

That strategy may not be all that palatable and the idea of “internal development” based on “top prospects” may turn some stomachs in the week that saw Andy Marte make his way out of the organization (maybe). However, at this stage of the Indians’ development, they need to focus on their internal talent not going the way of Andy Marte, blocked by external options and struggling when given sporadic chances.

The Indians need to give LaPorta, Brantley, Carrasco, Masterson, and a whole slew of other young players the length of rope that was never afforded to Andy Marte. Whether those players still in the organization end up hanging themselves with the prescribed rope remains to be seen, but given that the options of adding a player or two that would ostensibly block any of the young players are underwhelming at best, let Andy Marte serve as the cautionary tale as to what can go wrong with young, “can’t miss” players get mired in prospect purgatory and who…well, miss.

Weakness in Numbers

With the World Series being referred to in the past tense and all of the articles about whether the Giants can repeat and what, oh what are the Yankees going to do to ensure that they never miss a World Series again, let’s try to bring the focus back to the North Coast even though the shores of Lake Erie have remained pretty quiet (as expected) for the last month or so.

Sure, the Indians conducted a bit of 40-man housecleaning, with the names being taken off of the 40-man not being all that surprising or newsworthy, but since most teams are dealing with their FA and which FA to pursue, let’s all remember that the Indians aren’t likely to be active on the FA market and also to realize that the Tribe has no players entering FA from their 2010 final roster.
Seriously, not a one...

While the FA landscape is dotted with former Indians like one CP Lee, Vic, and Jhonny (and the last two may be re-united in the Motor City on deals that will almost certainly be too long and for too much money, given their defensive limitations), the Indians have no real FA decisions to make in terms of player retention and with news that guys like Bruce Chen are looking for multi-year deals (good luck with that Bruce), maybe the prospect of dipping their toe in the FA water isn’t such a great idea.

Feel that heat coming off that Hot Stove on the North Coast?
Yeah, me neither...but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t topics to hit and internal evaluation to conduct and on that latter point, there was an interesting piece that came from Joe Posnanski having to do with statistics and attempting to emphasize the importance of statistics to the enjoyment of baseball, regardless of the stats that a baseball fan uses to measure a player's worth:
So, yes, I think people need baseball stats to enjoy the game. It’s just that many people — and I understand this impulse — want to stick with the stats they’ve enjoyed all their lives. These stats are as familiar as family. And while they may know those stats are flawed, they prefer the flaws in their favorite statistics over the flaws of the newer ones. Why? Maybe the newer stats feel too much like math. Maybe, to them, the newer stats seem to dehumanize the game.
--snip--
For some of us, it will always be fun to explore the new numbers, to try and separate what a pitcher does from what the defense does, to break down a hitter by what he contributes to winning and losing rather than by how many hits he gets per at-bat, to judge a player’s defense beyond the occasional diving catch and by how often the ball boinks off his glove. As I’ve always said, there are a lot of ways to enjoy baseball. And there is no wrong way.

After that terrific introduction (because much of what any baseball fan learned about the games has to do with those back-of-the-baseball-card numbers or the .300 hitter or the 100 RBI man), Posnanski proposes “new” stats or at least throws the curtain back on some of the more absurd stats and the caveats that come with them (like is a “sacrifice” a “sacrifice” based purely on intent?) and proposes some interesting wrinkles on adjusting well-known stats (like taking RBI achieved by hitting a HR out of the RBI total...which is actually much more interesting than you would think) and even attempts to come up with a measure for middle relievers, identifying Inherited Runners Stranded...something I championed back in June of 2007.

A few of Posnanski's “new” stats just feel like he’s making a point of how ridiculous some of the “mainstream” stats really are – like when he suggests that a pitcher’s W-L record should simply reflect whether the team won or lost in games started by that pitcher – as they represent more of a back-handed swipe at the “rules” in place for a pitcher to get a win or how ERA can be affected by a scorer’s judgment as to what would have happened in an inning and deciding between Earned Runs and Runs based purely on one man’s opinion. However, his overall point is well-taken as people want stats that justify what they see on the field and to be able to explain why one player is better than another.

Nevertheless, a couple of his “new” stats were extremely interesting to me as they attempted to truly measure a player’s worth, with the first one of note measuring a different kind of run production by taking HR out of the mix because, as he explains:
My sense is that with RBIs we are really looking for how often they drive in OTHER runners. By “Good RBI Man” people tend to mean the guy who will drive in the runner from second with two outs or the guy who can get the runner home from third. Tacking on their home runs muddies up the concept, I think.

This is a fascinating concept to me and while it may never be met with more than eye-rolls and “why do they always want to change our stats” arguments, the application of this to the 2010 Indians is more than just a little insightful...it just takes a couple of steps to get there.
First, here are the “RBI minus HR” total leaders for the Tribe in 2010:
Choo – 68
Hafner – 37
Peralta – 36
Crowe – 34
Kearns – 34
LaPorta – 29
Cabrera – 26
Duncan – 25
Valbuena – 22
Donald – 20
Marson – 19
Brantley – 19
Nix – 16
Santana – 16
Branyan – 14
Yeah, really...those are the totals.

Truthfully, those numbers are interesting to a point (and WOW are Nix’s run production totals affected by his HR), but they feel like they’re in a vacuum that doesn’t provide the proper context or just assumes that we’re basing this on the same number of plate appearances...which obviously isn’t true, particularly for YOUR 2010 Cleveland Indians.

To wit, Crowe is higher on the list than, let’s say Duncan, with more of these “RBI minus HR”, but Crowe had nearly twice as many PA as David Shelley Duncan, so simply counting these things out doesn’t really provide the perspective necessary to achieve what Posnanski is trying to do here, which is to judge a player’s run production while omitting HR from the equation.

Thus, just to take this a step further for the Indians, seeing as how many of the players above found themselves in the lineup for only portions of the season, what about dividing that “RBI minus HR” stat by the number of plate appearances to come up with a list of the most effective “run-producers” for the 2010 team:
Choo – 10.5% non-HR run production: 68 “RBI” in 646 PA
Kearns – 9.9% non-HR run production: 34 “RBI” in 342 PA
Peralta – 9.7% non-HR run production: 36 “RBI” in 373 PA
Duncan – 9.6% non-HR run production: 25 “RBI” in 259 PA
Santana – 8.3% non-HR run production: 16 “RBI” in 192 PA
Hafner – 8.0% non-HR run production: 37 “RBI” in 462 PA
Branyan – 7.3% non-HR run production: 14 “RBI” in 190 PA
Crowe – 7.1% non-HR run production: 34 “RBI” in 479 PA
Valbuena – 7.1% non-HR run production: 22 “RBI” in 310 PA
LaPorta – 6.8% non-HR run production: 29 “RBI” in 425 PA
Marson – 6.4% non-HR run production: 19 “RBI” in 294 PA
Donald – 6.2% non-HR run production: 20 “RBI” in 325 PA
Cabrera – 6.1% non-HR run production: 26 “RBI” in 425 PA
Brantley – 5.8% non-HR run production: 19 “RBI” in 325 PA
Nix – 5.2% non-HR run production: 16 “RBI” in 306 PA

Now we’re getting somewhere as that idea of a “Good RBI Man” starts to flesh out a little bit for the 2010 Tribe...as horrifying as those results might be. They’re horrifying because 5 of the bottom 6 names on this list could be in the everyday lineup next year (depending upon what happens at 3B), so yeah...that’s pretty terrifying in terms of a lack of run producing “ability” that we saw from those 5 players in 2010.

That’s not to assume that those 5 players are simply incapable of topping those numbers next year in that some of them have a track record of success (like Cabrera does have) or are highly-thought-of-prospects (and LaPorta, Donald, and Brantley have all bee Top 100 prospects in MLB at one time), only that the whole idea that “improvement is going to come from internal options getting better” is nowhere as apparent as it is right there for the offense. When those players (LaPorta, Donald, Cabrera, Brantley, and Nix) are outperformed (in this metric, at least) by Crowe, Valbuena, Marson, and two minor league FA (Duncan and Kearns), you start to see why the improvement of these players is tantamount to the Indians’ success in 2011.

The thing that worries me with it is that the improvement almost needs to come across the board for a good portion of the assumed 2011 lineup...but that’s another topic for another day.

Back to the “new” stats from Posnanski, one of the most puzzling questions for me has always been how to recognize the effectiveness of a reliever (and particularly a middle reliever) as ERA isn’t always revealing based on a reliever’s usage and some of the other strikeout and walk totals give a glimpse into what makes a reliever effective, but they’re too constrictive. Posnanski’s suggestion (and it is one that I had some time ago) is to look at “Inherited Runners Stranded” or “how many innings did you end with other pitcher’s runners on base?”

To put this measurement into application for the 2010 Tribe, here are the IRS (inherited runners stranded) numbers for all of the relievers of the Tribe from most effective to least effective:
Jamey Wright – 1 of 15 inherited runners scored – 93% IRS
Joe Smith – 7 of 36 inherited runners scored – 81% IRS
Tony Sipp – 9 of 45 inherited runners scored – 80% IRS
Jensen Lewis – 2 of 10 inherited runners scored – 80% IRS
Justin Germano – 2 of 10 inherited runners scored – 80% IRS
Chris Perez – 7 of 31 inherited runners scored – 77% IRS
Rafael Perez – 10 of 42 inherited runners scored – 76% IRS
Frank Herrmann – 10 of 31 inherited runners scored – 68% IRS
Aaron Laffey – 7 of 21 inherited runners scored – 67% IRS
Hector Ambriz – 12 of 19 inherited runners scored – 37% IRS

For some perspective, league average effectiveness is about 69% IRS, so if you figure that Wright and Germano probably don’t factor into too obviously (or at all) in the 2010 mix), do you notice how the RHP that top that list are Joe Smith and Jensen Lewis?

Let’s get it out of the way right now that Smith is a match-up guy, despite the Indians’ wishes and hopes that he would turn into something more. He’s a RH specialist and from this point forward should be used as such. Past Smith, Lewis is probably best suited for a 6th or 7th role, which isn’t meant to dismiss him outright, only to realize that he’s probably not the answer to which RH pitcher is going to be setting up Chris F. Perez in 2011.

Interestingly, in terms of total inherited runners, the two leaders in inherited runners are both LHP and while that shouldn’t be surprising, I’ll go further than that and point out that Smith, Herrmann, and Ambriz (who apparently should NEVER be brought in with men on base) were the RHP that weren’t closers that inherited the most runners in 2010.

So...we’re talking about somebody from among Smith, Lewis, and Herrmann (or Germano, if you feel like throwing him in there) as the best options for the RH set-up man in 2011. Maybe you feel confident in Herrmann or Jenny Lewis or Vinnie Pestano or somebody else that spent most of the year in AAA to step into that void.
Sorry, but I don’t.

To that end, it gets back to the notion that as much as internal development is where the Indians hope to improve in their run production from the lineup, this listing of effectiveness from RHP that figure into 2011 (outside of CF Perez) get back to the Indians should be looking to add a RH arm to their bullpen.

Is a guy like that Trevor Hoffman (who the Brewers declined an option for in 2011) or a player like Koji Uehara, formerly of the Orioles, who will probably be available?

Those are the types of questions that start to emerge as we hit the Winter for Indians’ baseball. As the rest of the league (or most of it) is locked up in decisions on their own FA and adding FA, the Indians are probably going to let the dust settle and make their moves accordingly. Most of their “moves” (assuming there are any) will be under-the-radar, underwhelming lottery tickets as the development of the team will be tied to the improvement of the offensive players that underperformed last year and finding the right mix of arms (both internally and via additions) to maximize effectiveness while, frankly, minimizing cost and risk.

Insuring A Lazy Sunday

As the World Series rolls on, things are relatively quiet on the North Coast (and across most of the country) in the time prior to the FA period and now is the time that most teams get their off-season “lists” filled out, unable to act on their needs until the postseason comes to a finish. This “in-between” time is frustrating for most fans of all teams as they survey the MLB landscape and the frustration sometimes leads to the invention of wild scenarios by which trades are manufactured and why Free Agent X would be so inclined to join their beloved team. While most of the trades are pipe dreams and most Free Agent imaginations lack the perspective of the league in terms of player contracts, I often equate this time to ol’ George Costanza walking into The Big Stein’s office and touting that, “I think I figured out a way to get Griffey and Bonds, and we wouldn’t really have to give up all that much”.

Sure, scenarios can be imagined where contracts are swapped or the Dolans inexplicably become major players on the FA market (in what would be an ill-advised attempt), but the truth of the matter is that after the flurry of activity that’s happened on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario over the last two seasons as the decks were cleared in an effort to afford the young players acquired in said deck cleaning the opportunity to play and prove themselves in MLB, it’s going to be a relatively quiet Winter in Cleveland.

Though I’m not interested in creating stories in an effort to drum up interest or readers (rising above the path that some other outlets have taken in Cleveland sports, as Frownie points out), there are always subplots and subterfuge on The Reservation, and all Winter long, I’ll be right here to hit on the high (and low) points as the Indians move forward towards the 2011 season. With that all in mind, let’s get off on a Lazy Sunday that doesn’t involve Browns’ football…but will include some trick-or-treating with Buzz Lightyear and a 9-month-old pumpkin.

Starting off, multiple national sites were enamored with the Antonetti profile in the PD earlier this week, and while the narrative of how the new Indians’ GM arrived at his current job is a compelling human interest story at some level, the piece doesn’t really shed any light on what lessons have been learned since 2008 or how Antonetti figures to approach his job…that is, other than the talking points that we’ve heard for some time now. It remains fascinating to me why the question as to where the organizational deficiencies were that led us to this place (and how they’ve been “fixed”) and the question as to why the Indians’ organization remained silent during last year’s Game 1 of the World Series, with the obvious opportunity to point out the disparity in MLB, with CC starting against Lee both remain unasked.

Perhaps they’re “off-limits” or the Indians want to keep a tight lid on those answers (for some unknown reason), but if you’re looking for real insight and actual clues as to what can be expected from Antonetti, the GM (and not Antonetti, the NHS member), I’ll take the sit-down with Jay Levin of the LGT (accessible and detailed in my post a few weeks back here) as well as falling back the piece written in this space way back in February if you’re looking for more than a detailed look at how Antonetti could approach his job.

It remains to be seen what Antonetti’s first off-season will produce as the Indians have remained largely off the radar outside of the obvious “we need a defensive 3B” without tipping their hand as to where (or if) they think they can get one or even what other needs for the parent club that they feel they CAN (not want to) address. Certainly, we’ve seen the “RH bat” talk bandied about and I’m venturing to guess that the “RH bat” is going to come in the form of an OF, if only because the three assumed OF (and the DH) for 2011 are all LH.

To that end, MLBTR had an interesting piece in which they surveyed the landscape for RH OF and, while the impetus of the piece was to find a platoon partner for Phillies’ prospect Domonic Brown, the conclusions can certainly be applied to the need that the Indians have to acquire a RH bat and one that can preferably play the OF, and optimally all three OF positions.

The options presented by the piece fall in line with what we’ve seen (and I still like Matt Diaz, assuming he’s non-tendered by the Braves), but Xavier Nady may be worth a look as he’s still been recovering from TJ surgery and has compiled an .818 OPS in his career against LHP. Now, it should be noted that Nady posted a .649 OPS against LHP last year as a member of the Cubs (and a .660 OPS overall) as well as mentioning that he’ll be 32 next year, but Nady (who has played all three OF positions in his career) could be a player that fits the Indians’ needs.

While an acquisition of a player like Diaz or Nady isn’t going to cause much more than the usual gnashing of teeth and sports-talk radio mindlessness in terms of reaction, the most interesting thing to watch in the pursuit of that RH bat this off-season is that it may tip the Indians’ hand on what they expect (or, more accurately, don't expect) from one Grady Sizemore in 2011. As a quick aside, here’s a great piece from Andrew Humphries at LGT titled “What Never Was” about Grady that puts the proper perspective as to how far Grady has fallen in terms of expectations…and how fast.

Back to the notion of the search for a RH OF though, if the Indians go out and get an ancillary piece (and I’d put Diaz, Nady, Willie Bloomquist, Reed Johnson or even a Kearns in that category) as the 4th OF/RH bat, then they must feel that Sizemore will be ready to contribute when the team arrives in Goodyear in the Spring. However, if the Indians get more aggressive in their search for an OF and add a player who obviously looks like he could be a starter more than just a complementary piece (and truthfully, I don’t even know if that guy is out there on the FA market in the Indians’ “price range”), it means that either the Indians aren’t all that confident that Grady’s surgically repaired knee is going to allow him to contribute at a meaningful level from the beginning of the season or they are concerned enough that the long-term effects of the surgery are something for which they essentially need insurance.

In fact, “insurance” may be the keyword for the strategy of these potential off-season acquisitions…
“Insurance” that Sizemore’s injury and Brantley’s adjustments to MLB may require a legitimate option in the outfield (and one not named Trevor Crowe as I did use the word “legitimate”)…

“Insurance” that Hafner may be a platoon player who needs RH protection…

“Insurance” that the young RH relievers need some adjustment time that they aren’t ready to handle the 7th or 8th innings from the Season Opener…

“Insurance” that Nix is ill-equipped to be a full-time 3B…

“Insurance” that the young starting pitchers are not quite ready to make the transition to MLB and that some time in AAA wouldn’t improve their likelihood of success in the future…

The notion that they’re going to be leaning too heavily on anyone they acquire this off-season to provide much more than that “insurance” or time for their internal prospects to develop and/or adjust to MLB is short-sighted. Again, the thing to watch this coming season will be the development of the players already around and the Indians don’t figure to add that “one big piece” or even a couple of pieces as the wisdom of adding “one big piece” to a team that simply isn’t one or two external players away from obviously contending is questionable at best.

That notion of “insurance” essentially buys the team time to learn more about their prospects and while I’m certainly not endorsing a return to the Danny Graves, Oldberto Hernandez, Jose Jimenez pile, some well-placed bets on particular players can buy the Tribe that “insurance” without a huge outlay of cash and without a foolish commitment of years to players who shouldn’t be signed for longer than a one (or at the most, two) year deal.

The Indians do have logical internal options for all of their “holes” and the reality is that some of those internal options (Kipnis, The Chiz, the gaggle of bullpen arms in AAA and AA, Alex White, etc.) may not be ready to contribute by mid-2011, as the most optimistic have suggested, or in 2011 at all. That being the case, the Indians should be looking to add some pieces that allow those players to arrive to Cleveland as their clock dictates and not because a pressing need unnecessarily accelerates their arrival.

In terms of other “internal options”, “Baseball America” make the declaration a week or so ago that the best draft in 2010 was put forth by the Tribe, with their “Best of” category being passed along here by the ABJ’s Stephanie Storm. The most pertinent nugget in the piece that Storm passes along is that BA rated Drew Pomeranz as the 4th closest to MLB (and #1 on the list, Chris Sale, already appeared on the South Side) and while that may be exciting, the “fast track” that he figures to follow that’s currently being blazed by Alex White would put Pomeranz in the mix at some point in 2012 or 2013.

Realistically, that would be tremendous progress and shouldn’t be seen as any kind of negative, although if you’ve noticed the lack of LHP in the rotational pipeline for the Tribe, you’re not alone and Pomeranz and Matt Packer (who was profiled by Tony Lastoria here) represent the two best options for LHP down the line, excluding the largely-known quantities that are Dave Huff and the likely bullpen-bound Aaron Laffey.

So how fast would Pomeranz move?
That’s hard to say, but I couldn’t imagine the Indians being THAT aggressive with him unless he absolutely destroys the competition as soon as he arrives on the scene next Spring. Pomeranz (and White and Carrasco and…well, the list goes on and on) have loads of potential, but it remains just that – potential, until we see it arrive in Cleveland and (hopefully) thrive on the North Coast.

Speaking of that potential of the young pitching, many were surprised to see that John Farrell, who declined to even interview with the Indians about their managerial vacancy last Winter despite his ties to the organization, accepted the skipper’s wheel in Toronto. While I’m not one to attempt to get into anybody’s head, consider this write-up from Baseball Analysts as to why Farrell is a great fit for the Blue Jays:
I think Farrell’s the perfect choice for the Jays, a team whose future hinges on its young pitching staff’s continued improvement. Shaun Marcum, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Brandon Morrow and Marc Rzepczynski will average 26 years old for the 2011 season. Kyle Drabek, Zach Stewart and Brad Mills aren't far behind. Farrell will be able to lean on all of his professional skills - his MLB player experience, player development expertise and pitching coach track record - to help strengthen Toronto’s biggest asset, its young pitching.

Certainly you can make the argument that the Indians’ “future hinges on its young pitching staff’s continued improvement” just as much as the Blue Jays’ future does, but if you don’t look at the situation in a vacuum (that is, take both “opportunities” into consideration), you can absolutely see why Farrell was reticent to take over a largely unproven pitching staff in Cleveland and much more open-minded about taking on the challenge in Toronto.

Those young pitchers in Toronto mentioned in the piece are all established in MLB to some degree and if you think about where they are in their development versus where the Indians were last Winter in terms of a pitching staff (Carmona was an absolute mess, Carrasco had just been shelled in his cup of coffee, Masterson looked overwhelmed), the question of why Farrell finds himself in Toronto and not Clevelan isn’t so mysterious at all. If you’d like to buy all of the “I wasn’t ready then...and I’m ready now” rationale, that’s fine, but when you think about the two situations as they exist in Toronto and as they existed last year in Cleveland, the decision as to which opportunity represented a team closer to contention (even considering the fact that the Blue Jays are in the AL East), the promise of what could be in Toronto this off-season is wildly more attractive than the job that Farrell didn’t interview for last Winter.

Speaking of former Tribe pitchers with ties to player development and coaching in the organization, the Diamondbacks announced that Chuck Nagy will be heading out to the desert to be their new pitching coach. Certainly, as Tribe fans, we all wish the Chuckwagon the best and even if the Clippers’ pitching staff had some disappointments this year in terms of development, if 2010 in AAA is looked back upon as the turning point in the career of Carlos Carrasco and when he finally put it all together (and did so under the tutelage of Nagy), we will all be eternally grateful.

Interestingly, with Nagy now in Arizona and Joel Skinner heading to Oakland to be their bench coach, the scattering of former Tribe coaches continues. While Sandy Alomar, Jr. didn’t end up getting the Toronto job that he was a finalist for, is anyone else fascinated how the Indians’ system continues to be a bit of a feeder system in MLB?

Perhaps the Nagy and Skinner examples aren’t the best segue to illustrate this, but lest you forget, Bud Black and Terry Francona were once members of the Indians front-office, meaning that (with Wedge and Farrell), four current MLB managers were prominent members of the Indians’ Front Office or Coaching Staff in the past decade. When given the proper perspective, four out of 30 teams (five if you count Acta) is actually a pretty stunning amount.

Finally, if we’re talking about former members of the Indians’ Front Office, it was announced in New York that former A’s GM Sandy Alderson has been handed the reins in Queens, beating out former D-Backs’ GM (and former Indians’ Front Office member) Josh Byrnes.

While Jon Heymann seems to think that Byrnes is destined for San Diego because of his relationship with Jeff Moorad, if the Indians are looking to add a “Free Agent” that could make an impact this on the organization, I’ll bang the drum once again to bring Byrnes back to the North Coast to present a fresh set of eyes and ideas to an organization that may be more interested in “insurance” rates than the going rates on Free Agents this off-season.

Built for October

With the World Series (finally) underway and with the magnifying glass being focused on comments made by CP Lee’s wife (and really, how the whole Lee-Yankees fans thing shakes out in terms of it affecting him going there is nailed by Craig Calcaterra at HBT, in which he says that the manner in which her words are dissected depends on how you view the situation going into it), there is baseball to be played and, seeing as how this Fall Classic between the team from the 5th largest TV market against the 6th largest TV market is somehow is being touted as a couple of the “little guys”, let’s take a quick look at how these two teams were built and how it relates to the “Rebuild/Reload/Whatever” currently underway on the North Coast.

Much of the build-up to the World Series has focused on the efforts of baseball’s new wunderkind, Texas GM Jon Daniels, and how the Rangers were built with good drafting and development. You’ll, of course, remember the Jerry Crasnick piece that trumpeted how the Rangers were built from within and while most (ahem...me) took that as fact, how about this breakdown of the Rangers' roster, with the significant players with OPS+ or ERA+ over 100 listed...right next to how each was acquired:
Josh Hamilton – 175 OPS+ (via Trade)
Nelson Cruz – 150 OPS+ (via Trade)
Vlad Guerrero – 122 OPS+ (via FA)
David Murphy – 115 OPS+ (via Trade)
Ian Kinsler – 113 OPS+ (via Amateur Draft)
Mike Young – 105 OPS+ (via Trade)

Darren O’Day – 213 ERA+ (via Waiver Claim)
Darren Oliver – 175 ERA+ (via FA)
Neftali Feliz – 159 ERA+ (via Trade)
CJ Wilson – 129 ERA+ (via Amateur Draft)
Colby Lewis – 116 ERA+ (via FA)
Tommy Hunter – 116 ERA+ (via Amateur Draft)
Frank Francisco – 115 ERA+ (via Trade)
Cliff Lee – 109 ERA+ (via Trade)
Derek Holland – 106 ERA+ (via Amateur Draft)
Dustin Nippert – 101 ERA+ (via Trade)

If you’re counting at home, that would be four players out of seventeen that were the product of the Rangers’ drafting. Perhaps you want to include Colby Lewis, who was originally drafted by Texas, which played a role as to which team he would sign with after spending the last two years in Japan, but for the purposes of this, the Rangers that figured significantly into their 2010 season that were drafted by the club and have stayed with the club are Kinsler, Wilson (who converted from relieving), Hunter, and Holland.

Not exactly the backbone of the Rangers’ team there, though there are some nice players. However, this idea that they built the team from within isn’t really all that true. That’s not to say that the Rangers haven’t benefited from some strong scouting and decent drafting (and there is purported to be more in the pipeline…and stop me if you’ve heard that before) that allowed the Rangers to go out and pry a Cliff Lee out of Mariners.

That all being said, the assertions coming forth that are ready to canonize Daniels seem to simply give him credit for everything, sometimes going a little overboard:
They’ve used the draft as well as any team in the majors. They’ve built one of the strongest Latin American programs in the game. There are plenty of teams that have done good jobs in one or the other and a few that have done a good job at both.

If you were wondering about that “Latin American program”, you’ll notice that there are no players on the list above that were signed as Amateur Free Agents…so you won’t find the equivalent of a Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta, Fausto Carmona, or Rafael Perez, the way that you could on the 2007 Tribe.

So, are the Rangers (as they’re currently constructed) a team that should be emulated in terms of how much they have benefited from smart drafting and Latin American development?

Um...not really, particularly when you consider the rotation that they’ll be facing this post-season includes four pitchers all drafted and developed by San Francisco. Prepare to be impressed here:
Matt Cain (1st Round, 2002)
Jonathan Sanchez (27th Round, 2004)
Timmy Lincecum (1st Round, 2006)
Madison Bumgardner (1st Round, 2007)
Now, each of those four pitchers is under control for at least the next two seasons and if you were wondering how the Giants are in the World Series despite their moribund offense and after making some HORRIBLE recent moves in FA (Zito and Rowand) as well as some dreadful trades (AJ Pierzynski for Liriano/Nathan), you start to realize how truly amazing it is, in terms of what young, top-end starting pitching can hide in terms of other organizational warts.

Drafting and development is why the Giants find themselves in the Fall Classic as Brian Wilson (24th Round, 2003…and who is under club control through the 2013 season, just like Lincecum) and Buster Posey (1st Round, 2008) combine with that pitching staff to essentially constitute the six bullets in the Giants’ chamber.

Sure, they have their bit players that have played well…actually Aubrey Huff (FA), Pat Burrell (FA), and Andres Torres (FA) are the only offensive players outside of Posey to have an OPS+ over 100 and relievers Santiago Casilla (FA) and Sergio Romo (Draft) are the only pitchers outside of their playoff rotation and Brian Wilson to post an ERA+ over 100 this year, but the Giants’ success is keyed and maintained by those six drafted players.

And if you’re wondering after looking at those years of the draft – yes, they went Lincecum, Baumgardner, Posey in three consecutive years in the Amateur Draft.
Of course, every team would love to simply draft arms in the 1st Round year after year and assume that those pitchers will one day constitute a playoff rotation for them, but if you want a road map of how successful drafting can lead you to your destination, the Giants (even with their terrible lineup, full of has-beens and never-weres) actually provide a better example between the two, in terms of how teams can use the draft to a postseason berth and a successful October.

To bring it back to the North Coast, after following the REAL story of how Texas was built and how it falls closer in line with “acquire guys via trade and add them to in-house talent while getting lucky on some lottery tickets” blueprint that the Rangers are reading off of, perhaps the new incarnation of the Indians is a combination between the two. Which is to say, the Indians have made the trades in the past three years that they hope will yield the same success that the Rangers are enjoying; however, the blueprint of picking arms at the top of the draft in the hopes that they can one day become that great equalizer – strong starting pitching – the way that it has in San Francisco.

Certainly, it feels pie-eyed to dream today that some amalgamation of Santana, Carrasco, LaPorta, Masterson, and Brantley (all acquired via trade, among many others) combining with Kipnis, The Chiz, Weglarz, and most importantly (here’s where those high pitching draft picks come in) Alex White and Drew Pomeranz are going to mature and develop into some combination of acquired players and drafted players that allows them to achieve contention and sustained contention.

However, as we’ve seen, there are many ways in which a team can outplay the heavyweights of MLB any given year (and does anyone else find it odd that competitive balance is touted simply because the Yankees fall two games short of winning it all) and the Indians seem to be following some well-worn paths. Whether or not those players acquired and drafted can blend the same way that they have in Texas and San Francisco this year (or the way they did in Cleveland three years ago) is the ebb and flow that figures to be on tap for the next few years.

What To Do on A Lazy Sunday?

On a morning after which the World Series is set, with the inclusion of the Rangers and Giants sure to give the MLB offices one more year of “see, competitive balance in the league has never been better because small-market teams can succeed (despite the fact that San Francisco and Dallas are the 6th and 7th largest Metro areas in the US)”, it seems that the WS match-up discussion is ancillary to what the Yankees and the Phillies are going to do this off-season to return to the Fall Classic next year.

As the assumption that Cliff Lee (and perhaps Carl Crawford) will head to the Bronx has become a foregone conclusion (and might I remind you that I pointed out that he’d end up going there when he was dealt to Seattle last December) and as the Phillies attempt to figure out WHY they traded CP Lee in the first place, the events of the League Championship Series showed us, once again, that pitching rules the day in the MLB playoffs.

So while everyone (or at least the folks in Bristol) wonders what the Yankees and Phillies will do to enhance their chances of getting back to the WS next year, let’s take off on a Lazy Sunday with other types of off-season “plans”…but “plans” for a team that don’t occupy the same airspace as New York and Philly. With that all being said, let’s get loose on a Lazy One…

In case you don’t remember because Cleveland Beer Week hit you pretty hard, last week’s edition involved one man’s (probably flawed) perspective on how the Indians should be approaching their off-season, in terms of dealing with arbitration cases and attempting to fortify some of the obviously weak spots of the Indians. If you need the Cliffs’ Notes version, in terms of acquiring talent from outside the organization, I had the Indians targeting a defensive 3B, a RH 4th OF, a RH set-up man, and adding some arms to the mix in the rotation.

The whole “GM for a Day” idea was certainly not mine as Baseball Prospectus has utilized the concept for the last few years, titled…actually, “GM for a Day”. Earlier this week, the Indians’ piece was posted, written by Tommy Bennett, who surmised that uncertainty is the only certainty in terms of the Indians’ future at most positions. While this is certainly true, the entire piece was poorly-researched and lacked any kind of real proposed “actions” that you would think be highlighted in a piece, if the premise is to be “GM for a Day”. To wit, one of his “gambles” was to “fill out the outfield with Michael Brantley in center, and then I’d move him to left when and if Sizemore returns.”

Um…be careful on that limb out there as that sounds pretty risky, unless you’ve been paying attention at all to the Indians.

As much as I’ve enjoyed this series from B-Pro (as they do every team), it really is too bad that John Perrotto was not on the Indians, as in this particular piece 3B isn’t mentioned AT ALL, much less as the primary position that needs to be addressed, and the lack of perspective comes through as clearly as possible when the absurd claim that “the Indians should turn their eyes squarely to Jason Knapp, who came back from a shoulder injury to blow away his competition in the low minors” makes an appearance.

In terms of recommending specific player acquisition, the analysis gets as insightful as finding a “Joaquin Benoit c.2009” for the bullpen…because every team isn’t looking for a wildly effective reliever at a low cost. Past that, Bennett also suggests a reclamation project for the rotation (specifically mentioning Brandon Webb), but the disappointing piece ends with the idea that development should rule the day, saying that “the Indians are well set to field a competitive – and inexpensive – team.”

The angle of the focus being player development is not a new one (as we all know that the success or failure of the Tribe in the next three to five years is going to depend on players already in house) and it is at the crux of a piece from Jon Steiner at WFNY, who questions whether the Indians should be looking to spend on adding an arm, among other proposed additions from outside the organization:
Since it’s unlikely that 2011 will be a contending year, I believe we need to separate the wheat from the chaff in that list, and adding another arm to the pile on a short-term deal doesn’t make a lot of sense unless the goal is to flip him at the deadline for prospects. It would just muddy the waters.

While this line of thinking certainly is not without merit, I suppose my answer to that would be that I’m not overly convinced that the likes of Talbot, Tomlin, Gomez, and Huff are much more than “Cleveland to Columbus” fodder and past Carmona, Carrasco, and Masterson (who, frankly, still could end up in the bullpen), the next group of arms is a fair distance away from legitimately contributing. To that end, Alex White excites me and Corey Kluber, Zach McCallister, and Yohan Pino intrigue me at some level (and in that order), but I don’t think that those guys are going to be ready when the season starts to be in Cleveland, just like I don’t think that Tomlin or Gomez should join Huff in some sort of less-than-compelling “competition” for the 5th spot.

Steiner’s absolutely right in that the team needs to separate the wheat from the chaff, but I would allow some of that to continue to happen on the AAA level and see if the team could add an arm (or two) to that mix of the parent club to push guys like Tomlin, Gomez, Huff, and the group below them into a position where they’re forcing THEMSELVES into an opportunity instead of an opportunity being forced upon them, perhaps prematurely. Certainly, the Indians need to find what they have in their back-end-of-the-rotation grab-bag, but given that all of those guys have options (save Talbot), I’d utilize those options and add some legitimate depth in the rotation for next year. If Tomlin/Gomez/Huff or White/Kluber/McCallister/Pino force themselves into the conversation – terrific, but putting them squarely in the conversation when they may not necessarily belong there is what frightens me.

Going further with what frightens me, Steiner asks the question of whether the Indians should even be spending money on 3B, evoking my favorite Billy Beane quote…you know, that teams can win the same amount of games with a $40M payroll and a $75M payroll. Regardless, after surveying the scene of what would be available at 3B, Steiner asks about the most prudent path at 3B and, more importantly, about how the Indians should be approaching this off-season as a whole:
Are there any 3B out there in the $3 to $5 million range who are significantly better than what we have? Guys who can add wins to the team? And if not, does it really make sense to go after anyone? Should the team spend an extra $10 million just to say that it did?

It’s a valid question and I’m not sure that the team shouldn’t just squirrel away the money for next year’s draft (and yes, I know that budgets theoretically exist for each...but you can’t tell me that they’re unrelated) or the draft after that and continue to go overslot with draft picks to continue to add to what could and should be the lifeblood of the organization – young, internally developed talent. As a quick aside here, Tony Lastoria mentions that the Indians’ 2010 draft was ranked as the best by Baseball America recently…which I hope means something in about two to three years.

However, I’ll go back to the notion that the team is flawed (obviously) and that money should be spent to essentially avoid the avoidable for 2011. What I mean by that is that finding a 3B prevents the Indians from playing Jayson Nix out of position at 3B in 2011 and allows him to play a more valuable role as a super-utility player. Just as important, looking for a RH reliever allows the Indians to go into 2011 with a RH set-up guy not named Jensen Lewis and/or Justin Germano. Continuing to go down the line, is anyone interested in seeing Trevor Crowe as the 4th OF next year and wouldn’t it behoove the Indians to find a RH OF to replace him?

All those answers are fairly obvious, though the question becomes at what cost should the Indians find these “band-aids”, whether they’re meant to cover a minor scratch (4th OF) or a gaping hole (3B). Just to use the $10M number, spending $10M may buy some time at 3B while improving defense appreciably and it could add a RH bat to the OF while adding some stabilization to the back of the bullpen and putting another arm into the rotational mix, allowing the Tomlin/Gomez/Huff troika time to separate themselves out in Columbus, not in Cleveland.

Unfortunately for the Indians, if they hand out $2M here on a RH OF, $3M there on a 3B and $3 M over there on an arm, the price tag adds up pretty quickly to that $10M number. While some will equate these types of signings with Dellichaels of our past and the Branyan of our recent past (and there is a valid argument there), the holes on this team are obvious, or at least the ones that don’t have a natural internal answer as an option.

How much money they end up spending (and where they spend it) remains to be seen, but I do think that they add a 3B and a RH OF at the very least, then will probably pick through the reliever market for a player that can hopefully inspire more confidence than Lewis/Germano/Smith in the 7th and 8th innings while perhaps getting creative on adding a rotational arm or two.

With money “on the table”, it is interesting to take a look at the committed dollars to players for 2011 for the Indians in the context of the rest of MLB, courtesy MLBTR:
Padres - $1.1M
A’s - $11.48M
Pirates - $16.75M
Rays - $17.67M
Marlins - $19.75M
Diamondbacks - $19.99M
Indians - $27.46M
Orioles - $28.7M

Rangers - $32.11M
Giants - $76.93M

Phillies - $143.73M
Yankees - $144.61M
The link is worth a click for the whole list and those last two are included for some perspective (and remember that Jeter, Mo Rivera, Pettitte aren’t under contract next year for the Bombers…nor is CP Lee) as to how out-of-whack MLB truly is in terms of payroll. To that end, it should be noted that the totals for the bottom seven (that’s up to and including the Orioles) ADD UP to a number lower than committed salaries for the Phillies and Yankees for 2010.
Seriously…

However, the inclusion of the Rangers (and the Giants) is not coincidental as the build-up in Texas is the soup du jour these days in terms of how a team can be constructed from the ground up. To that end, there’s an interesting piece on the Rangers – and their GM, Jon Daniels, specifically – from ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick that reminds those who may not follow the Rangers that closely about their ascent to their current place.

In the piece, Daniels admits that the Rangers aren’t trying to do anything different than 25 or so other teams, that it just happened to work out for them with some strong drafting, strong player development and (after a couple of misfires) a trade that infused young talent:
“Our plan isn’t rocket science. We’re not the first team that said, ‘Hey, let’s build from within.’ We’ve had success to this point because our evaluators are good. Our scouts are good. Our development people are good. They care and they put the work in. I like to think we have a very clear idea of who we are and what our identity is.”
--snip--
Flash back 3½ years, and Daniels wasn’t exactly baseball’s flavor of the month. In his first significant move as Texas GM, he sent Adrian Gonzalez and Chris Young to San Diego for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka. In his second, he traded John Danks to the Chicago White Sox for Brandon McCarthy. He was like a hitter down 0-2 in the count and trying to foul off Mariano Rivera cutters amid the shadows.

But in 2007 Daniels sold Hicks on “the plan”-- a commitment to long-term building through the draft, Latin America and all other available sources -- and the Rangers have since enjoyed a stunning run of success:
The foundation for Texas’ turnaround was laid at the July 2007 trade deadline, when Daniels sent Mark Teixeira to the Atlanta Braves in a seven-player deal that brought pitcher Neftali Feliz and shortstop Elvis Andrus to the Rangers.

Certainly you can say that the addition of Lee was instrumental in getting the Rangers to the WS (and that’s an understatement), but the fact is that the Rangers had to part with their top positional prospect in Justin Smoak (who was drafted by Texas) to pry Lee out of Seattle. However, the Rangers did seem to have everything come together all at once as they benefitted from internal development with guys like Ian Kinsler and Tommy Hunter, some rewarded patience with guys like Nelson Cruz (career OPS of .794 coming into this year as a 29-year-old OF), and a little luck with guys like Colby Lewis (career ERA+ of 73 entering 2010 as a 30-year-old fresh out of Japan) and converted reliever CJ Wilson (6 MLB starts prior to this year as a 29-year-old)…all of which seemed to work for them.

Going back to that piece though, look at those Gonzalez/Young deals and the Danks deal that absolutely tanked for the Rangers and how the Teixeira deal represented the watershed moment in terms of adding outside talent to what was already in the organization to give the Rangers that young, talented bedrock to build upon.

Compare that to the to 2007 Indians as, after Shapiro missed on the first couple of trades (Alomar, etc.) in his tenure, he hit paydirt on Colon and the players received combined with the in-house talent (Victor, CC, Peralta, etc.) as well as some other players acquired via trade (Westbrook, Hafner, etc.) to create that special opportunity for the Tribe.

Now, remember that the Teixeira deal occurred in July of 2007 and here we sit, 2 ½ years later with the Rangers heading to the WS. Interestingly, while Jarrod Saltalamacchia (who was the closest to the big leagues and posted an OPS+ of 80 in 721 PA for the Rangers) and LHP Matt Harrison (MLB ERA of 5.39 in 225 1/3 IP) haven’t contributed to the current success of the team, the timeframe is worth noting as CC was moved the summer after Teixeira and Lee and Vic were moved two years later. Again, the timeframe of those building blocks acquired via trade being mixed with the in-house talent is what should be watched here.

While it’s folly to think that the Indians will follow a similar path in 2011, the development of those players acquired via trade over the last two years combining with the players added to the organization via the draft (particularly in the last three drafts) will determine if …let’s say the 2012 Indians have a similar story – with pieces from the CC and Lee deals blending in with other players, drafted and/or traded for in leading a young and relatively inexpensive team into unchartered waters?

The blueprint was followed by the 2007 Tribe and is now being used by the 2010 Rangers, and whether or not the Indians decide to add players via FA this off-season or not, it bears repeating that the success or failure of this team in the next three to five years is going to come from the players that are already in house.

Flipping the Script

As the MLB playoffs continue with former Indians dotting the post-season rosters, the amazement that 2007 was merely three years ago never ceases for most Tribe fans. The excitement, the promise, the feeling that this was just the beginning, the cautious optimism that the Indians had created a burgeoning juggernaut, unfazed by the Yankee mystique and built on their own young talent…remember all of that, just three years ago?

Unfortunately, as we all sit and watch the aces for each ALCS squad square off against each other (again) in a meaningful playoff series (again), the Indians find themselves at the bottom of another “cycle” and, if it wasn’t obvious from the attendance figures, the descent has taken its toll on an already abused fanbase.

To that end, I thought I would share an e-mail that I received from my buddy Mike last week that I’ve been unable to extract from my head, as Mike admitted to me that the past three years have given him serious pause about the investment involved in being and Indians’ fan. Lest anyone question the fanhood at hand, this is the guy who earned extra money in high school by ushering at Jacobs Field, that drove from Chicago to Cleveland for every playoff game in the 2007, and who was known to launch Rally Pies on unsuspecting victims on those magical Fall nights a mere three years ago.

Despite that level of, well…love, Mike’s feelings about the current Indians echo what I think most die-hard Indians’ fans are wrestling with. He wrote me that after 2007, “to see what happened next just destroyed me. A lot of it was due to bad luck, but quite a bit was due to baseball economics. Hafner/Westbrook injuries coupled with drop offs from some just destroyed us. After being as invested as I was, seeing that happen, and then seeing how ruthless the current MLB financial setup is with a team like us. How can I rationalize that kind of investment again?”

Realizing that the MLB landscape was not going to be changing any time soon, I asked him what would bring that passion back – if it was simply a matter of winning again. His response was jarring:
A rebirth of sorts would help, but remember, we all stayed engaged in the early to mid 2000’s partially because we were still ignoring the MLB financial elephant in the room and partially because the new young players were so exciting. Ultimately, I don’t know what will bring me back. I hate to say it’s just winning, but that’s not the only thin as I have no connection to this current roster. At the end of the day, maybe what really bothers me deep down is they’ve never addressed the organizational shortcomings. Clearly someone was failing miserably at their job for the past 5 years.

You want the PR nightmare?
There it is, die-hard fans unsure if they want to emotionally invest themselves in the continuation of this new “cycle”, certain that the economic realities of baseball will deep-six any possibility that the Indians can use the same group of players to mature and contend together for a period longer than three to four years and, more importantly, the horrifying descent of the last three years showing that the Indians’ organization was ill-equipped to sustain the success that they had built from 2003 to 2007. Seeing the same faces in the Front Office and the same message being preached from said Front Office as we embark on what we all hope is another trip up the standings, it feels like 2002 or 2003 all over again and, as Mike says, “how can I rationalize that kind of investment again” if we already know how this story ends, with the sucker punch landing in our guts?

That’s why the Indians are at a crossroads in terms of how they’re perceived by their fans. Sure the optimists will always see that half-full glass and the naysayers will always have their teeth to gnash, but the core of the fanbase is wavering by the dual existence of MLB’s uneven playing field (and Craig Calcaterra points out the real “power” of the Yankees here) and the fact that they’ve heard this sermon before from the same preacher and they aren’t quite sure if they’re ready to buy into the message again.

Despite this, the Indians are out there with the script that we’ve heard for far too long, one that was relayed from Mark Shapiro to B-Pro’s John Perrotto again recently as he outlined the issues (outside of trading CC and CP Lee in consecutive seasons) facing the Indians:
“One of them is demographics,” Shapiro said. “It’s a smaller city. A second is the economic troubles we’ve had as the city tries to re-shape itself. This has been a devastating period for the city. But there are two other factors. We need to win. We need to put a winner on the field and we need to improve the level of entertainment we offer within the ballpark."
--snip--
“The trouble is, people are looking at this in the context of the mid-‘90s Indians,” he said. “That was obviously a very different market. We had top five payrolls. And we did not spend beyond our revenues in the mid-‘90s. We spent what we made. There’s probably only one team in baseball that spends significantly beyond their revenues. All the rest spend about what they make. The biggest markets make a ton of money, and don’t even spend their revenues. So the model you might emotionally ask for, an owner to use the team as a philanthropic endeavor and to continually fund huge deficits beyond revenues—you’re asking for something that doesn’t exist. There is no place where that exists. So changing an owner is not going to change that."

Just to finish the thought, Shapiro says in the piece that, “’we’re at the hump or just over it,’ as far when the Indians will attempt to field a winning team” and attempts to dispel what Perrotto calls “the perception among fans is that ownership lacks the money to bankroll a strong roster”.

That reasoning is actually sound in that Cleveland is struggling and the Indians are in a different place, in terms of revenues, than most other MLB teams…and a couple in particular. However, Indians’ fans are already acutely aware of this and realize that CC was going to go to the highest bidder and that CP Lee is going to go to the highest bidder, as well as the fact that the Indians were never going to be that highest bidder.

However, this rationale doesn’t make it any easier for anyone to stomach the “emotional investment” and the sucker-punch that lurks around the corner. Terry Pluto hit on this a couple of weeks ago, in that the Indians should change their message, embracing the role of the underdog, but it goes further than that. The Indians shouldn’t just be embracing the role of the underdog, they should be trumpeting the fact that the two aces in the ALCS are players who made their MLB debuts for Cleveland and that it isn’t a coincidence (and read this on Lee from Joe Pos) that the Indians had built a rotation around CC and Lee in the mid-2000’s.

They should point out that they DID identify the generational talents and put the plans in place to sustain that level of contention. However, they shouldn’t shy away from the fact that those best-laid plans were undermined by slow starts, injuries, regressions, and a failure to augment the parent club with a steady stream of young talent – the lifeblood of any successful franchise.

On that last topic, they’ve started to admit the mistakes as Shapiro had this to say on the draft failures to Stephanie Storm of the ABJ, “We admit it’s definitely the worst-performing component of our overall operation...we can’t afford to not excel in every facet of our operation.”

But again, the message should be stronger than that and the season that fans just endured – with Crowe and Huff…um, underwhelming and Sowers spending the entire year in AAA because no other team wanted the former First Round Pick – should compel them to admit that it’s simply “the worst-performing component” of the organization. Let it be known that people are on notice on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario and that the mediocrity won’t be tolerated, much less rewarded, anymore.

If that doesn’t sound like the Indians’ public face…well, that’s part of the problem as the Indians shouldn’t be sending out letters to season-ticket holders (like this one that arrived in my mailbox this past weekend), gently selling the future of the team (which Corey Kluber is, apparently, a major part of) on the premise of hope.

Rather, they should be pointing out that they pulled this off once before and while the end result didn’t flesh out the way they thought it would, they’ll be damned if they’re not going to do it again. They should say that the economics of baseball aren’t going to dictate terms to them because they’ve learned from their mistakes and are creating that model franchise with a full pipeline of young players that was promised back in 2002.

Maybe it will come off as grand-standing and maybe it involves more chutzpah than we’ve seen from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario for a while, but the organization needs to get a little ballsy in terms of talking up what they’ve done, own where they’re at, and, most importantly, where they think they’re going.

By no means is this to suggest that the Indians need to become some polo-and-khaki version of the “The Kenny and Ozzie Show” that plays to packed houses (and some critical acclaim) on the South Side, nor does it mean that they have to go to the comic sans font or the extreme side of the ledger and guarantee a championship before the Yankees win another one…as some perspective is always necessary and appreciated.

Rather, the Indians need to find a new message to yell from the street corners.
Toady, we hear the same message that was preached in 2002 – that patience is a virtue and that brighter days are ahead – but here they sit, eight years later, right back to where they were before.

Yes, we all know that they’ve done this before and that they oversaw the rise from the ashes from 2003 to 2005 and were one game away from the 2007 World Series, but Indians’ fans are left with the reality that, even if the current players turn into the stars that some of them could be, they’re not Cleveland Indians for life and that the same Front Office that presided over the rapid descent, is still in place with no promise that the last chapter of this next book (2010-?) is going to be any different than the ultimately disappointing one (2003-2009) we just closed up.

Everyone remember when the Dolans said they would win “multiple championships” when they became owners or when Shapiro said that “this team will contend in 2005” back when they traded Colon in 2002?

Of course, both of those phrases were (or still are) fodder for anyone with a complaint about the Indians and their failures. Want to know something, though? As insane as those “multiple championships” sounded (or is it sound?) or as crazy as we all thought Shapiro was when he put a firm timeframe on the rebuild (and there’s no doubt he regretted providing a date as soon as he spoke it), that type of braggadocio is what is lacking from this organization in the past four years.

Maybe the time has come to pull a Don Draper and make a grand gesture (and by this I refer to his open letter in the New York Times, not his actions of the Season Finale), acknowledging that the perception on the street about you has become pervasive and accepted fact, looking at the brick wall in front of you, and changing the message to remind everyone who you are, what you have done, and (again, most importantly) who you know you will become.

As a quick aside here, if you don’t know who “Don Draper” is (and that’s a loaded question), stop what you’re doing, go add “Mad Men” to your Netflix queue (or however you handle your DVD viewing) and watch every available episode to catch up to that letter to the best show on TV right now.
No, seriously...I’ll wait.

Back to the matter at hand, this may be lunacy for Antonetti to preach a new message when he JUST became the GM, but injecting some urgency that doesn’t devolve into catch-phrases and cold, calculated seminars is imperative if the Indians are going to win back that cadre of fans that are having trouble wrapping their heads, hearts, and stomachs around the last three years…and the next three.

Use the bully pulpit from the corner of Carnegie and Ontario again to move away from the talk that “this is a rebuilding year again” and say that young in-house talent are unequivocally the players that are going to lead the Indians to their next appearance in the playoffs. If the Front Office TRULY believes it, come out and declare that the assembled young talent at all levels will prevent the team from going into this valley again.

If that sounds bold…be bolder.
Put a timeframe on it – say that the team will win 90 games within the next three years and take it further that if 90 wins isn’t enough to win a division title by 2013, that ownership will make the necessary commitments to earn that AL Central flag within the next five years. If that doesn’t happen and the team finds itself in this “valley” again in five years, be self-aware enough to acknowledge that you’re probably not going to be drawing a paycheck from the Indians five years from now because it means that the current “Rebuild/Reload/Whatever” didn’t gain traction.

The time has arrived for the organization to grow a pair, to believe in what they’ve done already and to sell what they plan to do. Watching the Indians act like Shelley Levene in the corner, begging for the benefit of the doubt, and not Ricky Roma screaming in the center of the room, has grown tired and the Indians need to find a way to regain the confidence that most have lost over the last three years and to convince people that they’re equipped to take the built-in disadvantages of the system out of the equation.

If the Indians want to re-capture those that have lost hope, they must project a confidence that is not off-putting, but one that acknowledges their mistakes while promising…no, guaranteeing that better days are ahead. Harken back to the idea that the Indians are out to create a model organization and that their mistakes have given them a better idea of what “The Indian Way” (remember that?) is really all about. Convince the fans that the period that many figured to emerge after the 2005 and 2007 seasons is not far off and that the last three years have given them back the laser focus that made them successful in the first place.

The time has come to convey to the fans that the organization moved away from what made them successful…and to remind them that what made them successful in the first place is on display on the mound in the ALCS. For the Indians, it is time to stop playing the role of “The Little Engine that Could” and assert themselves into the recurring role of “The Little Engine that Did…and Will Once Again”.