Opportunity Knocks - Infield Edition

With about 30% of the 2010 season remaining, the final 50 games will be devoted to a discernment (as best possible) as to which players potentially fit where for 2011 and beyond. Not even delving into the youth already on the roster, in light of the spate of recent injuries and trades, opportunities are there for the taking for a number of players to assert themselves squarely in the mix past this year.

Since the last 2 months is akin to an open audition on the pitching staff, as there are only three pitchers that I can safely assume to be obviously in their current roles when next year starts – Carmona and Talbot (remember, he’s out of options) in the 2011 rotation and Chris Perez in the 2011 bullpen – the likes of Masterson, Huff, Laffey, Gomez, Tomlin, and Carrasco (and those are just the starters) will be jockeying for position for 2011. None of the pitchers (save the aforementioned three) can safely assume that they’ll be part of the 2011 team, much less beyond, and while that fact is downright horrifying, it would certainly seem that the lineup looks to be decidedly more stable.

As it stands today, pending the health of the following players, the following positions would seem to have spots nailed down by these players for next year:
Santana
LaPorta
Cabrera
Sizemore
Choo

Yes, health plays a role here, but assuming that each of those players is healthy, they’ll fill 5 of the 9 spots on the roster…and should do it rather effectively. The spots omitted from that list would be two infield spots (2B and 3B), an outfield spot (LF or CF, depending upon where Sizemore plays) and DH. It is true that Hafner is under contract for 2011 and beyond, but given what we’ve seen this year (the struggles against LHP and his injuries), DH is as wide open as 3B in 2011.

That being said, I thought that I’d break down those 4 positions in terms of what the rest of the season is likely to look like as well as what the principals for each position project as in 2011.

Second Base
Starting at 2B, Jason Donald moved to 2B on a full-time basis after Cabrera returned from injury and was given the nod over Jayson Nix as Donald essentially becomes the de facto 2B for now, over both Valbuena and Nix. Donald’s struggles in the field have been well-documented, as have his strikeouts, but Donald is still getting used to a new position (31 career MiLB games at 2B) and still has all of 64 games under his MLB belt. His OPS has tumbled recently down to .717, but that should be examined with the knowledge that the average OPS for 2B in the AL is .722, meaning that Donald has provided the team with production commensurate with other players at his position in his rookie year, all while playing a new position.

Given that he’s still 25, there’s no reason to not give Donald a long leash at 2B, particularly when you consider that the only other options are Jayson Nix (more on him in a minute) and Luis Valbuena. That’s not to write off Valbuena, who is younger than Donald and who posted a 1.032 OPS in Columbus in 119 PA this year after being sent down earlier in the year (Donald had an .820 OPS in 165 PA in AAA), but Valbuena needs to prove that his .520 OPS and lousy defense prior to his demotion is the aberration in his career and not the beginning of a trend. That being said, I’d still play Donald every day in Cleveland to afford him the same opportunity that was permitted to Valbuena to start the year.

As a quick aside here while we’re talking about Valbuena, does everyone know that Franklin Gutierrez has posted a .246 BA / .316 OBP / .370 SLG / .686 OPS in Seattle this year?

Gutierrez’s career line when he was dealt to Seattle was a .258 BA / .308 OBP / .409 SLG / .717 OPS…so, remember that idea that Gutierrez was never going to hit consistently in MLB when the Indians dealt him? Um, yeah…that would be what’s happening now. Sure, the guy is an absolute wizard in CF and is a pleasure to watch while helping out his pitchers, but the Indians traded him as he was entering his arbitration years. The Mariners avoided arbitration with Frank the Tank by buying up those years (and guaranteeing one more) in the form of a 4-year, $20.25 deal that will pay Gutz $4M next year, $5.5M in 2012, and $7M in 2013 with a team option for 2014 worth $7.5M. Unless his offense picks up or unless he actually sprouts wings to fly around the outfield, that option isn’t getting picked up as that contract looks terrible with three more guaranteed years remaining on the deal.

But I digress…
Back to 2B, the real question facing the Indians going forward at the position is whether Donald or Valbuena or even Cord Phelps (.935 OPS in AAA as a 23-year-old, which frankly looks like an aberration compared to the rest of his MiLB numbers) are good enough to gain a toehold at 2B to keep the position away from Jason Kipnis.

Kipnis is the 2nd round draft pick from a year ago who has blazed his way up to Akron after posting an .865 OPS in Kinston. Now that he’s in Akron, he’s actually improved on his performance at the plate, posting an .945 OPS in AA, leading Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein to wonder if Kipnis has passed up The Chiz in terms of top prospects, which would essentially mean that Kipnis is the top position player prospect in the eyes of some.

A converted OF, Kipnis certainly still has adjustments to make as a middle infielder (despite most reports about the transition being smooth), but his bat may carry him faster and further than even the most optimistic projection from when he was drafted merely 14 months ago. Being a college draftee, he is “old” at 23 and it remains to be seen if he can continue this torrid pace and this unprecedented ascent for a recent draftee.

Looking at 2B for the rest of 2010, I would continue to use Donald as the regular to monitor his adjustments at the plate and (more importantly) to a new position while giving Valbuena sporadic AB to give him confidence going into 2011. Going into 2011, Donald, Valbuena, and even Phelps should be given an opportunity to “win” the 2B job (and please no veteran, unless he’s just there to “push” them) with the idea that all of them are being given the opportunity to establish themselves as a legitimate 2B beyond 2011 with Jason Kipnis being given the 2011 season to continue to fine-tune his defense and to adjust to AAA pitching. Given that Kipnis has less than 230 PA above high-A ball, there’s no reason to rush him when options (that may be legitimate) exist. That being said, Kipnis could push his way very easily into this four-horse race, depending upon what the players ahead of him do with the opportunities that will be afforded them well into next year.

Third Base
When Cabrera returned from injury and Peralta made his way to the Motor City, the Indians made the pronouncement that Jayson Nix would be their starting 3B with the idea that he may be able to serve as the bridge from Peralta to a duo of youngsters effectively as his defense, to that point, had been stellar, his offense had been surprisingly good and (despite that he was a 2B by trade) that he had experience playing 3B.

Since that time, Jayson Nix has revealed himself to be uncomfortable at 3B and to be the offensive player more in line with the one that the White Sox cut than the one who posted a 1.147 OPS in his first 12 games as an Indian. Since that 12-game stretch, Nix owns a .619 OPS in the 91 PA in 21 games, which pretty much falls in line with the .658 OPS that he had going into this year, compiled in two years with the Rockies and the White Sox.

Offensively speaking, looking at Nix’s 12-game numbers and everything else that he’s done to date in MLB, which guy do you think is more likely to be striding to the plate?

While the thought was that perhaps he could handle 3B, the last few weeks have shown that Nix’s value is tied into his versatility and, unless the Indians want to make the same move that they did with Casey Blake (nullify his versatility by putting him in one position and keeping him there), his best asset (his versatility) should be utilized by allowing him to move around the diamond (2B, 3B, OF) and allowing him to simply serve as the complementary piece that looks to be his ceiling.

Where does that leave us for 3B…another infielder playing out of position in Valbuena?

As I prepare to duck, let me say “no” and to point out that the Indians have only one player on their roster who has been a 3B for the majority of his career…that’s right, everyone’s favorite relief pitcher – one Andy Marte.

While Marte is a lightning rod and a bit of a divisive individual, at this point, I don’t see why the Indians give Marte starts at 3B through the end of August to see if he can play a better 3B than the other options (both converted middle infielders) and if the confidence from knowing that he’s going to be in the lineup can give him some semblance of consistency at the plate.

Look, I understand that people hate Marte on a level that is almost Blakean or Peraltan (what is it about us and our 3B?), but Marte is a 26-year-old who seemed to have a breakthrough year (or maybe it’s “another” breakthrough year) in AAA last year. His .963 OPS in Columbus last year bested the numbers for Matt LaPorta (14 months younger than Marte) and Jordan Brown (2 months younger than Marte) and while he has certainly never shown an ability to hit at the MLB level, the damage done by having him take the AB at 3B for 3 weeks on a consistent basis is…what?

Truth be told, the Indians need a bridge at 3B until their prospects are ready to emerge to not just play, but actually contribute, and if the Indians have a player that can do that as an in-house option (meaning they don’t have to go on the open market for a cheap veteran at 3B to start 2011), why not find out if Marte could be that guy?

If Marte completely tanks in the month of August, the Indians can call up Jared Goedert (OPS in AAA now “down” to .955) to see if he has a future with the team as a 3B (as his defense there has been reported as…um, “lacking” and on a team full of groundball pitchers, that’s not good) or to see if he can continue on his Kouzmanoffian path that he’s blazed this year. It is worth noting that Goedert is 25 years old and a just a year and a half younger than Andy Marte with all of 251 PA above AA to his name (Marte had 461 PA in AAA as a 21-year-old, posting an .878 OPS for Richmond), so affixing the idea that Goedert is obviously the “answer” is wildly premature.

Maybe a month (or more) of Marte will tell us something in August, maybe a month of Goedert will tell us something in September, but the reality is that Lonnie Chisenhall may not be ready for a Carlos Santana-esque promotion to fix this ongoing problem at 3B by the middle of 2011 as Chisenhall has been inconsistent and plagued by injuries this season. The overall body of work for The Chiz is still impressive (particularly his June and July numbers) given that he doesn’t turn 22 until October, but that doesn’t guarantee any kind of ETA for The Chiz in Cleveland.

All told, 3B may be an open audition for longer than many care to admit and finding out about in-house options (Marte, then Goedert) leading into 2011 while seeing if Chisenhall can jump back onto that fast-track.

In terms of 2B and 3B for the foreseeable future, both positions have one top prospect currently in AA whose arrival date is still-as-yet-unknown as the distance between Akron and Cleveland is much further in baseball terms than it is as the crow flies. At 2B, the Indians have a number of options ahead of that top prospect who will be given an opportunity to assert themselves into the future of the team while jockeying for position amongst themselves. At 3B, the situation is much bleaker with the internal options including a converted 2B who has never hit in MLB, a former top prospect (but “natural” 3B) who has never hit in MLB, and a sudden prospect whose defense has been questioned and who will likely be given an opportunity at some point in Cleveland.

Opportunities abound…now it’s just a matter of which players are able to advantage of them.

Lazy Sunday with A New Hope

The dog days of summer are upon us and, during the time of the baseball season in which ennui and distraction usually rule the day, different winds are blowing at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. They are the winds of change and (despite the fact that they’ve been blowing for a little over two years) they’re bringing a breath of fresh air to a team and an organization that grew quickly stagnant as recently as last year, done in by poor decisions, poor performance, and the organizational actions that came as a result of those two factors.

After the horrific disappointment that has pervaded the North Coast since October of 2007 the fresh air is intoxicating to some, even if it does lead to the use of “hope” as a verb, a noun, and an adjective when describing the future of the Cleveland Indians.

Perhaps however, that “hope” is not as misplaced as it would seem as this Indians’ team is 21-17 since breaking their 7 game losing streak on June 27th and, while some could certainly accuse me of cherry-picking dates to make that record all that more impressive, here’s what is actually the most impressive thing about that 38 game stretch – the Indians’ opponents while they ran up that record and their winning percentage to date:
Reds - .564
Blue Jays (twice) - .523
A’s - .500
Rangers - .587
Rays - .615
Tigers - .486
Twins (twice) - .555
Yankees - .620
Red Sox - .573
For the record, that would be the top 4 teams in the AL East (all above .500), the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the AL Central, and the top 2 teams in the AL West and that list represents every team in the AL with a winning record, with the exception of the White Sox.

Running through that gauntlet, this Indians’ team that many fans dismiss (while taking shots at ownership and the Front Office) has posted a .553 winning percentage as their young pitching staff has an ERA of 3.64 in that stretch of 38 games.

While this is a healthy dose of optimism, particularly in terms of how the Indians are essentially playing a group of youngsters out there night after night after the veterans found their way off of the roster (which gets to the point that Steve Buffum made so eloquently recently), what’s even more exciting is to look at which teams they’re going to play after the Twins’ series in the month of August, with their winning percentages as such:
Orioles - .330
Mariners - .373
Royals (twice) - .422
Tigers - .486
A’s - .500
White Sox - .569

That’s right, prior to the team welcoming the White Sox to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario for the final weekend in August, the Indians do not have a team with a record above .500 on their schedule.

Of course, we all remember the frantic, and ultimately hollow, finish in 2008 (the team went 44-28 from July 10th to the end of the season) that allowed the Indians to amazingly finish with an 81-81 record, which only created the illusion that everything would be just fine to start the 2009 season. However, the manner in which the current Indians are winning games – decent to solid starting pitching, a surprisingly good bullpen, and a relatively balanced offense motored by Choo – with their young players (the only current Indian over the age of 28 is Shelley Duncan) draw some optimism for the future…and by that I mean “near future”.

As I said, we’ve all fallen into this trap before and Craig Calcaterra nailed it when he wrote this after Wednesday’s win against the Red Sox:
The Indians are 12-8 since the All-Star break. This is good. It will cause people to once again make them their “frisky pick” next spring, however. This is bad. For the sake of prognosticators and spring training optimists everywhere, Manny Acta, tank the rest of the season! Cleveland sports fans can’t afford to have their hopes -- however irrational they may be -- crushed again!

While it’s difficult to argue with that idea that the team could be a simply be a “frisky pick” that will be made in vain and that a solid finish is going to raise hopes (perhaps irrationally), there’s something that’s been creeping up on me the last couple of weeks…the realization that I think that I like this team.

Call me a sucker (as I’ve been called worse), but I enjoy seeing the young guys playing out there, seeing glimpses of what could be and dreaming on some of these players. It may be myopic and irrationally hopeful, and in the interest of full disclosure this is coming from a guy who bought season tickets prior to the 2004 season (coming off of a 97-loss season in 2003) because I was excited about the seeds being sown in the system and could actually see that the team back then could develop into something special, but I can see those seeds being sown again.

While the fruit that was borne from those seeds ultimately came up a little short in their quest to deliver a World Series title, watching the development of players like CC, Victor, Sizemore, Hafner, Lee, and even Peralta into a championship contender in the span of a couple of years was certainly gratifying, even if their “limitless future” was limited to a couple of months to start the 2008 season.

Now in August of 2010, we’re back to the building stage and while a good number of fans don’t want to go through this process again because they realize the eventuality of the situation as dictated by the economics of MLB (that these players we’re watching develop are eventually going to end up wearing other uniforms), reader Amit Asoyla absolutely nailed it when he wrote to me that the Indians are “like the Matrix, where we reboot every few years”.

With all of the talk of “Windows of Contention”, how apropos is a comparison to the team simply “re-booting” every few years?

If we’re dealing with that, the shutdown from the 2002 to 2009 edition occurred with the trades of Clifton Phifer and El Capitan last July (the way that it did when Colon was dealt in 2002) and now the Indians are a year removed from what actually doesn’t look like a bad decision (last summer’s trades) when you consider that the 2010 incarnation was not going to contend – Lee and Victor or no Lee and Victor.

That’s oversimplifying it more than just a bit as a whole mess of mistakes were made as regressions, poor personnel decisions, cumbersome contracts, and even injuries played a role in this precipitous fall for the Indians, but stacking up where they sit today with where they were a year ago, it has to be asked – which team do you feel better about?

Last May, I came clean and admitted that I hated the Indians as the team that they had evolved into, an obviously flawed team done in by the wrong players being on the field and by the roster being full of pieces and parts that may have made sense in 2006 or 2007, but that were obviously out of place in 2009.

Some would have held onto Lee and Martinez (and Westbrook and Peralta and Garko and…do I need to keep going), but the question that arises is whether it is better to hold on to the last vestiges of past glory and memories or to attempt to create new memories, more vivid and more exciting than the previous ones?

To me, I’ll take the latter and while books could be written about how the Indians quickly devolved from being one game away from the World Series to where we sit today (and I run out of fingers to point), the exercise is futile and exhausting.

That being said, it all takes us (in a long-winded manner) to finally getting off on this Lazy Sunday where Castrovince taking the week off has left us devoid of local flavor (unless you count Paul Hoynes tweeting out that Carlos CARRASCO was going to have knee surgery and was out for the season…you know, instead of Carlos SANTANA) but not devoid of terrific things to hit on.

Well, mainly one terrific thing to hit on...
The point of order comes from an old friend who has a new address (that many people still don’t even know about) as Sweet Pete Gammons takes some time to assert that there is hope in the heartland for baseball fans, focusing specifically on the situations in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City. This being a place where people come to read about the Indians (and not…say, the Rangers), let’s focus on what Gammons wrote about the Indians and try to dissect what he’s saying here as Gammons is still the same wildly connected, wildly talented writer that he’s always been – it’s just that it comes from MLB.com these days and not that 4-letter word in Bristol.

And with that 1,000 word intro out of the way, we’re off…
The impetus of the piece is that Gammons hits on the cases of a couple of small-market teams who he feels are positioning themselves well, perhaps not for the second half of the season, but instead for the long(er) haul:
… Oh, ascending general manager Chris Antonetti admits, "Mark [Shapiro] and I hope we can get back to the point where we’re buyers, not sellers at the deadline,” but they are only three years from winning 96 games and being up 3-1 in the ALCS, and five years from going to the final day of the season against the eventual world champion White Sox.
What Shapiro, Antonetti and the Cleveland organization built worked, but for misfortune, not to mention the fact that two times in three years they were beaten by the world champions. The window then simply closed, and in a market that has lost households and corporate strength as well as its professional sports identity, the window has to be reopened cautiously, gradually, without luxury or immediate solutions. The fact that they were so close in 2005 and 2007, were so good when The Jake was sold out every night in the '90s, just makes it harder when market realities forced CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez to be traded fewer than two years after being within a game of the World Series.

The “buyers, not sellers at the deadline” is a canned quote designed to calm Northeast Ohio after feeling like a feeder system for the rest of MLB over the course of the last 3 Trading Deadlines and the “misfortune” is that dead horse on the ground over there that people keep taking swings at, but that idea that “two times in three years they were beaten by the world champions” is truly something that I’ve never given much thought to.

Obviously, because the Indians were so close in 2007 and watching the Red Sox cut through the Rox like a hot knife through butter is the painful one, but that 2005 White Sox team did, in fact, win the World Series and while the Indians probably choked their way out of that postseason, every time I pass Comiskey (or whatever they call it) on my way through Chicago, I am reminded of it.

This idea of “windows” is nothing new and leave it to Gammons to put the visual of opening it “cautiously, gradually, without luxury or immediate solutions” to paint the picture, but what amazes me is how many fans this point is lost on. To them, CC, Lee, and Vic should still be Indians (or maybe Kenny, Thome, Omar, and Manny, depending upon who you listen to, “market realities” be damned) and the Indians should not have to go through these painful tear-downs and these painstaking build-ups.

Why…I don’t know, but I would like to see somebody refute what Gammons writes in those final 3 sentences, particularly the part that “what the Cleveland organization built worked” as evidenced by the 2005 and 2007 seasons.

Is it short-sighted to continually point out those two seasons when the other seasons from 2002 to 2009 were filled with such pain and anguish?
Maybe, but the current Front Office DID build a contender in short order as Colon was dealt in July of 2002, the Indians were in contention in August of 2004 and in the final weekend of 2005, making it to the ALCS in 2007.

Yes, they tore it down quickly…so quickly that some people are still wondering what the hell happened in 2+ years down at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, but that leads into the next idea that Gammons addresses:
But as Shapiro and Antonetti know, part of the problem with the small markets is that they require bringing groups of players along at the same time so that the window allows them to win before the reality of fattening frogs for snakes hits, free agency arrives for star players, agents ring up the big-market teams and it becomes impossible to even think about retaining Sabathia or Lee.
--snip--
The Indians are probably the closest to getting back to competitiveness. “We’ve looked back at where we started in the rebuilding process in 2002,” says Antonetti. That season, they traded Bartolo Colon to the Expos for Sizemore, Lee and Brandon Phillips, a rebuilding trade rivaled only by the Mark Teixeira deal between Texas and Atlanta, which sent five good players, including Neftali Feliz and Elvis Andrus, to the Rangers.
“Looking at what we had then and what we have now, I think we’re probably deeper along time.”

Remember the old “we’ll contend by 2005” that Shapiro uttered after the Colon deal (something that he probably wished never passed through his lips in the next 2 ½ years), which meant that he was “promising” (in the eyes of some fans) that the rebuild would take only 2 ½ years?

Well, regardless of what the last weekend of 2005 showed, that team did win 93 games, a total that no Indians team from 1956 to 1994 even came close to (they won 89 in 1959) and the 2007 team won the 7th most games (96) in franchise history. To put that another way, instead of 40 years in the desert (1954 to 1994), the Indians’ in the early-to-mid-2000s spent only 4 years looking for that oasis in the desert. While the 1994 to 2001 run a lot of fun and generally unprecedented in Tribe history, realize that the build-up for that run started in 1989 when Joe Carter was traded to San Diego, and didn’t produce a winning team until that 1994 squad. In comparison, the tear down in 2002 and build up in 2005 looked to be on fast forward.

So, yeah…these guys have done this before and while there’s obviously no guarantee that this group of players is going to succeed, much less surpass what the first incarnation in the mid-to-late-2000s accomplished, according to Antonetti they are “deeper along time” (and that is odd phrasing) now then they were back in 2002

But what does that mean…back to Sweet Pete for the best of the best-case scenarios that I think I’ve ever seen and one that I think even I would have trouble replicating in terms of glass-half full thinking:
Sizemore is only 28 and returns next year to an outfield with All-Star Choo, Michael Brantley and Trevor Crowe. Nick Weglarz, all 240 pounds of him, has an .893 OPS in Triple-A at the age of 22. Cabrera is an outstanding shortstop. Matt LaPorta is a developing bat at first. Santana has a chance to be a star; he had 82 walks and 68 strikeouts between Columbus and Cleveland. At Akron, 21-year old Lonnie Chisenhall is a potential middle-order hitter, Jason Donald has played very well for the Indians, while they have three other second base prospects: Jason Kipnis (.908 OPS, 13 HR between Kinston and Akron), Cord Phelps (.316 between Akron and Columbus) and Josh Rodriguez, who can play short and third and has a .902 OPS.

OK…everyone just relax and realize that while we’d all like to think that this is 1993 all over again, the induction of Kenny Lofton into the Indians’ HOF (and here’s a great retrospective by the immensely talented Ryan Richards at LGT) should give us all pause that the mid-1990’s lineup included 4 likely Hall of Famers (Manny, Thome, Omar, and Murray) and that quartet doesn’t include their leadoff hitter (Lofton), the #3 hitter (Baerga), or their best hitter (Belle), so to compare the lineup that looks to be on the horizon is akin to comparing it to one of the truly historically great lineups in MLB history…so, it feels a little presumptuous.

That’s not to take away from the potential, but we’ve learned in Cleveland that the best laid plans go awry…and generally go awry again before the time for action even comes, but if you want what the Indians’ lineup should look like, there it is from Peter Gammons.

Maybe he’s overstating the potential of (more than) a few of these players, but even with Santana, Choo, Cabrera, and LaPorta (.849 OPS since returning) with Chisenhall and Weglarz on the way as potential impact bats with the periphery of Brantley, Donald, Kipnis, and Phelps (you’ll notice that I refuse to include Crowe or Rodriguez here and Jordan Brown and others don’t even enter the conversation) providing the complementary support around the presumed middle of the lineup…um, yeah…that’s kind of the idea with the offense.

As has been said time and again since last July, however, the offense and the manner in which the lineup projects doesn’t look to the problem. For that, you need merely to look at the future of the pitching staff, with Gammons attempting to debunk the idea that the arms will be the issue thusly:
Finding power arms has been a problem. Since Adam Miller’s promising career was cut short by a finger injury, the Indians have found a number of command lefties, but have lacked strikeout pitchers. Last year’s top pick, Alex White, moved up to Akron and has dominated with a mid-90s fastball that has helped produce a 1.84 ERA.
“What helps make him special is that he is hyper-competitive,” says Antonetti, who would not be surprised if White jumped into the big leagues sometime next season.
Carlos Carrasco throws in the 90s with three pitches, is 9-4 in Columbus and is only 23. Jason Knapp, who also came from Philadelphia in the Lee trade, is throwing in the high 90s in the lower Minors. Last year’s third-round pick after White and Kipnis, Joe Gardner, is 10-5, 2.92 with a 123-48 strikeouts-to-walks ratio between Lake County and Kinston. Jeanmar Gomez threw well in his brief stint in Cleveland. Hector Rondon is a big arm. And they got Kluber from the Padres and will know in the next 10 days if they can sign this June’s No.1 pick, Mississippi left-hander Drew Pomerantz, or whether they’ll take the same pick in the deeper and more talented 2011 Draft.
If the Indians can develop a couple of their pitchers and avoid the plague of physical misfortune that has made 2010 so difficult, they can quickly be back in the competitive AL Central.

Again, this is about as gleaming as a best-case scenario can look with the names and the numbers coming flying at us from all directions, but Gammons pretty much has it nailed in terms of what is SUPPOSED to happen for the Indians, both in the rotation and the bullpen when he asserts that the key is to “develop a couple of pitchers”, which is (as we all know) what it takes to contend consistently.

Truth be told, this sunny outlook is largely unsurprising as Gammons has long been a fan of the Indians’ Front Office and the glowing reports of how rosy the outlook looks in Cleveland have been coming from his keyboard and his lips since the 2004 season or so.

However, his words speak to the optimist in all of us…
Even if your optimism on the Indians now only occupies the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind, reading this (and hopefully what’s been written in this space) gives you some comfort in terms of seeing a plan line up. While I debated on using that exact phrasing – “a plan” – the Indians’ Front Office has shown that they can build a contender in short order by, in effect tearing one down in short order, as they evolved from a 91-win team in 2001 to a 93-win team in 2005 with the years in between representing the nature of that transition as 3 players (CC, Jake, and Wickman) were on both teams.

The 2007 team is now three years in the rearview mirror and the future is clearly in front of the organization, with 2008 and 2009 representing unsuccessful attempts to sustain the momentum generated in 2007. Regardless, that momentum ground to a slow halt with the final few feet ending with the trades of Westbrook, Peralta, and others last weekend.

Now, the momentum begins to build anew as the Indians have essentially made their moves in an attempt to shorten that timeframe of “rebuilding/reloading/whatever” again and attempt to bring, as Gammons says, “groups of players along at the same time so that the window allows them to win before the reality” of MLB economics hits and causes the tumultuous slide down the mountain again.

That mountain is still one that the current Indians team still has yet to climb and while “hope” is a hollow word to some, after the stretch of baseball that we’ve seen over the last 40 games, it may represent more than simply “hope”.

After taking some wrong and varied turns while alternately stalling and outright stopping, this ride is beginning again, fueled by youth, talent, hunger, and…yes, “hope”.

Beantown Birthright

Since the Indians are finishing up their only series in Beantown and with “The Little Injuns That Could” taking aim at the Red Sox, now might be the perfect time to examine an emerging trend in MLB these days. While you’re probably thinking that the obvious “trend” is the dichotomy of the MLB payroll structure (though I think that we’re all aware of the disparity between the “haves” and the “have-nots” and a refresher course is not needed), a new culture is emerging as a trickle-down effect from the way that MLB payrolls exist as it pertains to the people who are supposed to matter (even if they rarely do) in baseball – the fans.

While the obnoxiousness and boorishness of fans of certain teams is both well-known and justified, it would seem that the recent successes of those teams has created an enhanced sense of entitlement (if that enhancement is even possible) when it comes to expectations for a particular fanbase and the manner in which the disparity of baseball economics has pervaded the fan culture to a degree that fans of certain teams simply expect a playoff berth and a look at the World Series, by virtue of simply who they root for. This is brought up in response to a piece that you may or may not have seen by now as it does come via the Worldwide Leader (which is a 4-letter word in Cleveland these days) and from Bill Simmons as he attempts to determine why the Red Sox team in 2010 is so “boring” and why their TV ratings are down 35% (the Indians are down 4.9% from 2009…and be sure to click that fascinating link) in a town that has been historically behind their baseball team, through good and bad.

The entire piece is worth a read as Simmons is a skilled writer, even when he’s working on flawed premises, as he ultimately comes to the conclusion that the Red Sox are “a boring team during a fairly boring season”. He goes into great detail to break down how the Red Sox got to be where they are (3rd place in the AL East with fan interest waning), citing injuries (10% of the problem), Front Office Paralysis/Inadequacies (5%), “The Hangover” (15%), “The Bandwagon Effect” (5%), “The Steroid Era Hangover” (5%), the decline of baseball in general (5%), and the time of games (55%) as the culprits.

First, let’s dismiss the final (and biggest, according to Simmons) factor as the debate over the length of the games has already played out publicly with Joe West, every Yankee, and every Red Sox player being involved in the lunacy that is the length of particular (umm…Yankee v. Red Sox) games. Interestingly, the time of games were for the first three games of the Indians-Red Sox series have been 3:18, 2:41, and 3:07, with two of those games being interrupted by a horrifying injury and by Josh Beckett’s complete lack of worth as a person.

Games go for 3 hours...if the Twitter/TMZ/BlackBerry world that we now live in where a snark in the form of snippet has taken the place of wit and depth in analysis and appreciation, well...yeah, maybe then baseball is ill-suited for the next century. But as a person who enjoys the pace of a game and enjoys the small things that happen within those three hours (and maybe I’m in the minority), I’m going to dismiss Simmons’ main culprit outright and get to the lunacy of his complaints about the current incarnation of the Red Sox.

First, let’s get it out there that Simmons is complaining about a team that is 61-47 and is currently sitting on the 8th best record in MLB, a team with the second most runs scored in MLB…THIS is the team that Simmons finds nearly unwatchable. Of course, the argument goes that with all of the advantages at their disposal, the Red Sox should be sitting on a record that should be better than the 8th best in MLB, but doesn’t that simply provide evidence that Red Sox fans have developed this overwhelming sense of entitlement en route to becoming more overbearing and arrogant than even Yankee fans that we’re about to get into?

He cites “injuries” as a major factor in the team being “boring”, while ignoring that every team goes through periods of losing their major cogs to the DL. Unquestionably, the Red Sox have been hit hard by injuries this year with Ellsbury, PEDroia, Victor, Cameron, and Beckett (with Youkilis joining that list this week) spending significant time on the shelf. But forgive me if I have trouble finding my violin to play Boston as the Indians’ 2010 season has been a veritable MASH unit (with the most recent patient coming at the expense of a Ryan Kalish “slide” into another person’s knee) with Sizemore, Choo, and Cabrera spending just as significant amounts of time on the DL on a team that was ill-equipped (unlike the Red Sox) to absorb the loss of any of them, much less all of them. To go further on that, the beginning of the 2008 Tribe season was undone (in some part) by injuries to Victor and Hafner, with the absence of those two players playing a role in the precipitious fall from contention that has happened in Cleveland since 2007. Injuries happen to every team every season and complaining about them is one of the lowest forms of discourse in baseball conversations.

What is so interesting about Simmons citing those injuries however leads to some of his other points as the Red Sox lost Ellsbury, PEDroia, Victor, Cameron, and Beckett...but currently employ a roster that makes $168M. Simmons counts “Front Office Paralysis/Inadequacies” as a major factor and one of the reasons that the team hasn’t been able to overcome injuries, but let’s look at the salaries for Red Sox players signed or acquired THIS off-season only:
Lackey - $18M
Beltre - $9M
Cameron - $7.25M
Scutaro - $5M
Wakefield - $3.5M (extension)
That doesn’t include the Beckett extension (4-years, $68M that kicks in next year), Papelbon’s $9.35M salary to avoid arbitration nor does it do justice to the fact that the Red Sox will pay Beckett, Lackey, Lester, Wakefield, and Dice-K a COMBINED $45.5M for 2010, while the Indians’ 2010 total payroll to start the year was $61M

Certainly, there is some flotsam and jetsam among that $168M (with Rob Neyer suggesting that the Red Sox cut ties with Dice-K), but all that you need to know about the Red Sox finances is that they are paying Julio Lugo $9.25M this year to NOT play for the Red Sox this year and still “found” $5M to pay Scutaro to play where Lugo was supposed to.

Has the Red Sox Front Office made mistakes?
Sure as no team is flawless, but unlike the situation in 26 or so other markets, those mistakes can be made up by essentially throwing money at the problem. Additionally, Simmons takes this argument further saying that the Red Sox farm system has been a disappointment as of late, not realizing that the farm system netted them Jason Bay and Victor Martinez (most notably) by turning the currency of young, under-club-control talent that is so valuable to teams that are not in a similar financial situation to the Red Sox into those veteran assets. He complains about a disappointing farm system, going so far as to say that:
ESPN’s Keith Law had Boston ranked as his No. 2 farm system in February. When I e-mailed him for a July update, he wrote back that many of its top guys were underperforming and added, “They’re not No. 2 anymore. Definitely still top-10.” I’m not pumping my fist.

61-47 with their two top pitchers being 24 years old and 25 years old with nearly all of their young talent tied in through the 2014 season (more on that in a minute) AND a top-10 farm system...that merits a “yeah, I’m not pumping my fist”?

Excuse us down here, but small-market teams dream of a top-10 farm system that Keith Law rated as the #2 farm system in February because it gives the allure of what could be. At this point, Simmons and Red Sox fans like him not only want immediate gratification, but also the swagger from knowing that they have the best young talent BELOW the MLB level. Perhaps Simmons doesn’t speak for the fabricated entity that is “Red Sox Nation”, but it sounds as if he wants to have his cake and eat it too...all while the smell of more cake cooking in the oven, to fill his senses with comfort.

As for the talent already at the MLB level, Simmons makes this statement to back up his theory that the team lacks star power, that the team (on pace for 91 wins with the second most runs in baseball to date) has been lacking that “must-see” feel to it:
…You can’t expect a nine-figure baseball team to capture the daily imagination of a big market without a player who passes the Remote Control Test (when you don’t flip channels because you know Player X is coming up) or the We Can’t Go Get Food Yet Test (when you don't make a food/drink run at a game because Player X is coming up) or even the Every Five Nights, I Know What I’m Doing Test (when you have a transcendent pitcher who keeps you in front of the television every five days).
I like Pedroia. I like Kevin Youkilis. Clay Buchholz has been a revelation this year. I really, really like Lester, my favorite current player (and someone quietly enjoying a monster season) mainly for everything he’s been through. But none of them passes the above tests.

Just to put that in perspective, let’s just take a look at the 4 players (while omitting the bias that some of them project to be largely detestable as personalities) that Simmons specifically references as essentially being non-compelling baseball players:
Pedroia is a 26-year-old former MVP (though any BBWAA award is largely ceremonial and widely ridiculed) who plays a middle infield position and has posted a cumulative OPS of .843 since 2007. To this point in his career, he has the 6th highest OPS (.831) among players who played primarily 2B with more than 2,000 plate appearances and he’s under contract through 2015 (when he'll be 32) for a total of $48M, with the final year of his deal being a club option.

Youkilis is a 31-year-old (yeah, really) hitter who plays wherever the Red Sox ask him to play on the field and is currently 5th in MLB in OPS (.975) after finishing 5th in OPS in 2009 (.981) and 12th in OPS in 2008 (.958). While he may not be that “must-see” player that Simmons talks about, only Joey Votto currently ranks ahead of Youkilis in OPS this year AND also outpaced him last year in OPS. Oh, and he’s signed through the 2013 season for a total of $37M.

Buchholz is a 24-year-old RHP with a 2.59 ERA (2nd in the AL behind CP Lee) and a 1.23 WHIP in this season (his first full one in which he’s remained in the Red Sox rotation) and is under club control through the 2014 season, not even being eligible for arbitration until after next season.

Lester is a 25-year-old LHP with an ERA of 3.07, a WHIP of 1.16, and who has struck out more than a batter an inning this year, his 3rd full season in MLB, and is signed through the 2014 season for a total cost of $38M.

This isn’t to point out how MARVELOUS the Red Sox are (trust me, I’d avoid that proclamation at all cost if I could), but rather to point out that the four players that Simmons specifically mentions are essentially two of the best (and most consistent) position players in the game (as much as I have to choke down bile to admit that) and two of the youngest, most accomplished pitchers currently plying their craft in MLB.

And these are the players that he’s lukewarm enough on to say that he “likes” them...but that they’re really not all that exciting.

Maybe Simmons speaks for the majority of the fans in New England…but if he does, the sense of entitlement is jarring and makes me wonder if we’re we all waiting for Youkilis to pull a Maximus and glare around Fenway Park screaming “are you not entertained?”

The Red Sox Front Office does a lot of things correctly with more than a few “hits” in the past 5 years or so, with the benefit of a large margin of error to make up for the “misses”. In constructing the team, they have one of the better cores of young talent as some could argue that Lester, Buchholz, Youkilis, and PEDroia (all grown by the organization) are the Red Sox equivalent of the Yankees’ core of four that has received so much press this year, but because they don't have that “look at me” talent, the team is not compelling. Or at least that’s how this rationale seems to go...

Here’s the first problem with all of this (and there are a few), in that that it’s a widely accepted belief among fans of these teams that they SHOULD contend, simply because of who they are and where they feel they sit in the pecking order of MLB. The idea that making the playoffs is a birthright is already pervasive in the Bronx...and is actually becoming widely accepted as such around the country, and the sentiment is not far off in Philadelphia. So at what point do the large market teams evolve to such a point where the assumption is universal that they’re supposed to be in the playoffs year after year, leaving the scraps of the Wild Card or the “lesser divsions” to teams with lower payrolls and expectations?

You can talk you like about success begetting success or about how expectations have been rightfully raised, but the impetus for this piece is to explore why the ratings for the Red Sox are down 35% and, while I’m not sure that Simmons speaks for the deplorable entity that is (trademarked) Red Sox Nation, is there any doubt that the Red Sox Front Office and owners are aware of this type of sentiment is out there and is reflected?

If you don’t believe that the owners of the Red Sox are wildly aware of this, watch how hard they go after Adrian Gonzalez or Prince Fielder with their prospects or Carlos Pena, Carl Crawford, Adam Dunn, or even (dare I say) Cliff Lee with their pocketbook. Or how they attempt to stack their bullpen (and they apparently inquired about Justin Masterson’s availability last week) via FA and trade in an attempt to improve their standing in the AL East as well as in the eyes of their fans.

If you don’t think that will happen quickly, remember that the Yankees have finished below 2nd in the AL East once since 1993(!), when they finished 3rd in 2008. Not sure if you remember the next off-season when the Yankees ostensibly bought themselves the 2009 World Series title...but that may be in line for a Red Sox team that is on pace for a 91-71 season, which (it should be noted) would be a win total that they bested ONCE from 1980 to 1997.

Yet times have changed in Boston and (getting back to Simmons’ culprits) since I don’t really care about “The Bandwagon Effect” in Boston (as the Tribe’s Bandwagon has remained largely empty since 2001…yes, even in 2007) or the steroid factor, let’s get into the most absurd aspect of Simmons’ argument – that the Red Sox aren’t compelling to the citizens of New England because the 2004 and 2007 World Series banner for Boston has affected the fan base’s thirst for a title, with Simmons asking himself, “Do I care as much as I did? I think about this question constantly. The short answer? No. It can’t mean as much. It will never mean as much.”
He goes through this rationale in a section of the piece under the heading of “The Hangover”.

Um…you want a hangover?
How about a painful, constant pit-in-the-stomach that makes your teeth hurt type of hangover caused by a stretch of watching your baseball team devolve from the best young team in MLB with a seemingly limitless future to seeing a roster completely pared down because of the economic realities within MLB, the personal agendas of certain players, and a team taken down by...wait for it...injuries and Front Office Paralysis/Inadequacies, the very things that have apparently “felled” the 2010 Sawx.

Sorry Red Sox fans, you don’t get to complain about a “hangover” because the cause of your hangover was actually a celebration while the hungover that’s felt in Cleveland is akin to the day after somebody stealthily slips shots of vodka into your beer at the bar while nobody’s looking. As a net result, you feel awful and there’s no great memory of much of anything, much less of a good time.
Yeah, that’s what it has felt like since the beginning of 2008 for Tribe fans, getting vodka-beered...

If you want to talk “hangover” since 2007, the Red Sox are 251-181 (.581 winning percentage) since the beginning of the 2008 season with two playoff berths and have lost nary a player that they wanted to keep (they didn’t want to keep Bay), while their 2007 ALCS opponent Indians are 192-240 (.444 winning percentage) over that same timeframe, with 80% of their 2007 rotation gone, all but two of their 2007 relievers gone, and the only position players from that 2007 Tribe team remaining being Cabrera, Sizemore (injured), and Hafner (injured). Sure, Choo was around (but not on the roster) and Rafael Perez, Jensen Lewis, and Aaron Laffey (injured) were able contributors to that 2007 playoff push, but pardon me if I scoff at the notion that the Red Sox are feeling the same level of “hangover” that we’ve been subjected to in Cleveland over the last 2+ years.

In his section, he asserts the notion that Red Sox fans are no longer equating the success or failure of their team to life-and-death, leading to the decrease in interest and, ultimately, TV ratings. If we’re going with this life-and-death analogy to a fanbase, but how about the life-and-death of a franchise and of an organization, dropped to its knees once again by baseball’s dichotomy, attempting to open that window of contention after feeling it slam on the neck of an organization and a city that thought that it was crawling through?

While the interest is apparently waning in Boston because of this growing sense of entitlement and because the Red Sox are “underachieving” on their way to another 90-win season – but a 3rd place finish in the AL East – the majority of teams in baseball dream of a 90-win season or of putting together a stretch of even 3 to 5 competitive seasons together.

Not in Boston though, where the cries of “I’m not watching a 3rd place team” and “there are no interesting players to watch” echo through the city. As a result, the differences from the “haves” and the “have nots” in MLB trickle down to their fanbases in an era in which the deepening chasm between teams (and fans) that feel that they will win because of who they are and teams (and fans) who feel that they MAY win every so often if everything falls into place is only getting deeper.

While the crying from the top of the mountain only figures to get louder in places like Boston, it will fall on deaf ears in places like Cleveland, where the cries are real...and justified.

Waiting to Exhale

And…breathe.

While the worst-case scenario was almost assumed to be on the horizon with Carlos’ Santana’s leg injury on Monday night, as medical terms like “deformation” and “massive leg trauma” were peppered around sports expletives like “Fosse” and “Theismann”, it seems that The Axe Man’s early prognosis is actually not that bad.

No seriously, knocking on wood and throwing salt over my shoulder, just a day after it looked like Santana’s season and even career was in serious doubt (no, I’m not sure that the “career” part is hyperbole), he’s headed off to the DL with a “high grade sprain of the LCL in his left knee”. He still has to see a knee specialist at the end of the week and it certainly could require surgery, but the words that actually passed through the lips of Manny Acta in terms of his return were that “the best-case scenario we wanted him back in three days, but the way he looked, we thought it was going to be much worse, so hearing this is a little bit of relief.”

They wanted him back in 3 days as a best-case scenario?
Yeah, that’s a little more optimistic than my initial “I hope he’s ready for Spring Training in 2011” as a best-case scenario reaction, which was obviously echoed by the training staff who was on the scene as Lonnie Soloff said, “all of us feared the worst and you never know what to expect, you fear for potential fractures, ligament injuries inside the knee joint, cartilage issues…At this point with the examinations we have undergone, we are not under any of that, so we feel fortunate.”

Maybe this is premature, given the cloak-and-dagger nature of the Indians and the manner in which they report injuries (wildly apropos on a day when Hafner heads to the DL again with shoulder issues), but it would appear that the injury to Santana’s knee may need no more than rest and some therapy before he potentially re-enters the Indians’ lineup. Of course, the nature of Santana playing C (and let’s hold off on the idea that we should move him out from behind the dish after one play like this…as horrific as it was) does involve some major knee activity, so I’m hoping that the Indians are cautious in terms of easing Santana back into the mix.

It almost goes without saying, but in a lost season in which nothing is really accomplished by Santana coming back (other than to prove to himself that he can come back), the Indians should make sure that Santana’s fully healed…and then maybe wait two more weeks, just to make sure that he’s REALLY fully healed. While getting Santana back in the lineup would make the lineup much more palatable for the next month (hello Jordan, Jayson, Shelley, Trevor, and Luis), there is no reason to see Santana back in the lineup at any point in 2010 unless (as I said) it involves some mental aspect of allowing him to realizing that he’s fully healthy and giving him the confidence in his knee heading into next season.

At this point, Santana has proven that he’s a capable MLB hitter and was well on his way to establishing himself as a rising star in the league (yes, even in 192 PA as he posted an .868 in that time, which is the 15th highest OPS in the AL for players with more than 190 PA) and the momentum that he’s built up to date should be used to waterfall into the 2011 season much more than it should factor into any consideration of wins and losses for 2010. Obviously, if Santana is able to come back and put some AB under his belt before the 2010 season draws to a welcome conclusion, that should be facilitated, but there should be no accelerated plan for Santana to resume his position in the middle of the Indians’ lineup prematurely.

Of course, this could all go wildly in the other direction as news that Santana’s knee will go the way of Hafner’s shoulder, Miller’s finger, and Sizemore’s knee is always possible (never discount the worst possible scenario when it comes to the Indians…make that anything in Cleveland sports), but the initial reports certainly don’t intimate that the outcome that was almost assumed in the aftermath of the collision is imminent.

For now, other than hoping that Santana’s knee continues to pass test after test and that “lingering issues” doesn’t become attached to his knee the way that it is inextricably linked to other Indians’ body parts, the Indians should simply put Marson in the everyday lineup and cross their collective fingers with Santana. For Marson, the next few weeks represent the chance for him to show that he’s a legitimate option at C (even if it’s to prove it to another team for an off-season trade or one in the near future) and to make the adjustments at the plate that he was never able to in his first stint with the team or even in AAA.

At this point, even Marson has to know that he’s not necessarily playing for his future in Cleveland (pending the results of the test) and that his performance in the early going and the performance of a pre-injury Santana mean that he’s either destined to wear a caddy’s outfit in Cleveland or that he’s headed elsewhere at some point to get a chance to become a starting C. Regardless of what Lou Marson’s future is with the Indians, the only thing that really matters over the next week or so of the season is seeing what the ongoing tests reveal about Santana’s injury.

Santana, more than any other current Indian, provides something tangible for the future that is hard to see in this open audition of a 2010 season, and that is as an impact presence in the middle of the lineup for the foreseeable future. Taking Santana out of that “future lineup” eliminates quite a bit of confidence (yes, he’s that much of a linchpin) in the outlook for the offense and Monday night certainly brought a good deal of doubt into the equation.

For now, the prognosis clouds some of those early doubts as the feeling that the Indians may have dodged a bullet on this one (the only one they’ve avoided in about 2 years) is the sense from the news that he’s simply headed to the DL with a hyper-extended knee and a “high grade” sprain instead of the imagined horrors that descended upon Cleveland as that play unfolded.

With the Indians, it’s always too early to trumpet any kind of good news, as bad news usually lurks around every corner, but the early reports on Santana just allowed an entire city to exhale.

That is, until the next batch of test results come back…

Breaking Bad for Cleveland...Again

With the young kids being winners of two straight, up 6-2 on the Red Sox with Fausto cruising, then this…








I'm still sick to my stomach and could only watch the replay once. Although I’m trying to hold off on the doom and gloom until anything becomes official in terms of medical reports, it’s impossible not to let the mind wander...and it’s not going in good directions.

An Aftermath Lazy Sunday

The melody in this game of musical chairs that is the Trade Deadline on the North Coast has finally ground to a halt and as the dust settles, let us all rub our eyes and marvel at the fact that the Indians did, in fact, clear the decks as the roster now finds itself without Peralta, Kearns, Westbrook, and Wood with actual players (two of them, for now) coming back to the organization. After the maelstrom of activity from the Peralta deal to the Yankees basically taking the revenue from one of their home games to take a chance on the renaissance on Kerry Wood, the action was fast and it was furious.

It being a Sunday and despite the days leading up to today being far from Lazy for everyone on The Reservation, let’s get off on a Lazy Sunday to hit all of the high points while attempting to figure out what the lineup, rotation, and (to a lesser degree) the bullpen are going to look like for the final two months of the season.

And with that, we’re off…
Obviously, the biggest piece of the Indians’ puzzle that finds himself elsewhere this morning is Jake Westbrook, who leaves the Indians with only 15 players who have ever donned the Chief having started more games for the organization as his 9-year tenure (only 13 pitchers played longer in Cleveland) with the Indians comes to an sad, if unsurprising, end.

Before getting into the “who” and the “where” with Westbrook, it bears mentioning that he – unlike most of the players of the early-to-mid-to-late-2000s incarnation of the Indians – leaves with an amount of respect and admiration that few have earned in their time with the Indians. Westbrook was never the ace of the staff nor did he ever represent the face of the franchise, but he simply contributed to this team in a manner in which few will truly ever recognize, right down to him likely leaving dollars and years that he could have attained on the open market when he signed his 3-year extension in 2007.

While that extension would never work out for either party, with Jake making only 51 starts over the 2+ years that he pitched in Cleveland (with a 99 ERA+) during that time, everything that needs to be said about Jake Westbrook as a person can be summed up in a quote that is his own, explaining why he lessened the $2M (that was rightfully owed to him in the chance of a trade) to allow the Indians to move him to St. Louis:
“Any way that I could help out the Indians, I needed to do that,” said Westbrook, "because I didn’t really feel like I honored my contract as well as I would have liked to, being hurt. It was in my best interest and the Indians’ best interest to do something like that.”

In this age of televised debacles and a former aCCe unsure of whom he once played with while in Cleveland, Westbrook’s character (personal, not just professional) shows through in that quote. As his exit calls to mind the manner in which Travis Fryman exited the game with grace, it is important to remember that Jake Westbrook – injuries and all – was a quintessential Indian and should always be remembered as such, just as much as he will be remembered for the manner in which he (and not Sabathia or Carmona) tried to put the Indians’ on his back in that 2007 ALCS.

With that being said, the question has come up as to why the Indians traded Westbrook…why the Indians wouldn’t be better served to keep him in the rotation for the remainder of the season with an eye towards re-signing him to serve as a mentor for the pitching staff for 2011. To that, I would direct anyone’s eyes to the standings, as the Indians’ 2010 season is going nowhere and hasn’t been headed in a consistently upwards direction for months now.

So the purpose of keeping Westbrook around for the final two months of the season (when he’s a FA at the end of the season) is what, exactly? Is it to win 67 or 69 games instead of 65 or perhaps to serve as some sort of mentor to these young pitchers whom he has now spent nearly 2/3 of the season with?

Maybe you can buy into that, but that doesn’t fly in these parts…
Westbrook was a FA at the end of the year, a 32-year-old still recovering from Tommy John surgery who had posted an ERA+ of 85 over 127 2/3 IP for the Indians, playing for a team that wasn’t close to contention and likely isn’t going to be close to contention in 2011. Perhaps everyone would like the Indians to turn into the Orioles or the Royals (in years past as they did actually make some moves this year), teams intent on keeping the “best” team on the field in a lost season rather than playing the self-realization game and removing emotion and sentiment from baseball decisions.

Trading Westbrook is the right baseball decision for the Indians, who are certainly free to explore re-signing him on the open market after the season for the 2011 season (as every team will have the opportunity, assuming the Cardinals don’t extend him in the next two months on the basis of two months), so the Indians save some money, get a prospect, and (most importantly) open up MORE innings and opportunities in their starting rotation for their in-house options.

As for that prospect (and I’m assuming if you’re here you know that the Westbrook deal involved three teams, one of which was the Padres), the Indians add RHP Corey Kluber to their burgeoning Layer Cake of Arms. If you’re surprised by the fact that they added an arm for Westbrook, that’s still your alarm clocking going off in the background and, if you’re surprised that the arm is a high K/highly projectable arm…well, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Kluber is a former 4th round pick of the Padres who had underwhelmed in his Minor-League career, until this year in AA when, as a (slightly old for AA) 24-year-old, he has posted a line of 3.45 ERA, 3.07 FIP, 1.31 WHIP, with 136 K, 40 BB in 122 2/3 IP over 22 games. He leads his league in K (and it’s not even really close) and leads all of AA in K (and I will note here that Kyle Drabek – that “one that got away in the Cliff Lee deal” – has 100 K in 130 IP in AA), meaning that Kluber has the ability to miss bats, something that is lacking (or at least was before this smattering of trades for the past two years) in the Tribe organization.

While it is true that Kluber is 24 (DOB 4-10-86) and still pitching in AA, here’s Baseball Prospectus’ widely respected Kevin Goldstiein on Kluber, his repertoire, and what he ultimately projects as:
With excellent size and stamina, Kluber pounds the strike zone with an 88-92 mph fastball that he can hit both sides of the plate with, while his changeup is a plus pitch that he’ll throw at any point in the count. He walked 34 in just 45 Double-A innings last year, as he tried to get too cute, and simple confidence has been credited to the breakthrough, as he’s an aggressive pitcher who goes after every hitter as opposed to trying simply to fool everyone. His ceiling is as a back-end starter, but he's much closer to that projection than his was a year ago.

It is worth noting that there is no starting pitcher (above Rookie Ball) in the Indians’ system who has a K/9 as high as Kluber and that Kluber’s BABIP (although here’s an interesting article questioning BABIP) in AA this year is a whopping .369, so either the Indians are buying incredibly high on him or they’re acquiring him essentially as he’s figuring out how to be an effective pitcher.

The one sticking point for many has been the intimation that “his ceiling is as a back-end starter”, as Goldstein asserts (and he’s not the only one on that bandwagon), but does anyone else see that this “back-end starter” thing is merely one option. Isn’t it just as possible that Kluber slots very nicely to the bullpen (perhaps even the back-end in short order) as Goldstein described him just last week as a “big righty” with a “good fastball, even better slider”?

Certainly, he’s just a prospect and he’s now joining a slew of them that populate the upper levels of the Indians’ minor league pitching staffs, but in light of the fact that the Indians were right to move Westbrook, the fact that they received a prospect (and one with potential) rather than simply dumping his salary and calling up the next kid in line from Columbus brings a nice sense of closure to the Westbrook situation…even if it may be revisited this off-season.

As for that “next kid in line” (and before getting into the rest of the trades), with Westbrook heading to St. Louis and with Talbot to DL and Laffey already on DL, the open auditions are officially on in the Indians’ rotation. Josh Tomlin, pressed into duty Saturday, and Jeanmar Gomez, pressed into duty today, figure to fill two of the openings for the foreseeable future, depending upon their performance, and Carlos Carrasco and Dave Huff would look to be the obvious options to take that third (yes, THIRD) open spot in the rotation.

This is not necessarily a bad thing (unless you have money in Vegas on the Indians winning more than 70 games) as the arms that project to perhaps play a role past 2010 are starting to line up in Cleveland instead of waiting for opportunities down I-71. As crazy as this sounds, 87 of the first 91 games were pitched by Carmona, Westbrook, Talbot, Masterson, Huff (with Laffey throwing those other 4 starts), and now (from Game #103 yesterday) to the end of the season, there may be any amalgamation of Carmona and Masterson with a witches’ brew of Gomez, Tomlin, and…Carrasco…Huff…Pino…and, dare I say, Sowers that are going to be seeing time as a starting pitcher in Cleveland as the season winds down.

Evaluating starting pitchers is necessary for this organization going forward and there will be no shortage of opportunities for these players to assert themselves into the rotational mix of 2011 and beyond…I’m just warning you, it’s not going to necessarily be pretty or pleasant to watch. If you want an idea of what’s coming, just look at the last week are realize that there are going to be peaks (like Tomlin recently) and valleys (like Masterson recently) along the journey.

Moving on to the other two deals consummated over the weekend (both with the Yankees), the Indians miraculously moved Kerry Wood and thankfully moved Austin Kearns as the two players now find themselves in the Bronx and in the throes of a playoff hunt.

Just to close the book on his career with the Tribe, Kerry Wood leaves the Indians after throwing a TOTAL of 75 innings, posting a cumulative 4.80 ERA and 1.44 WHIP while he compiled 28 saves as most fans mainly rooted for his 2011 option NOT to vest. The Indians find a landing spot for Wood despite the fact that he hasn’t pitched since July 11th and with an ERA of 6.30 compiled before that as opponents posted an .816 OPS against him with the Indians in 2010.

Truthfully, the fact that the Indians were able to move Wood (made unnecessary on the Indians’ roster from his own health/performance and from CF Perez’s emergence as a closer) is nothing short of miraculous, though it certainly looks like the Indians almost paid the Yankees (of all teams) to take a chance on Wood as a late-inning reliever. According to most reports, the Indians will reportedly pay $2.17M of Wood’s remaining $3.6M salary, with $500K of that money perhaps coming back to them if they choose not to select a PTBNL by October 15th, meaning that the Indians will end up paying between approximately $1.5M to $2M to the Yankees to not pitch for the Erie Warriors again this season.

As for putting a bow on the final deal, the Indians sent Austin Kearns to the Yankees for a PTBNL, that will be decided upon in the next three weeks with Tribe GM saying that “it will be a player we like and who has Major League value.”

Not to take cheap shots at anyone, but the Indians’ current roster is full of players they “like” and who have “Major League value”, but Chris Gimenez and Heck Ambriz and even Trevor Crowe aren’t going to make the world go round, which speaks to the idea that the Indians are likely to add another lottery ticket to their wallet full of them in the hopes that one (or more) of these prospects pans out in a Major League capacity, but that will obviously take some time.

All of that being said, I’m surprised at this outpouring of sadness over this Trading Deadline as anyone who didn’t see this day coming wasn’t around LAST year when CP Lee and El Capitan were dealt with 1 ½ years of club control left on their contract and the trades of Peralta, Westbrook, Wood, and (kind of) Kearns just means that the Indians have completed this complete overhaul that began in earnest in early July of 2008 when CC found himself heading to the Cream City.

Maybe I’m callous after all of these trades and watching sports in general in Cleveland (and let me use that to drop this link to Joe Posnanski’s latest on the city’s anger), but after today, there is a sense that this ugliness is finally complete. There are no players on this roster that aren’t under club control through the end of the 2012 season, so it feels like this is it…that the final dirty work is done for the Indians in tearing down that incarnation of the team that existed from 2003 to 2009.

The sadness obviously remains as a good portion of the emotional investments that were once attached are essentially gone as the days have long passed from when The DiaBride has attempted to figure out what to do with her Lee and Martinez jerseys and as I attempt to sing the praises of Santana or LaPorta, with the answer always coming back that she’s not sure if she can become attached to the back of the jersey the way that she once was.

Maybe that’s why this is whole process is so difficult for people, with the departure of Westbrook and Peralta (I guess) signifying that the team that grew on them in the mid-2000s, that captivated them in the Fall of 2007 is no more. As much as the previous departures should have served notice of that fact, the presence of those players, who represented something more than just a spot on the roster, provided comfort.

That comfort is gone now and jarring reality that the Indians are back to building from scratch is front-and-center, although the wheels have been in motion since the CC trade, which was (amazingly) nearly 25 months ago.

Consider the page turned…

While we’re all watching that page turn, it merits visiting what this whole thing going to look like going into the final two months of the season now that Peralta, Kearns, Westbrook, and Wood have exited stage left. Before getting into that however, let’s dispel the notion that the quartet of players dealt by the Tribe were largely responsible for much of the Indians’ success to date:
Peralta
.246 BA / .308 OBP / .389 SLG / .698 OPS

Kearns
.272 BA / .354 OBP / .419 SLG / .772 OPS
*Kearns’ OPS since May 8th has been .701 over 64 games

Westbrook
4.65 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, .772 OPS against with 73 K, 44 BB in 127 2/3 IP

Wood
6.30 ERA, 1.60 WHIP, .816 OPS against with 18 K, 11 BB in 20 IP

This quartet may have been veterans, but they weren’t carrying this team in any sense and the money owed to them when 2010 started represented $26.85M of the $61M Opening Day payroll (that’s 44%!) of the team…so, no the return on investment with any of them did not…um, meet expectations.

Does that mean that the players that figure to replace them will represent upgrades, much less significant upgrades, for the final two months?
Probably not, but at least will allow the Indians to get a read on Nix, Brantley (when he can be called up 10 days after his last demotion), that gaggle of starters, and CF Perez in the closer role in the next two months as the Tribe attempts to find which players are worth keeping (and which are not) for 2011 and beyond.

Nevertheless, with the news that Jayson Nix is going to become the main 3B (and where have I read that as a good first plan of action before…where was that), the make-up of the Indians’ lineup for the last two months is not hard to discern:
C – Santana
1B – LaPorta
2B – Donald
SS – Cabrera
3B – Nix/Marte/Valbuena with a possible Goedert sighting in September
LF – Crowe
CF – Brantley
RF – Choo
DH – Hafner
Any kind of “lingering” issues with Hafner (as if they aren’t all lingering) would affect this, but any issues with that going forward through October?

As Chris Antonetti said after the trades, “we have a solid nucleus of starting position players who are developing at the major-league level…we’ll get an impact major-league player back next season in Grady Sizemore. We’re now trying to line up the pitching, around it.”

That’s something that’s been talked about here for quite some time (and as recently as this week prior to the additions of Soto and Kluber), so now that pitching that they’re “now trying to line up” gets a chance, with the first opportunities (at least in the rotation) probably looking something like this:
Carmona
Masterson
Tomlin
Gomez
Carrasco/Huff
Did anybody have THAT sextet as options for the rotation in August coming out of Goodyear?

If you want to include Ant Reyes, go ahead as I’m not bullish on him only one year removed from TJ; but truthfully, the Indians can massage that list pretty freely, particularly if Masterson’s innings creep up or if Talbot returns from the DL, but those names (past Carmona, really) feel like an open audition for 2011…but is that such a bad thing?

As for the bullpen, who knows…throw it all against the wall and see what sticks:
CF Perez
Sipp
Herrmann
Smith
R. Perez
Ambriz (Rule 5 means he sticks)
Todd/Lewis/Germano/Pestano/Pino/Stowell/Putnam/Lindsay
Other than CF Perez and Sipp (who has also gone through his down periods), this looks like a fungible group that could include a couple of useful pieces, assuming the starting rotation doesn’t pull the 2 inning shuffle on consecutive nights as it did against the Yankees.
Who are those useful pieces?
I gave up a long time ago attempting to predict success and failure for relievers and I have the Fernando Cabrera jersey to prove it.

Regardless, the remainder of 2010 is now rightfully dedicated to the discernment of which of the young players are (or will be) useful pieces and youth is really the only thing on the menu for the final two months in Cleveland. The trades of the last week unquestionably and definitively close the book on the incarnation of the Indians from 2003 to 2009 as the Indians’ “rebuilding/reloading/whatever” rolls on as the Indians attempt to discover the next Westbrook or Peralta (v.2003, not v.2010) from among the young talent that occupies their current roster.

Whether that young talent is able to emerge on this road back to contention will determine what the next few years look like on the North Coast, but after the weekend, any roadblocks impeding their progress have been removed.

Clearing the Decks

With the news that Austin Kearns has joined the Yankees for what is going to be either cash or a PTBNL (not always a bad thing for the Indians), with the answer coming by August 20th, and the assertion from ESPN’s Jayson Stark that the Cardinals have narrowed their focus on one Jake Westbrook, the realization that the Indians’ roster is about to see some serious turnover has set in. While change is not necessarily a bad thing, it will be a jarring fact nonetheless to see an Indians’ team without Peralta, maybe Westbrook, and (to a lesser degree) Kearns as the team scuffles through their AL East adversaries.

With all of that in mind (and promising that more will be coming in the Lazy One), perhaps it is time to revisit something that was written here about two weeks ago as to what the Indians should be looking to accomplish in the second half:
#1) Clear the Decks
While this is sure to be portrayed as “just another Fire Sale for an organization that runs one every year” by some in the local and national media, the 2010 season was entered as a “season to build upon”, something that certainly couldn’t be said in 2008 (coming off of a ALCS appearance) and in 2009 (when the team inked Wood and traded for DeRosa). Thus, this isn’t really a Fire Sale so much as the final step in jettisoning the veterans that aren’t under contract for 2011 and don't obviously figure into next year’s plans. Think of it more as saying goodbye to the some of the last vestiges of the 2007 team that was once thought to be “headed for greatness”.

It’s a new day on the North Coast and while the “window of contention” slammed shut back in 2008, the Indians are attempting to (ever so slightly) inch that next one up with an eye past 2010…maybe even well past 2010.

Thus, the Indians should trade Westbrook, Wood, Kearns, and (if possible) Peralta and not worry as much about how much money they’ll have to include to cover the cost of the remaining salaries to see if they can get prospects that have a serious chance of making an impact instead of simply providing organizational filler. Of course, it’s possible that the market for the players that figure to be available isn’t all that great (and my TCF colleague Steve Buffum contributed to a phenomenal Trade Deadline Primer, that’s available here), but moving these players OFF of the 25-man roster could be viewed as just as important as getting something of value for them.

Wood, Kearns, and Peralta unquestionably have no future with the team and should be moved to any team willing to take on their inconsistent performances. If the Indians can pull a couple of lottery tickets in the process, so be it…but there should be nearly no trade refused for those three.

As for Jake, if you’ve been here for any amount of time, you know of my opinion that maybe the Indians really are serious about having Westbrook in the 2011 rotation, but that shouldn't affect whether they trade him as re-signing him for 2011 isn’t affected by which uniform he’s wearing on the final day of the 2010 season. Of course, there is the possibility that Westbrook simply isn’t garnering any interest on the trade market, which is why the Indians are out in front of this, putting forth the idea that Westbrook might be kept around for the remainder of the season to provide that “veteran presence” when, in fact, there simply isn’t a trade market for him.

The impetus for bringing this up comes from John Perrotto at B-Pro as he relays what the scouts (or at least one scout) are saying about Westbrook, with the scout on the record saying, “If I’m a contender, there is just no way I trade for him for the stretch run. He’s been too inconsistent. He is not the pitcher he was before he had Tommy John surgery.”

To that I say – pay no attention to this, ye who populate the Front Offices in St. Louis and Los Angeles and Cincinnati while you’re looking to add to your rotation in a push for the playoffs…

That’s said in jest, but the veterans that the Indians figure to have on the block (Westbrook, Wood, Kearns, and Peralta) aren’t necessary to this team for the second half of the season, one that should be devoted exclusively to development and with an eye to 2011 and beyond.

What kind of Trade Market exists for that quartet?
That’s hard to say as the Indians’ willingness to eat money will play a role as will recent performance (um...Austin, Jhonny...we could use a little “bump” in production about now) of each player. If the Indians are able to find dance partners (and remember, it takes two to tango in this) in the next two weeks, they should move all of these players and not give a second thought to trading all of them.

That was true two weeks ago and that is true tonight as the Indians find takers for their ancillary veterans…

Yes, this team has been painful to watch as of late (minus one “Andy Marte…Relief Pitcher”), particularly on offense and the likes of Jayson Nix/Andy Marte/Luis Valbuena and Mike Brantley may not represent much of an improvement over Kearns and Peralta.

However, it should be pointed out that Peralta had an OPS of .698 when he was traded (21st among the 23 qualified 3B in MLB) and Kearns has an OPS of .701 since May 8th over 64 games, so given the fact that neither Peralta nor Kearns was going to be around next year lends credence to the idea that the Indians should be divvying up plate appearances and time in the field to players who figure to perhaps contribute past October of this year.

Obviously, more will be coming in the Lazy One as details are known, particularly if Westbrook is dealt now that Talbot has joined Laffey on the DL, but with the Trade Deadline at 4 PM tomorrow and with Kerry Wood presumably re-joining the Indians at some point this weekend, let us remember that big picture painted above and not get caught in the web of the craziness that July 31st has become.

Jhonny Be Gone

The second domino has been felled as the Indians’ continued purging of veterans who do not figure into their plans in 2011 and beyond rolls on as Jhonny Peralta has been traded to Detroit for Low-A LHP Geovanni Soto, who is obviously not the Cubs’ current catcher. The move, which includes the Indians covering the remainder of Peralta’s 2010 contract, comes as neither a surprise nor as a disappointment as there is enough disappointment to go around from Peralta’s regression from a 23-year-old SS who hit 24 HR and posted an OPS of .885 to the defensively-challenged 3B who has posted a cumulative .693 OPS with 18 HR in 242 games since the start of the 2009 season, a regression that has been illustrative of the unrealized potential that seemed so limitless for the Indians just three to five years ago.

Peralta departs as a player who was never able to take the next step that seemed so obvious when he burst on the scene to replace Omar Vizquel (and justifiably so, I might add) as the Indians’ SS, done in by inconsistency and by an inability to make adjustments to a league that had obviously adjusted to him. His departure represents another step away from that 2005 to 2007 team that once seemed so full of promise, which now looks empty. He will go to Detroit as a pure rental player, with the Tigers obtaining him to replace the injured Brandon Inge in the lineup and with the Tigers perhaps hoping that “Hot Jhonny” makes an appearance in Motown as they attempt to vault past the White Sox and Twins in the race for the AL Central.

From the Indians’ perspective, this opens the door for an extended audition among Andy Marte, Jayson Nix, and Louie V (to begin with) as they all attempt to stake some sort of claim to the hot corner before Jared Goedert presumably emerges (assuming his defense is deemed satisfactory) to serve as the eventual bridge to Lonnie Chisenhall, the 21-year-old “3B of the Future”, currently plying his craft in Akron and who may be further away than a presumed 2011 mid-season call-up.

For now, Marte, Nix, and Valbuena will vie for plate appearances at 3B as the idea that Goedert could come up in a September call-up is complicated by the fact that he’s not on the 40-man roster. That complication isn’t too profound as there is certainly flotsam and jetsam on the 40-man that can be trimmed, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that MarteNixValbuena 3-headed monster handling 3B, with each limited player offering a different skill set for Manny Acta to utilize in the lineup and on the field.

As for the player coming to Cleveland for Peralta, it bears mentioning again that the Indians are covering Peralta’s 2010 salary and, while the skeptics would say that the only way that the Tribe was going to move Peralta and get more than the requisite bag of balls would be by paying that money, it represents a positive development in the way that the Indians (and I’m talking about the Dolans here) have been willing to cover money remaining on a contract in the interest of receiving a better prospect. The famous example is the Casey Blake and cash to the Dodgers for Carlos Santana (and, just to be clear, nobody’s purporting that Soto is in Santana’s class here), but in light of all of the financial criticism that the Indians and the Dolans take for the manner in which the Indians are operated, this practice of “buying prospects” (this one costing about $2M when they could have simply dumped that money, with little to no public objection) is a new wrinkle in all of these trades involving veterans for lottery tickets…I mean, prospects. While it is often ignored and while the average fan could not care less about the money changing hands in a deal like this, the presence of Santana in the Indians’ lineup for the next 6 years (at least) is a testament that this practice does have some merit, in terms of acquiring better talent.

In terms of that talent, that “lottery ticket” idea is wildly applicable here as Soto is a 19-year-old LHP who has been pitching in the same league that the Lake County Captains play in. His measurables say that he’s 6’ 3” and 155 pounds (that would likely be soaking wet) and his raw numbers show that he’s 6-6 this year with a 2.61 ERA and 76 K to 25 BB in 82 2/3 innings over 16 starts.

Soto’s left-handedness (remember how the Indians are lacking in a depth of legitimate LHP prospects) and his projection are what make him attractive as one scout told Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein, “He has got a nice delivery, he’s super loose, and super skinny... we’re talking rail-thin. He’s at 85-88 mph [on his fastball] and throwing four pitches with a curve, slider, and change—none of them are really good right now, but you can’t eliminate any of them, either. I hate projecting velocity, but this is the kind of guy you look for when doing it.”

What does that mean?
It means wait for two to four years and come back to Soto to see if that velocity has arrived and if the results are there because of that increased velocity. While that may not quicken anyone’s pulses, it falls in line with what the Indians have been stockpiling (young, projectable arms) as they have moved the veteran pieces and parts of their recent rosters.

With Peralta however, the addition of Soto is the subtext as the Indians have made a further attempt to clear the decks of players that don’t figure in past this year and have made room for players that could potentially contribute in 2011 and beyond to assert themselves with their newfound opportunities.

The trade of Peralta – who, by the way, leaves with the 36th most plate appearances as an Indian in the organization’s history and is 21st on the club’s all-time HR list…seriously – is another turn of the page for the Indians’ organization as the Tribe attempts to find meaningful spots for players that project to contribute in their next “window of contention” and don’t serve as sad reminders of the now closed windows.

Jhonny is gone and the Indians continue their evolution into a new team, with a new group of players lining up to do what Peralta and his mates were ultimately unable to accomplish.