Let's Go Tribe

Indians Sign Jon Garland

2012-02-13T14:19:23Z

Indians Sign Jon Garland

Another arm to compete for the back-end of the rotation certainly can't be a bad thing. For some reason I thought he was much older than 32... seems like he has been around for a long time.

Transactions: The Streak Continues

2012-02-13T02:44:17Z

Signed SS Asdrubal Cabrera to a 1-Year, $4.55M Contract

The Indians came as close to an arbitration hearing with Asdrubal Cabrera as they did to almost any arbitration-eligible player since 1991. But although that team tradition has been maintained, another has been largely abandoned. Only two players in the organization (Travis Hafner and "Fausto Carmona") are under multi-year contracts that were signed with the Indians before they were eligible for free agency. Perhaps the pendulum is swinging back towards year-to-year contracts, with players and agents more content to deal with short-term risks in exchange for a big free agent payday.

It's been very apparent that Shin-Soo Choo is going to test free agency as soon as possible, and now it looks like Cabrera will be doing the same. This was probably Cleveland's best opportunity to extend Cabrera past free agency, as once his free agent season rolls around, what risk there is is swallowed up in the glare of bright, shinning reward. Chris Antonetti also seems resigned to this:

"We're appreciative of Asdrubal's contributions," Indians general manager Chris Antonetti said. "We certainly value him as a member of the organization and a member of our team. He was a key part of our team over the last few seasons, and we're looking forward to him contributing in the time that he's with us.

With this anticlimactic signing, the Indians will head into Spring Training with a little over $60.0M on their payroll, with just the pre-arbitration players to sign. They should start the season with about a $66.0M or perhaps a $67.0M payroll, and no player on the roster being owed a 2013 salary.

Indians sign Cabrera to 1-year deal

2012-02-10T19:06:43Z

Indians sign Cabrera to 1-year deal

Arbitration streak stays alive. Details on Asdrubal's new contract coming....

UPDATE: 1-year, $4.55M

The Age of the Indians

2012-02-10T18:22:41Z

Joe Posnanski has a column up today talking about issues related to age and player development. This got me thinking about the age of the Indians lineup, and particular how the projected starting lineup sits relative to the perceived prime age range of 25-30. After putting together the average age of the Indians starting lineup, by position, from 2004-2012, I do not really have anything particularly insightful to say. The Indians should be pretty well positioned in the peak of the production curve this year, but they pretty much have been there throughout this time period. If all goes as projected, the Indians might go through 2012 with a full seven of the nine lineup spots occupied by a guy aged 25-30 on a regular basis, which would be matched only by 2008.

Travis Hafner: Exit stage left

2012-02-07T16:40:59Z

"...it's better to burn out, 'cause rust never sleeps/ The king is gone, but he's not forgotten..."

Sometime during the 2008 season, mauichuck made the prediction that Travis Hafner would either rebound and become the type of monster hitter he had been from 2004-2006, or flame out altogether. Hafner, of course, was in the midst of his worst season as a pro. Just two years removed from putting up an OPS just shy of 1.100, Hafner hit .197/.305/.323 in 2008, struggling with the after effects of a still amorphous shoulder problem. Chuck's prediction seemed reasonable enough at the time, but has proven to be completely wrong. The past three seasons, in a somewhat strange way, Hafner has been remarkably consistent. Here are his batting lines from 2009-2011:

2009: 96 games, .272/.355/.470, .826 OPS, 16 HRs, 1.63 K/BB
2010: 118 games, .278/.374/.449, .824 OPS, 13 HRs, 1.84 K/BB
2011: 94 games, .280/.361/.449, .811 OPS, 13 HRs, 2.17 K/BB

Hafner has become a steady part-time player, with moderately above average power and discipline. Not bad, though not great for a one-time monster slugger with the team's largest contract. Given his skill set, there isn't really any reason to expect a massive and sudden decline from Hafner in the immediate future, and most projections for him (fangraphs has a few here) show him putting up similar numbers in 2012 as he has over the past three seasons.

What is sort of interesting is the final number I put up in the lines above. In his prime, Hafner put up fantastic walk-rates partly because of his great plate discipline and party because of the unwillingness of pitchers to challenge him with pitches over the plate. Over the past three seasons Hafner's strikeout rates have increased incrementally each year (21.2% last season) while his BB-rates have been on the decline (his 9.8% rate last season was a career low). What I find interesting is that his decline has come almost entirely as the result of his performance against left-handed pitchers. His line against right-handed hitters in 2011 was .302/.404/.482 with a 13.1 BB% and a 20.8 K%, right in line with what he has done each of the past three years. But against lefties he dropped to a .233/.259/.379 line, with a remarkably low 1.9 BB% (dropping precipitously over the past three seasons) and a 22.2 K%. Travis Hafner can't hit lefties anymore.

And more importantly, Hafner shouldn't hit against lefties in 2012. Despite his struggles, Hafner still logged 108 plate appearances against lefties last season, good for more than 29% of his total PAs. This was actually up from the previous two seasons in which he had faced about 24% lefties. One of the reasons the Indians need to have a right-handed bat on the team who can hit lefties is so that Travis Hafner doesn't have to face them. Sadly, of the guys most likely to fill the role of Hafner's replacement against lefties (Duncan, Cunningham, Santana) - none of them really fit the bill of lefty-specialist. But even if they aren't fantastic against lefties, merely being good, which they all have at some point, could represent a significant incremental improvement in the 2012 Tribe.

The starting rotation: Huff, Gomez and McAllister

2012-02-06T20:50:37Z

This is the second in a series of pieces previewing the Indians starting rotation options heading into 2012. The first piece, examining Derek Lowe and Kevin Slowey can be viewed here.

Assuming a starting rotation of Masterson, Jimenez, Lowe, Tomlin and Slowey break camp (admittedly, not necessarily a safe assumption), the three guys competing for the first call-up in the rotation will once again be David Huff, Jeanmar Gomez and Zach McAllister. These are the same three who occupied that role last year, each of whom ended up spending time in Cleveland during the second half. Looking at their results from last year, it seems as if the path to improvement for each of them is in improving their secondary offerings as a way to work better of their primary pitches.

David Huff

Once a top prospect, David Huff has opted out of that role in recent years, instead auditioning yearly for the role of most hated pitcher in Cleveland. The dislike comes from his failure to live up to his high credentials, as well as the mediocre stuff he seems to bring to the mound with him in his starts. For 2012, though, he is the member of this group that I like the best. Part of this is that he is the only left-handed starter likely to see much time in Cleveland this year. But it is also because I remain somewhat intrigued by Huff's potential to "put it all together" one of these years and actually pitch up to his billing.

Huff actually got off to a good start with Cleveland last season, beginning with his 7-inning zero run performance against Minnesota on July 18th. In four of his first five starts in July and August he allowed a single earned run or less while averaging six innings a start. The rest of his starts, needless to say, were not as good. Some of this was bad bullpen work, as they only held 58% of the runners Huff left on, leading to a few extra runs getting tacked on to Huff's lines. But some of it was just more of the long-ABs, long-innings, and short outings we have come to expect from Huff.

Huff works with what amounts to a four-pitch mix, all of it playing off his fourseam fastball, but including a slider (used almost exclusively against left-handers), curve, and changeup (used more against right-handers). Huff's problems stem from not getting enough out of his fastball given his extremely high usage (72%) of the pitch. Last season, only 6% of his fastballs resulted in a swing and a miss. Another way of considering that number is that 83% of the time batters swung at his fastball they made contact with it. Huff's fastball was not entirely terrible, though (fangraphs actually rated it as a net-positive pitch), as Huff was able to get a substantial number of called strikes (19%) and foul balls (21%) off the pitch.

David Huff	W-L	ERA	BB%	K%	GB%	OPS	IP
2011 MLB	2-6	4.09	7.5	15.9	32.4	.757	50.2
MLB (career)	15-25	5.50	7.9	11.8	36.3	.845	258.2
AAA (career)	37-13	3.84	6.6	18.3	42.0	-	408.1

Jeanmar Gomez

Jeanmar Gomez, on the other hand, seems to occupy the opposite position in Cleveland's mindset. An unheralded prospect (always young for his level) who has seemingly performed above expectation in his two stints in Cleveland. The truth is that he had about as much success as Huff last year, with similarly depressing strikeout numbers (considerably worse, actually), but much better ball-in-play numbers.

Gomez works almost exclusively with a sinker, slider (used a little more against righties), changeup (used a little more against lefties) combination. The sinker, obviously, is his best pitch, getting a good number of called strikes (24%) and producing a huge number of ground balls (55% of balls-in-play). When he throws it well, his slider can be a plus pitch and is his best swing and miss weapon, but too often the pitch flattens out on him and gets pounded (25% LD-rate on the pitch in 2011). While Gomez in general has excellent control and above average GB-tendencies on all of his pitches, his changeup gave him the most control and fly-ball problems a year ago.

Jeanmar Gomez	W-L	ERA	BB%	K%	GB%	OPS	IP
2011 MLB	5-3	4.47	5.8	12.0	52.8	.804	58.1
MLB (career)	9-8	4.58	7.1	12.4	49.9	.823	116.0
AAA (career)	18-15	3.76	8.5	17.1	48.0	-	253.2

Zach McAllister

McAllister has had the least exposure to Cleveland, proving the least amount of data to work from. McAllister also had the broadest array of pitches, as he showed five or six different pitches during his Cleveland stint last September. His actual line from that time period looks terrible, but again this is at least part to do with poor bullpen support (53% LOB%) and bad luck (.403 BABIP). McAllister pitched great in Columbus, though, and with two options remaining, should have plenty of time to improve his performance.

McAllister's pitching mix begins with a four-seam fastball that sits in the low-90s and that he employs just over half the time. Off of this, he mixes in a two-seam fastball, cutter, changeup and curve against left-handers and a two-seam fastball, cutter, slider and curve against right-handers. With the exception of the changeup, McAllister has shown the ability to consistently throw all of them for strikes. McAllister's problem is that none of them, by themselves, look particularly great. On the bright side, none of them seem particularly bad either. All of his pitches produce a moderate number of swings and misses, go for strikes, and even induce a decent number of groundballs (aided by McAllister's 6'6" frame). For McAllister to succeed at the major league level, it seems as if he needs to get a little more out of at least a few of his pitches, particularly making sure to limit the damage on balls put in play against him (opponents regularly put up ropes against him during his September stint in Cleveland).

The challenge for Cleveland vis-a-vis McAllister is figuring out how to get him the development he needs. He showed last year he can handle AAA hitters with aplomb, but there isn't currently a spot in Cleveland for him to develop his stuff against major league caliber hitters.

Zach McAllister	W-L	ERA	BB%	K%	GB%	OPS	IP
2011 MLB	0-1	6.11	8.3	16.7	42.9	.860	17.2
MLB (career)	0-1	6.11	8.3	16.7	42.9	.860	17.2
AAA (career)	33-18	3.96	5.5	18.1	38.0	-	459

Coming off of an optimistic 80-82 season, is this the Indians window to win? See full post on...

2012-02-06T16:07:06Z

Coming off of an optimistic 80-82 season, is this the Indians window to win?

See full post on Beyond the Box Score

SAT Analogy—Shelley Duncan:Casey Kotchman

2012-02-03T19:00:48Z

With the signing of Casey Kotchman, Cleveland has finally made a move to patch over the black hole that was 1B in 2011. The Indians cumulative OPS at 1B last season was 763, about 30 points below league average. It appears the Indians have already decided to send Matt LaPorta back to Columbus, barring injuries anyway, and there's no reason to complain about that. However, it's at least worth diagnosing exactly how the Indians have upgraded the Cold Corner. I'm going to chart out the 2011 1B, plus Kotchman, both by their 2011 numbers and career numbers. Santana's numbers will be 1B-only, while I'll use total numbers of LaPorta (who was horrible as a DH/PH last season) and Duncan. For reference, the total AL split at first for 2011 was a .340/452 OBP/SLG with a 116 OPS+ and a 2.09 SO:BB.

2011:

Name	PA	OBP	SLG	OPS+	XBH	SO:BB
Casey Kotchman	563	.378	.422	128	36	1.38
Matt LaPorta	385	.299	.412	97	35	3.78
Carlos Santana	272	.338	.451	115	30	1.88
Shelley Duncan	247	.324	.484	123	28	2.94

Career:

Name	PA	OBP	SLG	OPS+	XBH	SO:BB
Casey Kotchman	2891	.336	.398	98	211	1.20
Matt LaPorta	1008	.304	.397	93	83	2.54
Carlos Santana	272	.338	.451	115	30	1.88
Shelley Duncan	669	.313	.441	105	61	2.83

Let's run through each player's profile.

Kotchman's 2011 was his career year. Casey started in pro baseball with the Angels and was an uber-prospect by the 2005 BA list, when he was rated as #6 in all of baseball. He has struggled with injuries throughout his career but just as detrimental to fulfilling his promise has been a lack of power development. Kotchman's good looking swing and doubles power as a youngster never translated to homeruns and now he's a first basemen trying to get by on plate discipline and singles. He has a significant platoon split, preferring to bat against righties (754 vs 668). This split was present in 2011, albeit with both numbers much higher (838 vs 709)

2011 was a best-case-scenario for Kotchman, with good health, continued adequate plate control, and more hits on balls in play (much has been made of his .335 BABIP last season). It's unclear what led to the improvement in his game (if anything), but he did have vision correction prior to the season. Finally, Kotchman is considered to be an elite defensive first basemen and is clearly regarded as the best defender on this list.

Matt LaPorta is also a former top prospect but one cut from a very different cloth than Kotchman. In each of his minor league seasons, Kotchman never struck out more than he walked. The exact opposite is true of LaPorta. LaPorta's career minor league slugging percentage is .566 and he's gone yard once every 16 at-bats; Kotchman's corresponding numbers are .491 and a homerun every 42 at-bats. LaPorta is a much more prototypical first base prospect—he has genuine power and sells out often to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, LaPorta's prototypical profile brings with it prototypical problems: as LaPorta hit the majors he lost all ability to control the plate, likely a result of his extensive struggles with nearly all off-speed pitches, and his OBP tanked as his K's rose. LaPorta can still make the ball go 'BOOM', he just doesn't make enough contact for it to matter. LaPorta's platoon split is similar to Kotchman's, which is odd since LaPorta bats righty. For his career, he is at 725 vs RHP and 629 vs LHP.

Carlos Santana doesn't need much of an introduction. One of the top young hitters in the game, the Indians have decided to continue to play Santana behind the plate for the foreseeable future. He pounds lefties, for an 882 OPS, and hits more than passably against lefties, for a 795 OPS. Whoever sees the most time at 1B will be sitting relatively often in favor of Santana on his off days.

We come to Shelley Duncan. Duncan is a long-time organizational soldier type, as evidenced by the 355 AAA games he's already logged in his career. The Indians signed Duncan as a depth option at LF/1B/DH prior to the 2010 season and, finally free of the Yankees and their surfeit of bats, Shelley stumbled into 506 major league PAs over the last two seasons. That more than tripled what he'd received through the end of 2009. Finally given the chance to play a bit, Duncan did better than one might've predicted. In his age 30 and 31 seasons, he took those 506 PAs and posted a 771 OPS. His numbers aren't shockingly good, but they do approach the average 1B line I posted way back before the jump, and they're leaps and bounds better than the 702 OPS posted by the average AL LF.

Duncan is a big, oafish-looking, bat-only right-hander, and that sort of player tends to have a platoon split (hey, Matt LaPorta!) but Duncan's brief major league career indicates that, no, he can hit righties and lefties with equal adequacy. Ah, you say, but he's a career minor leaguer—those major league splits are likely inaccurate. I would've said the same thing, my friend, but the current incarnation of minor league splits indicates that Duncan has never struggled with a platoon split. That does not mean Duncan lacks significant flaws: most notably, he swings and misses a great deal. That's particularly alarming because of his age.

If you're thinking like I'm thinking, then you're going a little cockeyed. Already on the roster, the Indians are carrying a player who certainly appears capable of at least a 750 OPS against pitchers of the right and left-handed variety. Nothing in Duncan's pedigree says he couldn't do that consistently: it's where his MLEs have generally lived and below his 50th percentile PECOTA projection last season. In fact, entering last season, Duncan's 50th percentile PECOTA projection was better than Kotchman's 70th percentile PECOTA projection. The Indians just signed Kotchman to a $3M/year contract; Duncan will make approximately $500,000 this season.

So, what gives? We can produce a few rationales.

Duncan, a RHB, is viewed as a good platoon partner for three positions: 1B, DH, and LF (all set to be manned by LHB in 2012). That makes some sense on the surface except Duncan's career OPS against RHP is either better than or essentially the same as Brantley's and Kotchman's. Sure, Duncan can protect those guys, and Hafner, from lefties, but he can stick up for himself against the righties.
Duncan is viewed as bad enough defensively at 1B that he can't be considered as a regular there. Entirely possible—I can't speak to this. Duncan came up through the minors playing predominantly first but circumstances have led to him playing mostly outfield in the majors. Kotchman is, as previously stated, considered excellent at first. It wasn't long ago that the Indians infield defense became something of a laughingstock and it appears that the renewed emphasis on that area of the game will carry over into 2012.
The Indians have other plans for Duncan. I suspect this is the case, although I can't put my finger on exactly what those plans are. It's possible that the Indians think Duncan will be playing LF regularly as Brantley shifts to CF in a scenario where Sizemore is either DH'ing or sitting quite a bit. It's also possible that the Indians are going to get Duncan 500 ABs between LF, 1B, and RF. It's also possible that Brantley's hold on LF might be a lot less firm than some think.
The Indians believe Duncan, an older player with a lot of mileage, is about to crater. Entirely possible.
From the P-D: "He controls the strike zone and puts up a quality at-bat," said Antonetti. "He doesn't strikeout much and puts the ball in play. He does a good job managing his at-bats."

Obviously, this has gotten away from me a bit. However, I can't shake the feeling that the Indians have found real value with Shelley Duncan and it's a shame to not take advantage of it somehow. I don't mind the Kotchman signing but this was not a case, as it has been portrayed most of the offseason, of a club with no first basemen or right-handed bat available. When I really sat down and looked at this, I'm surprised there wasn't more of a push to simply hand Duncan the job and see how it goes. I certainly hope Duncan's on the roster on opening day, and I wouldn't predict he'll be cut. The Indians are generally pretty smart and the smart thing to do would be to find Duncan at-bats. If I were Michael Brantley, I'd be wondering where, and if, I'd be playing most of the season.

Poll

Let's Go Tribe

Indians Sign Jon Garland

Indians Sign Jon Garland

Transactions: The Streak Continues

Indians sign Cabrera to 1-year deal

Indians sign Cabrera to 1-year deal

The Age of the Indians

Travis Hafner: Exit stage left

The starting rotation: Huff, Gomez and McAllister

Coming off of an optimistic 80-82 season, is this the Indians window to win? See full post on...

SAT Analogy—Shelley Duncan:Casey Kotchman

How many PAs will Duncan have in 2012?