Ryan

Cheerleader’s Boot Saves Kyle Denney

PD Story

Sometimes jokes write themselves. It looks like Denney is going to be all right (he’s been released from the hospital), so we can have some fun with this. Denney and all the other rookies were participating in annual hazing, and he got to wear a USC (no idea why they picked USC) cheerleader outfit during the trip to Minnesota. When the team was heading to the airport, a bullet entered the team bus, grazed Ryan Ludwick, and enetered Kyle Denney’s leg. The wound wasn’t deep, as team trainers removed the bullet before Denney reached the hospital. Denney was wearing a leather cheerleader’s boot as part of his outfit, and it apparently stopped the bullet somewhat. I’m wondering if Denney arrived at the ER still wearing the outfit, but regardless, I’m glad he’s OK. Even if he never sticks in the big leagues, Denney will have quite a story to tell to his grandkids.

A Quick Note

Tonight’s game marked the first time Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore all appeared in the same game. Hopefully this will be the first of many times that combination helps bring the Indians a victory.

Season In Review: Part 1 of 5

I’ve divided this review into five parts: The bullpen, the starting pitching, the defense, the hitting and overall review. Assuming nothing really drastic happens, one week shouldn’t skew these numbers too much, and if something dramatic does happen, I can always go back and edit.

Let’s get the worst over with first.

The Bullpen

Name	Innings	App.	ERA	H/9	SO/9	BB/9	VORP
Rick White	78.1	59	5.29	10.1	5.1	3.3	3.0
David Riske	74.1	69	3.75	8.2	9.1	4.7	21.2
Rafael Betancourt	64.0	65	4.08	9.7	10.4	2.2	12.9
Matt Miller	52.0	54	3.29	7.3	8.5	3.8	14.5
Bob Howry	41.2	35	2.38	7.6	8.2	2.4	17.2
Jose Jimenez	36.1	31	8.42	11.1	5.2	3.5	-11.5
Bob Wickman	26.2	27	4.72	10.8	7.8	3.4	4.7
Cliff Bartosh	17.2	31	5.09	10.7	11.7	5.6	2.4
Jack Cressend	15.2	11	6.32	12.6	4.6	5.7	0.0
Jeriome Robertson	14.0	8	12.21	14.1	3.9	5.8	-12.2
Scott Stewart	13.2	23	7.24	15.1	11.9	4.0	-6.7
Jeremy Guthrie	11.2	6	4.63	6.9	5.4	4.6	2.2

Ah yes, the “bullpen from Hell” or shortened, “the hellpen.” The first two months of the season, the Indians had by far the worst bullpen in captivity. While the ineptness of the bullpen wasn’t even close to being the worst in baseball history, it felt like it. David Riske started the year as the closer, blew several saves, and thus began a series of bullpen shifts as manager Eric Wedge tried to find someone who get somebody, ANYBODY out. Jose Jimenez (free agency) and Scott Stewart (trade) were brought in last winter to shore up the bullpen, but turned out to be gascans. Baseball Prospectus ranked the bottom ten relievers by Adjusted Runs Prevented as of August 6th, and Jimenez and Jeriome Robertson were the bottom two.

Short FAQ: What is Adjusted Runs Prevented (ARP)?

A: The number of runs prevented over the average pitcher, adjusted for situation, league, and park. For a more in-depth explanation, go here.

The good news is that those that have remained on the team have pitched much better over the final half of the season. Replacing Jose Jimenez, Scott Stewart, and Jeriome Robertson have been Bob Wickman, Bob Howry, and Matt Miller. David Riske has been a lot better in the second half of the year, and Rafael Betancourt, the team’s most consistent reliver in April and May, hasn’t fallen off in August and September.

“That’s nice,” you might be saying, “but how should the team fix the bullpen next year?”

From what I’ve seen from front office/manager quotes in the past month or so, I don’t think you’ll see them spending a lot of money in the bullpen. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, due to the maddening deviations in reliever effectiveness. For every Eric Gagne or Keith Foulke there’s ten other relievers who go from ‘great’ to ‘suck,’ depending on which year they’re playing. Scott Stewarrt was one of the better left-handed relievers in the National League when the Indians traded two prospects for him last winter; now he’s been banished to Los Angeles, and may resurface somewhere else two years from now as an elite reliever. Jose Jimenez, contrary to what you feel about him now, was a pretty effective closer in hyperoffensive Coors Field. Look at Ricardo Rincon’s career. Look at Paul Quantrill’s career. You really don’t know what you’re going to get from even the better relievers from year to year with a couple exceptions. So while of course you grab a couple guys from the “proven” pool every year, I don’t think it’s real smart to allocate big bucks to one of the least reliable positions on the roster.

For example, look at the composition of the bullpen in July and August, when it was more or less effective:

Closer – Bob Wickman – Acquired for Richie Sexson, among others in 2000. Blew out his arm a year after getting a three year extension in 2001 worth $18M. Finally came back after this year’s All-Star Break and has been very shaky, yet has only blown one save in 11 chances.

Setup – Bob Howry – picked up for a minor-league deal last winter while recovery from arm surgery. Came back after the All-Star Break and has been the best pitcher in the bullpen.

Setup – Rafael Betancourt – a former infielder converted to pitcher. The Indians picked him up two years ago as a minor-league free agent. Brought up in the second half of the 2003 season, and has parlayed a quirky short-arm delivery to become a very effective reliever, provided he isn’t overused.

Setup – Matt Miller – a 33-year-old who had pitched a grand total of 4.1 major-league innings before this season. The Indians signed the side-armer to a minor-league deal last winter. After pitching well in Buffalo, he was brought up and dominated right-handed hitters, holding them to a .214 average. He wasn’t drafted.

Setup – David Riske – drafted in the 56th round in 1996 (they only have 50 rounds now). He flew through the system, made his MLB debut in 1999, and bounced between the high minors and Cleveland for the next three years. Out of options in 2003, he was one of the better relief pitchers in the American League. This season he started as closer, blew several games, and looks to have stabilized as a 7th/8th inning guy. His ERAs by month are 12.27, 4.72, 1.00, 5.40, 1.76, and 2.08

Long Man – Rick White – When the bullpen was in the height of its throes, the Indians traded an organizational guy to the Dodgers for White’s services. He started out pitching in high-leverage situations, and was better than what the team had. Since then he’s been pushed to mop-up duty, and will probably be a NRI in someone else’s camp in 2005.

The moral of the story? With relievers, sometimes it all comes down to luck. Of course you have to find and recognize talent, but, especially in the bullpen, sometimes you just have to get lucky.

Of course, if money is no object, you can go ahead and spend $30-40M on “proven closers”; but the Indians can’t do that. Throwing 30% of your payroll at the least reliable of investments is a sure way of hamstringing your team down the road. The best way a small-market team can build a bullpen is to (a) develop your own talent, or, if that doesn’t work (b) pick up undervalued pitchers and see if they stick. To some extent, that’s what Mark Shapiro has figured out in the best three years as GM since trying the “proven closer” method. Jeremy Guthrie and Jason Davis, who have more or less struggled as starters, are going to be tried out in the bullpen, and Andrew Brown may eventually join them. Fernando Cabrera, after three years as a starter, is now a full-fledged relief prospect. Scott Sauerbeck was signed this summer to a 2005 contract in the hopes he becomes the next Bob Howry. Brian Tallet, after recovering from Tommy John Surgery, may find himself in the bullpen as a LOOGY. Cliff Bartosh and Kaz Tadano should figure into the mix as well.

I’m not insane enough to predict which among this collection of arms will be the core of the 2005 bullpen at this point in the offseason. A more realistic prediction is to identify a “pool” of possibles, and say that the majority of next year’s relief corps will come from it. And I’d still probably miss a guy or two; Betancourt and Miller were almost off the radar screen before their first appearances. Given that the New York Yankees had charcters like Tanyon Sturtze, Felix Heredia, Scott Proctor, Gabe White, and CJ Nitkowski logging multiple appearances this season, it’s safe to say that bullpen construction is definitely not a science; in fact, it almost resides in the pseudoscience realm along with remote viewing and witchcraft.

More Changes

I’ve re-configured the comments; now they are the standard Blogger comments. All previous posts still have the pop-up comment box, but any future posts will use the new system.

Feel free to test them out.

I also have 6 gmail addresses; if you want one, just email me your name, and I’ll send an invite your way.

Changes

I’ve recently switched over to Mozilla Firefox, and viewing my blog with it saw that the “table” setup looked awful. So over the weekend I cobbled together a table-free blog through a lot of trial and error. So far it looks pretty good in IE and Netscape, although it’s optimized for Firefox.

The blog may change a bit over the next couple days (I’m trying to find the perfect font for my title), but the main part of the shift has been completed. During the changeover, I’ve added the Arizona Fall League and Florida Instructional League rosters. Most of the players you see on those two rosters are the teams’ best prospects, and sometime in early November I’ll try to start ranking the top 30 or so.

Enough about the blog itself; onto the Indians:

Corey Smith is finally moving to the outfield, according to player development director John Farell:

Two highly touted prospects, third baseman Corey Smith and second baseman Micah Schilling, haven’t panned out as previously expected.

Smith has been an inconsistent hitter and has struggled mightily in the field — so much so that Farrell has plans to move him to the outfield.

“The defensive aspect has not progressed where his overall talents show they can,” Farrell said. “Sometimes his thought process gets in the way of executing. We’re trying to take away the distraction of the defensive aspect, which may allow him to think more positively about his overall game.”

For Smith, this gives him one last fresh start with the organization. Since being drafted in 2000, Smith simply hasn’t performed to the level the organization thought he would. Compounding his struggles at the plate has been his horrendous defense at third base. Every scouting report I’ve seen raves at Smith’s physical abilities, and hopefully a move to the outfield will allow him to relax. Kevin Kouzmanoff and Pat Osborn (when healthy) are better third base prospects in the organization, not to mention Matt Whitney, who’s been out effectively two years after breaking his leg in March 2002. Smith is no longer on the prospect radar, although he’s still young enough to make himself into a major-league outfielder.

All My Infielders, Episode 2



As we left our story, I had this configuration for next season:



1B Casey Blake

2B Omar Vizquel

SS Jhonny Peralta/Brandon Phillips

3B Aaron Boone

UTIF Josh Phelps

UTIF Lou Merloni (or facsimile)



Now Eric Wedge makes an appearance on our program, saying this:

When Wedge talked about the infield for next year, he was reluctant to name a starter at any position except first base.

“I look at Benny as our first baseman,” he said.

If this is true, I need to throw out my previous model. By keeping Broussard around, Blake by default is your second baseman, which means Belliard is probably either nontendered or traded. Also this would mean Omar Vizquel will be playing for another team next year whether he wants to or not. I don’t believe Broussard is arbitration-eligible yet, so he’ll still be making next to nothing. What I am concerned about is the double-play combination. Blake has played a grand total of 0 innings as a major-league second baseman, and Jhonny Peralta looks more like a player transitioning between shortstop and third base. If Jake Westbrook is reading this, he’s probably already cringing.

The upside is obvious; by moving your third baseman left on the defensive spectrum, you are increasing his overall value to your team. And placing Jhonny Peralta at shortstop should be an offensive upgrade over Omar Vizquel, especially in the power department. But is that offensive upgrade worth what seems to me as a downgrade in defense? I’ve never seen Blake at second base, but he was a below-average third baseman to begin with; therefore my first reaction is that he’ll be a terrible defender at second base.

So here’s the 2005 infield, v. 1.1:

1B Ben Broussard ($400k)

2B Casey Blake ($3M)

SS Jhonny Peralta/Brandon Phillips ($300k)

3B Aaron Boone ($3M)

UTIF Josh Phelps ($350k)

UTIF Lou Merloni (or facsimile)

The upside? A pretty good offensive infield:



VORP (2003/2004)



1B Broussard (4.1/31.8)

2B Blake (9.5/36.6)

SS Peralta (-4.0/1.2)

3B Boone (31.5/NA)



Blake, had he played 2B all season, would have been the league’s best by a fairly large margin. Boone should, assuming his knee is healthy come close to matching Blake’s 2004 numbers. Broussard is a league-average first baseman. Peralta is an unknown quantity, but projects to hit with at least decent power.



The downside? Your defense presumedly gets worse, with Blake at 2B and Peralta being big question marks. Boone is a pretty good third baseman, and lets call Broussard average at first.



Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of “All My Infielders,” where plot twists and role reversals happen every show!

The Indians’ Wax Wings : A Review of the 2004 Season



The past six weeks haven’t been too pretty for an Indians fan. Tempted by the possibility of first-place in mid-August, but then greeted by the implosion of first a nine-game losing streak, and finally by a September reminiscent of 2003, I don’t think Tribe fans really know what to expect next year. Is this the team that was held back by a horrendous bullpen in the beginning of the year, the team that overcame its pitching woes by being baseball’s best offense, or the team that we’re seeing now in September?



Five years from now, I’ll probably look at the teams’ 2004 baseball-reference page and see a team that won anywhere from 76-80 games. What will it tell me? Not much without some context. Obviously the team had improved on their 2003 record, and by looking at their offensive numbers, I should deduce that the improvement in offense was the primary culprit in overall increase in wins. But the true test to whether the 2004 was an organizational success was the wins and losses in 2005, 2006, 2007, and beyond. If 2004 is the post-2001 era, then the organization did not do its job. The stated goal from the time the rebuilding began was to build a team that was equipped to contend and win a championship for multiple years beginning in 2005. The first and second steps of that process have more or less been accomplished:



Step 1: Reduce salaries by jettisoning players who won’t be part of the next contender.



The Indians went from a salary of a payroll of $78.9M on Opening Day of 2002 to a payroll of $34.3 on this season’s Opening Day.



Step 2: Acquire lots and lots of talent.



Again, most would agree that the organization in two years have vastly improved their talent pool from the majors to the minors. The first wave of talent was aqcuired through trading veterens in 2002, but more waves have come through recent drafts. The minor-league system is one of the deeper ones in baseball, and the major-league club has a lot interesting and talented players.



Now Mark Shapiro has to complete the third, and arguably, most difficult objective: take the acquired talent along with the money you saved in tearing down the team, and put a winner out on the field. The team will supposedly have around $15M to spend on free agents this offseason, which should place the Indians’ payroll around the middle of the pack. If they win in 2005, theoretically they should have more money to play with, but I seriously doubt the team will, in this current economic climate, ever have one of the highest payrolls in the league. That’s not entirely Larry Dolan’s fault; that’s just how baseball is now. The good news is that there isn’t a New York or Boston or even Anaheim in the AL Central; The Chicago White Sox had the division’s highest payroll in 2004 of $65.2M. So it isn’t like the team is going to have to overcome a large monetary disadvantage to win. The key is to make good decisions on the talent you have, and the rest largely takes care of itself. What are these ‘good decisions’?



This season, the Indians were, like Icarus, flying upwards with wings of wax; they disintegrated once they got too close to the top of the division. Next year, with expectations raised, a similar fall to earth won’t be excused. After the last out on October 3, the goal is to win the division, not finish .500, or improve from last year.



Over the next two weeks, I’ll be reviewing the team as a unit; what their strengths and their weaknesses were, and using those answers, determine what should be done to fix any weaknesses and maintain any strengths. This will then lead into the current player evaluations after the end of the season, and eventually into free agent evaluations. Please feel free to critque and respond in the comments below, or drop me a line via email.

All My Infielders

It looks like Omar Vizquel isn’t going to leave Cleveland without a fight. From yesterday’s ABJ:

Omar Vizquel can’t understand what the problem is. If the Indians do not

exercise the option clause in his contract at the end of the season (which they

won’t), he can become a free agent. But that doesn’t interest him. Only one

thing does: remaining with the Indians.

“My decision is not hard,” he said Sunday. “I want to stay. ” Asked if he had any interest in testing the market, Vizquel said, “Not really. There’s no other team I want to play for. I

had some interest in Seattle (his home), but I don’t want to go through another

rebuilding process.“Why go anywhere? I think we can win here.”

First things first. Dugout Dollars places Vizquel’s 2004 salary at $7.5M. The Indians and Vizquel have a mutual option for 2005 worth $5M; if the Indians decline it (which they will), they owe Vizquel $1M as a lovely parting gift. This will probably happen right after the World Series. However, if they want to bring him back, they have negotiate a new contract by the arbitration deadline in early December (I believe it’s December 7th), or they can’t bring him back at all.

Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, let’s look at the shortstop market, not necessarily because the Indians are looking to sign one, but more to see what Vizquel is up against:

• Nomar Garciaparra
• Edgar Renteria
• Jose Valentin
• Orlando Cabrera
• Alex Gonzalez (the one now playing for San Diego)
• Cristian Guzman (team option, but I think Minnesota declines it)
• Desi Relaford

The 2004-2005 crop of shortstops is a pretty good one, with Renteria and Garciaparra being the cream of the crop. If Vizquel tested the free agent market, I don’t think he’d get anything more than a one-year deal. Also, he doesn’t seem to like to change residences (why couldn’t Manny Ramirez have had this trait?), so Vizquel just may take any offer from the Indians. This would make Shapiro’s decision on Vizquel even more difficult. Omar is still a competant shortstop, but his arm is very weak by league standards, and he doesn’t have the range he used to. One possible option is this: sign Vizquel to a 1 year, ~$2M contract contingent on a move to second base and sell high on Ronnie Belliard.

I’m still not convinced Belliard is going to be worth what he’s going to get in arbitration, and downright horrified at the prospect of the Indians locking him up long-term. He turns the double play well enough, but he hides his lack of range by playing the deepest second base I’ve ever seen. Given that there isn’t much out there on the second base market and with Belliard coming off a career year, there just might be a team that will be willing to overpay for Belliard’s services and send back a useful player or a prospect. A big plus to this move would be the net gain; the Indians might save $2-3M by dealing Belliard, which could be added to the Pitching Piggy Bank.

So where does this leave Casey Blake? I would think he’d move over to first base, assuming Aaron Boone’s knee is ready to go. Blake is also due a substantial raise due to arbitration, but unlike Belliard, Blake has been decent for two years. Given Blake’s phobia of left-handers, Josh Phelps should then be brought back to spell Blake against the left-hander’s cutters that drives him nuts. Ben Broussard would then also be trade bait (maybe Pittsburgh?).

So here’s my 2005 infield configuration, v. 1.0:

• 1B Casey Blake ($3M)
• 2B Omar Vizquel ($2M)
• SS Jhonny Peralta/Brandon Phillips ($300k)
• 3B Aaron Boone ($3M)
• UTIF Josh Phelps ($350k)
• UTIF Lou Merloni (or facsimile)

On first glance, this is a better defensive infield, and could be at least a comparable offensive infield if Peralta progresses as I think he will. Merloni would be a perfect fit to spell Vizquel against a left-hander, as would Phelps for Blake for reasons specified above. John McDonald hopefully will be exorcised this offseason, but I’m not holding my breath (I guess booting Tim Laker will be progress enough).

Is this the most likely scenario to happen? Probably not, but it’s an interesting one all the same; the Indians would save some money, improve their defensive configuration, and may not suffer that much offensively.