Baseball (Archive)

When baseball went to an unbalanced schedule in 2001, I was initially for it. After all, it would make the division title more meaningful, right?. However, as we enter the 5th year with the unbalanced schedule, I’m starting to like it less and less. For teams in the AL Central, I think it’s really hurt attendance. None of the teams are really a draw the way the Yankees or Red Sox are, and the fact that the Indians have three home series each against the White Sox, Royals, Twins, and Tigers starts to depress attendance even more. It’s no surprise that all five AL Central teams ranked in the bottom third of MLB in attendance; while some of those low numbers may be due to poor performance, I have to believe that the lack of draws hurt attendance as well.

Let’s take this year’s schedule as an example. Here’s a breakdown of who the Indians play at home this year:

Minnesota (10)
Chicago (10)
Detroit (9)
Kansas City (10)
Toronto (3)
Anaheim (3)
Oakland (6)
Colorado (3)
Arizona (3)
Boston (3)
Cincinnati (3)
Seattle (3)
New York (3)
Tampa (6)
Texas (3)
Baltimore (3)

Yes, the Indians have as many home dates against the Rockies and Diamondbacks as they have against the Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers, Athletics, Blue Jays, Orioles, and Rangers. To me, this not only costs the teams attendance, but it also may affect the team on the field, especially in Wild Card competition.

Here’s my solution:

(1) Reduce the number of in-division games from 76 to 56
(2) Reduce the number of Interleague games from 18 to 6
(3) Increase the number of non-division AL games from 68 to 100

Teams would still play more games per division team (14) than non-division team (11 or 12), they would also be guarenteed at least two home series versus each non-division AL team. And they would still have six Interleague games to play versus either a NL rival (such as Cincinnati) or two random NL teams if they don’t have a clear rival. Furthermore, the league wild card races would become more meaningful. Here’s my modified home schedule:

Minnesota (7)
Chicago (7)
Kansas City (7)
Detroit (7)
Toronto (6)
Anaheim (5)
Oakland (6)
Boston (5)
New York (6)
Tampa (5)
Texas (6)
Baltimore (5)
Seattle (5)
Cincinnati (3)

Divisional games, to increase their magnitude, would be stacked later in the season, much as they are now. The Interleague series would be held on the weekend before and the weekend after the All-Star Break. AL West teams would still play 19 games against division opponents due to one less team in the division.

I think moving towards a slightly unbalanced schedule would still preserve rivalries within the division, but also reinvigorate rivalries with teams in the other two divisions. Of course, commissioner Bud Selig seems to think that the gimmick that is Interleague play is a success, so I doubt we see any schedule change reducing the number of games. But I believe that as the novelty of Interleague play starts to wear off and teams begin to clamor for more games against teams like the Yankees, this type of schedule should start to gain popularity.

Here’s a list of a few players that probably won’t make the club, but should be key pieces of the 2005 Indians.

C/1B Ryan Garko

If Garko terrorizes the International League, the Indians have a dilemma. Not only do they have to decide whether to bring him up, but they have to figure out how they can use him. Let’s assume that Garko can play two positions (three if you count DH as a position): catcher and first base. The knock on Ryan is that he’s not very good defensively behind the plate. That, combined with the fact that the Indians already have Victor Martinez and Josh Bard on the roster leads me to believe that, barring an injury, he isn’t catching for the Indians any time soon. First base is then the easiest avenue for Ryan to reach Cleveland, but he’s also blocked there. Ben Broussard probably won’t be around for too much longer, but he’s not an offensive albatross. Travis Hafner is probably the full-time DH from here on out, so unless they’re comfortable platooning Ryan with Broussard, Hafner, or both, Garko’s stuck in Buffalo. Compounding things is Michael Aubrey, who could be ready for the bigs by next year. Garko may end up like the Phillies’ Ryan Howard, blocked in his organization by other players. Or maybe the Indians can shoehorn him on the roster as a Matt LeCroy (or even a Josh Phelps) type of player.

RHP Jason Davis

Closer or starter? At this point, Davis is the 6th starter on the staff. Given the injury histories of the rotation members, he might get 10-15 starts before the year’s out. Upper 90s heat tends to make clubs turn guys Davis into closers, and I see his potential there as well. But he still has a lot kinks in his delivery to work out; pitching in shorter spurts isn’t going to completely hide those flaws. Davis still has an option, so the Indians still have some time to think about his some more, whether that be as the 12th pitcher on the staff or in Buffalo. My guess: he fills in for Scott Elarton, loses his job, then finishes the year as a key setup man after a stint with the Bisons.

RHP Kaz Tadano

Like Davis, the Indians still don’t know what to make of Tadano. That’s where the similarities between the pitchers end. Tadano has pretty good control. His issue keeping him from starting is his durability. He may end up having a career similar to his countryman Shigetoshi Hasegawa, who was tried as a starter initially, then settled down into a setup role. Tadano is probably ticketed to Buffalo again, and will probably stay in the rotation as an insurance policy.

2B/SS Brandon Phillips

Reading between the lines, I think Jhonny Peralta is the favorite to win the shortstop job. That leaves Brandon back in Buffalo, where he’ll probably stay unless Peralta or Belliard gets hurt. It’s hard to believe it’s been two seasons since Brandon was essentially given the second base job going into the 2003 season. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, and Phillips will have to bide his time. I wouldn’t surprised if he gets dealt sometime during or after this season, especially if Peralta has a good year. The Indians have Alex Cora for another year, and have a 2006 option on Ronnie Belliard. Neither is what I’d call a long-term solution, but Phillips may not be one either.

OF Grady Sizemore

It’s not his fault, but if Juan Gonzalez is healthy, Grady is going to Buffalo. Personally I’d take him over Coco Crisp, but that isn’t happening. Sizemore is an outstanding fielder, the best the Indians have in the system besides perhaps Franklin Gutierrez, and he wasn’t overpowered at the plate last season. Unlike the other players on this list, Sizemore is going to get his shot sooner or later.

OF Ryan Ludwick

Injuries are the reason Ludwick is on this list. His golden opportunity was last year, when Alex Escobar was flopping in the majors. Now it may be too late for anything beyond a complementary role for Ryan. He should be the fourth outfielder no matter if Gonzalez makes the club or not. He should get fairly regular at-bats against left-handed pitching, but a lot of injuries will have to happen for him to become a regular starter.

RHP Jeremy Guthrie

He’s probably going to Buffalo as well. Guthrie’s career fell off a cliff in late 2003, when he was hammered by AAA hitting. The experience carried over to 2004, where he struggled in AA a year after he dominated there. Now he’s way down on the list of starter candidates, and may be hard-pressed to win a bullpen job.

RHP Fernando Cabrera

Like Sizemore, Cabrera is on this list because there isn’t room for him on the major-league roster. He adjusted well to his new role as a reliever last season, and is pretty much ready for the majors. If the Indians need a reliever early in the year, Cabrera should be the first one called up.

Via Baseball Think Factory, a Korean cartoon depicting the 2004 Indinas. Obviously, the captions are in Korean, so I have no idea what they say (if any reader knows the language, by all means translate it). But since a picture’s worth a thousand words, so I’ll give it a shot.

1. Jake Westbrook. Casey Blake, Ronnie Belliard, and Omar Vizquel are tired of fielding all of Jake’s ground balls.
2. Travis Hafner. He’s harmless against left-handers (I think that’s Mark Buerhle on the left), but mashes right-handed pitching.
3. CC Sabathia/Bob Wickman. Both pitchers are successful despite their bulkiness.
4. Victor Martinez. He’s a good player without the added weight.
5. Kaz Tadano. Well, this one should be pretty obvious. The batter is Alex Rodriguez, I think.
6. Coco Crisp. He beat out Alex Escobar and Grady Sizemore.
7. Jose Jimenez. He sucked.

Feel free to add your own captions.

Every so often, a baseball signing just completely shocks me. Alex Rodriguez was the last time it happened, but today’s (reported) signing has the same effect on me.

Magglio Ordonez has been for years one of the game’s most underrated players, maybe because he played in a division no one cared about nationally, or maybe it was his consistency. Most Indians fans know how good he is from experience; him and Frank Thomas would kill the Indians time after time throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. He’s never hit 40 home runs in a season, but he’s also been one of the better hitters in the American League since 1998.

But I simply can’t imagine he’d ever get 75 million dollars from anyone. Especially after a career-threatening knee injury. Especially after an offseason where players like Adrian Beltre and Carlos Delgado didn’t really get market value. That’s what the Detroit Tigers are reportedly going to pay Magglio over the next five seasons. I had assumed that some team like the Mets or Cubs would get him at a reduced rate, he’d have a good year, and then go back on the free agent market and cash in. But I have to credit his agent for somehow getting a team to give him a five year contract.

In 2002, Jim Thome was the best position player on the market, coming off a career year, and he roughly got what Ordonez is getting. He’s going to get more than Vlad got last year.

The Tigers are probably forced into paying this much because of their past history, which you can justify on some level. They struck gold after signing Ivan Rodriguez late last offseason, and appear to be following the same script with Ordonez in this offseason. But with these types of signings comes an incredible amount of risk. I always like to ask myself when I see a contract is what the dollar amounts says about the player. For instance, Alex Rodriguez is being paid to be the best player in baseball. Magglio Ordonez is going to be paid to be one of the top 10 players in baseball. The problem comes when the monetary expectations (ie the contract dollars) doesn’t mesh with the baseball expectations (ie the performance on the field). I’ll bring up another example near and dear to our hearts: Matt Lawton. He’s a nice player, but the disconnect between his performance and his paycheck was fairly large. That’s what I see with this deal, but on a grander scale. Unless Magglio somehow ups his game to Pujolsian levels over the next five seasons, he won’t be worth what he’s getting.

And yes, if the Indians had given out a contract like this in the past two months, I’d be saying the same thing. When dollars don’t match performance, there’s a big problem, because most teams only have so much money that they can spend. The larger the gulf, the bigger the problem. The smaller the payroll, the bigger the problem. Now if the Tigers suddenly start spending $100M a year, they might not suffer as much from this contract. They are one year away from ridding themselves of Bobby Higginson’s Ferry-esque contract, so they’ll should be all right monetarily. But the bigger issue comes from the performance on the field; this is what happened to the Indians in 2002.

This signing definitely makes the AL Central more interesting, though. If everyone’s healthy, a Rodriguez-Ordonez-Young middle of the order is going to be scary to face.

Right about this time, trucks carrying baseball equipment should be on their way to Winter Haven. Baseball’s around the corner, and although LeBron has kept Cleveland sports fans fixated through the winter months, it’s nice to know that Spring Training is near.

I’ve also uploaded my rankings of the 36 pitchers on the Indians’ Top 100 list. Here’s the top ten, with WARP3 in parentheses:

1. Bob Feller (106.4)
2. Bob Lemon (88.1)
3. Mel Harder (76.1)
4. Stan Coveleski (68.8)
5. Early Wynn (62.2)
6. Charles Nagy (59.5)
7. Willis Hudlin (57.5)
8. Mike Garcia (57.1)
9. Addie Joss (52.8)
10. Sam McDowell (51.2)

I was a bit surprised that Nagy ranked so high, but revisting his statistics, he had an excellent career. After 1999 he was pretty much done, but during the mid 1990s, he was one of the best pitchers in the American League. Note that I’m ranking these pitchers by the time they spent with the Indians, so pitchers like Gaylord Perry will be lower in the list because they didn’t pitch long in Cleveland. The download link is to the right, under “Links.”

Here’s the pitching numbers I promised a couple days ago.

Name	BF	%SO	%BB	%GB	%OF	%IF	%LD
Sabathia	787	18	10	28	25	4	14
Westbrook	895	13	7	49	17	2	11
Millwood	628	20	9	28	22	3	14
Lee	802	20	11	23	27	3	14
Elarton	498	16	9	24	32	5	13

Traded 3B/OF Corey Smith to the San Diego Padres for 2B/3B Jake Gautreau

By “challenge trade” I mean clubs are swapping problems in the hopes that a change of scenery will help get their careers back on track. Both can play third base, though neither can play it well. Both are past first round busts. But there are a couple differences between the two. Gautreau has been sidelined with collitis (I guess DaJuan Wagner isn’t the only athlete to get it) in the past couple of years, while Smith has stayed relatively healthy. Gautreau was moved to second base last season, while Smith was moved to the outfield this offseason. Smith is three years younger than Gautreau, but Jake is closer to the majors. He also hits left-handed, so that’s a plus. All in all, you can understand the reasoning behind both sides of the deal. Given that the Indians have a bazillion third basemen in Cleveland, Gautreau might be groomed as a utility guy until needed in the majors.

I apologize for continuing on this Westbrook theme, but I found this article yesterday, and it piqued my interest even further. It goes a bit further than I have, examining what type of balls in play pitchers give up. The Hardball Times compiled the data and showed the outcomes (eg strikeouts, walks, groundball, etc) by percentage. It turns out that Jake gave up the greatest proportion of ground balls in the majors, 49%. More importantly, Westbrook also gave up a below-average percentage of line drives, 11%. Why is that important? HT figured the percentage of the time certain outcomes turned into outs, and line drives were caught only 26% of the time. So obviously if you’re a pitcher, giving up a lot of line drives isn’t a good idea.

So what’s the best type of out, then? Obviously #1 is a strikeout; you will almost always record an out if this happens (the exceptions being a strikeout combined with a wild pitch or passed ball). Infield flies are next at 97%. After that it gets a bit tricky. Outfield flies (75%) become outs more often than ground balls (72%), but ground balls never become home runs; outfield flies leave the park 12% of the time.

Where am I going with this? It’s very possible, if you’re an extreme ground ball pitcher, to be successful with a lower than average strikeout rate. There are two big caveats, though. Number one, the pitcher has to keep his walks down. Number two, he has to have a good infield defense behind him. Obviously the best outcome would be for Jake to raise his strikeout rate to 5.5-5.8, but if his ground ball percentage sticks around 50%, it’s very possible that he can be effective while posting substandard strikeout ratios. By effective I mean a 4.00-4.25 ERA, not a 3.38 ERA. That’s a good middle-of-the-rotation pitcher.

Brandon Webb, who makes a nice Westbrook comp, saw his ERA increase because his walk percentage ballooned to 14%. I’d take Webb over Westbrook because of his ability to combine his sinker with a healthy strikeout rate, but his stat line serves as a reminder of what can happen if you start walking batters without compensating with strikeouts.

I’ll throw out some percentages for other Indians starters tomorrow.

By the way, check out Dave Haller’s excellent article on Barry Larkin (and to a certain extent) Omar Vizquel.

Signed RHRP Paul Shuey to a minor-league contract; Invited him to Spring Training

Shuey is probably done thanks to all the injuries, but if you’re the Indians, why not bring him in? His degenerative hip isn’t going to go away, and he also is coming off a thumb injury, so he’s a real longshot to make the team. His strikeout rates had been going down even before missing the 2004 season, so I’m really tempering my expectations. He’s not yet to the Jason Bere setting on the toaster (burnt to a crisp), but his career outlook is getting slightly golden brown. Shapiro likes to take care of his former players, and Shuey is by all accounts a great guy to have on your team. I just don’t know if he can pitch anymore.

Signed OF Darnell McDonald to a minor-league contract; Invited him to Spring Training

The second Orioles bust signed this offseason (Jose Morban), McDonald is a former 1st round pick who never developed any power. Now that he’s been cut loose by the Orioles, he’ll have to ply his trade as a “veteren” minor-league outfielder. He posted a .662 OPS in AAA last year, which is not a good sign considering he’s coming off shoulder surgery. He doesn’t have the speed or range to play center field, so it looks like he’s going to be either Buffalo’s or Akron’s reserve outfielder.

This issue has been puzzling me for a while, and the Westbrook signing really brought it to the forefront. Given Westbrook’s method of pitching, is it fair to exact him to the same evaluation methods that we apply other more conventional hurlers to? First, let’s examine Jake’s peripherals, which are usually the most useful in making predictions.

Strikeouts per 9 innings: 4.8

For the average pitcher, this isn’t really an encouraging sign. The ability to strike out hitters is the surest way of run prevention, and pitchers with lower strikeout ratios have a lower margin for error in allowing runs.

Walks per 9 innings: 2.6

This is pretty good. Westbrook finished 14th in the AL in BB/9, which doesn’t really signify anything by itself.

Hits per 9 innings: 8.7

Above average numbers here, but nothing to get excited over.

Home Runs per 9 innings: 0.79

This is pretty good. Jacobs Field has been a fairly neutral park in recent seasons, so I’ll just assume that this ratio doesn’t need to be adjusted much.

DIPS ERA: 4.19

DIPS stands for Defense Independent Defense Statistics. This is, essentially, Westbrook’s ERA independent of his defense. Given that his ERA was .90 runs lower than his dERA, this is a red flag. This seems to indicate Westbrook was lucky last season.

BABIP: .263

BABIP stands for “Batting Average of Balls in Play”. This is the “batting average” of balls put in play. And like the dERA, the BABIP indicates Westbrook was lucky with where where his pitches were hit.

SLG% Against: .386

This is an encouraging sign. This is the slugging percentage of the batters that faced him last season, and it’s the 4th best in the league. This indicates the hits Westbrook did allow were more likely to be singles than extra-base hits.

GB/FB Ratio: 2.72

Westbrook only trailed Derek Lowe in this category.

What does all this indicate? First of all, Westbrook was pretty lucky last season, and his ERA is likely to go up. But I’m wondering out loud if Westbrook’s sinker causes more “weak contact” than the average pitcher. I watched most of his starts in 2004, and when he was on, hitters couldn’t hit the ball with any authority, and most of the time any contact resulted in weak grounders to short or second. DIPS ERA uses the assumption that MLB pitchers do not differ greatly on their ability to prevent hits on balls in play, but there are a couple possible exceptions. One is a knuckball pitcher, whose general goal is to keep hitters off balance. Another one could be extreme groundball pitchers, who try to pitch to “weak contact” by throwing heavy sinkers. I don’t know of any way to substantiate this, so for now this is a just a wild theory. I’ll peg Westbrook for an ERA of 4.25 or so next season based on his peripherals, but I’ll also be interested to see if his BABIP changes appreciably. Obviously to be successful with a strikeout rate of 5.0 or less, a pitcher has to keep his walks down as well as keep the running game under control, both of which Jake did in 2004. But if his BABIP continues to stay low, it may indicate that his sinker is good enough almost by itself to make Westbrook a valuable pitcher.

Sources: ESPN, STATS, Inc.

Signed RHSP Jake Westbrook to a two-year, $7.5M contract, avoiding arbitration

This deal I can handle. Like with Blake’s deal, the Indians have a 2007 club option. I don’t know whether Westbrook will be eligible for free agency after the 2006 season, but judging by the terms of the contract, I’ll assume that he wouldn’t have his 6 years of service in until after 2007. Because free agency is based on service time, it’s difficult to know whether a guy like Westbrook, who bounced back and forth between Cleveland and the minors the past several season, will be a free agent in 2006 or 2007.

Westbrook, like Blake, is due for a regression next year. Unlike Blake, I think Westbrook will be worth his contract. Jake’s style of pitching means that he’s subject to more variability in his numbers than a strikeout pitcher, but his sinker is good enough to make him a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter if healthy. Given the market for starting pitching, Westbrook at $2.9M this season and $4.25M in 2006 is a pretty good value even if his ERA climbs back to the 4.00 range.

With Westbrook’s signing, the Indians have taken care of all their major offseason business. Shapiro has hinted that he’ll try to sign a couple younger players to long-term deals (Martinez and Hafner come to mind), but that usually happens in Spring Training.