So Close…The 2007 ALCS

The 2007 baseball season is one of the big “what ifs” of Cleveland sports history.

Mostly because we all assume if the Indians, who had a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series over the Boston Red Sox, had played in the World Series against Colorado, they would have steamrolled them much like Terry Francona’s team did in a four game sweep.

Instead, the series is viewed as another huge disappointment.

The series began in Fenway Park with the Tribe getting bludgeoned 10-3. After both teams scored single tallies in the first, the Sox scored four in the third, three in the fifth, and two in the sixth.

C.C. Sabathia gave up eight runs in 4-1/3 innings, and with the ace getting hammered, things didn’t look good.

Especially with Curt Schilling pitching Game 2 for Boston.

It looked more glum after the Red Sox scored three in the third to take a 3-1 lead. But Jhonny Peralta hit a three run HR off Schilling in the 4th, and made it 5-3 when Grady Sizemore homered in the 5th.

Back-to-back dingers in the bottom half (Manny Ramirez and Mike Lowell) gave Boston a 6-5 lead, but Cleveland tied it in the top of the 6th.

And then no one scored. For awhile, as the game headed to extra innings.

In the bottom of the 10th, the Sox had David Ortiz, Ramirez, and Lowell to face rookie Tom Mastny, after Eric Wedge had used his most reliable relievers, Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt, and Jensen Lewis.

Talk about a feeling of dread…except Mastny retired them in order.

Cleveland scored seven in the top of the 11th, capped by Franklin Gutierrez’ grand slam homer (after run scoring hits by former Boston player Trot Nixon and Ryan Garko) and the Tribe went home even in the series.

Returning to Jacobs Field, the Indians won game three 4-2 with Jake Westbrook beating Boston, and Kenny Lofton hitting a two run homer, and took a commanding 3-1 series lead scoring seven runs in the 5th to win 7-3 behind Paul Byrd, who went five, and the bullpen.

Casey Blake and Peralta belted homers, and the Tribe was one win away from the pennant.

But Beckett spoiled the party, going eight innings in a 7-1 win. It was a 1-1 tie heading into the 7th, but Sabathia had given up 8 hits in his six innings, and was over 100 pitches.

Wedge sent him back out there, and he gave up back-to-back extra base hits to Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis, and the game spun out of control, sending the series back to Boston.

Game 6 was over before it started as Fausto Carmona (as he was known then) didn’t have it, giving up four in the first and six more in the third. Meanwhile, Schilling rebounded from his poor Game 2 start to throw seven innings, allowing just two runs to set up a one game playoff for the American League pennant.

Westbrook got the start for Cleveland, while Daisuke Matsuzaka got the nod from Francona. Before the game, it was revealed that Paul Byrd took HGH. Byrd said it was prescribed by his doctor.

It created a stir in the Indians’ organization and locker room though.

Westbrook allowed seven hits in the first three innings, but limited Boston to just single tallies in each frame, so he kept his team in it.

The Indians crept back into the contest with runs in the fourth (doubles by Travis Hafner and Ryan Garko) and a sacrifice fly by Sizemore in the fifth, following three straight singles. It could have been a bigger inning, but for Lofton getting thrown out trying to stretch the first hit into a double.

Westbrook held the Sox off the board through the sixth, so it was still a very close game heading to the seventh, with the Tribe trailing 3-2.

With one out, Lofton reached second on an error by Boston SS Julio Lugo. The next batter, Gutierrez, singled and third base coach Joel Skinner held Lofton at third, putting runners on the corners with one out, and a golden chance to tie the game.

The hit was down the third base line and caromed off the wall at Fenway into short left field. It looked as though Lofton hit third well before Ramirez picked up the ball in left, meaning it would have taken a great throw to get Lofton, who still had good speed.

Blake followed by swinging at the first pitch, banging into a 5-4-3 double play. Threat ended. And when Pedroia homered off Betancourt with a man on (ironically due to an error by Blake), the game was virtually over.

In retrospect, should Wedge have removed Sabathia earlier in game five to keep the game close? Would the bullpen have held Game 7 if Skinner had not held Lofton? Could the Indians have scored more had Lofton tied the game?

Those are the “what ifs”. Another case of so close, but yet so far…

Overlooked When He Arrived, Cliff Lee Wound Up An Ace

When GM Mark Shapiro decided to deal Bartolo Colon to the Montreal Expos in the middle of the 2002 season, he had a quick rebuild on his mind.

That’s why the top target in the deal was infielder Brandon Phillips, the Expos’ top prospect, who was also the #20 minor league prospect in all of professional baseball.

He also got Grady Sizemore, who was Montreal’s third best minor leaguer.

That’s a good start, right? But Shapiro also got a left-handed pitcher who wasn’t ranked in the Expos’ top ten, but was 7-2 with a 3.23 ERA at Class AA Harrisburg, who coincidentally played in the same league as the Tribe’s AA affiliate in Akron.

You can make a pretty good argument that the pitcher became the best player in the deal. That southpaw was Cliff Lee.

Lee made three starts with Akron, before the Tribe bumped him up to AAA Buffalo for eight starts (3-2, 3.77 ERA) at age 23, before making his major league debut against the Twins on September 15th in a 5-0 loss. Lee pitched 5-1/3 innings allowing one run on two hits.

The lefty started the following year in AAA, going 6-1 with a 3.27 ERA before getting called up for good (he made a spot start on June 30th) on August 16th. He made nine starts in total, finishing at 3-3 with a 3.61 ERA and 44 strikeouts in 52.1 innings.

Lee opened 2004 in the rotation, and started well, going 7-1 with a 3.86 ERA through June, and was 10-1 with a 3.81 ERA when he beat Seattle on July 16th. He ran out of gas at that point, going 4-7 with a whopping 8.90 ERA over the rest of the season.

He finished at 14-8 and a 5.43 ERA with 161 strikeouts in 179 frames.

He was one of the Indians’ anchors to a pitching staff that just missed the post-season in 2005, going 18-5 with a 3.79 ERA, becoming more of a pitch to contact guy, his strikeout rate dropped from 8.1 to 6.4, but his walk rate also fell from 4.1 to 2.3 (both per nine innings)

Lee took a step backwards in ’06, going 14-11 and his ERA rose to 4.40, but finished strong with a 4-1 September, cementing him as a fixture for the following season.

One of the great regrets of the 2007 Central Division winning season, is the failure of Cliff Lee to be Cliff Lee. Think about if Eric Wedge had the Lee of 2005 to add to the Cy Young Award winning C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona (19-8, 3.06 ERA).

We might be talking about what a great parade fans experienced following that season.

The southpaw never got it going that year, going 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA and was left off the post-season roster. He didn’t make a start after July 26th, and was sent to AAA for the month of August.

Lee roared back in 2008, allowing just one run in his first four starts, and ended May at 8-1 with a 1.88 ERA, in route to winning his own Cy Young, with a 22-3, 2.84 ERA. He led the AL in wins, ERA, shutouts, ERA+, Fielding Independent Pitching, home runs/9 innings and walks per 9 innings.

The Indians got off to a slow start in ’09 after trading Sabathia the year before, and Lee entered the All Star break at 4-9, but with a 3.47 ERA. Unfortunately, the Indians were sitting in last place with a 35-54 record, and Shapiro pulled the trigger on moves involving cornerstones Victor Martinez, and Lee.

Both players were not eligible for free agency until after the 2010 season, meaning the GM punted on the following season.

Martinez brought Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone, and Brian Price (only Masterson had any success in Cleveland), while Lee brought Jason Knapp, Lou Marson, Jason Donald, and a young right-hander named Carlos Carrasco from Philadelphia.

It took until 2014, five years later, before the Tribe saw a real return when Carrasco became one of the AL’s best pitchers after elbow surgery.

Lee pitched in the World Series later that year for the Phillies (they lost to New York), although he pitched well winning his two starts.

An impending free agent, Lee was dealt to Seattle over the winter, and was moved to Texas at the deadline, again pitching in the Fall Classic, but this time he went 0-2 as the Rangers lost to San Francisco.

He signed back with the Phillies as a free agent and had an excellent 2011 season (17-8, 2.40 ERA) and went 37-25 in his first three years with the Phils.

But the weight of eight 200 innings pitched years in a nine year span took their toll on his elbow and he finished his career in 2014 with a 4-5, 3.65 ERA in just 81 innings.

Cliff Lee’s career record in the bigs is 143-91, with 83 of those wins coming in a Cleveland Indians uniform.

He was kind of an afterthought when the Colon trade was made, but he might have been the best return.

Does Tribe Still Need Pitching

Yesterday was a good day for the Indians’ organization because the ace of their staff, Corey Kluber, won the American League’s Cy Young Award. He is the fourth Tribe pitcher to win that award, joining Gaylord Perry, C.C. Sabathia, and Cliff Lee.

Kluber deserved the honor, leading the league in wins with 18 and finishing second in the AL in strikeouts and complete games.

We knew this last season, but Terry Francona has a legitimate top of the rotation starter going into next season. The question is, does GM Chris Antonetti still need to add another starter, or should he be satisfied with the performance of the starters over the last two months of the season.

The answer here is you can never have too much pitching, and although the rotation was fantastic in August and September, there really isn’t much of a track record for any of the starters, including Kluber.

Before anyone goes crazy, to us, a proven track record is two to three years at a certain performance level. And while Kluber has been solid in both 2013 and 2014, the fact remains he threw only 147 innings in the prior year because of injury, and this year he pitched 235 frames. How will his arm react to the additional workload?

The only starting pitcher who toiled in the major leagues prior to 2013 is Carlos Carrasco, who was tremendous after returning to the rotation last season, but outside of the first half of the 2011 season, before needing Tommy John surgery, has little track record of success in the big leagues.

This isn’t to denigrate Carrasco, who has tremendous stuff. We are only saying it is a big leap of faith to assume the right-hander will pitch the entire 2015 season the way he finished ’14.

Trevor Bauer has the next most starts in the majors with 34, the same number Kluber had this season. His career ERA in those appearance is 4.18, which is a solid figure, but not earth shattering.

We like Bauer, and for most of last season he was the second most consistent starter for Cleveland. But, he’s thrown less than 200 innings (186) at the big league level. You simply don’t know for certain what he is going to do in 2015.

Danny Salazar? He has 30 major league starts and 162 innings under his belt.

T. J. House made 18 starts and has just a little over 100 innings in the bigs.

Josh Tomlin and Zack McAllister have more of a track record than the three guys we just mentioned. Tomlin is 29-28 lifetime with an ERA approaching 5.00 (4.89) in 477 innings. If he could pitch like he did in 2011 (12-7, 4.12 ERA) that would be nice, but that’s the last time he was effective.

McAllister is 19-25 with a 4.38 ERA lifetime in 65 starts, a total of 363 innings. He was solid in 2013, but had a mediocre season in ’14. He showed promise working in relief at the end of the season, and could be taking the same career path as Carrasco.

We wouldn’t want to bank on those two as backups if one of the youngsters falter.

It may sound like doom and gloom, but these are the things Antonetti needs to think about when constructing the pitching staff. He has to assume things will go wrong.

Think about it, Bauer and House weren’t in the rotation that opened the 2014 season.

That’s why the Tribe still needs to add another starting pitcher, preferably someone who can come in and the management can be reasonably certain they can soak up innings and pitch effectively.

The old adage is still true…you can’t have enough pitching.

Tribe Needs to Look at Ticket Prices

There is no question that the Cleveland Indians alienated their fans for the past several seasons.

After the 2007 season in which they missed the World Series by just one game, they acted like someone was going to tell them it was their turn to win someday, so they could be inactive.

They traded two Cy Young Award winners in C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee, and traded a professional hitter who said he wanted to stay here in Victor Martinez. All three were gone by the time the 2009 season ended.

Later, after a 2011 season is which they were surprisingly in contention until Labor Day, when the Detroit Tigers finally got hot and ran away, they were inert in the off-season following, setting up a 2012 campaign where they were depending on players like Shelley Duncan, Casey Kotchman, and Derek Lowe.

To be fair, they did deal two top pitching prospects for Ubaldo Jimenez at the deadline in ’11, but that move hasn’t worked out the way GM Chris Antonetti wanted. The fact it hasn’t worked out for Colorado is of little consolation.

However, last winter, the ownership seemed to get the message that the fan base was unhappy with the way things were being run. After Travis Hafner’s large deal finally ended, the front office went out and signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn to multi-year contracts.

Unfortunately, the people who buy tickets seem to be holding a grudge because the Tribe ranks last in the American League in attendance.

While many fans obviously have a wait and see attitude regarding this team, it is a better team and while they struggled mightily at the beginning of June, they have ripped off eight wins in the last 12 games and currently sit just four games behind the mighty Tigers in the AL Central.

And they are very good at home.

Whether or not the Indians can make the playoffs isn’t the issue because the American League is very strong. Heck, all five teams in the AL East are above the .500 mark.

We said at the beginning of the season that 13 of the 15 teams in the AL had legitimate chances to get to the post-season, and yes, the Tribe was one of those teams.

So where are the fans?

This is a city with blind loyalty to the Browns, a team with two winning seasons since 1999. In that same time period, the Indians have had five such seasons, making the playoffs three times.

We checked the prices for the next home series for the Tribe when they come home from this trip to Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City. They take on the Tigers on July 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th.

Seats in the upper deck and the bleachers are being sold for $23.60 apiece for the Friday night game. Meaning it costs almost $100.00 for a family of four to attend.

In order to sit behind home plate, it will cost you $80.00 for a single seat.

If the Indians want families to go to the games, they are making it tough, particularly when the fortunes of the team have soured a lot of baseball fans in Cleveland.

The Tribe did the right thing in lowering the cost of concessions in the off-season, but it doesn’t do much good if they don’t get people to make the trip to Progressive Field.

Perhaps it is time to look at the ticket prices as well. Lower them so people will want to see what the new Indians are all about.

The prices might be lower than many franchises, but apparently they are still too high for the fan base.

Whatever the reason, the front office needs to look at why fans aren’t clicking the turnstiles.

One More Change Needed For Tribe

With spring training ready to start in less than a week, Cleveland baseball fans have a reason to feel optimistic.

They have a new manager, not just any recycled skipper, but a man who has two World Series victories under his belt in Terry Francona. They signed a high-profile free agent for the first time in many years in Nick Swisher. And they have to feel good about a trio of young players who are poised to make an impact in 2013 in Jason Kipnis, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Michael Brantley.

However, there is one more thing that needs to change for the organization when the team convenes in Goodyear next week. Spring training needs to be meaningful, meaning the 25 man roster shouldn’t be set before camp begins.

Earlier this week, MLB Network’s Peter Gammons reported that the Indians’ front office was going to bring starter Trevor Bauer to the major leagues when he is ready, and were not going to rush him, meaning it will probably be a mid-season call up for one of the top prospects in the minors.

GM Chris Antonetti may have been trying to take pressure off of Bauer, and lowering the expectations of fans, who look at the right hander just acquired from Arizona as a savior for the starting rotation.

That, in itself, is not a bad thing.

However, if Bauer pitches well in spring training and is dominant in the exhibition games, don’t think for a moment that Francona isn’t going to push for the kid to come north for Opening Day.

That’s the way is should be. Remember that Charlie Manuel had to lobby hard to keep a 20-year-old left-hander on the big league roster in 2001. C.C. Sabathia did just fine, going 17-5 in his rookie year.

Antonetti has brought in some veterans to compete for roster spot in Arizona, and some of those players are good risks. Ryan Raburn and Ben Francisco could make the team as reserves, and Matt Capps could earn a bullpen spot as well. All three have been good players in the past.

However, if they struggle in spring training and a guy like Tim Fedroff or even Ezequiel Carrera do very well, then Francona and Antonetti should keep the players who earned the spot. Too many times in recent years, the Tribe has kept the veteran who had a marginal spring, and have to release him during the season because he’s not getting the job done.

If a young player out-performs one of these non roster invitees to spring training, they should open the season with the big club.

Although Capps has a much better track record than pitchers like Jamey Wright, Chad Durbin, and Dan Wheeler, here’s hoping he’s not lumped in with them at the end of the season. The latter three were all borderline hurlers, yet the Indians let them make the team and only Durbin lasted an entire season, albeit in a mop up role.

It is our belief that Francona will not let Antonetti bully him on the make up of the roster. Manny Acta seemed to allow the GM to decide what players would make the roster, and Eric Wedge never picked the right team coming out of spring training.

Francona has a great relationship with both Antonetti and team president Mark Shapiro, but he also wants to win, and win right away. If he feels a young player is ready to help the Indians win when April 1st comes around, he is going to fight for that guy to make the big club.

That’s just one more change that is going to help the 2013 version of the Cleveland Indians.

Upton Signing Shows Why Tribe Not Active in Free Agency

The Cleveland Indians have a reputation of being a tad frugal in terms of payroll.

The Tribe was in the lower third of all major league teams in terms of spending on the ballclub, which infuriates its fan base to no end. When they do spend money, they usually don’t spend wisely.

Take, for example, the $5 million given to Grady Sizemore, and another reported $3 million to Casey Kotchman, named in an article on Baseball Prospectus at the least valuable player in baseball.

Going back a few years, the front office made a colossal mistake when faced with the specter of having three front line players, C.C. Sabathia, Travis Hafner, and Jake Westbrook coming up on free agency, they decided to sign the lesser two players and traded Sabathia away.

We still believe if they would have offered the current Yankees’ ace less than what they paid the other two combined per year (an estimated $22 million), perhaps C.C. would still be wearing a Cleveland uniform.

You see, the best investment in baseball is signing your star young players to big cash, and staying away from older star free agents, and other free agents in general.

Do you think the Yankees would love to get rid of Alex Rodriguez’ bloated contract now, based on his production over the past couple of years? The bet here is that the Angels will regret the Albert Pujols deal as he heads into his late 30’s.

Yesterday, the Braves decided to give OF B. J. Upton $15 million per year for five years. Atlanta may regret this one before the last two years on the contract.

Why? Because Upton is nothing more than an average player. If an 800 OPS makes you a very good offensive player, then Upton certainly is lacking. He’s reached that figure just once in his career, and that was in 2007. His lifetime mark of 758 is just slightly higher than the American League average in 2012 (731).

If the going rate for a player like Upton is $15 mil a year, then by all means the Indians should wait for the bargains in free agency if they participate at all. If Upton is worth that amount, then what is Nick Swisher worth?

Not that the latter is a great player, but he has a OPS of 828. He’s a much more productive hitter than B.J. Upton.

It is ridiculous what the going rate is for average players on the open market. As they say, it only takes one crazy team.

That’s why the ability to draft well and develop your own talent is so important. It gives you the chance to have good talent at an affordable price.

Shin-Soo Choo is a better player than Upton, and Michael Brantley’s OPS is roughly the same (750). Both players combined will make far less than the new Braves’ outfielder.

So, do the Indians have a chance to get better right away?

Sure.

They can make trades for players who have abilities from teams trying to shed some payroll and have maybe a year or two left on their contracts. That strategy buys you time until some young players develop.

You can also wait out the market a little bit and get good players for less money than Upton received. You just have to sign the right players.

For example, both Josh Willingham and Cody Ross were signed for relatively little money, but both had very productive seasons.

That’s the right way to play the free agency game.

Signing a player like Upton would hamstring the Indians for several years, just like Hafner’s hefty deal.

That’s the way the money game in baseball is played today.

Is Brantley the Answer at Leadoff?

At the end of the 2008 season, the Cleveland Indians were owed a player from the Milwaukee Brewers as a result of the C.C. Sabathia trade and they selected Michael Brantley as the player to be named later.

The then 21-year-old outfielder was coming off a season in which he hit .319 with a .395 on base percentage, and 28 stolen bases in 108 games at the AA level.

He looked a lot like a guy who could be next in line of leadoff hitting centerfielders, following the lineage of Kenny Lofton and Grady Sizemore.

Brantley’s bigger than Lofton at 6’2″ and 200 pounds, but his offensive game seemed more like his than Sizemore, who hit for more power out of the first spot in the batting order.

He struggled in his first taste of AAA pitching, his average dropping to .267 and his OBP being just .350. Still, he walked more than he struck out in over 450 at bats.

He received a late season call up to Cleveland, and hit .313 with a .358 OBP. At only 22, it seemed like a good start to a major league career.

Starting the year with the big club in 2010, he struggled and was sent back to Columbus where he hit .319 with a .395 OBP in 67 games.

He hasn’t approached those numbers in the big leagues since coming up to stay later in the ’10 season.

Last season, in almost 500 plate appearances, Brantley batted just .266 with a .318 on base average. Not horrible numbers, but just not the profile of a good leadoff man.

Thus far in 2012, the left-handed hitter is batting .250 with a .321 on base percentage. He was hot in the weekend series vs. the Angels, getting two hits or more in two of the three games.

Still, for his career, totalling over 1000 at bats, Brantley has a .316 OBP, a figure more suited to someone hitting in the bottom third of the batting order, not one who should be a table setter.

By contrast, Lofton reached base 36.2% of the time in his first year with the Indians in 1992, increased that figure to .408 the following season. He finished his career with a .372 mark.

Sizemore had a .348 on base percentage in his first full year with the Tribe in 2005, and increased that to .375 in ’06. He currently has a .357 OBP.

The point here is that both Lofton and Sizemore demonstrated a keen ability to get on base early in their careers. They didn’t gain it through experience.

True, Lofton is one of the best leadoff guys in the history of the game, and Sizemore was definitely an impact hitter at the top of the order during his heyday of 2005-08.

But right now, Brantley doesn’t show much ability to be a consistent threat to get on base. Again, he has picked it up in the last few games, but with over 1ooo at bats in the big leagues, getting on base a little under 32% of the time is not acceptable from the top of the order.

This isn’t to say Brantley can’t become a good offensive player in time. He’s still just 25 years old. However, it doesn’t appear he can be a very good leadoff man, despite looking the part.

In the American League, you need to have seven good hitters in the lineup to score enough runs to win. Right now, the Tribe has five (Hafner, Cabrera, Santana, Choo, Kipnis) and Brantley isn’t one.

But he’s the man out of those playing now who may be able to become one. It may just not be in the spot the Indians want him to hit in.