Which One Of Tribe Starters Should Be Dealt?

The Cleveland Indians could use an impact hitter in their lineup.

They finished the season ranking 11th in the American League in runs scored, and they tallied two runs or less in 58 games, more than 1/3 of their schedule, and had an 11-47 record in those contests.

This means when the Tribe can put three runs on the board, they have a 70-33 record, a blistering .680 winning percentage.

Cleveland had the second best ERA in the AL, so the presumption by many is Chris Antonetti and new GM Mike Chernoff will try to get a legitimate hitter by dangling one of the team’s starting pitching, a deal made from strength.

Yes, we know the old adage about not ever having enough pitching, but with Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, Trevor Bauer, Cody Anderson, Josh Tomlin, and some youngsters close to the big leagues (Mike Clevenger, Adam Plutko, Ryan Merritt), it may be a deal that can be made from strength.

To be sure, the best case scenario would not be to touch one of the top four starters (and we are including Bauer in that group for the sake of argument) in order to get a solid hitter, but it is doubtful another team will give you the kind of hitter you are looking for in exchange for Anderson, Tomlin, or one of the rookies.

Naturally, the hurler most fans would like to see moved is the one who had the worst performance in 2015, and that would be Bauer, who finished at 11-12 with a 4.55 ERA, and struggled in the second half of the season.

This is where the player development people earn their money.

First, because Bauer’s first half was better than his post All Star Game numbers, his market value isn’t as high as let’s say Carrasco and/or Salazar. So, what the Tribe brass has to determine is can the soon to be 25-year-old right-hander pitch a full season as effectively as the first half of this season.

They also have to determine if this is the best Carrasco or Salazar will ever be.

Carrasco will be 29 next year and showed signs this season of being a #1 starter, or at least #1A because of the presence of Kluber. A couple of near no-hitters will be held up as proof. His fielding independent pitching (FIP) is even lower than Kluber’s at 2.84.

Salazar’s figure is 3.62 compared to his real ERA of 3.45, meaning he didn’t pitch as well as his record would indicate. Plus, over the last two months of the season, his strikeout numbers were down as was his velocity.

His struck out only 23 batters in 33-2/3 innings after September 1st, the only month of the season where he did not strikeout as many hitters as innings pitched.

His ERA in September/October was 4.28 too.

The other thing about Salazar in our opinion is that it is tough for him to limit damage. He seems to have trouble getting out of trouble if the first couple batters reach base.

Of course, other teams know the same thing.

If we were Antonetti and Chernoff, we would be more willing to move Salazar to get a bat than any of the other top four starters. If someone wanted to give you a solid hitter for Anderson or Tomlin, that would be the preference, but that’s probably not going to happen.

Let’s see if the front office has the same opinion.

Tribe May Have Some Extra Roster Spots Open

The first week of exhibition play has come and gone, and there haven’t been many surprises for the Cleveland Indians.

As we said coming into spring training, it didn’t appear the Tribe had many open spots on the Opening Day roster, although it looks like two openings have been created since the beginning of camp.

Nick Swisher, recovering from an operation on both knees late last season, hasn’t played in an exhibition game as of yet, and it would seem he is doubtful to be with the team in Houston on April 6th.

That would seem to put Brandon Moss, recovering from hip surgery, in the DH role to start the season, with David Murphy getting the bulk of the time in RF.

And since the Tribe doesn’t need a fifth starter for the first two weeks of the season, meaning Terry Francona can still have eight relief pitchers on a 12 man pitching staff, that would leave an extra spot for a position player, because Tito can carry four bench players.

Three of those spots will be taken by reserve catcher Roberto Perez, Mike Aviles, who can play virtually everywhere, and Ryan Raburn, who is off to a good start in Arizona.

The early favorites for that spot would seem to be two right-handed bats, important because the Indians are a left-handed dominant batting order.

Those two players would be OF Tyler Holt and 1B/DH Jesus Aguilar.

Holt can play all three outfield spots, and play them well, and spent the last six weeks of the season on the big club in 2014, hitting .268 in 71 at bats. He has gone 5 for 11 with three walks to date.

Aguilar struggled in camp last spring after a dominant winter league season, but this year is off to a good start, going 5 for 10 with only one strikeout thus far.

Another candidate would be switch-hitter Zach Walters, but he is off to a slow start, striking out four times in 10 at bats with just two hits. Contact was a huge problem last season for Walters after he came over from Washington in the Asdrubal Cabrera deal.

Pitching wise, a spot opened when Gavin Floyd re-injured his right elbow.

Francona has three starters etched in stone with Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Trevor Bauer. That leaves the fourth spot to be fought for among Danny Salazar, T. J. House, Josh Tomlin, Bruce Chen, and Shawn Marcum.

We leave Zach McAllister out of this conversation because we feel he will take one of the bullpen spots that are available, based on his performance in that role late last season.

Salazar would seem to be the favorite, but he has struggled in his first two starts, allowing five hits and three walks in 3-2/3 innings.

House would appear to be next man up based on how he pitched last season, but keep an eye on Marcum, who has won 58 games in the majors, and won 13 games in both 2010 and 2011.

If Salazar continues to struggle with his command, we wouldn’t be shocked if he didn’t travel north with the major league team.

We realize that there is still plenty of time for more players to impress the management. However, if you don’t have a proven track record, a couple of bad weeks in spring training can cost a player a big league roster spot.

Tribe Shouldn’t Trade Starting Pitching for a Bat.

A lot of discussion has gone on over the past few days about the direction the Cleveland Indians need to go in this winter. While no one questions whether or not the Tribe needs to get more hitting, the question remains, how to do it.

The Indians finished in the top half of the American League in both runs scored (7th) and in ERA (6th), but no one who watched the team play this season has any doubt the ballclub needs another proven hitter and better defense.

One of the ways suggested to get the hitting Terry Francona’s team needs is to trade one of their pitchers, based on the outstanding work of the starting rotation over the last two months.

However, we would suggest this is not the proper move.

First, it would be a repeat of the pattern the Tribe front office used throughout the 70’s and 80’s, when they would collect hitters and have no pitching. Then, they would trade those hitters to get pitchers, thus creating a team with solid pitching but could not hit.

And then they would repeat the cycle all over again.

Quite frankly, beyond the five pitchers Cleveland used in the rotation at the end of the year (Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar, Trevor Bauer, and T.J. House), there isn’t a lot of depth in the system.

And of those five starters, beyond Kluber, only Bauer demonstrated effectiveness over more than the last two months in 2014. This isn’t to say the others are flashes in the pan, it is only to show the lack of an established track record.

We have said this before and will repeat, the two areas where the Indians have some depth is in the bullpen and in the middle infield.

With youngsters on the horizon like C.C. Lee, Austin Adams, and guys coming up like Shawn Armstrong, Louis Head, and Tyler Sturdivant, and the emergence of Zack McAllister as another power arm to use in relief, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a Bryan Shaw included in a deal.

Shaw has been used hard by Francona and Mickey Callaway over the past two years, and it may be prudent to sell high on the right-hander before his performance drops from the excess use.

In the middle infield, the Indians have 2B Jason Kipnis, coming off a bad year, SS Jose Ramirez, just 22-years-old, and the team’s best prospect, SS Francisco Lindor. They also have Ronny Rodriguez and Erik Gonzales, who both finished the year at AA Akron.

Kipnis is established and if the front office wants to make room for Lindor, then Ramirez is a solid trade chip, a middle infielder who has great speed, and hit .262 playing regularly over August and September. There are many teams around the majors who are always looking for help in the middle of the diamond.

Another possible chip could be reserve catcher Roberto Perez, who hit .271 in 85 at bats backing up Yan Gomes after Carlos Santana was shifted to first base. Perez is just 26-years-old and probably too young to be in a back up role, so teams looking for catchers could be interested.

Besides, with Gomes getting the bulk of the time behind the plate, the Indians don’t need to look too hard to find someone to play 30-40 games in a season.

There is no question the Indians need to get a bat or two, but dealing a starting pitcher isn’t the way to do it.

Disconnect Between Tribe and Fans Grows

The Cleveland Indians’ organization just doesn’t get it.

They don’t get the ever growing disconnect between the front office and the fan base.

Yes, the current team is flawed, they are a .500 team with over two-thirds of the schedule in the books. On the other hand, there are plenty of teams in the same boat, so as this is written they somehow are just four games out of a post-season berth.

They continue to operate under the premise that was stated by the current ownership many years ago, that is they will spend money when people start showing up to Progressive Field.

Compare that to the buzz surrounding the Cavaliers, who likely will put a title contender on display at Quicken Loans Arena, and the Browns, who drafted the most talked about rookie in the NFL last May.

They are shiny pieces, attractive to the eye. The Indians are like a gray sweater. They simply just don’t, or perhaps don’t know how to make a splash with the area’s baseball fans.

They made two good baseball decisions this week, trading two players who will be free agents this fall, and who weren’t producing as expected for the club either. They picked up two young players who may help the Tribe in the next couple of years instead of letting them leave for nothing.

Still, the fans expected them to take a shot at making the post-season for the second consecutive year, a feat not accomplished by the current ownership or management team.

Instead, they claimed they couldn’t or weren’t willing to get a deal done.

Team president Mark Shapiro, GM Chris Antonetti and the Dolan family are good people, well liked by the media in northeastern Ohio. Therefore, there wasn’t really much of an outrage when other teams around the Indians in the standings made move to improve their teams while the Tribe didn’t.

There seems to be an agreement between Shapiro and Antonetti and the ownership that the executives won’t bring up the lack of cash available and the Dolans won’t hold them accountable for the lack of success.

We even heard a member of the media floating the ridiculous contention by the organization that Tampa Bay wanted Danny Salazar, Carlos Santana, and Francisco Lindor for former Cy Young Award winner David Price.

Really? What did Tigers’ president Dave Dombrowski do, hypnotize Rays’ GM Andrew Friedman to convince to accept just Drew Smyly, Nick Franklin, and an 18-year-old prospect?

The fact of the matter is, there haven’t been enough results by this regime since the turn of the century. Just three playoff spots, the first done with holdovers from the division and pennant winners of the mid-90’s, and one of those a one game wild card game.

To be fair, the Indians would have made the playoffs as the wild card under the old rules.

You have to go for it when you have the chance. Now, we aren’t advocating dealing Lindor, who may just be the sport’s premier prospect, for a play who would spend a half season, or even a year and a half in a Cleveland uniform.

However, the Tribe does have middle infield prospects and power bullpen arms that could’ve been used to fill a weakness.

We have said it before, they didn’t need to get Price or Jon Lester, they just needed to get someone better than Justin Masterson, T.J. House, Josh Tomlin and Zack McAllister.

Instead they picked up another middle infielder, who likely will be moved elsewhere and has shown no strike zone judgment in the minor leagues, and yet another left-handed bat in an organization already top heavy from that side of the plate.

After making the post-season and winning 92 games a year ago, a way to bring fans back to the ballpark would have been to make the playoffs again. Show them that last year was no fluke.

It could happen, but it isn’t likely when you have two shaky starters, and that’s crossing your fingers on Salazar, who has been solid since returning to the majors.

It appears the only team Antonetti improved at the deadline was the Columbus Clippers. Somehow, the front office doesn’t understand the disappointment of its fan base.

Tribe Bats Just Couldn’t Come Through.

The Cleveland Indians were a hot ball club coming into tonight’s wild card game against Tampa Bay, winning 10 in a row and going 21-6 in the month of September.

This is more evidence that baseball is a funny game.

The 4-0 loss that eliminated Cleveland came down to the Rays taking advantage of their chances and the Indians not being able to go so.

After a dominant first two innings, Danny Salazar gave up a leadoff home run to famed humanitarian Delmon Young, and after that, the young flamethrower lost his ability to get guys to swing and miss.

He escaped the third allowing just the one run, but Desmond Jennings’ double down the leftfield line with two outs in the 4th gave the Rays a 3-0 lead.

After that, the Indians had threats in pretty much every frame after that, but couldn’t push a run across.

In the fourth, with bases loaded and one out, Asdrubal Cabrera hit into a double play.

In the fifth, the Indians had runners on first and third with no one out, and Michael Bourn struck out, Nick Swisher hit into a fielders’ choice, and Jason Kipnis hit a comebacker to the mound to end that threat.

In the seventh, one out singles by Yan Gomes and Lonnie Chisenhall, who had three hits on the night, went for naught when Bourn flew out and Swisher fanned again.

All in all, Cleveland collected nine hits on the night, and couldn’t push a run across.

That’s the nature of baseball though. Sometimes, you get the big hits and sometimes you don’t. The Indians just picked a bad night to be on the wrong side of that statement.

To be sure, many of the national pundits will bring up Terry Francona’s team’s record against teams with an above .500 record as a reason for the loss and say the Tribe didn’t deserve to make the playoffs.

That’s a load of crap. Cleveland won 92 games this season. If any other team had won that many contests, the same people would have clamored to add another wild card so teams with that kind of record can advance to the playoffs.

For those who want to question the decision to start the rookie, Salazar, in this game, keep in mind the Indians still had a chance to win this game until a couple of defensive miscues gave the Rays a fourth run in the top of the ninth.

Salazar, and the guys who followed him, Mark Rzepczynski, the seemingly always reliable Bryan Shaw, Justin Masterson, Cody Allen, and Joe Smith pitched well enough to give the offense a shot. They simply couldn’t get the big base knock.

You can’t win any games when you don’t score a run, and although they hit the ball fairly hard tonight, no one crossed home plate.

Tampa manager Joe Maddon said before the game that his team catches a lot of line drives, and they certainly lived up to their skipper’s prediction.

We will discuss the Indians’ future at a later time, but there is no question the 2013 season was a huge step forward for the Indians. Here’s hoping they build on it over the long winter.