When Swish and Santana Get Back? Play ‘Em

The Cleveland Indians have won six in a row and have climbed back to the .500 mark for the season. Of course, since they are going on a 10 game trek and they have one of the worst road records in the game, that record may be short-lived.

But for the time being, things are looking good in Tribe Town, and naturally casual baseball fans are quick to infer that the team’s hot streak coincided with Carlos Santana and Nick Swisher going on the disabled list.

That leads, of course, to the conclusion that when both players are healthy, Terry Francona should keep them on the bench and leave the status quo.

Upon further review, that’s a dumb argument.

First, because Lonnie Chisenhall is hitting .361 and is currently tied for fifth on the team in RBIs and is hitting left-handers, he’s staying in the lineup everyday even when the two switch-hitters return to the active roster.

The two players who have gained time because of the injuries are Jason Giambi and Ryan Raburn who are sharing the DH spot, and Mike Aviles, who has been filling in at third base with Chisenhall playing 1B.

Neither Giambi nor Raburn have been particularly productive at DH, with Giambi just 5 for 35 on the season, albeit with 2 HR, and Raburn is still in a season long funk at .207 with just 1 HR.

While Santana is hitting only .159 on the season, he does have a .327 on base percentage, compared to Giambi (.250) and Raburn (.262). That means Santana is making outs 6-7% less times than do the men currently replacing them.

Giambi can be productive if his starts can be limited to once or twice per week. His production seems to ebb when he is playing every other day, which has been the case over the past week.

Raburn hasn’t been productive at all to this point in the season.

On the other hand, Aviles has been very productive in 2014, ranking third on the Indians in runs batted in right now, and he’s batting .274 on the year, although he doesn’t walk much, and doesn’t have much power. His OPS is just 673.

That’s only 42 points behind Swisher, who by most accounts is off to a terrible start, hitting just .211. Still, his on base percentage is at .311 meaning he also makes less outs than Aviles, who sits at .297.

Francona will find time periodically for the veteran who can play 2B, SS, 3B, and LF, and most of that time will come against southpaws because the Indians lack right-handed hitting.

While the Indians have been hitting well and winning with two regulars on the shelf, there is no question they would be much better off with a productive Santana and Swisher, and you can make a very good case that even with tough starts for the pair, they have been slightly better on offense than the players who have replaced them.

Now, no one is saying Francona should put either player back into the middle of the batting order, it wouldn’t hurt if he put them in the lower half of the order until they get going again, and for Santana, he could stop the experiment at the hot corner and use him at 1B when he’s not catching, with Chisenhall going back to third.

Don’t confuse the winning as meaning Carlos Santana and Nick Swisher aren’t important to the success of the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe has been winning with solid starting pitching, excellent relief by the overworked Bryan Shaw and Cody Allen, and some timely hitting from Michael Bourn.

Getting two switch-hitters with the track record of Santana and Swisher back will only help the Tribe attack.

Battle For Last Two Spots on Tribe Roster

The Indians made their first cuts of the spring earlier this week, and there were no surprises. The first 12 players sent back to the minor league camp were players who didn’t figure to make the team anyway.

Today, the club announced that Jason Giambi has a fractured rib and will be out for 3-4 weeks, meaning there is another opening on the bench.

If we assume Lonnie Chisenhall starts at third, Carlos Santana is the DH, and David Murphy will start in RF, and the Tribe will open the regular season with 12 pitchers, then there are four spots on the bench.

Mike Aviles and Ryan Raburn, who were both stalwarts in reserve roles for Terry Francona in 2013, will fill two of those spots.

That leaves two spots open with the main candidates being infielders Elliot Johnson and Justin Sellers, picked up from the Dodgers during spring training, and outfielders Jeff Francoeur and Nyjer Morgan.

All four players have big league experience.

Of course, that could change if Francona wants to carry another catcher because Santana will be getting more at bats as a DH.

Johnson and Sellers have made a good impression thus far.

The former, 29 years old, has the benefit of being a switch-hitter and can play 2B, 3B, SS and both corner outfield spots. He’s 7 for 19 with a home run in Arizona to date.

The negative that in parts of four big league seasons, he’s a lifetime .219 hitter with a 592 OPS.

Sellers is 27 years old and is considered to be a better option at SS defensively, although he can also play second base and third base.

He’s 6 for 10 thus far in exhibition play, but lifetime has a .199 batting average with a 579 OPS, although in limited playing time (266 plate appearances)

The two outfielders are much more experienced, although they haven’t performed very well thus far in Goodyear.

Francoeur is 30 years old, and has spent time with the Braves, Royals, and Giants in his career, batting .263 (725 OPS) with 140 home runs.

He’s a solid corner outfielder defensively and has a great throwing arm. His problem has been strike zone judgment. He’s allergic to the base on balls.

He does have a solid history vs. southpaws, with a lifetime .285 batting average and 800 OPS.

Morgan has also struggled a bit in camp, hitting just .200 (5 for 25) and left yesterday’s game with some sort of leg problem. He is now 33 years old and has a career .280 batting average (705 OPS).

He also has a strong platoon split, hitting .297 for his career against right-handed pitchers.

If Francona wants a third catcher, he’ll choose between veterans Matt Treanor and Luke Carlin.

Our opinion is that Francouer will claim one of the spots, basically taking Giambi’s spot on the team, and occasionally spelling Murphy in right field with Raburn perhaps at DH.

The other spot will go to Sellers because of his defensive prowess at SS.

Those are the tough decisions for Francona and GM Chris Antonetti, but they are important because of the way the skipper uses his entire roster.

Just one more thing to keep an eye on in the last two weeks of spring training.

Tribe Starts Hot Stove Season Positively

The Cleveland Indians made their first moves of baseball’s off-season and they should have surprised absolutely no one.

First, the Tribe inked DH Jason Giambi to a minor league contract and there is no doubt that if he is healthy next spring, he will be on the Opening Day roster on March 31^st in his old stomping ground in Oakland.

The grizzled veteran hit just .183, but did hit 9 HR and knocked in 31 runs, many of them key.

He had perhaps the biggest hit down the stretch with his dramatic pinch hit two run homer off of Chicago’s Addison Reed to turn a 4-3 potential loss into a 5-4 victory.

Anyone who has read the book that Terry Francona did with Dan Shaughnessy about his years in Boston understands how much the skipper values veterans who provide leadership like Giambi.

The guess here is that as long as “Big G” can get around on a fastball, he will have a spot on a Francona led team.

GM Chris Antonetti also announced the Indians were cutting ties with closer Chris Perez. While the speculation will be it is because of his poor finish to the season and his off field problems, it really comes down to just dollars and cents.

If the Tribe was to keep Perez for 2014, they likely would have had to pay him in excess of $8 million, an amount way too exorbitant based on his productivity.

The shame of it is the Indians should have dealt Perez each of the last two seasons, because the signs he was losing effectiveness were there.

His strikeout to innings pitched ratio had declined, and at that time, Cleveland had a viable alternative in Vinnie Pestano, who was making a lot less than Perez, thus freeing up cash for other needs.

As it is, Antonetti and Francona have several in-house options to close out games, including Pestano if his arm bounces back, along with Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw.

Former Indians’ GM John Hart used to say that closers fall out of trees, and when you think about it, there aren’t a lot of teams who pay closers huge sums of money. This is mostly because they aren’t effective for long periods with Mariano Rivera being the exception.

The Indians completed the trio of moves by getting LHP Colt Hynes from San Diego. Hynes spent the second half of last year with the Padres, compiling a 9.00 ERA, which hardly sounds impressive.

However, he did hold left-handed hitters to 5 for 32 with six walks, making him a classic LOOGY (left-handed one out guy). He may be designated for assignment as the Indians make room on the 40 man roster before the winter meetings, but if he goes to spring training he has a chance to supplant Rich Hill in the bullpen.

The news today that Ubaldo Jimenez turned out his option for next year is no surprise either, and Cleveland will make him a qualifying offer by Monday to ensure draft pick compensation.

Jimenez will likely get a four or five-year contract offer from somewhere, and the Tribe is right in staying away from that length of deal based on the pitcher’s volatile career while here.

The hot stove season started as soon as the World Series ended for the Cleveland Indians. After a couple of days, things are going according to plan.

What Should Tribe Do With Starters in ’14?

Baseball had a slight rebirth in Cleveland over the past two weeks.

Jason Giambi’s home run, which turned a defeat into a win on September 25th, awoke interest in a team fighting for a playoff spot, and for the next week, sports fans on the North Coast were wondering what was going on with the Indians.

The loss on Wednesday night that eliminated the Tribe has fans talking about next year, even in the midst of a Browns’ three game winning streak.

So, ownership, looking for a spark in fan interest the past few years, can’t blow it this off-season. They have to keep that interest alive over the winter and have people looking forward to spring training in late February/early March.

It should start with getting single game tickets on sale on Black Friday, the first huge shopping day of the Christmas season. We understand the push is to sell season tickets, not you have to give people the opportunity to get tickets while the 2013 season is fresh in their minds.

And, the front office needs to continue to improve the ballclub.

We understand (and we have said this before) that the Indians cannot have a $100 million payroll. They probably need to be around the mid $80 million range.

Still, that is possible. Heck, the Tribe did it this year, and teams like Tampa and Oakland do it on a more frequent basis that the Tribe has.

The biggest decision for GM Chris Antonetti is what to do about the pitching staff, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir eligible to free agency. Jimenez and the Tribe have a mutual option at $8 million for next season, which the right-hander will certainly turndown.

We’ve gone back and forth on what Antonetti should do, and is both parties would agree to pick up the option that would be fine. However, in reality, Jimenez could draw three and four-year offers at more than $10 million per season. If that’s the case, the Indians need to look elsewhere.

There is just too much of a risk. Cleveland is not the type of franchise that can handle a long-term deal where the player is not producing at a high level.

The fact is this: Jimenez spent 14 months in an Indian uniform and had an ERA under 4.00 in less than half of those months (6). With the complexity of his mechanics, what if Ubaldo goes back to the type of pitcher he was for most of his career with the Tribe?

That’s too big of a risk for this franchise.

Now, if he wants to discuss a two-year deal, that is something that could be done without hampering the long-term future of the organization.

Remember, Justin Masterson is a free agent at the end of the ’14 campaign and he should be a higher priority than Jimenez.

Kazmir will be looking for a big payday too, as well he should since he was on the baseball scrapheap last year. Still, he should come at a lower cost and fewer years than Jimenez.

And since the Indians rescued him from the independent league, perhaps he will have some loyalty toward Francona and Mickey Calloway. Maybe a three-year deal at $6-7 million could get it done.

Remember, Danny Salazar should be in the rotation from day one in 2014, and the Tribe still has Corey Kluber and Zach McAllister as starters. If Trevor Bauer can get straightened out, he could be in the mix as well.

And you could get another low risk, high reward type signing on a one year deal for a pitcher trying to re-establish his career. Although Brett Myers didn’t help like he was supposed to, the signing was a good one. It was for one year, and when he didn’t work out, the Tribe just said goodbye.

It wouldn’t hurt to do that again with a different pitcher.

There is an old saying in baseball that you can’t have too much pitching. The Indians can’t get caught short, but they can’t put the future in jeopardy either.

Should Perez Continue to Close?

The Cleveland Indians are very much in a pennant race and yet they have a huge question mark in the back of their bullpen.

Last night, Chris Perez came into a critical game with a 3-2 lead and allowed two solo home runs to turn it into a 4-3 deficit.

Jason Giambi titanic pinch-hit dinger saved Perez, but it is not a secret that the Tribe’s closer has struggled in the last two months.

After the game, Terry Francona expressed confidence in Perez, but that’s what the skipper does. He never questions his players in public. He is the ultimate players’ manager in that regard.

Secretly though, Francona and his coaches have got to be mulling over alternatives the next time there is a save situation for Cleveland, and that could come as early as tonight.

The problem is Perez’ sudden propensity to give up the long ball. He has now allowed 10 homers in just 53 innings. That’s a lot for a closer.

By comparison, the American League leader in saves; Baltimore’s Jim Johnson has allowed just five long balls in 67 innings pitched.

Kansas City’s Greg Holland, who has a 1.25 ERA for the year to go with 45 saves, has allowed three home runs in 65 innings of work.

Future Hall of Fame closer, New York’s Mariano Rivera has given up six homers in 62 innings pitched.

Perez has allowed four more blasts than any of these relievers haven’t outstanding seasons and has pitched less than all of them.

One other startling statistic: Justin Masterson has allowed just 13 circuit clouts despite throwing 140 more innings (189 thus far on the season).

Closers who give up a lot of home runs are liabilities in one run games because the lead can be lost with one swing of the bat.

As Perez has shown before, you can pitch around a walk or a base hit with the closest of margins. It may not be ideal for the health of his manager or the Tribe fan base, but it can be done. Allowing a single by itself doesn’t cost your team the lead.

It is also Perez’ second half performance in total that should give Francona pause to put him in with a one run lead. He has a 4.39 ERA since the All-Star break and has allowed six bombs in 26 IP. Opposing hitters are batting .276 against him.

This compares to a 3.04 ERA before the Midsummer Classic and he was holding opponents to a .225 average.

It gets worse. Since the first of August, Perez has a 5.95 ERA.

So this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction to him blowing a save in a game the Tribe needed with the playoff hopes on the line. He’s been bad for two months. His statistics as a closer are always repeated (he’s only blown five saves), but clearly he hasn’t been effective for almost two months.

We understand there is a tremendous difference in what Francona says and what he does. If the Tribe is leading 5-2 going into the ninth tonight, he may very well go with Perez.

However, if the Indians do play in the wild card game and go to the last inning with a one run advantage, will it be Chris Perez’ game?

Only Francona knows that for sure.