This Year, the Bench is Killing the Tribe

One of Terry Francona’s best attributes as a manager is his patience. We have always said that fans are quick to dispose of players, but GMs and managers can’t pull the trigger on someone after two bad weeks, particularly in baseball, where the season is a six month grind.

Francona gives his players the benefit of the doubt, particularly when their track record shows a level of production. For example, when Carlos Santana was hitting .140 at the end of May, the skipper stuck with him.

Over the last two plus months, the switch-hitter has rewarded Francona’s faith in him by hitting almost .300 and hitting 15 home runs.

This year, it could be that the very thing that endears Tito to his players is costing him ball games.

Francona likes to keep 13 pitchers on his roster because he likes to use his bullpen and he doesn’t want to tax anyone’s arm, so as to not let them become ineffective by overuse.

Last year’s “Goon Squad” has gone from an integral part of the team to a gaping hole on the roster. And that is a huge problem considering on most nights the Indians only have three position players on the bench.

Ryan Raburn has received a lot of criticism for a drastic fall off in performance and is one of the chief reasons for the Tribe’s struggles vs. left-handed pitching. Raburn hit .308 with 7 homers against southpaws a year ago. This season, he’s hitting .188 with all three of his dingers against lefties.

Overall, he had a 901 OPS in 2013, and has a 528 OPS in 2014.

Raburn hasn’t hit all season long, and his manager has kept thinking he would come around, but the reality is, the season has around six weeks remaining and every at-bat Raburn seems to be a waste.

Aviles wasn’t as effective as Raburn in 2013, but he was a valuable reserve, hitting .252 with 24 extra base hits in 361 at bats.

This year, the jack of all trades defensively (he has played 2B, 3B, SS, and all three outfield spots), has dropped to just 14 extra base hits in 262 plate appearances. His OPS has dipped from 650 last year to 595 in ’14. If you are under 600, you are a dreadful offensive player.

Yan Gomes was part of that group last year, but he earned his way into the starting lineup. With Santana now at first base, the backup catcher role has been taken by first George Kotteras, who contributed offensively with three home runs, but wasn’t good defensively, and now by Roberto Perez, a rookie who done okay with 9 hits in his first 31 at bats.

What has made the lack of bench production worse has been the poor hitting of a few regulars, most notably Nick Swisher, Jason Kipnis, and Michael Bourn. Even if Francona wanted to ease them out of the lineup, there isn’t anyone earning additional playing time like Gomes did last season.

Help could be on the way though.

Jose Ramirez has shown improvement since the trade of Asdrubal Cabrera, but he is pretty much playing everyday now.

Tyler Holt and Zach Walters both contributed in yesterday’s doubleheader, and should get more playing time based on their success against Arizona.

In any event, while many people fixate on the poor seasons by Swisher, Bourn, and Justin Masterson as the reason for the Indians’ inconsistency in 2014, don’t forget to include the reserve players. They haven’t come close to matching what they did in ’13.

That hasn’t made Francona’s job any easier.

Lack of Defense for Tribe Means it’s Time for Lindor

There were a lot of people who thought June would be the beginning of the end of contention for the Cleveland Indians.

With Texas, Boston, Kansas City, the Angels and Tigers all on the slate, many thought that meat grinder would be too much for Terry Francona’s crew.

However, right now they stand at 11-6 for the month following today’s come from behind win on Nick Swisher’s grand slam and head into a three game series at home versus Detroit before heading out for another west coast jaunt.

The offense has become more consistent with Carlos Santana starting to hit, and Lonnie Chisenhall continues to hammer away at a .368 pace.

Michael Brantley has become one the American League’s best offensive players, ranking in the top ten in the circuit in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

However, the defense, particularly in the infield continues to be atrocious, particularly on the left side of the diamond, most notably SS Asdrubal Cabrera.

It wasn’t too long ago that Cabrera was an all-star, making the team in both 2011 and 2012. He should be in the prime of his career at 28-years-old.

Instead, he is showing that last season wasn’t an off-year, it was the beginning of an offensive decline.

In 2009, the switch-hitter showed signs that Tribe fans had a player to watch when at age 23, he batted .308 with 6 HR and 68 RBI (799 OPS). After an injury plagued 2010, he started to show some power in ’11, belting 25 HR, knocking in 92 runs with a 792 OPS.

Another solid season followed in ’12 (.270, 16 HR, 68 RBI, 762 OPS), but his average dropped to .242 last season and so did his home runs and ribbies.

Offensively, he’s doing a little better this season (.255, 7 HR, 26 RBI, 732 OPS), but he’s made 13 errors already this season.

If Cabrera were hitting like he did in 2011, you could overlook his shaky defense. Furthermore, whereas the shortstop used to make highlight defensive plays on occasion, those plays are rare, and the majority of his miscues are on routine plays.

In the past couple of weeks, he dropped a simple relay throw killing a double play chance, and on Tuesday night, couldn’t come up with a roller to second, instead trying to tag a baserunner and then toss to first for a twin-killing. Instead, he got nobody out and the Angels scored three runs in the inning.

With several baseball people saying SS Francisco Lindor is ready to play in the big leagues, how much longer can the front office ignore the defensive suck fest that goes on at SS and 3B?

Lindor would add a better glove and some much-needed speed (19 stolen bases at Akron) to the Cleveland offense. He’s hitting .280 with 5 HR and 38 RBI at the AA level, so it’s not as though major league pitchers would knock the bat out of his hands.

Of course, the front office would have to move Cabrera to make this happen and because he’s a free agent at the end of the season, they probably won’t get much in return. Perhaps it would make the ballclub better if the future started right now.

We understand that the Tribe is in a post-season race right now and it would seem crazy to bring up a 20-year-old to play short in that type of situation, but the scouting reports on Lindor say he has an incredible make up and if any rookie could handle it, it would be him.

In Francona’s first season in Boston, the Red Sox decided to improve the defense by trading icon Nomar Garciaparra and getting Orlando Cabrera, a much better defender in a separate deal.

Does history repeat for Francona? It’s getting to the point where they may not have a choice.

Tribe Still Surviving at the Quarter Pole

Tonight, the Cleveland Indians will play their 40th game of the season, which obviously means the campaign is one-quarter over.

Suddenly, it’s not early anymore, but there is still plenty of season remaining.

The Tribe sits at 18-21 on the season, and with the jumbled American League, they are still in the thick of it for a post-season spot, although the Tigers seem to be running away (again!) with the Central Division.

Eleven of the 15 teams in the AL sit within three games of the .500 mark, an incredible number considering the number of games played so far. Only Oakland and Detroit are more than three games over the break-even mark.

Cleveland’s pitching is holding its own, ranking in the top half of the league (7th) in ERA, despite the struggles of their #1 starter, Justin Masterson, and having to sit down the closer that started the season, John Axford.

Masterson hasn’t pitched poorly (2-2, 4.31 ERA), but he certainly hasn’t pitched as well as he did last season. He’s had several outings thus far where he has been dominating early, only to lose it completely.

Yesterday was one of those games, with the big right-hander retiring the first nine Blue Jays, but then giving up five runs in the next 2-1/3 innings.

Axford has struck out 16 hitters in 15-2/3 innings, but he’s walked 13 and allowed three home runs. Putting hitters on via walk and giving up bombs isn’t a way for a closer to stay a closer for long.

The bigger issue for Terry Francona’s club is the offense, which sits at 12th in the league in runs scored, 13th in batting average, and 12th in OPS. All of those ranks are in the bottom third of the AL.

While no one outside of Michael Brantley has been consistently good so far, the biggest culprits for the offensive ineptitude would be Carlos Santana, Nick Swisher, and Ryan Raburn.

Thank goodness, Santana has continued to draw walks (he’s second in the AL with 32), because otherwise he would be a total disaster. He’s hitting just .152 for the season with 4 HR and 11 RBI. His OPS is under 600 (597) for the season.

Francona is a very patient manager, but it will be tough to keep the switch-hitter in the clean up spot much longer.

As bad as Santana’s OPS is with his batting average at .152, Swisher’s isn’t much better at 618.

The Tribe’s big free agent acquisition a year ago, the first baseman is languishing at .204, 2 HR, and 15 RBI. That’s a pace to hit less than 10 dingers and knock in about 60 runs for the season.

The weird stat though, is that those RBIs ranked third on the team, behind Brantley and David Murphy. That’s how much everyone else as struggled as well.

Swisher has been terrible vs. lefties, hitting just .156 against southpaws. The Tribe has struggled against left-handed starters all season, and this is just one reason.

Another reason is the production of Raburn, hitting just .176 with a 433 OPS. He did a great job of hitting southpaws last season, one of the reasons for the team’s success vs. lefties. He batted .308 and slugged over .600 in 2013.
This year, Raburn’s just 7 for 40 against those pitchers and has just two extra base hits on the season. It’s reminiscent of his horrible 2012 season, which led to his release by the Tigers.

He’s pretty much only been used against left-handers this season, whereas last year, he got more at-bats against righties. Maybe he just needs some more playing time to get going.

Despite all that has gone wrong with the offense, including the injury to all-star Jason Kipnis, it really is remarkable the Indians aren’t buried in terms of contention.

Still, the bats have to pick up over the long haul or the burden on the starting pitching and bullpen will be too much for the staff to handle over the last 75% of the season.

How Did We Do–Tribe Will Fall Just Short of Playoffs in ’14

This was orginally posted in April

For every baseball fan, today is a day filled with anticipation. Opening Day will be here tomorrow, and despite the weather from yesterday, baseball will be played at Progressive Field by the end of this week.

Can the Indians repeat their unexpected run to the playoffs (and yes, Kenny Lofton, they did make the playoffs) in 2014? That is the question on all Tribe fans minds this spring.

We believe the AL Central Division race will be highly contested this summer with the defending champion Tigers, Indians, and the Royals all in contention, and we also feel that less than 90 wins will take the title.

All three teams will win between 83-89 games, so Terry Francona’s squad will be in the mix all season long. And because the division will be so close, things like injuries and deadline trades will have a huge factor on how things will turn out.

That said, we believe the Tribe will finish second in the division once again, but this time will fall just short of a post-season spot.

Why? Because the front office just didn’t do enough to offset the losses from this winter, mainly the departure of two starting pitchers, Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir.

We agreed with letting both pitchers depart because the contracts they signed were more than we would have paid either hurler based on their past performance, but we believed GM Chris Antonetti would have acquired at least one innings eater to replace the 340 innings that left via free agency.

As we wrote last week, if Danny Salazar and Corey Kluber reach the performance expected of them this season, the loss of two starting pitchers will become a moot point, but that’s a tough leap of faith considering they have combined for less than 300 innings in their career.

The Indians’ offense also sputtered at times last year even though Cleveland finished fourth in the AL in runs scored. Francona could have used another established bat in the lineup and instead Antonetti signed David Murphy, who has a good track record (.275 lifetime batting average, 778 OPS), but hit just .220 last season for the Rangers.

The Tribe needs comeback seasons from Nick Swisher, bothered by a shoulder problem in 2013, Michael Bourn, and Asdrubal Cabrera, who will be a free agent following the season, in order to have a more consistent attack.

They will also need continued improvement from two hitters entering their age 27 (entering prime) seasons in 2B Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley. Everyone praised Brantley’s ’13 season, but actually his OPS and batting average were down from 2012 (728 OPS/.284 in ’13 compared to 750/.288 in ’12).

He has the talent to be a premier offensive player (.350 OBP, .450 slugging percentage) and needs to reach those levels in 2014.

Kipnis needs to be more consistent. He hit .301 (897 OPS) before the All-Star break, and just .261 (714 OPS) after the Midsummer Classic. As the #3 hitter in the lineup, he needs to stay away from weeks where he is producing like a bottom of the order hitter.

We also have doubts about the experiment of playing Carlos Santana will work out. Santana hit .268 with 20 HR last season, and you would think his production will increase without the burden of catching more than 100 games a season, but will the switch in positions affect him at the plate?

And, of course, will his defense be solid enough to play at the hot corner on a daily basis.

The division will be close and the Tribe will be playing meaningful games in September. However, there are enough questions to think they will fall just short.

However, if some of the scenarios outlined above reach reality, the Indians could win the division and make the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time since the late 90’s.

Tribe Off-Season Strategy is Bounce Back Seasons by Veterans

Although it doesn’t look like it outside your window if you live in the Cleveland area, baseball is just around the corner. Pitchers and catchers report to Goodyear, AZ on Tuesday.

The Indians are coming off a surprising season, going from 69 victories in 2012 to 92 wins and a berth in the wild card game at the end of the season.

The question is simply this: Can the Tribe do it again and remain the one beacon of hope in the darkness that is professional sports in our city?

Right now, most fans we speak to feel the same way, that the Tribe isn’t as good right now as they were at the end of the 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay on October 2nd.

Now, to be fair, there still is time to improve the ballclub, remember that Michael Bourn wasn’t signed until shortly after the Tribe was already in camp, but it appears the Indians will lose two starting pitchers (Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir) to free agency, and haven’t done anything to replace either.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just once, the Indians’ management said they were going to go the extra mile and add let’s say $15 million to the payroll and go for it? Using that money to bring in another proven top of the rotation starter or a proven bat to put in the middle of the lineup would be a refreshing change.

As of right now, Baseball-Reference.com lists Cleveland as having the second lowest payroll in the division, ahead of only Minnesota, and only slightly ahead of them.

Instead, they went with the usual low risk, high reward signings. Players who have good career track records, but are coming off poor seasons and/or injuries. After all, it worked last season with Ryan Raburn and Kazmir, so why not try the same thing with Shawn Marcum and Jeff Francouer?

This year’s strategy appears to be hoping that players who have performed well at the big league level, but had off seasons in 2013 will rebound to their normal levels. The players in this category would be Nick Swisher, Bourn, Asdrubal Cabrera, and newcomer David Murphy.

Swisher, who will be 33 this season, hit .246 with 22 HR and 63 RBI (763 OPS) last season while battling a shoulder injury. His career norms are .255 with 28 HR and 88 RBI (820 OPS), playing half of his time in the bigs in hitter’s parks (Chicago and New York). He figures to be slightly better because of the shoulder and perhaps pressing a tad with the new contract.

Bourn is 31 and hit .263 with 6 HR and 50 RBI (676 OPS) in 130 games a year ago, stealing 23 bases. His average season numbers are .271, 5 HR and 43 RBI (700 OPS) and 48 steals.

We have said this before. Unless Bourn changes his game to more of a contact approach (he struck out 132 times in ’13), it is doubtful he will improve. His career best OPS is 739, which is about the average major league regular.

Cabrera might be the best chance for a rebound since he is 28 years old and is eligible for free agency. However, he is two years removed from his best year in 2011. He hit .242 in 2013 with 14 dingers and 64 RBIs (700 OPS), compared to his norms of .273, 14 homers and 73 RBI (748 OPS). With a higher batting average should come more runs driven home.

Murphy will be 32 this season and hit just .220 with 14 home runs and 45 RBI (656 OPS) compared to usual numbers of .275, 16 HR and 69 RBI (778 OPS). However, he is moving from a great hitters park in Texas to a pitcher’s park in Cleveland. In fairness, he doesn’t have the extreme splits other Rangers’ hitters have at their home park.

It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these hitters can bounce back in 2013 because it seems the Indians’ off-season strategy for success is based on them being better.

Again, wouldn’t it be nice if they actually just spent a little more cash one year?

Signing Murphy Another Solid Move

The Cleveland Indians made a wise decision to sign former Texas Rangers OF David Murphy to a two year contract the other day.

Yes, Murphy is coming off a bad season in which he hit .220 with 13 HR and 45 RBI with a 646 OPS in 2013, but if he hit like he has for the rest of his career, his asking price would have been much higher.

Prior to last season, his lowest OPS in any season in which he played 100 or more games was 729. This happened in 2011, when he still hit .275 with 11 home runs.

For his career, he’s a .275 hitter with an OPS of 778. Now, since he played in Texas, an extreme hitter’s ballpark, his numbers could have been inflated, but he hit .284 in Arlington and .266 on the road, not a drastic difference.

To be fair, he did show more power in the Texas ballpark.

We know that Terry Francona likes to platoon if he has two players where it works and he seems to have that with Ryan Raburn and Murphy in right field.

Against right-handers, Murphy is a .280 hitter with a .347 on base percentage and a .469 slugging percentage. That makes him an outstanding offensive player against those pitchers.

Another thing we like about Murphy is that he puts the bat on the ball, striking out around 70-80 times per season every year since 2009. And as an added bonus, in 21 career games at Progressive Field, he hit .365 with 3 homers.

What this move means going forward is that Drew Stubbs will likely not be on the roster after December 2^nd, when teams have to offer players arbitration for next season.

Stubbs, acquired last season in the Shin-Soo Choo three-way deal, gave the Tribe plus defense and speed, but struggled at the plate.

It is doubtful the front office will want to pay him the $3-4 million he would likely get next season to be a part-time player/defensive replacement.

The Indians could also move Stubbs to centerfield and see what interest there is in Michael Bourn on the trade market. While this is unlikely, if GM Chris Antonetti wants to make a big splash in a trade or on a free agent, he would probably have to move a big contract.

Bourn was bothered by injuries, but he also didn’t have a good season, hitting just .263 on the season with an on-base percentage of .316, poor for a leadoff hitter. His OPS also dropped to 676, meaning he was a below average offensive player.

He’ll play next season at age 31, and his game is predicated on his speed, management may take a chance on moving him before his value decreases more.

Again, if Bourn is dealt it means the Tribe is freeing up money for a big time move. Otherwise, look for the veteran to be back in Cleveland in 2014 and leading off hoping to rebound from an off-season.

The next move for Antonetti will likely involve the pitching staff because the Indians have holes to fill in both the starting rotation and the bullpen. You have to believe Terry Francona wants a couple of veterans in those areas to replace guys like Ubaldo Jimenez and Joe Smith.

This isn’t going to be like last winter, when the Tribe signed Nick Swisher and Bourn. But if they keep making solid moves like the Murphy signing, it will be a good hot stove season on the North Coast.