Remember that Whole MadLibs Thing?
May 26, 2008Re-Sign or Release: Daniel Gibson
May 27, 2008Indians Need To Start Trying New Things Or Face The Sting Of Familiar Disappointment
Honestly, between still winding down from the Cavaliers season and the increased workload at my real job, I haven’t had much time to focus on the Indians or write about them. In fact, you have to go back to May 5th to find the last time I wrote anything about the Tribe. That’s unacceptable, so I plan on using my day off today to write a couple posts about the Indians. First up, similar to my last Indians post, I want to talk about a call up. This one, though, unlike my last post, isn’t about a call up that has happened, but rather is about a call up that regrettably won’t happen.
This morning, as I was going through 3 cups of coffee while pouring through various websites and articles that I missed over the past week, I came upon something pretty interesting on the Baseball Prospectus website. There, John Perrotto wrote something that made me literally sit up straight in my recliner. Perrotto writes,
“The Indians need an offensive upgrade desperately, and are bringing up Rockies third baseman Garrett Atkins and left fielder Matt Holliday in trade talks. The Indians, though, do not plan to send struggling second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera to the minor leagues despite his hitting woes because they don’t feel Josh Barfield would be an upgrade.”
Surely, I thought, Perrotto must be joking (about Cabrera…..not the Rockies trade, although it is interesting, if true, that the Indians as an organization are really bringing up these names and talking about them in trade discussions, but more on that later). But upon digging a little deeper, I found confirmation of this line of thinking in a Paul Hoynes article in the Plain Dealer. Hoynsie wrote,
“The Indians feel they’re a better team with Cabrera playing second, and occasionally shortstop, than they would be with any other defensive alignment. Much of it has to do with the starting rotation, which features sinker-ball pitchers Fausto Carmona and Aaron Laffey. When Jake Westbrook returns from the disabled list, perhaps next week, they could have three sinker-ball pitchers in the rotation.
It puts a premium on Cabrera’s play in the middle infield, especially with the Indians struggling to score runs, while still contending in the AL Central.
Josh Barfield, who lost his second base job to Cabrera last year, could still cause a change in plans if he starts hitting at Buffalo. Barfield is hitting .261 (49-for-188) with four homers and 16 RBI. His OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) is only .700 after 45 games.
At the moment, the Indians feel they’re a better team with Cabrera starting at second and spelling Jhonny Peralta at short than they would be with Barfield playing second and Jamey Carroll backing up Peralta at short.”
Ok, lets examine this line of thinking a little closer. First of all, Hoynsie says that Barfield’s OPS is only .700. Well, sure, .700 is a pretty lackluster OPS. BUT CABRERA’S OPS IS .513!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, look at Cabrera’s numbers. He’s hitting .179 (that’s not a misprint…..he really is hitting closer to .175 than .200) with 1 HR, 13 RBI, 1 SB, and 32 SO in 42 games. Last season, in 45 games with the Tribe, he scored 30 runs. This year? 12. Cabrera’s WARP-1 (Wins Above Replacement Player) is 0.1. In other words, even taking his defense into consideration, he is contributing absolutely nothing to this team. It’s time to try something else. Send him down and see if he can get his swing and his confidence back. You simply CANNOT have a guy hitting .178 playing in your lineup every day. Inexcusable.
And lets be clear, it’s not that I think Barfield is going to come up and start hitting like he did with San Diego in 2006. With the Bisons in AAA this season, Barfield is hitting .252 with 4 HR, 16 RBI, 8 SB, 20 R, 14 2B, 41 SO, and 12 BB. Not the greatest numbers, but compared to what Cabrera is doing, they look like All-Star numbers. In 2007 with the Indians, Barfield hit .243 with 3 HR, 50 RBI, 53 R, 14 SB, 19 2B, 90 SO, and only 14 BB. Pretty awful numbers. But you know what? If Asdrubal were to hit .300 over his next 100 ABs, he would still be hitting just .231 for the season, well below what Barfield hit in 2007. So why NOT make the change? Just try it for a while. See if it helps at all.
This isn’t the only change the Indians should make. This change alone, even if Barfield exceeds expectations a little bit, wouldn’t be enough to salvage the Indians offense. No, a trade needs to happen and it needs to happen very soon if the Indians are going to save this season. But I’ll cover that in another post. For now, though, I’m simply looking at one individual area where the Indians seem to be missing a chance to make the team a little better. Time is slipping away, whether we want to admit it or not. The Indians are 23-27, have lost 8 of their last 10, and are currently in 3rd place in the division, but are a season-high 4.5 games out of first place. The Indians aren’t even close to being out of it yet, but if they continue to sit on their hands and idly watch this season fall apart, it’s going to be out of hand before we know it.
6 Comments
That picture says it all. I said it in a post not long ago – it’s a shame that we’re even pondering calling up a guy who is hitting .260…
they’ve gotta do something…this team is painful to watch….rock, u know that i would never even consider NOT watching a tribe game…lately tho, there’s always something a little better to do, even if that is chewing on broken glass…
I totally agree that something has to be done with this team. None of them are doing anything. Cabrerra is a huge concern, but what is really killing us is our ‘power’ in the middle of the order. 2 HR’s by our number 4 spot? 0 by Martinez?
Yeah he has a good average, but that is for a leadoff hitter to have! NOT your cleanup hitter.
And don’t even get me started about Hafner. I have never seen a player take so many perfect pitches, and then swing at the next ball down in the dirt. Then when he does decide to swing, he can’t catch up. Strike 3! Has anyone considered maybe him and Vic were on the juice???
I would be happy to see the entire Bisons roster up here……they have to be able to hit better than this pathetic Tribe lineup
If the rest of the team were hitting even close to their career numbers, we could afford to carry a good field/no hit middle infielder. Cabrera is not the problem and Barfield, right now, is not much of a solution. Barfield’s defense is so awful that he shouldn’t be in Cleveland until he’s beating AAA pitchers like a rented mule.
It’s pitiful with guys on 2nd and 3rd the guy on third being the go ahead run and only one out Asdrubal failed to even make contact, K swinging no shot at getting anyone home. I’m not so worried about his average creeping up but his situational hitting sucks. He botched a sac bunt in last night’s affair as well by basically bunting it back to Vasquz and leaving Casey out to dry.