Francisco Lindor’s homer propels Tribe
March 3, 2014Indians closer John Axford perfect…on Oscars predictions
March 3, 2014What does 2014 have in store for the Tribe?
Measuring the degree of one’s own homerism is a difficult and never-ending task. You never quite know whether what you believe about your favorite team is being overly colored by your desire to actually believe it, especially in the midst of never-ending winter. And yet I feel that, on the whole, I’m a relatively rational and objective person as far as sports fans go—I’m not deluded like those troglodytes who follow those other teams. I’m a sabermetrician, for goodness sakes! I CAN ADD THINGS WITH EXCEL! On the other hand, I’ve talked myself into believing in too many losers to trust my first instinct. David Huff is quite decidedly not Cliff Lee. Matt LaPorta will not become Ryan Braun. All that glitters…
Anyway, there comes a time every spring when we get to calibrate our internal expectations against a somewhat objective barometer: the over-under odds coming out of Las Vegas. Every year I tell myself not to get over-excited by these things, and every year I end up feeling blindsided by them.
Last season the Indians won 22 games more than they lost. They outscored their opponents by 83 runs. Their pitching staff had the second highest strikeout-rate in the Majors, and they had ten players hit double-digit home runs. The only offensive player of note they lost over the winter was Drew Stubbs, who was more than replaced with David Murphy. They’re looking at a full year from Danny Salazar, a reloaded bullpen, anywhere from seven to ten viable starting pitchers, and likely bounce-back years from their two highest paid players, who arguably underperformed last season.
So why does Las Vegas have them finishing below .500, with an over-under of 80.5 wins?
I’m not exactly sure, but I think at least some of it can be explained by what’s been referred to as the “Plexiglas Principle”. Here’ s Jonah Keri:
The crux of Plexiglas is this: A team that improves in one season tends to decline the next, and vice versa. It was an easy idea to understand, but a tough one to believe. We human beings are hard-wired to hate randomness. So we look for patterns in everything. Thus a team that wins 75 games one year and 81 the next is perceived to be on the rise, destined for greater things. A team that slips from one season to the next is on its way down, headed for a stretch of lean years. Fans make this mistake, writers and prognosticators make this mistake…even MLB general managers make this mistake.
It’s so simple as to appear obvious: a team that makes a huge improvement is likely to “come back to Earth” or “regress to their own mean” or “normalize” or just “stink again”. A team that goes from 68 wins to 92 in one year is likely to have experienced some (necessarily unsustainable) good luck, right? That Plexiglas should knock them back down somewhere in between, shouldn’t it?
Well. We just don’t know, Dude.
As anyone who’s paid any attention at all can attest, the 2013 Indians weren’t remotely similar to the 2012 vintage. They’d turned over their roster and replaced their manager. Their young core started to come into their own, while the bench was comprised of real, live, Major League talent. The 2012 and 2013 teams shared jerseys, but not much else.
On top of all that, it’s March and there’s snow everywhere and I just don’t think I can bear to think that last season’s success was nothing but a Whack-a-Mole waiting to get beat back below ground. Here are a few more reasons to keep those bullish bets coming.
1. Danny Salazar Danny Salazar Danny Salazar Danny Salazar Danny Salazar Danny Salazar Danny Salazar. You don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s Jonah Keri again:
It’s tough to remember another season in which so many incredibly talented pitchers will get their first crack at full big-league seasons with so much at stake. I, for one, am hopping on the bandwagon early for #TeamDannySalazar. The 24-year-old righty has three excellent pitches in his holster, with a 96 mph fastball, a nasty slider, and a backbreaking changeup that all generate lots of swings and misses. He missed more and more bats as he climbed the ladder in the minor leagues, and he dominated in his 10-start major league debut last year, fanning more than four batters for every walk.
2. The Indians won 92 games despite Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn having decidedly down years. People will tell you that Swisher was just fine, and I’d agree. I’d just point out that his 2.4 fWAR was the second lowest of his career (min 140 games). Couple that with Bourn’s (hopefully) anomalous 2.0 WAR season, and you can at least hope for some upside out of both this coming season.
3. Corey Kluber is better than you think. Fifty-eight pitchers threw at least 130 innings last season. Kluber had the eighth best strikeout-to-walk rate and the sixth best xFIP rate. His peripherals suggested he was among the ten or so best pitchers in the League. Only seven pitchers were “less lucky” than he, based on the difference between ERA and their “expected” ERA (FIP), due at least partially to the fact that he had the sixth highest BABiP of that group. Kluber does everything right: he misses bats, throws hard, and doesn’t walk many. He averages less than a home run per nine innings pitched. He is a prototypical No. 2 starter, and he’ll be our No. 3.
4. Terry Francona will have a versatile bullpen. The ‘pen last year was a bit of mess. Chris Perez was doing Chris Perez-y things for most of the year. Vinnie Pestano was lost and ineffective. Ryan Raburn, by throwing a single scoreless inning, provided more value than eleven other pitchers, all of whom performed below replacement level. The Tribe Bullpen was the second worst relief corps in the League, but there’s plenty of reason to believe they’ll be vastly improved this season. John Axford looks to have solved some pitch-tipping problems and will slot in at the end of a Bryan Shaw, Cody Allen, Vinnie Pestano, Marc Rzepcynski mix. Throw in the possibility of Austin Adams and C.C. Lee and a bullpen that looked lost a year ago could be a point of strength in 2014.
There’s more, of course. Yan Gomes is likely better than Lonnie Chisenhall. David Murphy is likely better than Drew Stubbs. Asdrubal can’t be as bad as he was last year. And why shouldn’t Jason Kipnis finally put two good halves together?
But if I go listing all those, I’ll be rightly accused of wearing my Tribe-colored glasses. I’ll have to let all that objectivity to creep back in. I’ll have to remind myself that Justin Masterson doesn’t pitch well in even years. Or that Swisher and Bourn are on the wrong side of 30, and guys like that don’t typically get better. Or that exactly one player on our 40-man roster has pitched more than 170 Big League innings in a season. Before you know it, I’ll be on a ledge, considering 80.5 wins and biting my fingernails all over again.
So I won’t mention those other things.
I’ll do my annual over-under post sometime soon, and we’ll see how many contortions of self-doubt I can turn myself in when the time comes. But in this particular rearview, 2013 doesn’t feel a thing like Plexiglas. The more I think about it, in fact, the more feels more like shattered glass.
94 Comments
I am not brash enough to disagree with the plexiglass theory, but my hopes ride mostly with the one factor that I think should help the Indians eliminate wild(er) swings in record and that’s Terry Francona. I don’t know if Michael Bourn or Swisher can get back to more productive, younger versions of themselves, but I know the worst record Francona’s had since managing the Red Sox in 2004 is 0.531. Obviously the Indians aren’t the Red Sox, but let’s just say that I don’t expect the Indians to approach that 68 win number from Manny Acta’s final season.
That 80.5 Vegas number is an intriguing one, but I’d have to take the over right now.
(fills glass with large quantity of Kool-aid)
I said this last year, and it is worth saying again – the Indians last year were a fun but somewhat lucky team that relied on an outstanding few months from a P who is no longer with the team.
Ultimately, the Dolans were smart enough last year to spend enough to keep fans from being apathetic, and got even luckier to see an exciting playoff run (mostly from others), even if it ended up short of the real playoffs. But they don’t have or choose not to spend enough money to compete in the horribly lopsided structure that is MLB, and the Indians will now start a slow descent back toward 70 wins the next 2-3 years until we repeat the process once again.
I hate MLB even as I love the Indians. It’s just incredibly hard to root for a team in such a horribly uneven league until it’s abundantly clear that they are in that one-in-five year of having a shot.
I’m always extremely optimistic in the offseason for any and ever Cleveland sports team. It’s in my nature. However, I’m usually saying things like, “If everything goes perfectly: the young kids progress, the veterans perform as you expect them to perform, the Indians manage to find a sleeper in Spring Training for the pitching staff…” etc etc etc. For this Tribe team, I have a hard time seeing how they won’t finish over .500 again. Their division is still weak outside of the Tigers. I don’t know if the Royals will be able to repeat their 86-win success from last season again… they seem like a more likely candidate for the Plexiglass theory to me. Even if the starting pitching is hit with the injury bug, it seems like that is a deep position for the Tribe, with at least a couple of capable back-end starters who will be in AAA to start the year. Shaponetti can always make a deal for a bullpen arm or two during the season if that becomes necessary. Sure, Yan Gomes will almost certainly regress from last year, but as long as he’s the main one handling the pitching staff, who cares? There should be enough hitting to sustain the team as guys like Brantley, Santana, and Kipnis are still coming into their prime. And Tito is the man, quite obviously.
Things I’m looking forward to:
1) Being able to say “That’s so Raburn” again when Ryan does good things.
2) Random Giambi homers that win baseball games.
3) A full season with #Yanimal as the primary backstop (knock on wood).
4) A billion K’s and backwards K’s from Danny Salazar.
5) Getting excited about a guy named Corey and wondering if I’ve suddenly turned into a teenage girl in the 1980s.
6) Bro-hio
7) Finding out that once again, we are all Kipnesses
I guess it comes down to a few things for me:
1. Who is to say that our young guys won’t develop better than under this coaching staff than previous ones? I know that we’ve seen the LaPorta’s of the world get to the majors and stagnate, but I’m trying not to let that impact my opinion of the new young guys. Why can’t Lonnie and Yan and Kipnis all improve this year (let alone all the young pitchers)? Other teams have younger guys that get better – so can we.
2. I won’t doubt what Callaway can do with those pitchers. Until he proves otherwise, that is.
3. I won’t doubt that Francona is Gandalf of the Bench and his platooning will be magical again. Until he proves otherwise, that is.
I have to post this somewhere. Cory Snyder is now Seattle’s AAA hitting coach. Mr. See-Ball/Hit-Ball. The same talented Cory Snyder who ignored coaches, refused to make adjustments and instead called his father for advice. Just, wow.
I am excited for Gomes behind the plate, and terrified of Santana at third.
I am excited that As Cab and Masterson should be in prime shape playing for contracts, and afraid of the backlash if the season gets off slow and both guys get traded.
I am excited for a lineup that is balanced and capable across the board and nervous that it lacks a single guy that strikes fear in pitchers hearts, a guy that can end a 3 game skid with a swing of the bat.
I feel the same way about the pitching staff.
I try to pretend I’m realistic and capable of seeing the team from an outsiders perspective. But I know as soon as that first glorious spring day in April arrives, when the wind is whipping snow squalls around Progressive field, when out from under 3 layers of thinsulate I hear the muffled call Play Ball! I know rationality will go out the window.
The Francona factor is one thing that keeps my default pre-season attitude closer to that of Ezzie’s comment. But I also want to see another year of the influence of Mickey Callaway – is he really all things to all pitchers, like a Dave Duncan/Leo Mazzone? Because if he is – if he can get inside Carrasco’s troubled head this year much like he hypnotized Ubaldo last year – I’ll start believing solid starting pitching will be a constant. And that’s huge for a team with a limited payroll.
sorry, should be “keeps my default pre-season attitude FROM BEING closer to that of Ezzie’s comment.”
MadTV was utterly terrible. But one valuable lesson from that show should be applied to all Cleveland teams until they prove otherwise
The factor that keeps me optimistic is the depth, much of which was laid out above. No longer are we forced to endure any games (even if they’re the throw-away day game) where Zeke Carerra or Lou Marson or Jason Donald are anywhere to be found. That this team has nine or 10 quality bullpen arms waiting to be deployed is worth being excited about.
(spikes everyone glasses for added effect)
on (1) – maybe Tito will just use our young players better?
Lonnie vs. RHP (career) = 519AB, 17HR, 30x2B, .256/.298/.416, 21.4%-LD
Lonnie vs. LHP (career) = 124AB, 6HR, 6x2B, .194/.225/.387, 18.5%-LD
So, maybe Carlos takes 3B against LHP and Lonnie can focus on tuning his vs. RHP #’s this season. If he can get that under control, then he can try his hand against LHP at some point. For now, let’s use him where he’s useful.
I’m still a little worried about the bullpen (big swings and last year still sits in my head), rotation (either young or inconsistent or both) and defense (1B, 3B, SS, RF). But, overall, I think we have a nice young team that can win anywhere from 78-95 games depending on health/luck/etc. So, if we take it somewhere in the middle, then it still blows the Vegas line out of the water. Take the Over.
I saw an article on Grantland that could push things in the Indians favor. It was about Kipnis being poised to take the 2B belt (especially since Cano and Pedroia are north of 30). I say lock him up for the next 5-6 years.
(notes that a glass full of Kool-aid will probably just spill)
(wonders why it wasn’t half-full. or half empty.)
LOL – great post Pat and I’m right there looking forward to the same things with you!
What’s sad is I’m such a Clevelander (and it’s my first season back in CLE as an adult) that Saturday night there I was looking at 20-game packages… Sigh. (Though I held off.)
In addition to Callaway, I legitimately wonder what having a real catcher like Yan Gomes would do for our pitching staff. He was the catcher in about half of the games last year. In games where Santana caught versus Gomes, most of the stats are very similar with the exception of SO/BB and similarly OBP. One might guess that the reason for this is because Gomes can frame pitches better, so more balls are called strikes. ERA for Gomes was 3.56 as opposed to 4.05 for Santana… Gomes’ vastly superior ability to throw out base stealers would also come into play there.
“nervous that it lacks a single guy that strikes fear in pitchers hearts, a guy that can end a 3 game skid with a swing of the bat.”
– I think this would have described the Boston Red Sox for me at the start of the 2013 season. I though Papi was over the hill, Ellsbury was inconsistent at best, and Pedroia & Napoli were good players, but not really guys you fear pitching to. Salty, Middlebrooks, Drew, Gomes, Victorino, and Nava? Not worried. I mean, I thought that team would easily miss the playoffs, then they turn around and win it all. So there’s some hope for the Tribe in that way.
This team doesnt have any glaring weaknesses. The rotation is solid, the bullpen will (hopefully) be better. The bench is one of the best in the business, we have depth for a change. The lineup lacks a middle of the order masher, but theres only so many Miggy Cabrera’s to go around. If Swisher comes closer to his career norms and Bourn bounces back at all, this team should be solid. They ain’t gonna win 100 games, but they’ll be in the mix for a Wild Card or maybe even the division if Detroit slips.
Ive got my Wahoo colored glasses on, Ill say 88 wins. This is a good team.
B-Pro just put up an article today discussing some work they’ve done in analyzing framing and blocking pitches. Gomes isn’t mentioned specifically, but their numbers put him in the Molina-range behind the plate. Not as good a framer as Jose (no one is) and doesn’t block as well as Yadier (again, we’re talking about the elite of the elite), but performed both at a well above average mark in 2012.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22934
Wow, that is awesome. To be mentioned in the same breath from a defensive standpoint as the Molina brothers is saying a lot. Even being in the next tier down is an impressive feat considering Gomes was being used twice as much at 1B over C when he was with the Blue Jays.
Speaking of plexiglass theory and Asdrubal bouncing back. How about we sell that load to the Mets? 🙂
always liked that Schoenfield guy: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/44754/indians-should-trade-cabrera-to-mets
What can the Mets give up to get him? Stuff the Indians need, and dealing from depth: First base/LF type Lucas Duda, third-base prospect Wilmer Flores and right-hander Michael Fulmer
I would be hard-pressed to think the Mets would give us all 3 guys, but ecstatic if we could pull it off.
Duda 28yo under team control until 2018 w/ 2 near-full seasons in MLB already and a 114OPS+. Yes, please (not to mention it spells the end to Giambi’s sub .200 BA on our team).
Flores, 22yo who got a cup of coffee for the Mets last year and struggled. Mets are unsure what position he projects to (3B, 2B, 1B in minors) but expect him to have a +bat when he gets to MLB fulltime.
Fulmer, 21yo 2011 1st round pick who has struggled some with control but has been fairly good in his limited low-level play.
now, take those numbers and remember that we were considered among the worst of the worst at both the previous couple of seasons (with Santana and Marson).
I still can’t believe we got both Gomes and Aviles for Esmil Rogers. I have to pinch myself to believe it. Look at Gomes’ minor league stats… they’re not mind-blowing, but they’re certainly solid and seem to indicate that he gets better as he gets more comfortable at each level. I expect to see a bit of a regression this year, sure, but I could see Gomes settling in as a 115 OPS+ kind of guy. He’s certainly shown some power, and he’s only turning 26 in May. I don’t know what the heck the Blue Jays were thinking.
I don’t know what the heck the Blue Jays were thinking.
you could spend all of your time writing a blog about such things. in fact, someone should buy: whatwerethebluejaysthinking.com or wwbjt.com
I’m a little surprised there’s not more hope for Chisenhall this year. All the 3B excitement is going to Santana, and I definitely hope he can stick there against LHSP’s. But if Chisenhall “wins” the 3B platoon job vs. righties, he will definitely get some significant AB’s, and I’m puling for him to put up numbers. Sure, it’s hard to forget how disappointing he was last year. But people also forget how young he still is, specially since we’ve been hearing about him as a prospect for so many years now. But he’s only now beginning his age-25 season and that’s a jumping off point for a lot of guys.
I guess it’s mostly his power potential that intrigues me. If he can harness that and start hitting some bombs, he’d look really nice in the No. 5 or 6 spot in this lineup. Latter is probably wishful thinking, but this is a guy who was a more highly regarded prospect than Kipnis.
My impression of what they were thinking is that Gomes didn’t have a defensive position, and well, I just am left scratching my head even more. I don’t know how you mistake him for even an average defensive catcher, much less one who has to move off the position.
Yes! As Jon wrote, above, the addition of a legitimate bench was huge last year. And even though benches (like bullpens) can be streaky year-to-year, there’s reason to believe we might be even stronger there this year. Vets like Raburn, Aviles, and Giambi are all back and guys like Francouer, Morgan, and Elliott Johnson are breathing down their necks. To top it off, you even have prospect Jose Ramirez in Columbus, who brings an interesting set of tools to the table.
please remove Giambi
Hey Steve, not arguing, but pretty sure Gomes was left off this list/info as it’s mostly culled from 2008-2013, and he simply doesn’t have a large enough sample to put him in there.
That said, that article was eye-opening when I read it. We know so little regarding catcher framing, but it’s helping to sell me on moving Santana off the dish.
he definitely still has potential. I think we are just getting so used to all the prospects who do not improve upon their initial numbers after a couple seasons with the Tribe (LaPorta, Marte being the last 2 big name guys).
We will see what happens, but I am hoping for the best.
Sorry, disagree with a bunch here, gonna take it in chunks:
“he Indians last year were a fun but somewhat lucky team that relied on an outstanding few months from a P who is no longer with the team.”
Actually, they only outperformed their projected win total (based off mostly run differential) by two wins, which is lucky but not that lucky. It’s basically a bit of a toss-up there. The idea though that they relied on Ubaldo is somewhat false – they will miss him, and I lamented that the team didn’t try to resign him, but it is what it is now. Also remember, they were without their second-ish best starter for almost all of September (Masterson), and their third-ish best starter missed significant chunks of time as well (Kluber). A full season by Kluber and Salazar would go a long way to replacing Ubaldo’s production.
“the Dolans were smart enough last year to spend enough to keep fans from being apathetic, and got even luckier to see an exciting playoff run (mostly from others),”
Huh? You’re ignoring a bunch here – like how the Indians won out September – and it turns out they needed to do so as well, seeing as Texas and Tampa almost did.
“the horribly lopsided structure that is MLB”
AND
“It’s just incredibly hard to root for a team in such a horribly uneven league”
Ugh. Completely untrue. MLB actually has a ton of parity, at least in terms of who’s successful and who makes the playoffs. This article lays out a lot of the facts/info about this: http://espn.go.com/blog/jayson-stark/post/_/id/11/mlb-greater-parity-nfl
Is 2014 a sure thing? Nope. Not at all. But to dismiss it outright because it doesn’t look like they’re a sure-fire shot is silly.
How does a team “prove otherwise?”
Don’t worry about the bullpen. They’re relievers! They grow on trees! 🙂
That seems like a great deal, mostly cause of Flores. Duda is meh, really only Murphy insurance, and Fulmer could be nothing, but Flores is a legit prospect. He’s completely blocked in New York (David Wright) so he’s really only valuable to them in a trade (assuming Wright is healhty). But Flores is worth giving up a year of Asdrubal.
My biggest issue with this, and any deal trading Asdrubal, would be if Lindor is ready. He simply cannot be rushed.
Marte got screwed by Wedge.
Well in this case I’ll wait to see them make the actual big boy playoffs before I’m willing to open a season expecting them to do so. Or wait til the Browns manage a .500 season or two before getting caught up in playoff talk in training camp. That sort of thing.
Duda replaces Giambi on our bench. That is a nice win (and yes, he doubles as Murphy protection or any OF injury).
maybe, but in 838 AB he was a .218/.277/.358 guy with a 69 OPS+
Eh. I figure life is too short and sports are too unpredictable to wait around for consistent greatness. Rarely comes, we usually don’t recognize it anyways.
And the Indians made the playoffs last year. The Wild Card game is part of that. The Rangers, in game 163, did not make the playoffs.
Tribe has other options to prevent the rushing of Lindor if Cabrera is dealt. Aviles or Jose Ramirez can start, and Elliott Johnson would be an intriguing bench option (or the guy we plucked from LAD as infield filler depth). Duda would double as a solid backup in case Swisher is hurt again or if a corner OF is hurt/ completely flops.
Yeah, he didn’t even register as a full time catcher in 2013, so he’s not going to be making any long-term data lists anytime soon.
The article also touches on something I’ve been interested in, but have even less an idea how to figure out than simply catcher framing – how much benefit comes from working with a control artist than a guy who is more wild.
Before 2013, when my naked-eye and almost certainly flawed analysis had Santana really fall off defensively, I felt that Santana’s poor framing numbers had a lot to do with some pretty crappy pitching.
A) I’ve come 180 on this, but if Giambi wants to be on this team, he will be on this team. They won’t move him off for Duda.
B) Avlies IS an option, but not a very good one. Ramirez can’t start at SS, he’s really more of a utility/emergency option there, his everyday position will be 2B. If a deal like this is made, it’s cause Lindor will be ready at some point this year, and likely before August.
They qualified for a play-in game. That’s progress, but one game does not a series make. It’s similar to the play-in games for the NCAA tourney: call them what you want, give out gold stars for participation and let team say they made the big dance, but I just can’t consider them legitimate tournament games. That’s me though, so feel free to disagree.
I will 🙂 Not similar at all, particularly when MLB says the Wild Card game is part of the playoffs.
Just to give credit where it’s due, that article is by Kahrl, who I can’t recommend enough, going back to her B Pro days.
I couldn’t help but notice that over the weekend the Indians acquired another AAAA-type 2B/SS/3B in Justin Sellers. Probably just a move for depth, though it sure seems like we’ve got a lot of guys who can play SS at this point.
Lol, I’m on my own island here, in regards to Marte. We don’t know how he would have turned out because he didn’t ever get a real chance – that 838 ABs was spread over the course of six seasons (five with Cleveland). Never any real playing time, Wedge always favoring Casey Blake. But I know I’m completely irrational here 🙂
That said, thrilled Marte is getting a shot with the DBacks. Hate that org, but if they give him another chance, I will lower my criticisms of them.