Jerome Harrison Could Still Pay Dividends
September 30, 2010On the Indians and Baseball’s “Level Playing Field”
September 30, 2010
When Manny Acta took over for Eric Wedge, he immediately said that he felt the Indians organization, as currently constructed, was not a rebuilding project. A little under one year later, Acta still feels that the pieces are in place to right this 70-win ship; all he would like is a little luck in the injury department.
“The only reason that the season ended up this way, this isn’t a club that can afford to absorb those types of injuries that we have absorbed this year,” said Acta in his 2010 parting interview with the Cleveland media.
Acta harped on the fact that the team was without Grady Sizemore, a player who is just two years removed from a 35-home run campaign, for the majority of the season. Injuries to Asdrubal Cabrera, Carlos Santana and Shin-Soo Choo only compounded matters. So when discussing the possible need to “rebuild,” Acta quickly shot that down by saying that the key core players are already in Cleveland – it’s just a matter of keeping them on the field for a full season.
The key, per Acta, is finding the right guys to fill in the gaps while having some stability.
The stability portion was key this season. Acta stated that he was surprised with the struggles of Luis Valbuena, something that created a whirlwind of changes at second base. Pouring salt into the wounds of Valbuena’s inability to hit the baseball at the major league level was the injury to Cabrera, forcing Valbuena over to short stop. As many know, the middle of the defense is the most integral portion, so with the injuries mentioned above, the 2010 Indians were essentially taking butter knives to 162 different gun fights.
Acta appeared very disappointed in his offense this season, and rightfully so. The only players who drew compliments (aside from the obvious Shin-Soo Choo) were youngsters Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley. The only player excused for this season was Matt LaPorta, who Acta gave a “mulligan” due to his preseason rehabilitation process that provided next to zero time for actual baseball activities.
But with the bad, came the good. Acta was surprisingly complimentary of the starting pitchers – specifically, Mitch Talbot, Fausto Carmona and Justin Masterson’s second half of the season. Adding in the successes of Josh Tomlin, Jeanmar Gomez and Carlos Carrasco, and Acta feels that he is only one or two capable major league pitchers away from fielding a solid major league rotation. Acta vehemently stated that this Indians team can no longer afford to carry dead weight when it comes to veterans (i.e. Mark Grudzielanek, Mike Redmond) merely for their leadership and experience. This team, per Acta, needs contributors.
When asked about the lack of attendance in Progressive Field, officially the lowest totalnumber of fans to cross through the turnstiles since 1992, Acta quipped that he cannot force people to support the team.
“People pick and choose what they want to support,” said Acta. “I’m excited about this franchise. It’s a fact that we have to do things certain ways. It’s really tough to sit in front of people and tell them this is what we’re going to do.”
“I can’t lie to people and say that we’re going to bring in three free agents that are going to make $15 million a year, that’s not going to happen here. Our best chance here is to draft, develop our players and make as few mistakes as we can. All I can do is try and accelerate the process as best I can.”
When asked if the losing (with Cleveland as well as Washington in seasons past) is starting to weigh on him, Acta became a bit defensive, saying that he cannot “just sit around and wait” for job offers from New York, Boston or Philadelphia.
“Everybody wants to win,” said Acta. “I don’t enjoy losing, per se, but we all have to also understand what our job is. I want to win every single day. I want to come out every year that I have managed and prove everybody wrong.”
What he sees in this team going forward is the reason why he wanted the job with Cleveland rather than Houston, another team which interviewed Acta last offseason. Acta felt that the Indians’ farm system would ultimately be more rewarding down the road, something that would provide him assets with which to build a team that can compete.
“To me, its rewarding to see guys make progress,” said Acta. “To me, the challenge is to turn it around. To me it will be very rewarding turning this around – it will be special.”
Acta appears confident that all of his weapons will be ready to play by the start of the 2011 season. Assuming that the starting rotation can build off of the momentum which it showed in the 2010 season, Acta feels that competing may in fact come sooner than many anticipate.
“Just imagine having Grady hitting in front of Choo at his capacity for a whole season and having Carlos behind them,” said Acta. “I’m excited.”
“Next year, youth is not going to be an excuse to lose.”
—
(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
5 Comments
I think this can be a competitive team next season if they stay healthy. Im not expecting a pennant race, but 80 wins is not out of the question if the kids continue to develop.
One positive thing about this season, is these guys never quit. They could have easily mailed it in and ended up with 100 losses or more.
Call me crazy, but Im cautiously optimistic about the future of this team. We’ll see what happens.
you’re crazy.
ok, you’re not. I bet on the Tribe winning 73+ this season. Didn’t quite make it but I stand by that bet. The team’s 4 best position players (Sizemore, Cabrera, Choo, Santana) all spent protracted stretches injured. My reasoning for making the bet when the Tribe was awful early on was that I firmly believed they would cut most/all their dead weight (Branyan, Redmond, Grudz, etc) and they did. Shelley Funcan and Austin Kearns panned out. Even with midseason tradeaways, the team continued to load their cannons.
how close were we to my 73 win mark? Depending on this weekend’s series, really close.
I can’t wait. If Acta puts his management where his mouth is, I -do- expect a pennant race next year with Chicago and Detroit perennially disappointing. 90 wins is actually possible.
bring on lonnie chisennhaul.
“Next year, youth is not going to be an excuse to lose.”
Which means they’ll just come up with a different excuse. i.e., no money for big name players, no fan support, Mercury didn’t align with Mars, the air speed of…you get the idea.
2010 Positives:
1. Lots of pitching talent. Some of it even showing at the MLB level carmona pretty consistently, then Talbot/Masterson/Carrasco/Tomlin/Gomez at different stretches of time. Not to mention Chris Perez.
2. Carlos Santana – would have been #1 if not for his gruesome knee injury.
3. Minor League’s stocked – 2 teams won championships and there’s plenty of talent stocked at just about every level. small market teams need to feed on their farm system and ours looks ripe.
4. Acta’s smallball – the team actually threw pickoff plays, hit bunts to advance runners and looked like a real baseball team.
2010 Negatives
1. MLB hitting – Brantley/LaPorta, etc. have looked like real good hitters at AAA, but have not translated it up. They both had some good stretches, but I think most of us expected more. Overall, we have a weak hitting lineup that is going to need to rely on timely hitting and speed to get by.
2. Defense – April/May were atrocious. We started playing better defense when we traded Peralta and Branyan for awhile, but then the ugly defense returned in August. A smallball speedy team with a ton of groundball pitchers needs to be able to rely on its defense. This year, we could not.
3. Injuries – Pretty much every major everyday player was hurt at some point of the season. We won’t be sure that Grady and Santana will be fully back until spring training next year. Never a good thing for a team full of ?’s as it is to add a few more.
I’m on board with Acta because I think this guy is saying and doing all the right things. We have a solid young core, let’s hope the Dolan’s go out and get him a legit starter and some offense.