Blue Jays 7, Indians 1: Carrasco Comes Back to Earth
July 11, 2011Hurry Up, Wait and Be Patient with Browns
July 11, 2011The Indians head into the All-Star break a surprising 47-42 and a half game out of first place in the AL Central. Many experts think they have done it with smoke and mirrors. I believe they have gotten this far thanks to Actaball- a combination of great pitching, solid defense, and timely hitting. Regardless of how they have gotten to this point, during the break from the action, WFNY will take a look at the four cogs of this roster, how they evolved during the first half, and where they look to be going forward through the rest of the season. Today we will start with the outfield/DH, then pieces on the bullpen, starting rotation, and infield/Catcher will follow later this week.
Regular Starters: LF Michael Brantley (.268 BA/6 HR/35 RBI/.329 OBP/.710 OPS/12 steals.
CF Grady Sizemore (.226 BA/9 HR/27 RBI/.291 OBP/.734 OPS/72 K’s in 221 ABs)
RF Shin-Soo Choo (.244 BA/5 HR/28 RBI/.333 OBP/.687 OPS/11 steals)
DH Travis Hafner (.325 BA/8 HR/35 RBI/.406 OBP/.934 OPS)
Heading into the 2011 season, you’d have to look at the Indians starting outfield and call it the strength of the position player group. You had a young kid in Brantley who was expected to take the next step in his development as the leadoff man of the future. You had the budding superstar in Choo who after his breakout 2010 year was expected to lead the offense from the #3 spot. Lastly, you had the return of the former All-Star Sizemore who was supposed to be completely healthy for the first time in two-plus years.
So what exactly happened?
Brantley was unexpectedly the most consistent of these three performers, but struggled over the last month. Choo was having the worst season of his young career before being put on the shelf with a broken hand. Sizemore has had two DL stints and has been as frustrating to watch as any player on the team.
As the team’s regular left fielder, Brantley took the leadoff spot by storm during Sizemore’s absence. Though he was moved back to the seventh spot upon Grady’s return, it was clear that Brantley belonged at the top. He doesn’t strikeout as much as Sizemore, he has more speed, and is more of a table-setter at this point in his career than the now power-driven Sizemore. In addition, with the middle of the Indians order being a constant work in progress, Manager Manny Acta had to put a guy with more of a track record like Sizemore in one of those spots.
Brantley responded greatly to the challenge of becoming an everyday player for the first time in his young major league career. Unlike last season, he never had to look over his shoulder. He knew he was the guy and was going to get the regular at-bats. After a three-hit performance against the Twins on June 8th, Michael was hitting .295 and was one of only two Indian hitters (Asdrubal Cabrera being the other) that the Indians staff could count on. While the offense was in a tailspin, Brantley and AC were still doing their thing.
Defensively, I’ve got zero complaints with the guy. He glides in the outfield, whether it be in center or in left, and he rarely makes a bad break on a ball. With the bat Brantley has struggled over the last month, and watched his batting average drop to .268, but he is still on track to have a great season and is one of the young core players that can be counted on.
Sizemore, on the hand hand, has us all worried.
After starting the season on the DL finishing up his rehab from last year’s microfracture surgery on his knee, Sizemore was activated on April 17th and looked like a new man. In his first 12 games, he hit .378 (17-45) with four homers and nine RBIs with an OPS of a whopping 1.251. 12 of his 17 hits were for extra bases. I think we were all stunned by just how good he was. The hot start allowed Acta to move Sizemore down to the middle of the order and move Brantley back to where he belonged in the leadoff spot.
Then the calendar page turned and Grady’s game fell off the table. He went into a 1-24 skid and on May 10th, he slid awkwardly into second base, hitting his right knee on the side of the bag. It was not the same knee he had surgically repaired, but he was clearly not right. He was soon put on the DL and missed two weeks. Grady returned on May 27th, but has not looked the same.
When he hit the DL, Sizemore was hitting .282. After a .196 June where he struck out 33 times in 92 ABs, driving in just seven runs (three of which came on June 1st) he followed with a .229 July. Grady has now dropped to .226.
Worst of all he is hitting just .212 (11-52) with 18 K’s with runners in scoring position. The strikeouts are alarming and he seems to have fallen in love with the power stroke. Gone is the speedy on-base machine. On the defensive side of the ball, it is clear his knees have robbed him of his ability to get to every thing like he used to. More times this year than I’ve seen in any year in the past, balls are dropping in front of Sizemore’s patented dives. Sure, he is still a solid defender, but it seems as though he is not 100% healthy.
He may never be again.
As I’ve said in the past, I think we may have already seen the best of Grady Sizemore, and that is sad to me. However, if he can somehow recapture what he had going in April, it will help this team immensely with its offensive yings and yangs.
And then there is Shin-Soo Choo.
During the offseason, Choo’s agent Scott Boras for all intents and purposes told Choo there was no way he was going to have him sign a long-term deal with the Indians, despite the team’s overtures to do so. Who could blame him? Choo was coming off his second straight .300/20 HR/20 steal/86-90 RBI season and was ready to hit the big time in 2011. Another big season and Choo would have all the leverage he would need. The security of a deal with the Indians be damned.
You wonder if passing up guaranteed millions was weighing heavily on Choo’s mind as he was mired in a two and a half month long slump to start the season. He was hitting just .217 on May 5th, had two RBIs between May 23rd and June 15th and hit just one homer run between April 29th and June 24th. Throw in a DUI arrest and a broken thumb which will end up costing him between six to eight weeks and it hasn’t exactly been a banner first half for Choo.
Before the injury, he was brutal in clutch situations. He looked nothing like the five-tool stud we’ve become accustomed to. Choo was a painful .209 with runners in scoring position.The shame of it all was his broken thumb came at a time where he was just starting to find his stroke.
More staggering that his struggles at the plate were his blunders in the field. In all of my years watching baseball, I can’t ever remember seeing a guy lose more balls in the lights or in the sun than Choo has in 2011. It seems to be two to three times a week at least. While he does have an absolute cannon for an arm and should never be run on, he has serious problems with fly balls and line drives.
What more can we say about Travis Hafner that hasn’t been said already. What a renaissance year for the man they call Pronk. He earned the nickname back and then some with his first half performance. Hafner entered the season as one the Tribe’s biggest question marks – an under-performing slugger who hasn’t come close to living up to his enormous salary. It is amazing how much ones views can change in a three-month span.
What Hafner has done in this first half has been astounding to me. The bat speed is back. The eye is back. The intensity is back. He is once again the most feared man in the lineup. Highlighted by two walk-off blasts at home, including an all-timer Thursday night against the Blue Jays, Hafner’s season has been more than any of us could have hoped for.
Yes, he did miss a month with an oblique issue, but once he was activated, Pronk kept right on hitting. He hasn’t missed a beat. The hole in the middle of the order was gaping when he was gone and having him back has been huge as the Indians continue to battle with the Tigers for the AL Central lead.
Without Choo, Sizemore, and Hafner at times, the Indians have been forced to mix and match with fourth, fifth, and even sixth outfielders. Its been a tough go finding someone who can step right in and be consistent. Travis Buck, Austin Kearns, Shelley Duncan, and Ezequial Carrera have all been in the mix.
Buck, a left-handed hitter, has probably been the best of the bunch. He broke camp with the team in Sizemore’s spot, and was given plenty of playing time against right-handed pitching. He was sent back down when Grady was activated, tore up AAA pitching, and returned again when Sizemore was placed back on the DL. I think he is a useful guy off the bench with the ability to play all three outfield positions and first base. With Choo out, Buck has played quite a bit of right-field and hitting well. His 12-pitch, ninth inning at-bat in Saturday night’s game where he tied things up with an RBI was a thing of beauty. I am a Buck supporter.
On the other side of the coin is Austin Kearns. No need for me to go any deeper than I have all season on him. Kearns has nine lives. The latest one was extended even deeper with his monster three-run homer that turned out to be the game winner on July 4th against the New York Yankees. But the stats don’t lie. He has five RBIs in 118 ABs and is hitting .212. The Tribe is starving for a right-handed hitting outfielder, mostly because Kearns is supposed to be that guy and isn’t producing. It is amazing to me that he has lasted on the roster this long, but Acta is very loyal to him.
Duncan has value in that he rakes left-handed pitching. He has been the team’s best pinch hitter (4-7 with seven RBIs) and is loved in the clubhouse. But he is a below average outfielder and doesn’t have much upside. Duncan knows his role and he has never been a regular, so he is used to doing what he does. Compared that with Kearns who is a bench guy for the first time in his career – Duncan has 20 RBIs in 100 ABs. Kearns has five in 118.
The guy I’d like to see up here is Ezequiel Carrera. The speedy centerfielder provided one of the highlights of the season with his two-out drag-bunt game-winning RBI single against Cincinnati in his first major league at-bat. He was only up for a week, but I like what I saw. He’s currently hitting .288 with 35 steals for AAA Columbus. I for one wouldn’t mind wheels like that off of the bench. Not to mention, it has been said he is the best defensive outfielder in the organization. If he were only right-handed!
If a move is going to be made with the club, I fully expect a right-handed hitting outfielder, like a Jeff Francouer of the Kansas City Royals, to be added to team. The keys though with this group are two-fold; getting Choo back healthy for the stretch run, and helping Sizemore find his April groove.
11 Comments
As much as I’d love to have Francoeur’s canon in our outfield what would happen when Choo came back? It would be awesome to have Choo and Francoeur in the corner OF spots but then there’s the Grady/Brantley dilemma in center and I can’t really see a good solution for that.
maybe Francoeur could play 1st?
#2 I think his arm is too good for that. I’d put Grady at first before sticking Francoeur there.
if Grady keeps playing as badly as he has been, then he can be a late-inning defensive replacement for games when we have the lead (to get more range in LF).
i’m not a Francoeur fan though. i’d rather stick with what we have over giving up anything to KC for a guy who isn’t all that great.
I agree with TD on Buck. he’s been a pleasant surprise this year.
and I still think it’s funny that OF has been such a disaster and yet we still are 0.5GB at the break (outside of Brantley)
Regarding Choo – After reading the great article SI had on him at the beginning of the year, I willing to bet the contract issue has been in his head all year. He seems like such a low-profile, easy-going guy, someone who probably would have signed long term if it wasn’t for the little devil/agent on his shoulder. Once he made that decision, he knew he had to perform, and the pressure buckled him.
I am also a Buck supporter. I’d like to see him out there full-time until he proves he just can’t cut it. And I’d love to see EZQ get the call-up. I’m a big fan of speed and steals, and hate that we have no real threat. He would serve well as a pinch-runner for Pronk in late-game needs, play a game or 2 when Grady needs that day off, and god-forbid Grady keeps poopin’ the bed, let them platoon, more or less.
I guess if Choo buckled under the prospect of making big money, I’m glad he didn’t sign for big money. Imagine how he’d play once he ACTUALLY had to live up to a big contract. Yeesh…
Please, no Jeff Franceour.
Shelley Duncan, a “below average outfielder”? That’s a compliment.
Ezequiel is 24. You don’t bring him up just to sit on the bench for eight innings. Start him every day or leave him in AAA.
I don’t believe that contract issues were a problem for Choo. I think it was just a slump.
The guy has ate and slept baseball his entire life. He was staring down arbitration last year too and it didn’t bother him. He has played games where losing meant joining the military or leaving his home country. If you’ve been through all that, I think you’re pretty good at handling pressure.
Choo said himself that the DUI was what was in his head so bad. He’s a celeb in S Korea, and his honor was broken when that happened.
Francouer has never lived up to his Pre-atlanta hype and isn’t any better then what Cleveland has now. Keep the kids and hope to stay in the chase as long as possible IMO. Only way I’d trade a young arm was for a proven SP.
Id pass on Francouer as well. Hes a good outfielder, he’s got some pop in his bat. However, he also strikes out a ton and is allergic to walking. Currently has an Austin Kearns-esque .308 OBP.
We already have too many guys that strike out and dont walk. I dont think “Frenchy” would help us.