Wins are great, but life is fragile: While We’re Waiting
March 21, 2018Ante Zizic can be a legitimate role player for Cavs down stretch
March 21, 2018Expectations are messy. They put a picture in our brains that things are almost owed to us. This was evident in 2017 when after being one long Jason Kipnis foul ball away from a World Series title, the Cleveland Indians added slugger Edwin Encarnacion before going on to win 102 games, including the amazing 22-game winning streak. Fans were rightfully thinking it could be the year the drought ends; that the rains would come and water the fields of broken dreams and lost opportunities of the 90s and early 2000s. When injuries piled up, Aaron Judge’s almost unfair height came into play, Kluber wasn’t quite right, Edwin Encarnacion was injured, and Carrasco only pitched once in the ALDS, the team with the best record in the league had an early playoff exit. Those expectations transitioned quickly into disappointment. As WFNY’s own Gage Will noted, those possibilities come with the territory of having such a great team to watch.
Expectations can also affect us on a player level. Bradley Zimmer will forever be the one that remains, for better or worse; he and Clint Frazier were the two twin titans of the minors, destined to continue keeping the window in Cleveland open for years and possibly decades upon their arrival to the bigs. The arrival of the two to the outfield of Progressive Field on a regular basis would coincide nicely with the expected departure of controlled-out veterans such as Michael Brantley and Lonnie Chisenhall. Then, the at-the-time more polished Frazier got traded to the New York Yankees for Andrew Miller and we were left with the project in Zimmer. Suddenly the outlook was murkier than previously thought.
Zimmer struggled at Triple-A Columbus in 2016, although he earned the promotion from Double-A Akron after putting up a wRC+ of 136, stealing 33 bases and basically looking too good for a level that typically has better pitchers than the next one up due to level of prospects being stationed there. An already high but manageable whiff rate at Akron ballooned from 28.3% to 37.3% in Columbus, while maintaining a great walk rate of 14%. A rise in K-rate while keeping a walk rate the same suggests one of two things: Zimmer was trying to change things, whether it be his swing path or his approach at the plate, or he felt the weight of an organization’s expectations on his broad shoulders and was pressing.
Smash cut to 2017. Zimmer spent all of 33 games patrolling centerfield in Columbus before getting the call to Cleveland. The results were mixed with the big league club, as his near Gold Glove defense in center solidified a defensive unit that was in need of some help. Injuries ravaged the outfield, at varying times Brantley, Chisenhall, Brandon Guyer, Abraham Almonte and others were all on the disabled list. Heck, even Daniel Robertson (remember him?) played in 32 games for Cleveland. However, Zimmer seemed a bit lost at the plate at times. His otherworldly walk rate1 plummeted in half from his minors numbers. A wRC+ of 81 for the season marks the lowest of his career at any point and a broken hand ended his year prematurely.
Expectations of Zimmer as a heralded prospect painted a picture of a finished product just waiting in the wings. Fans and some media members alike all had the same assumption that inputting Zimmer into center would be more Mike Trout-esque rather than the Drew Stubbs comparisons that now seem to be more believable. However, Zimmer is still primed to be one of the building blocks of this team for years to come, including 2018. He will man center and hit near the bottom of the lineup, something injuries robbed him of being able to do last year. Hitting ninth in a lineup that sports the bats the Tribe have will take undue pressure off of The Machine and allow him to adjust more freely to major league pitching and the changes big leaguers throw at you.2
Projections systems have a way of either reinforcing expectations or tamping down fan-built notions that every prospect called up is immediately going to knock the hide off the ball or be the next Francisco Rodriguez when he came up with the Angels. Projections for Zimmer have him continuing on the low walk/high whiff rate train, even though that has not been his modus operandi at any level of the minors. A Zimmer hitting ninth to the tune of a wRC+ at or around 92+ with his level of defense is a solid two-win player, with the potential for more if he improves at the plate, but a two-win player is a solid starter, not the All-Star caliber player Zimmer was touted to be back when Frazier was his running mate.
Those improvements are what’s keeping Zimmer from moving up both the lineup and perception of talent around the league. Speed has never been the question for Zimmer, who stole 18 bases in 2017 and has never had less than 25 combined in any years in the pros. He has the power to be able to hit 15+ home runs a year, but the hit tool for the player is what is keeping him back.
Can he improve his contact rate enough to be used higher in the lineup in years to come, like 2019 when presumably Brantley and Chisenhall have gone on to greener/other pastures? Will he be forced to move to right field when fellow wunderkind Greg Allen makes it to the majors for good?
The future is cloudier than I thought it would be for the one that remained. Here’s hoping he builds sky-high expectations for the future by what he does in the present.
- Implant his minors walk rate into the major league 2016 season, and Zimmer would have had the 12th best walk rate, just a smidge behind Carlos Santana for reference. [↩]
- I maintain “The Machine” is a much better nickname than any other one that was forced upon him last year, such as “Braddy Long Legs” which is just creepy. Please let that one die a quick death. [↩]