SB Nation - Jake Westbrook

Fire Everyone! - Mark Shapiro

Jay — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:53:11 -0000

Is just developing a good process enough?

This is the final installment in a 12-part series.

"A Hit Is A Hit" — The Sopranos, season one.

Christopher has been bankrolling a band called "Visiting Day", who are managed by his girlfriend Adriana. He plays the band's demo to his associate Hesh, an old-timer in the music business.

CHRISTOPHER: So?

HESH: I think it's ... not good.

CHRISTOPHER: Wanna be a little more specific?

HESH: There's good. And there's not good. This is not good.

CHRISTOPHER: Okay, maybe it's not your era — no offense, but ...

HESH: Kid, music is music, talent is talent. I don't care who you are. I seen it all. I seen heavy metal invented by Hendrix at the Bottom Line, he just got out of the army. I told him, "Kid, I don't know what you call it — talent, charisma, magic — whatever it is, you got it." These guys ... [gestures to the cassette] ... I'm sorry, they don't.

CHRISTOPHER: That Vito is a great guitar player, Hesh.

HESH: Good, fine, he's a great guitar player. However, there's one constant in the music business: A hit is a hit. And this, my friend, is not a hit.

CHRISTOPHER: But why?

HESH: Christ. Reasons we can never comprehend or codify, you pitiful schlepper.

Of all the installments in this series, this is the one where it's most tempting to beg off and admit, this might just above my pay grade. I'll be honest, I can't say with much confidence whether Mark Shapiro should be fired. What I can say is that there are definitely good reasons to fire him.

Before we get to that, better face up to some hard facts. If you're going to fire Shapiro, you have to believe that a better option is available. Chris Antonetti is the heir apparent, but you fire Shapiro and keep Antonetti only if you think that in keeping Antonetti, you preserve the best parts of Shapiro while rooting out his shortcomings. Heck, maybe that's actually the case, but I personally couldn't say. It doesn't seem likely. And if Antonetti was the instant front-runner for most any GM opening, what would that make Shapiro if he were available?

Shapiro's calling card is turning walk-year veterans into prospects who become multi-year contributors to the team — a truly staggering haul, including Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Coco Crisp, Shin-Soo Choo, Travis Hafner, Milton Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Josh Bard and Kelly Shoppach. Add to that list, potentially, over the next several years, Matt LaPorta, Carlos Santana, Luis Valbuena, Michael Brantley, Lou Marson, plus a half-dozen significant pitching prospects, plus Mark DeRosa, Arthur Rhodes, Justin Masterson and Chris Perez. Even his least successful trade acquisitions — Alex Escobar, Jason Michaels, Brandon Phillips, Billy Traber, Andy Marte, Josh Barfield — have not been entirely bereft of big-league talent.

We've chanted that litany before, but it bears recalling because horse trading is one of the most important jobs of a GM, and it's notably one of the only jobs where success or failure is directly traced to his decision. Shapiro also has had an impressive run with third-tier free agent starting pitchers — Pavano made 33 starts and netted a decent prospect, Byrd completed three serviceable seasons, Millwood won the freakin' ERA title, and even Brian Anderson did okay for a couple of years. And while fans rightly bemoan the dead weight of Hafner's contract, Shapiro has not really made the big, crippling mistakes that befall most GMs — on the balance sheet, Hafner-Westbrook-Dellucci pale before Wells-Rios-Ryan.

If you're going to get rid of Shapiro and his like-minded colleagues, then you have to be willing to live without those exemplary skills — without his leadership, class, and intelligence, his deftness with trades and contracts, the respect he commands within the industry, and especially — especially — his willingness to take the public body blows when tough decisions need to be made. You can't assume that the next guy will excel in all of those areas. I am certain we'd miss those qualities.

Having said that, I can tell you why Shapiro should be fired in one word: Talent.

Baseball is never simple. As a rule, the world's most elite natural athletes cannot succeed as major leaguers. Hitting and pitching are simply too hard. Hitting at this level requires a knack that may be the hardest thing to quantify or characterize in all of sports, and if you don't have it, then all the talk or mechanics and approaches in the world can't save you, even if you have several NBA championships and MVP awards on your résumé. Pitching at this level requires a freakish combination of precise muscle control, huge arm-generated torque, resistance to elbow and shoulder injury under extreme stress, and intelligence.

Running a baseball club may be just as hard and just as unquantifiable; after all, more than a few titans of industry have tried and failed. A brilliant executive can't necessarily run a ballclub any better than a world-class athlete can hit a curveball. The brilliant executive can be an inspiring leader, managing and empowering his charges. He can define what kind of people he wants working in the organization, hire them, set expectations, evaluate them, act on them. He can fire people. He can order case studies and surveys of best practices. He can analyze statistics and devise processes, enact them, evaluate them, refine them, start over from scratch if need be. He can maintain outstanding communication with his staff, with his bosses, with the public. He can do all these things reliably, even predictably, because he simply has the tools and the skills.

For all that, however, the brilliant executive can't necessarily tell you whether it's better to overspend on Raul Ibañez or Kerry Wood. He can't necessarily devise a process to tell you that, and he can't necessarily hire the right person to tell you that, either. Nor can he devise a process to hire the right person to tell you that. It doesn't always come down to objective analysis or having a good process. Sometimes it comes down to talent: the talent to play, the talent to evaluate talent, the talent to develop talent, and the judgment to make decisions about talent.

Sometimes — often, maybe — it comes down to reasons we can never comprehend or codify, pitiful schleppers that we are.

Evaluating talent is a special skill, and here I can speak with some experience. Most of my professional life is centered around my ability to identify genuine talent — musical talent, IT talent, and even writing talent — people who reliably will perform at a high or exceptionally high level, just about 100 percent of the time. I have, on occasion, identified individuals with weak paper qualifications who later went on to excel in their field. In some cases, they thrived in part because I gave them an opportunity and aided their development. In other cases, their success was inevitable, and I just saw it earlier than some others.

I am not suggesting, by any stretch of the imagination, that I have the ability to judge baseball talent. Maybe, if I'd spent 20 years working as a baseball professional, learning from thousands of discussions with scouts and making and testing my own observations — maybe then, but perhaps not even then. For whatever it's worth, though, I can tell you that my ability to assess a person's talents is entirely intuitive. I have no ability to explain it, or to teach anyone else how to do it. I can be highly analytical in my assessments of people, breaking down facts and metrics, making rules and devising grading systems to create rankings — and I can teach these things by rote and by example. However, none of that has anything to do with being able to differentiate reliably between a high ceiling and a low ceiling.

I can't tell you for sure that it's the same for baseball, but I worry that it is. Most of the people reading this could be trained in the rudiments of being a low-level scout — doing your homework and measuring some kid's raw tools on the field. Skills are another thing entirely — evaluating footwork and positioning on defense, observing quality of command across a variety of pitches, intuiting the difference between a bad day and a chronic problem. Beyond these, another level, the crucial, game-changing question: Will this ballplayer develop skills beyond what he's showing today? How does he project to a different level at a different age, or even just to a different ballpark in a different league?

I have no doubt that great baseball scouts learned a lot from the great scouts who came before them, and I have no doubt that a gifted executive can learn immensely from a great scout, purely by his ability to listen and communicate and absorb. At the same time, I am quite sure that the greatest talent evaluators in the game are possessed of something that is innate and ineffable. And I am genuinely concerned that the Indians don't employ any of those people — and that, in fact, Shapiro may have favored others in the organization to the point where the best evaluators left.

Take a look at the AP report of Neal Huntington being hired away by the Pirates:

Huntington formerly was the assistant general manager to the Indians' Mark Shapiro, but dropped behind vice president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and assistant general manager John Mirabelli on the front office depth chart two years ago.

Huntington accepted a different role in 2005, Shapiro said, because Antonetti's skills were in the management and administrative side, while Huntington's were in evaluation and scouting.

"My skill set and passion were more that of an evaluator, but they never technically took me out of the front office," Huntington said. "I was exposed to some incredible things -- rebuilding an organization and being involved in every decision, every tough decision, that was made."

And from the MLB.com report:

As an adviser to Shapiro and vice president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti, Huntington was involved in nearly all personnel and staffing decisions, as well as trade acquisition discussions. He also spent the majority of his time evaluating talent on both the Minor and Major League level.

When asked about Huntington, Shapiro responded: "[Huntington is] one of our chief evaluators and one of our strongest voices on every level," Shapiro said.

Here's a guy who was the highest-ranking evaluator in the organization and possibly the best, a guy with a master's degree in sports management from UMass, and essentially, he was passed over — well treated, perhaps, but pointedly not in line for a future role as GM. So too, perhaps, was John Farrell, who upon leaving Cleveland — quite amicably, as Huntington did — was quoted to say that he was looking to have a larger voice in an organization. Farrell had been a major league pitcher and a college pitching coach, and with the Indians he served stints as Farm Director and Director of Player Development. Despite his experience and impeccable reputation, Farrell too was not viewed as the future leader of the organization.

Years earlier, there was Tony LaCava, whom the Indians hired in 2002 as national cross-checker, essentially rescuing him from the sinking-ship Montreal Expos. As the Expos very recent Farm Director, LaCava naturally was instrumental in selecting the prospects to be received in the Colon deal, which is not only Shapiro's signature trade, but arguably the most successful trade of a veteran for prospects by any GM, ever. LaCava, too, was not retained in the Indians organization, moving on to the Blue Jays as Assistant GM in 2003, just one year later, while John Mirabelli continued his string of generally disastrous drafts.

Like Huntington, LaCava is going to be a GM sooner or later, yet he wasn't good enough to be Assistant GM in Cleveland. None of these guys were given large enough roles in the organization to keep them around, and no doubt the Indians were possessed of too much executive talent to keep in-house — a nice problem to have. Still, given how things have gone since, it's telling that the prince-in-waiting anointment, and present-day "co-GM" status, went not to an ace evaluator, but instead to Antonetti, a man whose background and skill set are more or less identical to Shapiro's.

For all the talk about being open to all ideas and all viewpoints, the major player-evaluation talent in the Indians organization was basically told that being a solid administrator was more important, and that their path to bigger jobs would have to be in some other, presumably less enlightened organization — and never mind that it doesn't matter how well administered your organization is if you don't know who the best talent is. (Is it any wonder, then, that when Shapiro hires a former catcher for a manager, he then populates his coaching staff almost entirely with other former catchers? All leaders lead by example, first and foremost.)

This is not to say that an executive without a scouting background cannot be an outstanding GM, but it's noteworthy that other organizations that have gone with the "Ivy League whiz kid" GM model tend to have a "wise old baseball man" figure hanging close by, advising the gifted non-scout executive. The Red Sox had Bill Lajoie attached to Theo Epstein; Allard Baird is in that role now, while Lajoie is now advising Huntington in Pittsburgh. The Rays put Gerry Hunsicker with Andrew Friedman, and down in Texas, Jon Daniels has access to no less than John Hart and Nolan Ryan. But when non-scout-gifted-executives Shapiro and Antonetti huddle to make the big decisions, who are the wise old evaluators in the room — Charles Nagy and Jason Bere?

Later that night, at home, Adriana and Christopher discuss Visiting Day's potential. Hip-hop mogul "Massive Genius" has told Adriana that the band's demos are promising.

CHRISTOPHER: You know how I use the technique of positive visualization?

ADRIANA: I know you talk about it. You're fairly negative a lot of the time.

CHRISTOPHER: I think you should mentally prepare for the possibility that Visiting Day sucks.

ADRIANA: What?

CHRISTOPHER: I think that ... the only reason you've gotten this far with Massive is ... he wants to be in your pants.

ADRIANA: Boy, oh, boy.

CHRISTOPHER: Look, I had some experts listen to the demo ... they crapped all over it. Sorry.

ADRIANA: Who, Hesh? That old synagogue cantor?

CHRISTOPHER: Silvio. Hey, he owned rock clubs in Asbury. You heard what Squid said. A professional engineer.

ADRIANA: What about my opinion? That it's good. That it's special. This is just a way for you to keep me down.

CHRISTOPHER: That ain't fair.

ADRIANA: What's wrong with it, huh? What's wrong with Visiting Day?

CHRISTOPHER: I don't know ... but it's a problem that you don't know.

This series of articles perhaps has only demonstrated the obvious, that a club this bad — which decides in June that it must not only tank the current season but the next season at the same time — has suffered multiple failures in more than one part of the organization. In any one area, we can talk about how much control that one group of people — coaches, scouts, trainers — really had, compared to the influence of the other groups and the whims of the fates. But a systemic failure points ultimately to Shapiro, who hired and is accountable for all of those groups, and the harsh truth is that every club must contend with the whims of the fates — or fail to contend with them, as the Indians have.

Amateur scouting has been a disaster since Shapiro took over; maybe time will reveal that it was fixed two or three years ago, but maybe not. Big-league scouting has been a mixed bag, with veteran acquisitions missing a lot more often than they hit — in Barfield's case, about four times more often. The training staff has won high praise from some in the industry, but they haven't stopped the Indians from being undercut severely by injuries to a half-dozen key players in just two years — in some cases, multiple injuries and disappointing rehab processes have afflicted a single player like Jake Westbrook over and over again. The farm system has been another mixed bag, producing too many players who dominate at Triple-A but can barely perform at replacement level in the majors. If all clubs were like the Indians in this regard, those MLE formulas might look a lot different.

We had a manager whose playing-time decisions often defied any imaginable logic or reason, who thought it was important to have Ramon Vazquez on his bench rather than future 30-30 man Brandon Phillips, and who thought it was a good idea to put Ryan Garko in the outfield, with a rookie flyball pitcher on the mound — scratch that, ever — and we had a GM who let him do these things. It's true that Shapiro fired Wedge, and he may be sincere in saying that bringing in a new manager is an exciting opportunity. Even so, Shapiro made it abundantly clear that he didn't think there was any real, qualitative reason why Wedge shouldn't continue to be the manager — his exact words were, "it's a cop-out."

We had extraordinarily bad — and sometimes historically bad — bullpens in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2009. Those volcanic fiascos were, at least, largely Shapiro's direct creations, and at most, entirely the fault of Shapiro and people who were hired by Shapiro, and who generally have not been fired by Shapiro. They have turned too many contenders into also-rans, too many decent squads into train-wrecks, and too many season ticket holders into non-customers.

The sum of these observations is this one, frightening, inescapable conclusion: Shapiro has not given us any concrete reason to believe that he knows how to put people into critical positions who are capable of evaluating, developing and coaching real talent — the kind that can thrive at the major league level. Without people in key roles who are possessed of that kind of judgment and talent, it doesn't make any difference how good your organizational processes are or how much class-acting you do. We cannot contend on a diet of trade-acquired minor leaguers and recycled starting pitchers alone. If these things weren't clear five years ago, or even one year ago, they ought to be crystal clear now.

I am just a scribe, neither scout nor coach, not a baseball executive and certainly not a former major leaguer. So I don't really know what's wrong with the Cleveland Indians. But it's a problem if Mark Shapiro doesn't know either. And as much respect for him as I have, I'm not at all convinced that he does.

Fire Everyone! - Carl Willis

Jay — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:40:12 -0000

More photos » by Rob Carr - AP

"Basically, Justersonster, you only get to be good for one year as long as I'm your coach. So which year is it going to be?"

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This is the third installment in a 12-part series.

The case is simple: Our pitching stinks, fire the pitching coach.

While we've seen consistently good-to-great lineups for the past four years or so, our rotation has gone from a wonderfully deep collection of quality pitchers to an utter wasteland. As for our bullpens, the words "historically bad" have been used — without hyperbole — to describe four of the last six.

In fairness to Willis, a recap is in order of some truly great pitching Indians fans have seen under his watch:

CC Sabathia (2003), Jake Westbrook (2004) and Cliff Lee (2005) all emerged as young quality starters in Willis' first three seasons with the club.
Veterans Brian Anderson (2003) and Scott Elarton (2004) had solid bounce-back seasons.
Injury-plagued Kevin Millwood (2005) won the AL ERA title in his only season with Willis, and Carl Pavano (2009) returned from a four-year hiatus to become an above-average starter.
Rafael Betancourt emerged as one of the few consistently good middle relievers in the game.
The 2005 staff led the league in ERA and allowed just 3.96 runs per game. The club essentially made it through the season using only five starters, and it was essentially just as steady and stable in 2006.
The 2005 bullpen in particular led the league in ERA and WHIP by significant margins and might have been the best in club history.
Sabathia emerged as a true ace late in the 2005 season, producing Cy Young-caliber seasons in 2007 and 2008.
Fausto Carmona (2007) produced a Cy Young-caliber season while barely more than a rookie.
Cliff Lee (2008) produced a dominant, historic season, including a unanimous Cy Young award, and one of the most remarkable comeback stories the game has ever seen.

It is an impressive list of accomplishments — which just makes it all the more amazing that there's a good case for firing the guy. On a macro level, the bullpen has been the runaway leading culprit in the trademark early-season collapses of the Wedge era. If it weren't for those four horrendous bullpens, in fact, there likely would never have been any talk whatsoever about Wedge's teams starting slow.

Despite many seemingly fine internal candidates, he has never been able to cultivate a closer. Jason Davis and Fernando Cabrera withered away to nothing, and Jensen Lewis seems to be following not far behind them. A long list of pitchers have arrived in Cleveland ready to compete and even dominate — Carmona, Davis, Cabrera, Sowers, Perez, Lewis — and then, at some point before they hit the two-year mark, they just lose it. Too many of the Indians' best young pitchers seem to forget how to pitch completely, or they lose the ability to do what made them successful. And when they forget, Willis seems utterly unable to remind them.

Time after time, we see pitchers shipped down to the minors to reconstruct their games. This is in part a practical necessity, but at some point the question must be asked: Isn't the pitching coach supposed to help the pitchers, you know, pitch better?

You may not be surprised to learn that, at least from an outside perspective, Willis' minor league résumé is almost vanishingly thin. Looking at the rosters for 1997 Watertown, 1998 Burlington and 1999 Columbus (Ga.), there is an amazing lack of major league talent. Sabathia made eight starts for those clubs as he breezed through the minors, and Tim Drew and Ryan Drese each made a few starts for them. But as for the pitchers who spent significant time with Willis in the low minors, however, not a single one ever had a significant big-league career. The 2000 Aeros allow Willis to claim some credit for Danys Baez's development, and he did coach Zach Day for eight starts. Think about that: eight starts with Zach Day is Willis' second most impressive work product for those four seasons in the minors.

Willis moved up to Buffalo with Wedge for the 2001 and 2002 seasons, and he moved up to Cleveland with Wedge in 2003. Naturally, Willis couldn't help but work with future major leaguers once he was working in Triple-A, but even so, the list is pretty thin. He had 12 starts with then-prospect Westbrook and another eight with Lee. Other than that, Willis' minor league highlights are led by names like Tim Drew, Mike Bacsik and Sean DePaula.

In fairness, it was this exact, astonishing dearth of talent that led the Indians to blow up the team in 2002, and in no way am I suggesting that it's Willis' fault that there was so little talent there to work with. Still, after six years in the minors, you would hope that there would be more tangible things to point to — some pitcher, anyone, who developed into a good major leaguer, largely under Willis' tutelage — but that pitcher doesn't seem to exist. It seems that Willis owes his presence in the majors largely if not entirely to the judgment of Eric Wedge, and one shudders to consider what qualities Willis had that Wedge felt made him the best guy to be the Indians pitching coach. Is Carl Willis a grinder? Was Wedge hoping that Willis would "run into one?" Is he, in fact, the Ryan Garko of pitching coaches?

Even Willis' accomplishments fade under closer inspection. Sabathia is a unique and protean talent who arrived as a reasonably effective starting pitcher in the majors at the age of 20. You would expect an exceptional young talent like him to progress somewhat in his first few years, to have occasional setbacks, and eventually to emerge as one of the game's top pitchers. Willis deserves credit for helping Sabathia fulfill his potential, but it did take six years for it to happen, and when they started their fourth season together in 2006, it still hadn't happened. Durability aside, it would be a stretch to say that Sabathia exceeded expectations once Willis arrived.

Lee presents a similar mixed bag, as a prospect whose ceiling was always seen as a number-one starter. Again, the natural tendency is to credit Willis for some portion of Lee's miraculous rise from the gutter in 2008. The problem comes when you ask, who was Lee's pitching coach when his career careened off into that gutter in the first place? Who was his coach when his very fine 2005 season turned into a thoroughly mediocre 2006, followed by 2007, when Lee fell entirely off the depth chart? Did the Indians, on balance, get as much out of Lee as was expected, from 2005 through 2008? Even if the answer is "yes," Willis' work with Lee doesn't seem to be an overwhelming positive on the balance sheet.

And then there's the Boys of 2007: Carmona, Jensen Lewis and Rafael Perez. Carmona's odd odyssey in 2006 is well documented, but he seemed to arrive in 2007 as an Instant Ace. I'd like to give Willis some credit for this, but when a veteran slugger says Carmona's power sinker is like a bad hangover, it's not clear how much credit can be given to coaching. Lewis and Perez each arrived mid-season in 2007, propelled by months of dominance in the high minors, and they kept right on going, dominating AL hitters all the way down the stretch. Lewis has struggled to pitch consistently in 2008 and 2009. Perez was a solid reliever in 2008 and has been arguably the worst reliever in the major leagues this season. Both relievers collapsed despite not having any notable injury problems. As for Carmona, he may well be the single most brutally disappointing player Indians fans have followed this decade.

Among the three pitchers, these three facts seem consistent:

They arrived and performed at the very high level portended by their track records.
Willis played no significant role in their development as prospects.
They have all totally collapsed since their first full seasons in the majors.

Without breakout performances from Perez and Lewis in 2007, we'd be talking about four historically awful bullpens in four consecutive seasons, rather than in just three seasons out of the last four. Following the 2006 debacle, the Indians spent relatively heavily on bullpen options, bringing in Hernandez, Fultz, and Borowski for 2007. Masa Kobayashi was brought in to fortify what was viewed as promising core in 2008, which turned into another debacle. Topping prior efforts, the Indians acquired Kerry Wood and Joe Smith for 2009 — once again hoping to bolster a solid core of Betancourt, Perez and Lewis — and the Triple-A club was stocked with solid minor league free agents and a few dominating prospects, led by Tony Sipp. Yet once again, the bullpen crumbled completely and tanked the season early.

Reliever performances are maddeningly hard to project — functionally impossible in fact — but it should be clear at this point that small samples alone cannot explain the wild swings in performance for pitchers like Lewis and Perez. No scout would claim they are the same pitchers they were in 2007, or that Carmona is. At one point, they knew how to pitch successfully, and now, they don't. One wonders if within the next few years, their careers will become just as insubstantial as those who came before them, like Davis and Cabrera.

If the bullpen is any significant part of Willis' responsibilities, then his performance must be considered a failure at this point. The best we can say for the man's tenure with the Indians is that for the most elite pitching talent, in their prime, he has helped them to achieve their potential, and he has helped a few rehabbed retreads put together some nice make-good seasons. Both of these types of contributions have been very useful to the club. For pitchers who were not already established, however, and not elite talents coming out of the minors, the overall pitching productivity under Willis has been simply abysmal.

One more factor worth considering is the availability of Leo Mazzone, the well-known pitching coach for the 1990s Atlanta Braves. In addition to coaching three pitchers to six Cy Young awards, Mazzone is also the subject of a comparative statistical study that showed that pitchers coached by him tended to lower their ERA by an average of half a run. Neither of these facts are conclusive as to Mazzone's true ability, but then, nothing ever is when it comes to coaches. We can't know for sure how much good or harm Willis has done, or how much of the Braves' immense pitching success was owed to Mazzone. Clubs have to make decisions in the absence of real certainty, with coaches just as much as players.

It may seem callous (and even "un-Shapiro") to kick Willis to the curb just because someone better is available. Maybe it is callous. It's also the kind of thing that organizations do when they're serious about competing. We could badly use a coach with a knack for turning fringy pitchers into decent major league starters and relievers — and by "we" I mean "Jeremy Sowers and David Huff." Mazzone has shown that knack, and Willis hasn't. Under the current leadership, if the Indians have the worst bullpen in the majors next season, not one person will be able to claim surprise. Maybe Willis has done nothing to cause those disasters, but he certainly hasn't prevented them. Whatever his accomplishments here, it's time to fire the pitching coach.

Trade Profile: Justin Masterson

APV — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:00:09 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Justin Masterson making his debut for the Cleveland Indians

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Of the multitude of players who joined the organization in the deadline week trades, Justin Masterson is the only one already with Cleveland. He made his debut with Cleveland in Saturday’s 12-inning, 3-4 loss to Detroit, but Masterson himself got off to a great start. While he has been used primarily as a reliever this year for Boston, Cleveland is hoping to stretch him out and return him to the rotation before the season is over. In Saturday’s game, Masterson pitched three innings, allowing two hits, no runs, a walk, and four Ks. Here’s a little more info on the newest member of the Cleveland Indians pitching staff …

As many have noted, Masterson was actually born in Kingston, Jamaica, where his father was the dean of students at a theological seminary. When he was still quite young the family moved to Beavercreek, OH, where he remained through high school. Masterson pitched for San Diego State in college before being drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 2nd round (#71 overall) of the 2006 draft. While Masterson had a great debut campaign with the short-season Lowell Spinners, it was his 2007 season that put him on the baseball prospect map. Beginning with a successful 17-start stint in high-A Lancaster (his longest continuous stint in the minors), Masterson spent his final 10 starts with AA Portland as just a 22-year old, pitching particularly well for the Sea Dogs (8.2 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, 68% GB, 3.08 FIP).

After the 2007 season he was listed as the Red Sox #4 prospect by Baseball America and was credited with the system’s "best fastball" (fellow Tribe acquisition Nick Hagadone was #8 on the list that year and #3 last year, credited with "best slider" in both publications). Baseball America also identified Masterson as the #64 prospect in all of baseball that year. That same offseason John Sickel’s, of SBN sister-site minorleagueball.com, had Masterson as the Sox #6 prospect and a "grade B" talent. Kevin Goldstein, of Baseball Prospectus, had Masterson as the #3 prospect in the Red Sox system, listing him as a "Four-Star Prospect", and #53 in all of baseball. Goldstein said that Justin’s heavy sinker was "arguably the best in all of the minor leagues."

By April 2008, when the Red Sox needed an emergency starter, Justin Masterson was ready to step in. By June he was a regular part of the pitching staff, albeit with a move to a bullpen role. The key to Masterson’s rapid rise and the key to his pitching success is something which should be familiar to Cleveland fans, an excellent 2-seam fastball with great sinking movement that sits right around 90mph. This graphic from Baseball Prospectus provides a nice summary of Masterson’s repertoire.

He has just average strikeout ability and occasionally poor control, but he has a great deal of success at inducing groundballs. In the minors, his GB-rates varied from a very good 56% all the way up to an incredible 70%. Coming up in the Red Sox system, this drew a lot of comparisons to Derek Lowe. With the Indians, the more apt comparison is Jake Westbrook. At the moment, however, Masterson doesn't quite have the full complement of pitches that Jake does.

Masterson is a big guy, listed now as 6’6" 250. He has an interesting low-angle arm slot which helps him generate his tremendous sink (see below). This approach is particularly tough on right-handed batters, but makes him vulnerable to lefties. In his minor league career he showed stretches of struggling against lefties, while always dominating right handed batters. In his major league career thus far he has held right handers to an impressive .594 OPS, but allowed left handers to hit a worrying .820 off of him.

While Justin’s fastball is clearly an effective major league pitch (especially against right-handers), his secondary stuff could still use some work. Working out of the pen, Masterson has essentially become a two-pitch pitcher, complementing his sinker with a slider. The slider is less consistent than the 2-seamer and, when it is flat, is an attractive pitch to hitters. His changeup, which he rarely uses in relief, is much more of a work in progress and will likely become more important as he transitions back into the rotation and faces batters two and three times a game. How well he can develop these secondary pitches may determine what kind of a ceiling Masterson has and where he is "slotted" in the rotation. Having just turned 24 in March and barely 3 years of professional baseball, Masterson certainly still has time to develop these pitches, though he’ll likely have to do so at the big league level. According to a Boston Globe article, before the season, when the Red Sox were still unsure whether to use Masterson in the rotation or in the bullpen, pitching coach John Farrell had three goals for Justin:

1. Stretch him out so that he'll be able to return to the starting rotation if the need arises;

2. Get him back to using his full windup, something Masterson abandoned when he went to the bullpen;

3. Get him to use his changeup more. Masterson was primarily a fastball/breaking ball pitcher in 2008.

I assume the Indians will be following a similar plan.

One attractive aspect of Masterson for Cleveland is his contract status. Coming into 2009, Masterson had 108 days of service time, meaning he shouldn’t become arbitration eligible until after the 2011 season, and he's under contract through 2014.

Masterson’s demeanor on and off the field has allowed him to earn the trust and respect of both fellow players and coaches. It is worth noting that despite his young age, Masterson is coming to Cleveland with playoff experience. Masterson made 9 appearances in the 2008 post-season, picking up a victory in relief in game 5 of the ALCS against the Tampa Rays. In the same Boston Globe article listed above, Red Sox manager Terry Francona had this to say regarding the use of Masterson in the post-season:

"There was just no reason not to give him the ball with the game on the line. He was gonna throw the ball over the plate. He could get you the ground ball, he could get a strikeout. He really seemed to rise to occasions."

Hopefully Masterson will have the same opportunity, and the same success, here in Cleveland. Welcome to Cleveland, Justin.

Game 93: Mariners 5, Indians 3

Ryan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:42:56 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Aaron Laffey got the game into the seventh tied, but the bullpen gave up two runs in the last three innings.

Browse more photos »

Watching the Mariners beat the Indians in three games out of four was rather instructive. Seattle doesn't have much of an offense, but because their pitching staff is the best in the league, and despite a lot of errors, has been one of the better teams in turning balls in play into outs, has managed to stick around in the race. The Indians, meanwhile, are pretty good offensively and horrible in everything else, and on track to lose 100 games.

Aaron Laffey was probably a couple hits from being taken out of the game in the first inning. But he got out of the inning giving up just the three runs, and settled down, giving the Indians five shutout innings. I can see a bit of light at the end of the starting pitching tunnel, with Laffey back in the rotation and Jake Westbrook and a supposedly fixed Fauso Carmona on the cusp of joining the Indians. Hopefully there's only a couple Tomo Ohka and/or Jeremy Sowers starts left to endure.

After Laffey left, Joe Smith worked out of a small jam in the seventh. In the eighth, though, Franklin Gutierrez singled off Rafael Betancourt, should have been thrown out at second but wasn't, and eventually scored the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly. Kerry Wood worked the ninth, and although he got himself into a jam, should have have got out unscathed had Asdrubal Cabrera turned a double play. A couple plays, neither of which were errors, cost the Indians two runs in the last two innings of the game.

Ryan Garko was in the outfield again today. The only explanation I can think of for putting him out there is to showcase him for a trade. Otherwise, why not send down Chris Gimenez and recall Matt LaPorta or even Jordan Brown if you need another outfielder?

Next Up: A trip to Toronto. Lee vs. Cecil, 7:07 PM Tuesday.

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Joe Smith	.123	Asdrubal Cabrera	-.200
Ben Francisco	.102	Rafael Betancourt	-.186
Grady Sizemore	.043	Kelly Shoppach	-.125

Early Weekend 6-Pack (7/2/09)

APV — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:19:57 -0000

It is a holiday weekend and I am still living quite a few hours in the future, so this week's edition of Early Weekend 6-Pack will be very early (with appropriately chosen beverage below).

1. Eric Wedge is in Hall of Fame company

In 2007, Eric Wedge coached the Indians to an impressive .593 winning percentage. Going into Thursday night’s game, the 2009 Indians are winning games at a less impressive .388 clip. If that .200+ drop-off in win% in a 2-year span seems impressive, that’s because it is. I looked at managerial records over the past 50 seasons, and it turns out this feat has only been equaled once. This is obviously a difficult list to get on, because as that gap might suggest, you have to go from coaching a very good team (~.600) to a very bad team (<.400) in a short amount of time. Given roster sizes and player movement restrictions, even in the era of free agency there tends to be a lot of continuity on a roster from one year to the next, so such a rapid change doesn’t often overcome the forces of inertia. Quite a few managers have come close. Dusty Baker did it in three years between 1993 (.636) and 1996 (.429) with the Giants. Phil Garner did it in three with the Astros, 2004 (.649) to 2007 (.443). Cito Gaston did it in three following the Jays last WS title in 1992. Tony LaRussa is good enough to have had such a drop over a 3-year time span twice, one with the White Sox in the mid-80s and again with Oakland in the early 90s. A few others got fired too early in the third season to count (i.e. Gene Lamont, Buddy Bell, Don Zimmer). But only one other coach has done it in 2-years, and that is HOFer Sparky Anderson, who saw the Tigers go from a .605 team in 1987 to a .364 team by 1989. So Wedge is truly in the company of legends. Now there is one coach who has actually topped this, and accomplished the task in just a single season. I probably don’t need to remind you, but Jim Leyland coached the 1997 Marlins to a .568 record and the eventual World Series title, only to come back in 1998 and coach the AA Marlins to a pathetic .333 record.

2. But maybe the best is yet to come...

The Indians have over the past two decades had a tendency to be a strong second-half team. Indeed, 2007 (.595) and 2008 (.588) are the 12th and 13th best back-half W% for the team since WWII. And 2005 (.622) is actually 7th on that list. As you go through the years, those ‘80s teams were generally awful, first half and second. The ‘70s teams were not great, but tended to have decent second halves. The ‘60s teams, which were better, were strikingly bad late season teams and had a few epic fades (e.g. 1965 - tied for 1st on the 4th of July, 14 games over .500, played below .500 the second half of the season and fell to 5th place). And the golden era teams, 1948-1954, were just awesome all around. Here’s the complete top 10:

	Year	Rec	W%		Year	Rec	W%
1	1954	55-16	.775	7	2005	46-28	.622
2	1995	54-23	.701	8	1953	44-27	.620
3	1952	51-28	.646	9	1955	43-27	.614
4	1996	47-27	.635	10t	2000	46-30	.605
5	1948	52-30	.634	10t	1950	46-30	.605
6	1951	49-29	.628

3. More Matt LaPorta please

Speaking of records – here is the team’s record when different individuals have appeared in the game. The "best" record goes to Matt LaPorta, who in his brief stint in Cleveland, helped the team to a near .500 (6-7) record. Way to go Matt! The worst record title is shared by Travis Hafner (10-24) and Josh Barfield (5-12).

Shoppach	18-29	Peralta	28-42	Crowe	13-17
Martinez	29-49	Choo	31-47	LaPorta	6-7
Cabrera	21-35	Hafner	10-24	Dellucci	5-9
DeRosa	29-42	Garko	24-36	Gimenez	5-7
Francisco	26-42	Carroll	13-24	Barfield	5-12
Sizemore	23-34	Valbuena	14-23

4. The defense rests

It’s only the half-way point, but at least according to UZR, the Indians defense is on pace to being 51 runs worse than last year, helping make Cleveland one of the most underperforming teams in baseball. According to the numbers, these are the four biggest culprits:

Ben Francisco -6.9
Luis Valbuena -6.1 (split between SS and 2B pretty evenly)
Shin Soo Choo -3.6
Mark DeRosa -3.1 (although about +3 in the outfield, -6 in the infield)

The Indians best defenders so far; Jamey Carroll (+3.8) and Jhonny Peralta (+2.9). Note: This is just one metric for measuring defense and half a season, and for many of these guys less than that, is generally not considered a large enough sample to be particularly reliable. I'd be interested how these numbers match up with people's perspectives...I haven't seen enough games live to say.

5. Can I get two Wegz with that LaPorta?

The Indians full-season minor league teams all have three full months in the books. Matt LaPorta had the team’s best month of April (1.103), while Nick Weglarz beat off some stiff competition from a number of players to claim the best May (1.055) and June (1.007). There are a number of other high performers, of course. Carlos Santana has been steadily good all season. Jordan Brown and Andy Marte both had big Mays. Abner Abreu screamed back from a terrible April with months of May and June not far behind Weglarz before separating his shoulder. Lonnie Chisenhall has been solid.

6. The future looks different when you get there

One of the things Baseball America does every year when it produces its organizational top 10 lists is put together a mock-up of what the team’s lineup might look like 3 years in the future. Here is what, in November 2006, they projected as the Indians 2010 lineup:

Catcher – Matt McBride SP #1 – CC Sabathia

First Base – Victor Martinez SP #2 – Adam Miller

Second Base – Josh Barfield SP #3 – Jeremy Sowers

Third Base – Andy Marte SP #4 – Cliff Lee

Shortstop – Jhonny Peralta SP #5 – Jake Westbrook

Left Field – Trevor Crowe Closer – Tony Sipp

Center Field – Grady Sizemore

Right Field – Shin Soo Choo

DH – Travis Hafner

Ahh...back when the Indians future was so clear. I actually think they did a pretty good job with this. They correctly predicted Victor’s transition to first base, while being surprisingly optimistic about Jhonny staying at SS. They got the easy ones of course, Grady in center and Hafner at DH, but also pegged Choo in RF. McBride as catcher was obviously a fail...why people love that guy is something I don’t entirely understand. Barfield did, coming off a ~~great~~ good rookie year in San Diego, seem like a reasonably safe call. Marte was still one of baseball’s top prospects. Crowe...see McBride. They may very well have 40-60% of the starting rotation correct. Adam Miller, more optimism. I’m not sure why they thought CC would both still be a #1 starter and still be with Cleveland.

It’s hard to pretend I don’t know what has happened since November 2006 and try to compare how good I thought this team would have been versus how good I think our projected 2010 team currently looks. It’s probably impossible to match my view of the above projected starting rotation (it is truly a dream world where Jake Westbrook is our #5 guy), but I think I like our offense better. Put LaPorta in for Crowe, Santana (at least by the end of 2010) in for McBride, shift Jhonny left and put Droobs and Valbuena up the middle...and I like that lineup a lot. The pitching, though...

via www.beerbeacon.com

Rockies Retro: First Round Draft Pick History

theoldgrizzlybear — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 02:31:21 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

It's definitely safe to say that this guy has been the best first round draft pick in the history of the Colorado Rockies franchise.

Browse more photos »

With the MLB Draft taking place this Tuesday, I thought it would be appropriate to review the history of the Rockies' first round draft picks. Since the franchise first played in 1993 (and drafted in 1992), this is easily possible (so take that, Red Sox fans). Sandwich picks are included. So, without further adieu, here we go...

1992: John Burke (RHP - University of Florida - drafted 27th overall)

All of Burke's success with the organization came in the minor leagues. In 1993, he was a California League All-Star while posting a 3.20 ERA and 114 strikeouts in 119 innings. In 1995, Burke helped lead Colorado Springs to the PCL Championship, as he went 7-1 with a 4.55 ERA and was voted the league's best pitching prospect. However, it was all downhill for Burke once he reached the majors, finishing his career in 1997 with a total of 4 wins, 6 losses, and a 6.75 ERA in 28 appearances.

1993: Jamey Wright (RHP - Oklahoma City, OK - drafted 28th overall)

Wright has had a long and somewhat successful career as a big leaguer, and showed flashes of brilliance during his two stints with the Rockies, but wasn't really ever able to put it all together. He was unable to strike anybody out for the most part, and thus was extremely hittable - especially in pre-humidor Coors Field. His best year in the big leagues came last year with Texas, where he finished 8-7 with a 5.12 ERA.

1994: Doug Million (LHP - Sarasota, FL - drafted 7th overall)

Million was a highly regarded prospect, coming off a fantastic senior year in high school in which he was named the 1994 High School Player of the Year by Baseball America. He was 6-3 with a 2.20 ERA in his first professional season, and was making his way up the ladder in the Rockies organization before he tragically passed away on September 23, 1997 from a severe asthma attack.

1995: Todd Helton (1B - University of Tennessee - drafted 8th overall)

No explanation necessary...the guy's only been one of the best hitters and arguably the best defensive first baseman in baseball over the past decade-plus.

1996: Jake Westbrook (RHP - Danielsville, GA - drafted 21st overall)

Before he really had a chance to make any impact in the organization, Westbrook and two other minor leaguers were traded to the Expos for Mike Lansing in 1997. Soon after finding his way to the Indians organization, Westbrook had some success in the big leagues, as he won 44 games between 2004 and 2006. He's still with the Indians, but has been battling injuries for the past few seasons and is currently recovering from Tommy John surgery.

1997: Mark Mangum (RHP - Kingwood, TX - drafted 18th overall)

Mangum went 4-6 with a 4.80 ERA in Rookie league ball in '97. The next year, he was pitching in the Expos organization after being the PBTNL in a trade that brought Dave Veres to the Rockies. He never made it to the big leagues.

1998: Matt Roney (RHP - Edmond, OK - drafted 28th overall); Choo Freeman (OF - Rowlett, TX - drafted 36th overall); Jeff Winchester (C - Metairie, LA - drafted 40th overall)

Roney (with the Tigers and A's) and Freeman (with the Rockies) eventually made it to the big leagues, while Winchester (who is most famous for sharing a rookie card with Matt Holliday), did not. Roney and Freeman did not enjoy much success in the major leagues, and all three guys are now out of professional baseball.

1999: Jason Jennings (RHP - Baylor University - drafted 16th overall)

Jennings was the first Rockies pitching prospect to ever pan out at the major league level. He had a very successful cup of coffee in 2001, and was the 2002 National League Rookie of the Year. Following several more seasons that were deemed successful (the numbers weren't great, but he pitched at Coors Field for half of his games), Jennings was traded to the Houston Astros after the 2006 season for Taylor Buchholz, Jason Hirsh, and Willy Taveras. After battling injuries for a couple of seasons, Jennings has revived his career pitching out of the bullpen for the Rangers. He is currently 2-1 with a 3.12 ERA in 17 relief appearances.

2000: Matt Harrington (RHP - Palmdale, CA - drafted 7th overall)

Harrington's story has been well documented as of late. He failed to sign with the Rockies, and despite being drafted four more times, he never made it to the big leagues.

2001: Jayson Nix (SS - Midland, TX - drafted 44th overall)

The Rockies only had a compensation pick in 2001 (granted to them for their failure to sign Harrington a year earlier), and they used it to draft Nix, a prototypical "AAAA player" who spent 8 years in the organization (but only a portion of 2008 with the Rockies) before being picked up by the White Sox prior to this season. Although he's shown a little bit of pop (4 HRs in 56 ABs), Nix's OBP is just .297.

2002: Jeff Francis (LHP - University of Lethbridge - drafted 9th overall)

Francis cruised through the Rockies organization, posting a 29-12 career minor league record before breaking in for good with the big league club in 2004. Francis is the franchise's all-time leader in victories for a left-handed pitcher. He also led the Rockies staff with 17 wins in 2007. He struggled while trying to pitch through an injury last year, though, and is sidelined for all of 2009 with said injury. It's safe to say that overall, though, he's been a success.

2003: Ian Stewart (3B - La Quinta, CA - drafted 10th overall)

From this point on, the jury's still out on everybody and that's certainly the case with Stewart, who has the potential to be a star at the major league level. He currently leads the team with 9 home runs this season, and his bat is beginning to heat up as of late.

2004: Chris Nelson (SS - Stone Mountain, GA - 9th overall)

Nelson has shown the potential to be an impact player in the big leagues, but he has battled with injuries and inconsistency so far in his minor league career, and has yet to advance past AA. However, he performed well and received rave reviews in the Arizona Fall League in 2008, so the hype is definitely still there. He's currently hitting .280/.355/.477 in a repeat year with Tulsa.

2005: Troy Tulowitzki (SS - Long Beach State University - drafted 7th overall); Chaz Roe (RHP - Lexington, KY - drafted 32nd overall)

Tulowitzki has basically been the big league version of Chris Nelson (a fast start followed by struggles with injuries and inconsistency), but there's no denying that he's a terrific ballplayer and that he still has a bright future. However, the time to make adjustments is NOW, and some time spent in AAA may not be a bad thing for Tulo at this point. Roe is 27-22 with a 4.25 ERA in 5 minor league seasons, and is currently pitching out of the bullpen for Tulsa. At some point in the future, he should break in with the Rockies in some capacity.

2006: Greg Reynolds (LHP - Stanford University - drafted 2nd overall)

Much has been made of the fact the Reynolds was taken ahead of guys like Evan Longoria and Tim Lincecum, among others, but it's way too early to label Reynolds as a bust. Sure, he has not been good (albeit, in a small sample size) at the big league level. Right now, however, the key to any success he wants to have is how quickly he can bounce back from injury. He's made only one start this year, and he was roughed up.

2007: Casey Weathers (RHP - Vanderbilt University - drafted 8th overall)

Weathers is sitting out the 2009 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was very strong before the injury, so let's hope he's able to return to form. If so, there's no reason to think he won't be in a Rockies uniform at some point in 2010.

2008: Christian Friedrich (LHP - Eastern Kentucky University - drafted 25th overall)

Friedrich was thought of as being a steal at the time he was drafted, and so far he's shown no reason to think otherwise. After dominating in low-A to begin the season, he's now pitching well in Modesto (high-A). He could be a candidate to join the Rockies rotation at some point in 2010, provided he's handled correctly at the minor league level.

A look back at the 1st round of the 1996 draft

erik — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:13:37 -0000

Once upon a time, Kris Benson was Stephen Strasburg. No, really.

Pitcher	IP	H	K/9	BB/9
Strasburg	97.1	61	12.3	1.5
Benson	156	109	11.8	1.6

I dare say Benson was facing tougher competition pitching in the ACC than what Strasburg has faced for the Mountain West Conference. I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer. If I was the GM of the Nationals (call me, Mr. Kasten!) I would draft Strasburg in a heartbeat. The point is there's lots of risk involved in giving gobs of money to any pitcher.

Benson is just one wart on the ugly face that is the 1996 draft.

Charted below is how the draft went down, alongside their wins above replacement totals for their first six years in the majors. Again, we're looking at six years because that is when the player was under his team's control.

Player	POS	Team	HS/College	WAR
Kris Benson	P	PIT	College	8.2
Travis Lee	1B	MIN	College	2.5
Braden Looper	P	STL	College	3.8
Billy Koch	P	TOR	College	5.8
John Patterson	P	MTL	HS	5.1
Seth Greisinger	P	DET	College	0.3
Matt White	P	SF	HS	0
Chad Green	OF	MIL	College	0
Mark Kotsay	OF	FLA	College	13.6
Eric Chavez	3B	OAK	HS	26.7
Adam Eaton	P	PHI	HS	4.4
Bobby Seay	P	CHW	HS	0.5
Rob Stratton	OF	NYM	HS	0
Dee Brown	OF	KC	HS	-2.8
Matt Halloran	SS	SD	HS	0
Joe Lawrence	SS	TOR	HS	-1
Todd Noel	P	CHC	HS	0
R.A. Dickey	P	TEX	College	0.6
Mark Johnson	P	HOU	College	-0.6
Eric Milton	P	NYY	College	13.2
Jake Westbrook	P	COL	HS	8.2
Gil Meche	P	SEA	HS	4.4
Damian Rolls	3B	LAD	HS	-0.5
Sam Marsonek	P	TEX	HS	0
John Oliver	OF	CIN	HS	0
Josh Garrett	P	BOS	HS	0
A.J. Zapp	1B	ATL	HS	0
Danny Peoples	1B	CLE	College	0
Paul Wilder	OF	TB	HS	0
Nick Bierbrodt	P	ARI	HS	-0.1
Peter Tucci	OF	TOR	College	0
Corey Lee	P	TEX	College	0
Matt McClendon	P	CIN	HS	0
Chris Reitsma	P	BOS	HS	1.1
Jason Marquis	P	ATL	HS	-0.1

Scott Boras is evil, just in case any of you had forgot. Exploiting a loophole in Rule 4 (E), his clients Travis Lee, John Patterson, Matt White and Bobby Seay all filed grievances and were declared free agents. Lee and Patterson ultimately signed with the Diamondbacks, White and Seay signed deals with the Devil ~~Rays~~. The four combined for $29.2 million in signing bonuses flushed down the toilet.

Outside of Boras and is antics, there's not much to say here. Eric Chavez was a star. Eric Milton and Mark Kotsay became average big league regulars while they were under team control. 71% of this first round class contributed less than an average of .5 WAR per season while under team control. That is...bad. Splitting them into groups ---

Grouping	#	Total WAR	Avg /season
College Pitcher	8	31.3	0.652
HS Pitcher	13	23.5	0.301
College Hitter	5	16.1	0.536
HS Hitter	9	22.4	0.414

College players came out ahead over high school players, high school pitchers in particular predictably came out worse than any grouping.

Later on, Jimmy Rollins was taken in the 2nd round, and much later on, Travis Hafner was picked in the 31st round. Apparently it's hard for North Dakota kids to get noticed. Other notables in the '96 draft are Milton Bradley (2nd), Joe Crede (5th), Mark DeRosa, Casey Blake (both 7th), Doug Davis (10th) and Chad Bradford (13th).

We've only looked at three drafts so far but I think there are some lessons here. 1.) not every draft is equal. Each draft has it's strengths and weaknesses. 2.) TINSTAAP likes to rear its ugly head. 3.) Which is tied to 2, and that is there are a ton of failures along the way. When reading different scouting reports on some of these draft prospects you might get the impression that some of these players are destined to stardom or least will make it as big league regulars. The odds are against such outcomes.

Transactions: More Spring Training Cuts

Ryan — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:31:33 -0000

3-25-09

Optioned LHP Aaron Laffey to Columbus (AAA)

Thus the Indians are going with Scott Lewis as the fifth starter. Laffey last year lost the battle for fifth starter to Cliff Lee, but he ended up making 16 starts, and was back with Cleveland by the end of April. He started his 2008 stint with the Indians very well, but fell apart in July and spent the rest of the season in Buffalo. His ineffectiveness conincided with a drop in his groundball percentage, not surprising, since his fastball top out in the high 80s and is to say the least very hittable when up in the strike zone.

Laffey will join David Huff and Jeremy Sowers in Columbus, but by the end of the season, the Columbus three might have as many major-league starts as the trio that will start the season in the back of Cleveland's rotation.

3-26-09

Reassigned Andy Cannizaro to Minor League Camp

Claimed RHP Jae Kuk Ryu off waivers from the San Diego Padres; Optioned him to Columbus (AAA)

Placed RHP Jake Westbrook on the 60-day Disabled List (right elbow)

Like with the Salas claim, the Indians are here stockpiling optionable reliever depth. Ryu is recovering from arthroscopic elbow surgery last summer, and the Padres tried to sneak him through waivers when most teams are trying to cut players from their rosters. The Indians, however, had a free roster spot thanks to Jake Westbrook's injury, and with the injury to Adam Miller and the struggles of Masa Kobayashi, were actively looking for bullpen help. They should keep looking.

Division-By-Division 2009 Projected Starting Pitching Rankings By WAR: AL Central

devil_fingers — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:00:10 -0000

This is the fourth in a series of six posts going through the MLB division-by-division to see which team has the best projected 2009 starting pitching by Wins Above Replacement (WAR) according to an average of the "Big Three" projection systems.. This post covers the rotations of a division that appears to be as "up for grabs " as any other in the majors: the AL Central. I actually had to do a bit of revising of my original big spreadsheet because the BP depth charts have undergone some revision since I originally started, which did effect some things. Surprises await...

Brandon "Ducky" Duckworth wants you to read on after the jump.

How Did I Come Up With These Numbers?

Some details on the methods used (if you don't care, you can jump straight to the "Team-By-Team")

FIP is used as the primary pitching stat.
The projected 2009 for each pitcher is generated by averagfing the projections of the three best publicly available projection systems: CHONE, ZiPS, and PECOTA. The projected FIP for CHONE and ZiPS are from the player pages at FanGraphs. I generated the PECOTA FIP myself from the big spreadsheet.
Playing time/depth chart projections are based on Baseball Prospectus's depth charts (not the PECOTA weighted mean) in order to account for spot starters as well. These change every week; the playing times used are those that were up when I was writing the present post.
No team only starts 5 players all year long. However, I've also included a "top 5" figure for each team, based on the top 5 projected starter WARs for each team (not the top five projected IPs).
Value is based on a Win% generated using PythagenPat in relation to a average FIP-ERA of 4.40 and an RA of 4.76.
Run values are generated by are scaling FIP to RA rather than ERA for better accuracy and to properly value pitchers with respect to hitters.
An appropriate replacement level win percentage for starting pitchers is used, adjusted for relative league difficulty: .390 is replacement level for starters in the NL, and .370 for the AL.
Adjustments for ballparks use the five-year regressed park factors used at FanGraphs.
Adjustments are made for each pitcher's influence on his run environment through a dynamic run-to-win conversion for each individual pitcher.
New feature starting with the AL Central post: aggregate team starter win %. Yay! Note: that this is not directly convertible to team WAR, as it is a simple weighted average based on individual win% and IP. There will be discrepancies between team win% and team WAR, which is based on individual win % because this rough calculation occurs before individual impcat on run environment is taken into account for run-to-win conversion. WAR is the focus here. This feature is just for fun and a rough little guide to quality in relation to average. WAR is still the main focus of this series.
Neither the rates nor playing time projections are "mine." I have simply the projections, averaged them, and combined them with BP's playing time predictions. You can find the complete projected lines for each pitcher at the home sites for the systems (and FanGraphs, for CHONE and ZiPS). In other words, don't blame me if you lose money betting with this stuff...

Team-By-Team

Cleveland Indians
Player	IP	FIP	Win%	RAR	WAR
Cliff Lee	200	3.84	.559	37.9	3.8
Fausto Carmona	150	4.26	.511	21.1	2.1
Jeremy Sowers	125	4.75	.458	11.1	1.1
Anthony Reyes	110	4.83	.451	8.9	0.9
Aaron Laffey	100	4.43	.492	12.2	1.2
Carl Pavano	65	4.95	.439	4.5	0.4
David Huff	60	4.43	.492	7.3	0.7
Jake Westbrook	80	4.26	.510	11.2	1.1
Scott Lewis	50	4.41	.494	6.2	0.6
Total			.498		11.9
Top 5					9.3

Comment: Both CHONE and Baseball Prospectus currently have the Indians as the likely winners of the 2009 AL Central. This isn't that surprising, although (like many forecasts) it depends on a number of assumptions about the how successful the returns of Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, etc. will be. In any case, it's pretty obvious here that if Cliff Lee completely reverts to his pre-2008 form or is out for an extended period of time, the divisional title aspirations for the Indians may be up in smoke, although, again, that's true for a lot of teams and their star players. Cleveland is attempting up for their lack of top-end quality with depth, as can be seen from the gap between the total projected WAR and the TOP 5. The .498 projected win percentage sees them as about average. As will be a theme throughout this post, there are a lot of variables here.... Insert Carl Pavano joke here.

Detroit Tigers
Player	IP	FIP	Win%	RAR	WAR
Justin Verlander	195	4.10	.534	31.9	3.2
Jeremy Bonderman	150	4.15	.528	22.1	2.2
Armando Galaragga	165	4.85	.454	13.9	1.3
Edwin Jackson	160	4.78	.461	14.5	1.4
Zach Miner	80	4.29	.512	11.3	1.1
Nate Robertson	110	4.70	.469	10.9	1.1
Dontrelle Willis	70	5.18	.423	3.7	0.3
Rick Porcello	55	5.76	.374	0.2	0.0
Total			.481		10.7
Top 5					9.3

Comment: Blah blah blah joke about 1,000 run offense in 2008. The pitching (and defense) bombed last year. Adam Everett and Gerald Laird should help out on defense, but there are a lot of fingers crossed in Detroit, as those signings in addition to the Matt Joyce-for-Edwin Jackson trade portend a "win-now" season for an aging team; the pitchers can't blow it. Verlander is the only pitcher here who projects both as clearly above average in his rate stats and for a decent amount of innings. Bonderman looks above average when he's projected to pitch, but at this point, "disappointment" is probably the right word. Galaragga was a nice pickup, but he has to come back to earth eventually. Rick Porcello: replacement level picher. I miss Dontrelle Willis being good. Sorry for all of the negative comments -- in actuality, this group is better than some people think, and notice that their "Top 5" group is as good as Cleveland's.

Minnesota Twins
Player	IP	FIP	Win%	RAR	WAR
Scott Baker	170	4.06	.529	27.0	2.7
Francisco Liriano	160	3.86	.553	29.3	3.0
Nick Blackburn	160	4.56	.473	16.5	1.6
Glen Perkins	150	5.24	.408	5.7	0.5
Kevin Slowey	170	3.96	.541	29.1	2.9
Philip Humber	110	5.49	.386	1.8	0.2
Kevin Mulvey	50	4.99	.431	3.1	0.3
Total			.486		11.2
Top 5					10.7

Comment: I suppose that I'm not the only one that thought these guys would project a little better. Again, this is a situation where playing time is very important. If Liriano and Baker can avoid injuries, this is probably the best rotation in the division. Slowey is also a stud-in-the-making from the Twins' Brad Radke factory.. Imagine if they could get Tampa Bay to trade Matt Garza for Delmon Young. Nah, any GM stupid enough to do that should be fired forthwith, right? In terms of sheer win%, Baker, Liriano, and Slowey look like the best 1-2-3 punch in the division. Seems like the "Twins way" should probably involve overpaying for some crappy vet to take innings away from one or more of the young guys in the grand tradition of the Sidney Ponson and Livan Hernandez signings. To be fair, it does like young Philip Humber (part of the Johan Santana trade "bonanza") will be contributing quite a bit of near-replacement level sweetness this season.

Chicago White Sox
Player	IP	FIP	Win%	RAR	WAR
Mark Buerhle	200	4.38	.521	30.2	3.0
John Danks	175	4.21	.540	29.8	3.0
Gavin Floyd	180	5.08	.451	14.5	1.4
Clayton Richard	110	4.93	.464	10.4	1.0
Jose Contreras	130	4.54	.504	17.4	1.7
Bartolo Colon	80	4.79	.478	8.6	0.8
Jack Egbert	40	4.69	.489	4.7	0.5
Lance Broadway	40	5.89	.382	0.5	0.0
Aaron Poreda	40	5.08	.451	3.2	0.3
Total			.490		11.8
Top 5					9.3

Comment: If you ask me, Kenny Williams is one of the most entertaining GMs in baseball. No, I don't think he's great. I don't think he's terrible. I don't know what to think. Sometimes he makes moves that I think are stupid, and they work out well. Or he makes moves that make me think he's "getting it," and they bomb. It's fun to watch from a distance, although it must be brutally exhausting for White Sox fans. If you read my NL East post in this series, you'll see that Javier Vazquez is projected at about 2 wins better than anyone else on the White Sox currently. The ChiSox got young guys in return and are clearly trimming salary (Vazquez and Swisher wouldn't have been my choices, but see my comments about my judgments re: Williams' past moves above), so we'll have to wait and see how it works out in big picture, but, again, with Vazquez, this would easily be the best rotation in the division... Gavin Floyd, meet reality. Jose Contreras may be old, but White Sox fans would certainly rather see him out there than Bartolo Colon. John Danks turns 24 in April, and looks like a stud-in-the-making.

Kansas City Royals
Player	IP	FIP	Win%	RAR	WAR
Gil Meche	195	4.03	.542	33.6	3.4
Zack Greinke	190	3.92	.555	35.2	3.6
Brian Bannister	160	4.82	.457	13.9	1.3
Kyle Davies	140	4.93	.446	10.6	1.0
Luke Hochevar	140	4.81	.457	12.2	1.2
Horacio Ramirez	60	4.39	.501	7.9	0.8
Brandon Duckworth	30	4.84	.454	2.5	0.2
Sidney Ponson	60	5.00	.440	4.2	0.4
Total			.493		11.9
Top 5					10.5

Comment: I've had some harsh words for Royals GM Dayton Moore this offseason, and I'm not taking them back now. But I have to hand it to the man: he's put together a respectable rotation. True, like many of the Royals' best players, young ace Zack Greinke is a holdover from the previous administration (as are Alex Gordon, David DeJesus, Mike Aviles, and Billy Butler) , but Moore did manage to extend him. And although the Gil Meche contract now looks like a giant outlier among Moore's ...questionable... record with free agents, it's been a dandy. Greinke and Meche project as the best 1-2 punch in the division by both WAR and individual win%. Going just by WAR, they project as the 2nd and 3rd best pitchers in the division (behind Cliff Lee). Neither Bannister nor Davies looks like a world beater, but they can at least hold down the back of the rotation decently, and were acquired by trading older and expensive (Octavio Dotel for Davies) or young and overrated "live arms" (Ambriox Burgos for Bannister) for cheap young production. Um, no, I personally don't think Ho-Ram is a .501 starting pitcher. The projection systems probably don't differentiate between his time as a starter and as a reliever. But hey, I'm just following the numbers here. There's no homerism. There are "issues" like that all over this series, and if I start making half-baked subjective adjustments of my own in one place, I'll have to do it everywhere, and we end up with a bunch of junk. Before Carlos Rosa got sent back to Omaha to be a reliever, the Royals actually projected slightly better, but Sir Sidney isn't going to kill them too badly with only 60 innings (gulp), although the acquisition may trigger a crisis of epic proportions... P. S. Ducky rules.

Let's see the final results:

AL Central Projected SP WAR
Rank	Team	Total SP WAR	Top 5 WAR	Win%
1	Royals	11.9	10.5	.493
1	Indians	11.9	9.3	.498
3	White Sox	11.8	9.4	.490
4	Twins	11.2	10.7	.486
5	Tigers	10.7	9.3	.481
Total		57.5	49.2

Final Thoughts: That is very close, with all five teams are within 1.2 WAR. KC and Cleveland are tied on top at 11.9, with Chicago right behind at 11.8. No group of starters (including spot starters) projects as average (.500 or greater win%), although all are pretty close. While the top teams are worse than any other top divisional teams (at least so far), the bottom team is better than any other bottom team... Until the recent depth chart changes on both teams, Cleveland was further down the list, and KC was the clear #1. I was excited about that, but I had to give in to what the projections now say... On one hand, I could give it to Cleveland on the basis of the superior win%, but on the other, KC has the better "Top 5." So I have them tied, with KC listed first (in your face, Kyle!). Besides, as I noted above, the calculations for aggregate win% are only a "rough guide," anyway. And that's the mess with this whole division -- things are so close. Given the nature of projections in general, the potential for devastating pitcher injury, young player unpredictability, etc. it's not that far fetched to see any of the teams having the best starting WAR at the end of the season. For fans of the Indians, the Twins (my "gut" tells me this is really the best rotation in the division, but you know what the gut's brains are made of...), and the Tigers, it's pretty clear that their rotations definitely have question marks, but are each good enough to potentially help win the division. For Royals fans, there's a good young core there, and hopefully the position players can catch up. For White Sox fans... hey, you know Kenny better than I do, you tell me what to expect, I have no clue. I guess that's why Kenny Williams is the GM, and I'm the blog-talkin' guy...

Next up: NL West (later this week, probably Wednesday or Thursday)

Better Know a White Sox Division Rival: Cleveland Indians

larry — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:00:10 -0000

This is the third in a series about AL Central division rivals and the race to be the tallest midget.

Offseason Comings and Goings

In contrast to the Twins, the Indians had an active offseason – and, if you include the midseason deals such as those involving CC Sabathia and Casey Blake, an even more sizeable makeover from the 2008 opening day Indians has occurred. The biggest splash was the 2/$20.5M deal to install Kerry Wood as closer. Coupled with the addition of sidearming groundball machine Joe Smith in the massive three-team deal with the Mariners and Mets, GM Mark Shapiro hopes to convert the bullpen from a weakness to a strength.

Their other major move was to trade for the versatile Mark DeRosa to (apparently) start at 3B, though he can play all over the diamond. The ~~oft~~ always injured Carl Pavano was brought in to help fill out the rotation.

On the departures list are a slew of players who made up the atrocious 2008 bullpen – Scott Elarton, Brendan Donnelly, Juan Rincon, and Matt Ginter – along with OF defensive maven Franklin Gutierrez.

All things considered, this was a successful offseason for Shapiro. He added the necessary corner infielder and addressed the bullpen. While the rotation still looks to be very much a work in progress, there’s probably only so much you can do in one year if you aren’t the Yankees and he's got enough to throw up on the wall for some of it to perhaps stick.

Offense

A projected lineup: Grady Sizemore CF, Mark DeRosa 3B, Travis Hafner DH, Victor Martinez C, Jhonny Peralta SS, Shin-Soo Choo RF, Ryan Garko 1B, Ben Francisco LF, Asdrubal Cabrera 2B

Bench and Spare Parts: Kelly Shoppach C, Jamey Carroll (INF), David Dellucci (OF), Josh Barfield (INF/OF), Trevor Crowe (OF), Tony Graffanino (INF)

While the Indians have been madeover, the core offense isn’t much different. It is the best offense in the division but it’s not without question marks. The Tribe will be banking on a return to full health and productivity from Martinez and Hafner. Martinez is the likelier of the two to rebound as he has age on his side and a capable catching caddy in Shoppach to spell him. Expect to see Martinez play a significant number of games at 1B in place of Garko. Hafner, on the other hand, is on the wrong side of 30 for a player with his skill set and has had two consecutive seasons of injury-hampered poor productivity.

The Indians will also look to Cabrera and Choo to live up to the projections. Sizemore is going to be Sizemore and another MVP caliber season is on tap. Garko is a rather poor use of 1B but, as noted above, he won’t be playing full-time and is likely keeping a spot warm for their top prospect. Francisco is another weak use of a corner position but is also keeping a spot warm for that same guy. Peralta is a below average defender at SS but his stick makes him more than acceptable.

Pitching

Rotation: Cliff Lee, Fausto Carmona, Anthony Reyes, Carl Pavano, Aaron Laffey

Bullpen and Spare Parts: Kerry Wood, Jensen Lewis, Rafael Perez, Rafael Betancourt, Masahide Kobayashi, Joe Smith, Vinnie Chulk, Matt Herges, John Meloan, Zach Jackson, Jeremy Sowers, Scott Lewis, Jake Westbrook, Kirk Saarloos, Juan Salas

That stab at a rotation is a best guess. If those five - or any five - make it through five turns intact, it will be a shock. While Lee is not going to repeat last season’s Cy Young Award campaign, he shouldn’t regress too much. And then the questions begin. Carmona is coming off an injury ravaged, ineffective campaign. His walks ballooned and his strikeouts disappeared. A return to something closer to 2007 form will be required for contention. One-time top prospect Reyes was impressive for the Indians in six late season starts after being acquired from St. Louis. But based on his past record, banking on him is specious at best - though he has pitched well this spring. And Pavano? He’s penned in as something other than their #5 starter. Meaning they’re relying on a guy who has pitched about 45 innings in the past two seasons more than someone else. And that someone else appears to be lefty Aaron Laffey, who has been the favorite for the #5 spot - though Scott Lewis has had a much better spring and may force his way into the rotation. The Indians sent out 13 different starters last season and this season, while not matching it, is likely to approach double digits. Westbrook is targeting a midseason return from Tommy John surgery and may provide some necessary stability for the run-in. Sowers and Jackson are also in the wings to fill-in. Shapiro appears to be hoping that from all this quantity, sufficient quality will emerge.

With that mess of a rotation, the bullpen will need to be a strength. Wood’s health is always going to be a question but his installation as closer pushes Jensen Lewis back down the depth chart into a set-up role - and everyone else down a spot, too. As Assistant GM Mark Antonetti points out, the difference between Wood and the seventh guy is massive. Lefty Rafael Perez will again be a primary set-up man. Smith’s groundballing ways should provide added seventh inning stability against righties and the return of Betancourt to pre-2008 form could make this an extremely formidable and deep bullpen and take some pressure off the starters, whoever they are.

Farm

Finally I get to talk about a legit prospect.

Matt LaPorta came over as the centerpiece of the Sabathia trade. The 24 year old is a legit 30+ home run talent with plus plate discipline to boot. While initially dismissed as only a 1B, he’s made strides in the outfield and looks like he could adequately perform in LF. He’s likely to start the season at AAA but fans of the Indians’ new affiliate in Columbus shouldn’t get too attached. Both Garko and Francisco will be looking over their shoulders and he provides excellent insurance – or simply a production boost – to an already potent offense.

At some point in this preview I expected to discuss righty Adam Miller. He was projected to make the bullpen – which would have made it downright filthy – but the oft-injured top prospect recently got bitten again. His troublesome middle finger on his throwing hand now requires a complicated surgery which will force him to miss the entire season and may be career threatening. So, instead, I’ll focus on yet another potential starter.

David Huff is a 24 year old lefty who is described as a bit better than the average finesse southpaw. The Indians’ top pick in 2006 has a fastball that reaches the low 90s, a plus change, and a decent slider – and he has excellent command and control of all of them. He had very good numbers across two levels last season. He’s essentially a finished product now but the plethora of backend candidates means that the Indians will send him back to AAA to start the season. He’ll be a top option when Cleveland inevitably needs a starter.

Outlook

This midget is the experts’ favorite but the rotation is sketchy. The offense can carry the club – but only if the pitching isn’t weighing it down too much. With Mauer’s availability questionable, the Indians would be the slight favorite.

Up Next: Detroit Tigers

Previously: Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals