SB Nation - Jensen Lewis

Game 161: Red Sox 11, Indians 6

Ryan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:58:55 -0000

More photos » by Michael Dwyer - AP

An ignominious end to Aaron Laffey's season.

The Indians actually scored some runs tonight, but Aaron Laffey was awful, so the game ended in the usual way. The two teams combined for twelve runs in the first two innings, with the Red Sox accounting for eight of them. The big blow came on Victor Martinez's first career grand slam, naturally coming against the team that until two months he'd spent his entire career playing for.

Josh Beckett had very little command, missing with his fastball and hanging several curves. He had to throw over 50 pitches to get out of the second inning, but hung around long enough to qualify for a win. After the second inning, the game slowed down to a more normal pace, and true to irrelevant game that it was, Boston's starters were taken out as the contest entered the later innings.

Aaron Laffey gave eight earned runs in just two innings on seven hits and two walks, a disastrous ending to what was a pretty decent season, certainly the best season of the Indians' starters still on the roster. Jensen Lewis, in what was probably his last outing of the season, relieved Laffey and gave up two runs in two innings of work. His future is very much up in the air. Mike Gosling did an excellent job in mopup duty, giving up one run in four innings.

Next Up: Game 162. Ohka vs. Buchholz, 1:35 PM.

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Asdrubal Cabrera	.128	Aaron Laffey	-.641
Michael Brantley	.097	Andy Marte	-.063
Shin-Soo Choo	.083	Matt LaPorta	-.050

Game 159: Red Sox 3, Indians 0

Ryan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:48:50 -0000

More photos » by Charles Krupa - AP

Carlos Carrasco had to be helped off the field in the fourth inning after being struck by a line drive.

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If this game were not a tuneup for Boston starter Jon Lester, the left-hander might have finished the game. Instead, he went 6.1, and let his bullpen finish the shutout. The Indians managed two hits against Lester, and one more against three Red Sox relievers.

The run of promising finales ended at three, as Carlos Carrasco struggled against Boston's patient lineup. To cap things off, he left the game after a line drive hit him flush just above his left knee. Carrasco had to be helped off the field, a rather bad ending to his first major-league stint. The 22-year-old started five games, and went more than five innings just once. It's tough to make a call on this young a pitcher after a month's worth of starts, but to me it would make sense to have him start 2010 in Columbus, have some success, and then bring him back to the majors.

The Indians have now lost 12 straight road games, tying a franchise record (1963 and 1991).

Next Up: Sowers vs. Matsuzaka, 7:10 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jensen Lewis	.064	Andy Marte	-.196
Matt LaPorta	.041	Carlos Carrasco	-.167
Shin-Soo Choo	.034	Jamey Carroll	-.087

Game 157: White Sox 6, Indians 1

Ryan — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:20:48 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Aaron Laffey allowed eight hits, all of them singles, and several of them infield singles.

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This was one game where it didn't really matter much what the pitching did, because John Danks was locked in all game. He allowed three hits, two of them to Shin-Soo Choo. His lone earned run allowed was a Choo home run.

Aaron Laffey did ok with the exception of the second inning, when Chicago batted around. Normally when a club does that, the pitcher is removed, but all the base runners came via singles or walks, and the damage was limited to three runs. He stayed in the game into the eighth inning with the game still within reach, but the bullpen let the game get out of hand. Jose Veras was shaky, but got out of the eighth; Jensen Lewis, and the Indians defense, gave up three runs in the ninth to salt the game for the White Sox.

Next Up: Torres vs. Masterson, 7:05 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Shin-Soo Choo	.104	Matt LaPorta	-.119
Jose Veras	.050	Jhonny Peralta	-.096
Travis Hafner	.004	Trevor Crowe	-.089

Fire Everyone! - The Farm System

APV — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:28:49 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Travis Hafner, soliciting coaching advice from outside the organization

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

Part of the Tribe's failure this year can be blamed on the reality that when players were failing to perform in April and May (and there were many), no one was there in Akron or Columbus to step up and provide at least temporary relief. When Fausto Carmona was busy allowing 4+ runs in 10 of his first 12 starts, who was there to step up? Sure, David Huff was there to step in and promptly allow 13 earned runs in his first 6 innings of pro ball, but who was there behind him? And behind that guy? And when the bullpen was busy reading up on seppuku rather than "how to record a major league out" for the first two months, was there really no one better than Matt Herges and Greg Aquino available to fill the holes? Mark Shapiro has said nothing more frequently than the need for depth - the need to prepare for individual failures (which are inevitable) and insure against collective failures. So where was the depth when it was needed to keep the season alive?

One explanation is that it was a failure to acquire the right talent. This is a well hashed argument, and one which might have some validity. There is another possibility, however, that perhaps it is not that we have failed to acquire the right talent, but instead failed to develop the talent we have properly. Perhaps our developmental system, again one of Shapiro's trademarks on the organization has failed. Shapiro has been lauded for installing a system based on combining traditional scouting data with rigorous quantitative assessment and emphasizing consistency throughout the system. Players are supposed to enter into the organization and hear the same things at every level. Maybe some have been hearing the wrong things.

Trying to assess how good a developmental staff the Indians have is probably going to be a failed effort on my part. To really do it right, you would have to compare how the Indians fare relative to other organizations. The best hitters get out 60% of the time. Their greatness is only visible when assessed against everyone else, who get out 69% of the time. The success rate for prospects is much lower than either of the numbers. I don't have time for a thorough comparative analysis, sadly. But we can look internally at what the Tribe has done.

I consider the goal of the developmental staff to accomplish two things:

A good system should help players achieve the potential they were viewed to have when they were drafted/signed (with obvious injury caveats).
A great system should strive to raise the ceiling of their players, and strive to turn them into better players than other teams thought they could be.

How do they do this - I have no idea. But I would like to think they identify weaknesses in a player's game and seek to improve on them. Have the Indians done that? Here are some significant minor leaguers, either assessed by performance, draft or reputation, and how they've progressed (or regressed) while in the Indians system.

2003

Michael Aubrey - Injuries make his development impossible to assess

Brad Snyder - I think Snyder's failures are viewed as a contact problem. I think it is more that he didn't hit for enough power given his high strikeout rate. Here are his K/BB rates from A+, to AA, and two years in Buffalo - 2.5, 2.5, 3, +4...that's not good.

Adam Miller - see Michael Aubrey

Javi Herrera - college defensive catcher (and 3rd round pick), never learned to hit at AA

Ryan Garko - Seems like a success story. He's never developed a lot of power, but aside from his senior year at Stanford he never had a lot of power.

Juan Valdes - Injuries (too much coffee, no doubt)

Kevin Kouzmanoff - Kouz is a developmental success for Cleveland, a guy who raised his ceiling to the point of being trade worthy for future superstar Josh Barfield

Aaron Laffey - Big developmental success. While he's always gotten groundballs in bunches, his improving K-numbers throughout his minor league career attest to his improved secondary stuff, particularly his slider.

2004

Jeremy Sowers - I think it is hard to argue Sowers as a developmental failure. He has consistently dominated the minors. The translation to the big league level is not something I feel justified in blaming the minor league staff entirely for. An argument could be made that more of an effort should have been extended to improve his fastball velocity, but that is tough without incurring all sorts of other mechanical issues.

Justin Hoyman - never got started

Scott Lewis - I think a success story from a developmental perspective. Always did well, but was always described as likely having trouble at the next level. He kept doing well at the next level, up until his injury derailment in the majors.

Chuck Lofgren - Hard to know exactly what has happened or who is to blame for Lofgren, but losing the ability to throw strikes is something I'm happy to assign partial blame to the staff.

Mike Butia - Bad pick

Chris Gimenez - The Tribe turned this 19th round pick into a guy who can play multiple positions including catcher. He's not great, but that's not a bad job for a guy not many people probably thought much of.

Carlton Smith - Another guy who the Indians are trying to turn into something useful. They've managed to take his naturally sinking stuff and turn him into an extreme groundballer out of the pen in Akron this year. I say small victory.

Wyatt Toregas - selected in the 24th round, Wyatt's performance has been up and down, but at various points they've managed to get his plate discipline and/or power up to levels that made his appearance on the big league team this year not surprising. Success.

Tony Sipp - he was a late round flyer who I think we're all glad signed. A success obviously, but it is a little troubling that Sipp's control never showed any improvement.

2005

Trevor Crowe - After looking like he was nothing in 2007 in Akron, he did rebound more towards a reasonably projection given his college performance. Not worth a first round pick, but not the developmental staff's fault.

John Drennen - Haven't been able to put together a solid approach at the plate for Drennen. It's either mediocre power with huge K-rates, or zero power with mediocre plate discipline.

Stephen Head - they really should have worked on his mustache more, or tried to put together a coherent set of skills

Nick Weglarz - projectable big guy from Ontario with limited baseball experience turned into a top prospect...Yes!

Jensen Lewis - Again, from the minor league side of things, this looks like a success

Jordan Brown - Following his 2007 season in Akron, it looked like all he needed to do was add a little power and he'd be a good guy at the plate. Instead he fell apart, losing power, discipline and contact skills. He has rebounded a lot this year, but hasn't recovered his discipline at the plate and given his defensive liabilities, isn't viewed as part of the future. In terms of development, I think Brown is probably a draw.

Kevin Dixon, Joe Ness, James Deters - These three consecutive picks from 2005 all reached Akron and promptly had their careers end, I think we can assign a little failure.

Ryan Edell - Edell, the next pick in that draft, actually made it past Akron this year. Edell is not anything special, but he has followed an advance and struggle, then come back and improve trajectory to the point where he is a depth rotation option for next season. I say success from the development perspective.

Roman Pena - Toolsy, but failed to learn how to not strike out

Neil Wagner - Once viewed as a relief prospect sleeper, Wagner's control has gotten worse as he has moved through the system

2006

David Huff - similar story to Jeremy Sowers. He really looked like he was ready in 2008, but in 2009 his stuff has been lacking. I have a hard time saying this is a failure of the minor league development staff, though.

Steven Wright - he's not a guy we talk much about, but he has slowly and steadily progressed through the system and will likely be a major part of the Columbus bullpen next year. Not a glowing victory, but not a developmental failure.

Josh Rodriguez - Rodriguez has dealt with some injuries, but this seems like a failure. He was highly thought of and got off to a nice pro start in 2007.

Wes Hodges - Again injuries have played a role, but Hodges' power and discipline have deteriorated at each level to the point where now he is a deserved after thought.

Matt McBride - Here I largely question the developmental choices the organization has made. McBride was at catcher, but got moved to corner outfield. He had enough of a projectable bat to be a major league catcher, but it would have and will take a minor miracle to make him a serviceable outfielder. I say development fail.

Adam Davis - He got worse each of his final two seasons at Florida, so I don't blame Cleveland for him not being any good, just for drafting him.

Ryan Morris - A big high-school lefty who the Indians have been unable to teach how to throw strikes

Jared Goedert - Apart from a now legendary 46 game stretch in Lake County, he is 9th round organizational fodder

Paolo Espino - Espino has been moved back and forth from rotation to bullpen, but his improved control this season was a positive step forward for him. I say one for the plus column.

Josh Tomlin - a 19th round pick, Tomlin has been steady in his performance across levels, last season as a stalwart in Akron's pitching staff, to the point of being an interesting guy. Development win.

Vinnie Pestano - Enough marginal improvement in his BB-rate to call this a minor victory.

Chris Nash - Big and raw high school firstbaseman, the Indians have never been able to translate his strength into power or any kind of plate performance. Fail.

Ryan Miller - late round flier who showed signs of life for Lake County in 2008, totally blew up in 2009.

Others

Jon Meloan - not drafted, but clearly a developmental failure. Were never able to right his once promising ship.

Asdrubal Cabrera - huge victory. Cabrera was a hugely underrated guy when we acquired him, but he has been able to translate that potential into actual performance.

Fausto Carmona - huge victory....turned huge failure? But this also involves the major league staff.

Frank Herrmann - Transition to bullpen was successful this season and might prove to be a very smart developmental move. That said, he didn't actually improve any of his numbers in the process.

Hector Rondon - Definitely looks like a victory in progress, has been getting better as he has advanced (at least until the final month of this season).

Rafael Perez - Another victory in terms of his minor league performance. Was a borderline starter turned into a momentarily great reliever.

Jeanmar Gomez - Another seeming victory in progress. His stuff has become more effective as he has moved through the system.

Josh Judy - 34th round 2007 pick, his numbers have also shown steady progress. Could warrant a bullpen look in 2010.

Carlos Rivero - was looking good, but had a definite set back this season in his AA debut

Summary

There are lots of guys I have no doubt missed, and I have intentionally left most of the guys acquired from 2007-present out, because for most of them development is still a work in progress. Generally, I think the Indians developmental system has been adequate, if not extraordinary. We have had pitching successes (Aaron Laffey) and failures (Jon Meloan), hitting successes (Asdrubal Cabrera) and failures (Brad Snyder), college successes (Ryan Garko) and college failures (Wes Hodges), high school successes (Nick Weglarz) and high school failures (Chuck Lofgren). Again, a real study would try to assess this quantitatively and comaratively, but I don't have time for that.

I will say the Indians success with pitchers have seemingly been with developing downward movement on their fastball and/or the development of a slider in particular as an effective secondary pitch. There aren't a ton of changeup success stories in the system, or guys who have developed great power fastballs.

At the plate, it is my sense that certain players who have struggled have gone back and forth between trying to achieve their power potential, while also maintaining a reasonable plate approach. Beau Mills seems to be a case of this in progress, where last season he was showing some signs of actually improving in both areas (following a half-season debut with good power and bad discipline), only to come crashing down in many ways this season. I always find it disappointing when guys who showed plus defensive skills, like Brad Snyder, could not ever quite work it out at the plate enough to get a shot at the major league level. Fire everyone! - mabe. But I'd probably rather see an easing of the constraints on the system. Not an abandonment of the over-arching organizational philosophy on player development, but an openness to the reality that Cleveland is not the greatest organization on the planet and does not have all of the answers.

Just about any individual performance success story or failure can be viewed either as a result of the player's contribution or that of the coaches - so it is impossible to really get at the latter. Only systematic problems give reasonable evidence of organizational failings in this regard. By and large I don't think the Indians system has those. I question sometimes whether the one size fits all approach to development and advancement works for everyone, but some of the player development decisions made this year (Abner Abreu, Lonnie Chisenhall, Zach Putnam) suggest a more flexible approach on behalf of the front office. The bottom line is that I think the Indians do a good job of getting players to perform to the level that is expected of them. There are not that many examples of guys turning into something more than was ever thought possible, but I would guess these are rare in every organization. There are also not a lot of total failures which don't have some major injury component to them. Fire everyone! - maybe. But I'd probably rather just see more humility in the current organizational philosophy towards development. The Indians are not the greatest organization on the planet and do not know the answers to every (or these days any) question. Allowing a little flexibility and opening the channels of communication regarding development up to a few more smart voices might not be a bad idea.

Game 147: Athletics 5, Indians 2

Ryan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:45:16 -0000

More photos » by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

Luis Valbuena (sort of) tags out Daric Barton in the eighth.

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The big blow of the game was Kurt Suzuki's three-run blast in the third inning. Justin Masterson had allowed his second run of the game earlier in the inning, and was pitching to Suzuki with two runners on, but was ahead of the Oakland catcher 0-2. But in a situation where pitchers try not to throw a strike, Masterson made a mistake, and it got hit out of the park. Justin lasted another inning, then left after throwing 93 pitches in four innings. He allowed 11 of the 22 batters he faced to reach base. And he's going to be one of the top three pitchers in next year's Opening Day rotation.

Lou Marson had three of Cleveland's six hits, one of which was a double. It sure looks like Marson will be on next year's roster, with his exact role to be dictated by what the Indians do with Kelly Shoppach. I still think it makes sense for the Indians to have the two compete for playing time, if not to get more production out of the catching position, then at least to avoid selling low on Shoppach.

Next Up: More late-night baseball. Huff vs. Anderson, 10:05 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Lou Marson	.057	Justin Masterson	-.248
Shin-Soo Choo	.043	Michael Brantley	-.094
Jensen Lewis	.041	Luis Valbuena	-.083

Fire Everyone! - The Trainers

fleerdon — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:40:57 -0000

More photos » by Andy King - AP

IN TONIGHT'S EPISODE: Did Michael Aubrey do too much stretching with his wife, or too little?

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

The Indians are four days from finishing a second straight season of no significant injuries to a starting pitcher. In the age of multimillion dollar salaries and exploding offenses, it is a significant achievement. Pitching coach Carl Willis immediately turned and knocked on his wooden locker. He then credited the pitchers for buying into what the training staff has preached, and also credited head trainer Lonnie Soloff and strength coach Tim Maxey for being proactive.

Priestle, Scott. "Starting pitchers free of major injuries."
Akron Beacon-Journal, 28 September 2006.

Ah, to be young.

Three years later, do we still believe that the Indians medical staff is all that and a bag of bosu balls? How do we account for that stretch of seeming medical invincibility in the mid-aughts, in light of more recent, less encouraging developments? Was it an unusually young team that slid off the back of the treadmill of time? Have the team's strength and conditioning methods changed for the worse? Or was it merely a run of preternatural good luck, and now the injuries have returned, like Fate in the Final Destination movies, to finish that which was left undone?

Objective analysis of these questions is just this side of impossible. Professional athletes, by definition, can generate physical forces at the extremes of human capability, but few are blessed with the durability to withstand those forces indefinitely. Baseball players, especially, must subject themselves to a brutally long season, and the stress of the sport is borne disproportionately by their dominant-side joints. Add to that the average MLB player's miserable diet, hard-partying lifestyle, and hectic travel schedule, and you have to wonder if the Indians' preference for "high-character" guys is little more than a pretense for choosing players who are, at a minimum, not of a disposition to wreck themselves.

Mind you, baseball is somewhat famously mired in the Dark Ages of fitness. It's a game decided by explosive movements and a short series of 90-foot sprints, but slow bodybuilding-style weightlifting and plodding long-distance runs are still common training protocols. I once was talking to a friend-of-a-friend who had pitched through high-A ball with the Braves before he bowed out with a bad shoulder. "What was your training regimen like?" I asked. He scoffed -- really, he scoffed. "I went back and trained with my college coach in the off-seasons," he said. "You gotta remember, it's such a long season, and the team invests so much in you. Most guys lift like idiots, and what the team wants more than anything is for you not to get hurt."

So contrast that against this anecdotal report of Tim Maxey's spring workouts, from the Cincinnati St. Xaiver High S&C coach's blog:

The Indians place a great emphasis on the physical development of every athlete that signs with the organization ... a priority that every staff member takes very seriously, which begins with the General Manager and filters all the way down towards the Latin American Academies .... All athletes work hard and with discipline during the training and conditioning sessions. They are well-supervised and every workout card is checked off [at the end of the] workout session. There is very little standing around.

Coach Alvarez goes on to describe an unremarkable workout plan. Basic, compound-movement, balanced lifts, some straight-forward sprinting, and a little corrective work at the end of the day. I've read a Maxey quote before to the effect that, "Hey, I don't care how good these guys look with their shirts off," and that's thoroughly in line with enlightened fitness thought as it relates to training athletes in-season.

A digression: American corporations operate under the protection of something called the "business judgment rule," which says, in essence, that the directors and officers do not incur liability to stockholders for business decisions gone awry as long as the decisions were reasonably well-informed and made with independent judgment. The easy version of the BJR is, if you do the right footwork, it doesn't matter how lousy the dance turns out.

Here's what (I think) I can say about the Indians' training staff: Their methods would pass muster under the business judgment rule. (If you're looking for a joke about that one time the Indians publicly sold shares of the club, you'll have to make it yourself.) Soloff and Maxey and their co-workers are competent, credentialed, and by all accounts hard-working individuals with the respect of their peers. They're doing the right footwork. My question for you: Is competence enough? If you say "no," you start an interesting conversation.

There's a lot of crazy stuff going on at the edge of the fitness universe. Two examples that spring to mind: nervous system optimization — check out Z-Health or Feldenkrais — and Active Release Techniques, a sort of targeted massage to cure mobility issues. We're not talking about Operation: Treadstone here, by the way — I'm not proposing anything at all which could compromise the athletes' health. Nor am I endorsing these particular systems — I don't know enough to do that. But I do wonder ... we've got Keith Woolner bringing new-wave mathematics to our statistical analysis. Do we have a mad genius physical therapist studying experimental training techniques? Should we?

I remember a 2006 GQ article that brought up visual perception training for binocularity, back before MLB players started doing that on their handheld Nintendos during bus rides. The scientist behind the system was getting amazing results with a system of ocular testing and training. Then there's a quote [pdf] from none other than John Farrell:

I think [the scientist has] had a tremendous impact on individual players, but the empirical evidence is limited. There isn't a large database that says this person went through these drills and this is where he ended up.

My reaction: So what? Isn't that exactly the sort of chance this organization should be taking? By the time there's a database of empirical evidence, the sun has set on the opportunity to create a competitive advantage. Yes, Farrell's answer demonstrates competence. Is competence enough? (Side note: Still want this guy for manager?)

Even if you're not on-board with this idea of looking for competitive advantage in fitness, I think it must be asked how often Soloff and Maxey have misfired in their more traditional responsibilities, and whether you care how defensible their methods are in light of the results.

To use the most inflammatory example: A slimmed-down Hafner will be "more mobile," hey? Then, on whose watch did he get so big in the first place? What, was he sneaking protein shakes, like a high schooler smoking behind the band trailer? Or how about Jensen Lewis' evaporating velocity act in 2008, passed off as Stomp "leaving something in the tank"? At what point, if not at the start of the season, should we have expected him to be in condition to bring his A-game? June? September? Or, famously, what about Jhonny's deteriorating vision? This guy's defense looked good enough that he beat out Brandon Phillips, and suddenly he starts giving the "olé bulls***" to routine grounders ... and nothing happens until the off-season? I know there's a recovery time for LASIK, but it only takes an afternoon to fit a guy for a pair of RecSpecs. Whose job was it to identify the problems and to get these guys into fighting shape? Who answered for the failure?

For that matter, if I see one common thread in the patented .400-ball Wedge Aprils other than Wedge himself, it's the off-seasons and spring trainings which preceded them. Occam's Razor alone makes me wonder if the problem is at least partly physical -- that our guys just aren't strong enough. You might answer, yeah, but they improve as the season goes on, under the trainers' closer watch. I don't see that as a particularly strong defense. Whose job is it to monitor these guys in the off-season?

Take, for example, Michael Aubrey, who moseyed into Winter Haven a few years ago announcing that he'd spent the off-season doing yoga with his wife. Like most of you, I'm sure, I remember thinking, hmm, that might work. Retroactively, I'm incredulous. Some types of flexibility are good; others, bad. It can be a delicate distinction, by which I mean, not the kind that should be made by some chump in stretch pants making $7 per hour at the Shreveport YMCA. That's doubly true when the body in question is a notably fragile, multi-million-dollar asset. Who, if anyone, signed off on that?

Not necessarily good for baseball. via www.jrmillerfitness.com

And I haven't even started on the veritable parade of young Indians pitchers whose skill-levels seem to start falling on the day their contracts get purchased. Willis calls his training staff "proactive." I guess we're supposed to believe that, if a guy who has devoted most of his life to throwing baseballs inexplicably collapses in the bigs, it's a mental thing, or a mechanical thing, or a long-standing injury thing, or an "adjustment" thing. It's certainly not a strength, conditioning, or mobility issue, because the Indians are proactive about that, you see.

Once more: Every single decision made by the Indians' training staff with respect to these players might be perfectly defensible exercise of sound business judgment. But I contend that there are degrees of defensibility. It's possible to make a decision defensibly and, at the same time, to choose poorly.

I took the Progressive Field guided tour last weekend. You don't get to see the weight room anymore, but as we passed the door to it, the tour guide said that the Indians' training facilities are quite possibly the finest of any professional athletic team's in the country. It made me shake my head a little. Maybe, for all the higher a priority physical conditioning is in this organization, for all the discipline and the supervision and the workout-card checking-off and the not-standing-around, they're just not working hard enough. Or smart enough. Or, hey, maybe they're working too hard. Like I said, it's tough to tell, behind all that competence. And I really do believe they're competent.

Is competence enough?

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.

Game 118: Angels 5, Indians 4

Ryan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:52:53 -0000

More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

Andy Marte had no answer for Jason Bulger's Blur pitch.

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Fausto Carmona didn't pass tonight's test against a hot Angels lineup. He gave up 10 hits and 2 walks in five innings of work, and five earned runs (three of them earned). His troubles really started in the second inning, when Andy Marte botched a bouncer with two outs. A run scored on the play, and the next hitter drove in the second run of the inning. But even in his scoreless innings, it took too many pitches to retire the side, and by the time the fifth inning rolled around, he was already approaching 100 pitches.

But even though the Indians gave were down 5-1 after three innings, they had many opportunities to climb back into the contest but just couldn't turn a rally into a big inning. Travis Hafner was the main culprit tonight, posting a -.464 WPA due to several poor at-bats with runners on. In the third inning, he struck out with the bases loaded and one out on a pitch in the dirt, and batting in the seventh with the same scenario, he grounded into a double play.

The bullpen again did yeoman's work, holding the Angels at bay while the offense attempted to come all the way back. Jensen Lewis pitched two scoreless innings following Carmona, and Rafael Perez had his slider working against right-handers in the eighth.

Weaver vs. Sowers, 7:05 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jhonny Peralta	.223	Travis Hafner	-.464
Asdrubal Cabrera	.138	Fausto Carmona	-.232
Shin-Soo Choo	.087	Jamey Carroll	-.185

Minor League Overview: The Pitchers

APV — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:42:05 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

New Cleveland Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco is part of newly strengthened system-wide pitching depth

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UPDATE: I've added in Price, Hagadone and the 2007 seasons for Chris Perez and Justin Masterson, the last full season of minor league action they both saw.

I haven't done a full system recap since the end of April, so we are definitely overdue for one, even before the trading deadline movements. In this installment, I'll highlight some of the pitching performances so far this season.

Progress Score Leaders

Hector Rondon: 6.78
Jesse Todd: 6.23
Jeanmar Gomez: 5.11
Alexander Perez: 3.66
Justin Masterson07: 3.13
Nick Hagaone: 2.84
Zach Putnam: 2.23
Jason Knapp: 1.85
Josh Judy: 1.81
Steve Smith: 1.34
Carlos Carrasco: 1.04
TJ House: 0.41

A few notes on these numbers. First, since PS takes into account games started, at this point in the season starters numbers are somewhat disadvantaged relative to relievers. For example, Hector Rondon's 6.78 is a fine score, but if you project his 17 starts to 26 starts the number goes up to an even better 8.58. Carrasco had a mid-6 score last season. Knapp and Scott Barnes also had very high (6+) scores last season, albeit in limited playing time. Kelvin De La Cruz only had 2 starts this season before being shut down, but in those two starts he put up a 12.19 progress score...obviously likely would have come down when his 42% K-rate and nearly 10:1 K:BB rate moved to more realistic numbers.

NET Leaders

Hector Rondon: 48
Jason Knapp: 45
Scott Barnes: 39
Jesse Todd: 34
Zach Putnam: 33
Steve Smith: 31
Ryan Edell: 31
Eric Berger: 30
Santo Frias: 28
Justin Masterson: 27
Alexander Perez/CC Lee: 25

It should be clear that Hector Rondon is having a good season and now, just a step away at AAA Columbus, is arguably our top pitching prospect. These scores seem to give a better view of what the front office sees in Knapp and Barnes. I also think Putnam will be an interesting guy to follow, maybe turning into a cheap version of Bob Howry by late 2010 or 2011.

K/PA (%) Leaders

Chris Perez07: 33.5
Jason Knapp: 30.9
Nick Hagadone: 30.5
Jesse Todd: 29.6
Steve Smith: 29.6
Santo Frias: 29.4
Josh Judy: 28.3
C.C. Lee: 25.5
Hector Rondon: 25.4
Ryan Edell: 25.0
Connor Graham: 24.9
Matt Langwell: 23.7

Not surprisingly this is a reliever-dominated list (although Knapp's spot on the top is striking...and who knew Edell was showing such nice K-rates this year). Other starters above 20% include Bryan Price (23.2), Bryce Stowell (22.7), Eric Berger (22.4), Carlos Carrasco (22.4), Alexander Perez (21.9), and Scott Barnes (21.7). I don't really think Steve Smith is much of a prospect (he's old), but he probably should be pitching someplace higher than Lake County. I still have hope in Santo Frias who was derailed by injury last season and converted to the bullpen.

BB/PA (%)

Josh Tomlin: 4.1
Russell Young: 4.2
Steve Smith: 4.3
Frank Herrmann: 4.7
Hector Rondon: 5.2
Ryan Edell: 5.6
Paolo Espino: 5.6
Justin Masterson07: 6.2
Kyle Landis: 6.4
Jesse Todd: 6.5
Zach Putnam: 6.5

Rondon, Edell, Todd, Putnam...And in case you were wondering who has the best K:BB ratio, it is Steve Smith (6.88), Hector Rondon (4.88), Josh Tomlin (4.88), Jesse Todd (4.55) and Ryan Edell (4.46).

GB%

Nick Hagaone: 70%
Travis Turek: 64%
Russell Young: 60%
Justin Masterson07: 59%
Chris Jones: 58%
Carlton Smith: 57%
Trey Haley: 56%
TJ McFarland: 55%
Zach Putnam/Josh Judy/Connor Graham/Neil Wagner/Jon Holt: 54%

Jeanmar Gomez, TJ House and Zach Jackson are right off this list at 51%. Carlton Smith is doing better in Akron than his brother Corey ever did.

The Movers:

Moving up...

Jeanmar Gomez has had a great season, and not just because of his no-hitter. He's improved his K-rate, BB-rate, GB-rate, and HR-rate, all while advancing from A+ to AA. There are still lots of questions about how he'll perform against higher competition and the quality of his "stuff", but he has without a doubt had a very good season.

Hector Rondon has also had a great season, improving his K, BB, and HR numbers while advancing within spitting distance of Cleveland. While Gomez has improved the view of his ceiling, Rondon has more maintained his position but by moving closer to Cleveland and not stumbling has made the attainment of that ceiling more likely.

Alexander Perez is making the most of his first full season and seems to be at the head of the young, low-A pitchers.

Chuck Lofgren's year has been an improvement, if only because he is actually pitching and throwing strikes. He is far from being the impact guy he once looked like, but he now looks like he might be able to fill a depth starter role in the future. Similarly, Ryan Edell is not a great prospect, but he's had a good year and looks to be an emergency rotation fill-in sometime in 2010 or 2011.

Zach Putnam is having a good, if somewhat uneven (in part reflecting his movement from the rotation to the pen) full-season debut. (ed. note: but Cleveland never drafts the right guys or promotes them aggressively!)

Moving down...

Kelvin De La Cruz and Joey Mahalic were both off to great starts before getting injured. Those injuries trump their great starts.

Trey Haley, Danny Salazar and Bryce Stowell haven't had good seasons. Stowell has had control issues, Salazar hasn't been missing enough bats (which at low-A isn't good), and Haley has had trouble with just about everything (0.6 K:BB !).

Our pitchers who have taken the biggest blows this year are, of course, the guys who have pitched in Cleveland. SLewis's injury problems make him an uncertainty. Huff hasn't been what he was last year. Raffy and Jensen Lewis can lose, it turns out. Carmona...

Final Thought

We have a lot of interesting young pitchers, many of whom are floating around Mahoning Valley and Goodyear, whose rosters I did not cover here. But one of the things I noticed is that, especially the way this season has shredded some of our upper minors pitching depth, the recent acquisition of guys like Barnes, Graham, Knapp and Carrasco really do a lot to fill out our pitching depth. This isn't to say we don't have interesting guys on pretty much all our full roster teams, but with the new pitchers we have multiple potential impact pitchers on each team, which is a much more reassuring position going forward.

Game 75: Indians 9, Reds 2

Ryan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:59:06 -0000

More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

Victor Martinez lines a home run just over the right field fence.

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Wins like tonight are rather frustrating. Frustrating not because the Indians won, but because it shows you the possibilities had this team had just a modicum of starting and relief pitching.

Jeremy Sowers pitched into the eighth, which was a rare accomplishment for him. On top of that, he struck out season-high six, indicative of how relatively lively his stuff was. Normally Jeremy will do all right for the first time or two through a lineup, but then hitters catch on to his strategy. Tonight he had the stuff to augment his normal location-and-speed attack plan. With a normal bullpen behind him, Eric Wedge would have pulled him after seven innings, but the Indians manager allowed Sowers to return to the mound for the eighth because, frankly, a tired Sowers was a better bet that a fresh reliever coming through the bullpen gate.

It turned out that Jeremy was completely out of gas (he gave up two doubles to open the inning), so Wedge reluctantly signaled for Jensen Lewis, who did defuse the inning. Jensen went back for the ninth, for the Indians still were up by seven. This time he did the inexcusable: he walked the first two batters of the inning. Wedge pulled him, and now he's on his way to Columbus (see the story below). Tony Sipp came in and finished the game, striking out the side.

The Cleveland hitters, after going down quietly in the first two innings, rattled Reds starter Aaron Harang for seven runs (five earned) in the next three. Victor Martinez went deep for the second game in a row, and Ryan Garko, still visibly favoring his wrist while batting, hit a two-run homer. Two unearned runs in the fifth sealed Harang's fate. Thanks to Sowers' solid start, the lead going into the late innings was such that even this bullpen couldn't muck it up.

Next Up: Bailey vs. Ohka, 7:05 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jeremy Sowers	.253	Shin-Soo Choo	-.038
Ryan Garko	.170	Luis Valbuena	-.030
Grady Sizemore	.128	Travis Hafner	-.029