SB Nation - Lou Marson

Transactions: Shoppach Traded

Ryan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:18:04 -0000

More photos » by Charles Rex Arbogast - AP

Andy Marte is the winner of the Coco Crisp Trade Survivor contest.

Traded C Kelly Shoppach to Tampa Bay for a Player to be Named Later

Kelly's career stats:

There are several factors that contributed up to this trade. First, and most importantly, the Indians have two young catchers (Lou Marson, and later Carlos Santana) that they'd like to get a good look at this year. They could have waited until they thought Santana was ready to handle a major league staff to trade him, but there was little chance that he would remain with the team through the 2010 season.

Shoppach is also in his second year of arbitration, and is due for a small raise from his $1.95M 2009 salary. Kelly's offense fell off dramatically in 2009, though he still managed a 98 OPS+, still very good for a catcher. Shoppach's offensive game is always going to be an amended Three True Outcomes (home runs, strikeouts, and, in hit by pitches), but last season the strikeouts were up and the power was down. I don't see 2009 as part of a downward trend for Kelly, though. Finally, Kelly was very critical of organization after the Victor Martinez trade, and while that criticism probably had little to do with the trade, it also made dealing him in the offseason an easier call than if he had embraced his opportunity after the trade. I still think he was going to be dealt sooner or later, but it would have made more sense to wait until during the 2010 season to do it, since his value might have gone up with better offensive production.

The trade means that Lou Marson will be the Indians' Opening Day catcher, and most likely that Wyatt Toregas will be his backup. Carlos Santana is slated to spend some time in AAA until the Indians feel he's ready defensively.

The Indians, as is often their tactic, will choose a player from an agreed-to list. The deadline for making the pick is December 20th, so I'll comment on the player then.

Phillies Top 10 Stories of 2009: No. 10 -- Improvement on the Farm

WholeCamels — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:38:45 -0000

First in a series of ten (seriously!) articles on the 2009 Phillies.

As recently as 2005, the Phillies farm system had the worst minor league winning percentage in all of professional baseball. Organizational winning percentage may not be the best way to judge system strength, but you get the idea. Things have turned around since then. So much so, that the organization has been able to unload six of their top ten prospects (Adrian Cardenas, Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald, Lou Marson, and Jason Knapp) at the deadline for pitching help, and they still have one of the best farm systems in baseball.

The biggest reason? The system's top three prospects -- RHP Kyle Drabek, and outfielders Michael Taylor and Domonic Brown. The three guys who were too good to trade for Roy Halladay.

More after the jump...

Drabek, coming off Tommy John surgery, posted a 3.19 ERA with 150 strikeouts and just 50 walks in 158 innings pitched between Class A Clearwater and Double-A Reading. Drabek only turns 22 early next month. The Phillies shut Drabek down in August when he led the minors in innings pitched; a judicious decision, considering his recent arm surgery. He projects as a #2 starter in the majors, but will likely spend all of 2010 in Double-A and Triple-A, barring disaster in Philadelphia.

Michael Taylor posted a combined .320/.395/.549 line between Reading and Triple-A Lehigh Valley, with 20 home runs. An extremely strong contact hitter (just 70 strikeouts) with a line-drive swing, the 6'6", 250 pound outfielder looks to force his way into the big leagues as soon as mid 2010 -- whether it's with the Phillies or another team remains to be seen. He'll be 24 next season, so he's just about "done."

Domonic Brown has emerged as the organization's top prospect. An exciting mix of tools and skills, Brown went .299/.377/.504 mostly between Clearwater and Reading in his age 21 season. Brown will need at least one more full year in the minors and will probably start 2010 in Reading.

Aside from those three, there's a great deal of organizational depth, particularly among the pitchers -- lower level guys with high upside like Trevor May and Brody Colvin, and future reliever types like Joe Savery, Mike Stutes and Vance Worley, not to mention Justin DeFratus, Austin Hyatt, Jonathan Pettibone, Matt Way, etc. etc. You get the idea. Grab a bunch of nice arms, and hope to hit on a couple of them. It's as good a strategy as any. Oh, and Scott Mathieson is hitting the mid to upper 90s again.

Among the position players, catcher Travis D'Arnaud and outfielder Anthony Gose lead the non-Taylor/Brown positional prospects, but both are still at least a few years away.

Of course there are weaknesses -- no real third base or middle infield prospects to speak of (unless Freddy Galvis can actually figure out how to hit a little) -- and a disconcerting tendency to go for toolsy outfielder types with high picks. But in 2009, the Phillies farm system proved beyond any doubt that it belongs in the top third in MLB. Quite a change from a few years ago, when it was one of the very worst.

Pirates Can't Learn Much From Phillies

Charlie — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:05:52 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels throws against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

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John Mehno has the right idea in this Beaver County Times column about the differences between the Pirates and Phillies--it's not primarily about spending, it's about building by acquiring amateur talent. But while the technique of comparing some great Phillies draft picks (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and so on) to picks the Pirates botched at similar points in their drafts is effective for an article written with a word count for a general audience, it doesn't quite tell the whole story.

The Phillies' case is really weird. If you look at their drafts under previous GM Ed Wade (that's basically the time frame described in the Beaver County article), it's very surprising they've been so successful. Working backwards, the best player they got in 2005 was current Athletics reliever Josh Outman; they also got current Reds reliever Matt Maloney. That was it. In 2004 they got J.A. Happ in the third round, Jason Jaramillo in the second, and Lou Marson in the fourth, but they also took Greg Golson as a dubious tools pick in the first round and got nothing in the later rounds. In 2003 they had no first- or second-round pick; they got Michael Bourn and Kyle Kendrick, and that was it.

In 2002 the Phils took Cole Hamels in the first round, which was obviously a great pick, but they got absolutely nothing else. In 2001, it was Gavin Floyd in the first round and Howard in the fifth, and absolutely nothing else. In 2000, they got Utley, Taylor Buchholz and nothing else. In 1999, it was Brett Myers, Marlon Byrd and nothing else. (They also drafted Joe Saunders, but didn't sign him.)

Now, maybe this doesn't sound too noteworthy to some of you. Maybe you think that if you get one good player out of a draft, that's great, and to a certain extent that's true. In this case, the results speak for themselves. But what's odd to me about the Phillies' drafts under Wade is how incredibly thin they were. Wade seemed to get a star player and almost nothing else every year for several seasons in a row. That's strange.

To see what I mean, let's take a look at Wade's first draft for the Phillies in 1998. He took Pat Burrell with the first overall pick (a bit of a no-brainer), but he also got several moderately useful players later on, such as Jason Michaels, Geoff Geary and Nick Punto.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that much if you fail to identify the next Nick Punto in your draft, but it does raise the question of why, if the Phillies are supposed to be a good example of intelligent drafting, they were able to identify so many star players but so few other future productive major leaguers.

Here's an example. In 2000 the Phillies got Utley, who single-handedly made the draft a very successful one for Philadelphia. The same year, the Pirates got Chris Young, Nate McLouth, Ian Snell, Jose Bautista and Sean Burnett. I'd say the Pirates actually did a much better job in that draft, even though it turned out worse--Dave Littlefield stupidly traded away Young a couple years later, and first-rounder Burnett's career was derailed with a ton of injuries. Drafting players who will stay healthy and helping them stay healthy involve skills, of course, and it certainly helps to not take a pitcher in the first round every year like the Pirates did. But there's luck involved too. For example, the Phillies were notably lucky that, for example, high school draftee Hamels basically made it to the majors with his elbow and shoulder intact, particularly after he missed huge chunks of his minor league career with injuries.

In 2001 the Phillies got Floyd, later sent to the White Sox in the Jim Thome trade, and Howard. That was all. Again, the Pirates had a much more robust draft, grabbing a number of moderately useful players in Zach Duke, Chris Shelton, Jeff Keppinger, Chris Duffy, Jonathan Albaladejo and Rajai Davis. (They also might have had some shot of signing 11th-rounder Stephen Drew if Littlefield, who was hired shortly after the draft, hadn't dropped the ball.) The Pirates royally messed up their first-round pick, John Van Benschoten, and that was their fault, but again, I'm not really convinced that Wade and the Phillies had a better idea of what they were doing.

Of course, Littlefield and his team started drafting in 2002, and after that all bets are off. There's no defending much of anything Littlefield did. My point, though, is that I'm not sure the Wade-era Phillies are a particularly good model here. In fact, it looks to me that they repeatedly got very lucky with about one pick each year and totally bombed the rest of their drafts under Wade, with the exceptions of 1998 and 2004. I don't mean to take anything away from the Phillies, who have generally been pretty well run since Wade left. But If there are things the Pirates can learn from this, they are the very basic points that, first, it's generally very important not to screw up first-round picks, and second, that it's important to build a core of homegrown stars. Beyond that, the Phillies' example doesn't tell us a whole lot.

A Tale of Two Lefties: Clifton Phifer Lee v. Carsten Charles Sabathia

David S. Cohen — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:41:16 -0000

More photos » by Matt Slocum - AP

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Tomorrow night, Cliff Lee will face CC Sabathia in Game 1 of the 2009 World Series. It's possible that the two lefties will face each other two more times over the course of the possible seven game series, as each manager has indicated that his ace lefty could pitch Games 1, 4, and 7 (if necessary).

The two aces share a lot in common besides both being lefties. Both were initially drafted in the 1998 amateur draft, Sabathia by the Indians and Lee by the Orioles. Sabathia was a first round pick who quickly signed. Lee, a twentieth round pick, did not sign, re-entering the draft in 2000 when he was drafted by the Expos. In 2002, before he had reached the majors, he was traded to the Indians as part of a package in the Bartolo Colon deadline deal.

Until 2008, both Lee and Sabathia spent their major league careers as Indians, with Sabathia being the better pitcher, although not by much. From 2001 through mid-2008, Sabathia was 106-71 with a 3.83 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, and 116 ERA+ over 1528 innings. From 2002 through mid-2009, Lee was 83-48 for the Indians with a 4.01 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, and 110 ERA+ over 1117 innings.

Even though Sabathia had the better career as an Indian, Lee's peak was better. The two won back-to-back Cy Young Awards as Indians, but Lee had the better Cy Young season. In 2007, Sabathia went 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA over 241 innings. His ERA+ was 143 and his WARP3 was 7.2. In Lee's 2008 Cy Young season, he went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA over 223.1 innings. His ERA+ was 175 with a WARP3 of 8.6.

Both Sabathia and Lee were traded in blockbuster mid-season trades that netted the Indians a good portion of a future lineup and rotation. The Indians got Matt LaPorta, Rob Bryson, and Zach Jackson from the Brewers for Sabathia in July 2008. A year later, they got Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, Lou Marson, and Jason Donald from the Phillies for Lee. Both players were then key cogs in getting their new team to the post-season, with Sabathia coming in fifth place in the NL Cy Young voting for his half-year of work for the Brewers and Cliff Lee anchoring an until-then shaky Phillies rotation in the second half of their third-in-a-row NL East championship season.

Both players have been excellent so far this post-season. They've both pitched 3 games, allowed 4 runs, and have a 20:3 strikeout to walk ratio. The big difference, if you can call it big, is that Lee has pitched more innings (24.1 to Sabathia's 22.2), and has allowed fewer earned runs (2 to Sabathia's 3). Thus, Lee has an eye-popping 0.74 ERA compared to Sabathia's merely gaudy 1.19 ERA.

So what can we expect from these two in this series? Both have faltered in their career against the opposing team. In 9 career starts, Lee has a 4-4 record against the Yankees, posting a 5.02 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, and 39:18 strikeout to walk ratio. In 4 career starts against the Phillies (including the post-season), Sabathia has a 1-2 record with a 5.55 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, and 17:8 strikeout to walk ratio.

Looking to splits, both pitchers have been better against right-handed hitters over their entire careers, although not drastically so. For Sabathia, he has given up a .694 OPS to righties and .647 OPS to lefties. For Lee, he has given up a .733 OPS to righties and .714 to lefties. This year, however, it has been much more drastic for both pitchers. For Sabathia, .681 for righties and .560 for lefties. For Lee, .734 for righties and .583 for lefties. Both teams' lefties should struggle against these pitchers.

At the new Yankee Stadium, both pitchers have done well this year, although with Cliff Lee having a very small sample size, of course. Sabathia pitched 15 games during the regular season and had a 3.17 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. Lee won the 1 game he pitched there this year, letting up 1 earned run in 6 innings, for a 1.50 ERA but a 1.67 WHIP. At CBP, Lee was 3-2 with a 2.52 ERA and 1.01 WHIP. ~~Sabathia hasn't pitched in Philadelphia yet in his career.~~ [EDIT: Sabathia has pitched one post-season game at CBP and no regular season games. In that one game, he took the loss and had a 12.27 ERA, 3+ WHIP, and a 5:4 strikeout to walk ratio. Clearly not good at all, the "small sample size" bell should be ringing loud and clear.]

Finally, how have the two done against the individual hitters in the opposing lineups? Having been in the AL, Lee has a much longer track record against the Yankees' hitters and many have fared very well against him. Only Raul Ibanez has seen Sabathia a significant number of times, although in limited at-bats the top of the Phillies lineup has dominated Sabathia. (The numbers here include post-season plate appearances.)

	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Victorino	10	0.556	0.600	1.000	1.600
Rollins	14	0.385	0.429	0.769	1.198
Ibanez	43	0.275	0.326	0.525	0.851
Ruiz	5	0.400	0.400	0.400	0.800
Howard	9	0.333	0.333	0.444	0.777
Werth	8	0.250	0.250	0.500	0.750
Francisco	6	0.200	0.333	0.400	0.733
Feliz	8	0.125	0.125	0.250	0.375
Utley	6	0.000	0.167	0.000	0.167

	PA	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Rodriguez	20	0.333	0.450	0.733	1.183
Teixeira	26	0.391	0.462	0.696	1.158
Jeter	30	0.407	0.467	0.519	0.986
Posada	22	0.286	0.273	0.667	0.940
Swisher	24	0.333	0.458	0.444	0.902
Cabrera	12	0.273	0.333	0.545	0.878
Matsui	19	0.294	0.368	0.412	0.780
Cano	19	0.222	0.263	0.222	0.485
Damon	23	0.091	0.130	0.091	0.221

With the track record for these two aces being so close, the best prediction is that the games they pitch should be close battles, at least as long as the starters stay in the game.

The only clear loser here is the Cleveland Indians.

Fire Everyone! - Mark Shapiro

Jay — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:53:11 -0000

More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

Is just developing a good process enough?

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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.

Game 156: Cleveland 9, Baltimore 0

Ryan — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:43:53 -0000

More photos » by DAVID RICHARD - AP

David Huff turned in his best outing as a pro, throwing eight shutout innings.

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If this was David Huff's last start, he ended his rookie season on a high note. In fact, I think this start might be the best non-Lee start of the season. Huff pitched eight shutout innings, allowing just 5 hits and 2 walks and striking out 5. Judging by his last five starts, it seems like he's made adjustments to the league, and although he'll have to compete for a rotation spot next spring, there's a very good chance that he'll remain with the big-league club in 2010.

The Indians made it easy on Huff by scoring six runs in the first inning. Asdrubal Cabrera (who would collect four hits on the day) drove home two on a double, Andy Marte drove another one in with a single, and Kelly Shoppach capped things off with a three-run homer. I still maintain that, even though Lou Marson has done well in his September audition, it would behoove the Indians to keep Shoppach around another season. Let Shoppach and Marson share time early in the season, and when Carlos Santana is ready, then deal Shoppach away.

Matt LaPorta hit his seventh home run in 158 at-bats today, and has brought his batting line up to (going into today) a fairly respectable .272/.312/.456. I think it's a given that he's going to be in the lineup Opening Day, though the question still remains what position he'll be playing.

Next Up: Chicago comes to town. Danks vs. Laffey, 7:05 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
David Huff	.123	Shin-Soo Choo	-.030
Kelly Shoppach	.122	Jhonny Peralta	-.012
Asdrubal Cabrera	.104	Matt LaPorta	-.005

Game 152: Tigers 11, Indians 3

Ryan — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:49:09 -0000

More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

Justin Masterson only lasted four innings.

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If my math is correct, the Indians just have to win two more games to avoid ending the season with 100 losses. Even as bad as they've been playing, they should avoid that, with six upcoming games against teams tanking about as badly as the Indians. But it's almost certain that they'll blow by the 94-loss 2003 team, which means that you have to go back to 1991 to come across an Indians club with a worse record.

Unfortunately, I'd take the 1991 rotation over this one. That team had a 24-year-old Charles Nagy and a 26-year-old Greg Swindell heading it, while this is one, as currently constituted, has Aaron Laffey and a bunch of projects. Justin Masterson, a pitcher who was supposed to contribute right away, hasn't adjusted to full-time starting. Tonight, against a lineup that can to pitched to, he got rocked for six runs in 4+ innings. Yes, two of those runs were unearned because of an Andy Marte throwing error, but I'm just not seeing any improvement in his location or adjustments to past failures. I think he's actually gotten worse since he got here.

The offense got shut down yet again. What else is new. Jhonny Peralta is again in the midst of a exasperating slump, hitting .182/.250/.234 in the month of September.

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jamey Carroll	.059	Justin Masterson	-.408
Andy Marte	.021	Luis Valbuena	-.064
Shin-Soo Choo	.017	Lou Marson	-.039

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

Game 144: Twins 6, Indians 3

Ryan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:01:30 -0000

More photos » by Jim Mone - AP

Jeremy Sowers shut the Twins out through seven inning, but the bullpen imploded in the eighth.

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For seven innings the Indians played exceptional baseball, especially given the importance the game had for the Minnesota Twins. Jeremy Sowers pitched seven innings of shutout baseball, and the offense scored three runs on two home runs. Going into the eighth, it looked as through the Indians had dealt the Twins a critical blow to their playoff aspirations. Detroit had just came from behind to beat Toronto, and Minnesota was two innings away from going down 6.5 games with less than 20 games to play. The Twins have seven games left against the Tigers, but even so, there is in effect no room for error.

It was then that the Indians conveniently melted down, allowing the Twins to score six times. The disastrous eighth frame started with an Asdrubal Cabrera error on a simple backhanded play. Tony Sipp then walked Joe Mauer, bringing the tying run to the plate. No problem, for Eric Wedge had Chris Perez warming in the bullpen for this eventuality. Sipp would have stayed in had Justin Morneau been batting cleanup, but Morneau was out with an injury, so it was Michael Cuddyer at the plate, and Perez on the mound. Cuddyer blasted a game-tying three-run home run. The hilarity continued after Brendan Harris flied out for the first out of the inning; Delmon Young singled, then Matt Tolbert blooped a perfectly placed ball into shallow left field to chase Young to third. Then Lou Marson allowed a pitch to get by him to the backstop, and Young scored the go-ahead run. Jason Kubel provided the capper to the meltdown by smashing a home run into the right field upper deck.

The game doesn't really mean a whole lot to the Indians, but it was extremely depressing to see the two guys who are probably going into next season as the primary setup men completely blow a game meaningful to at least the other team.

Next Up: Carmona vs. Baker, 8:10 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jeremy Sowers	.383	Chris Perez	-.737
Trevor Crowe	.112	Tony Sipp	-.141
Lou Marson	.073	Luis Valbuena	-.069

Game 134: Indians 5, Twins 2

Ryan — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:26:00 -0000

More photos » by Mark Duncan - AP

Jeremy Sowers.

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After getting swept in Detroit, the Indians continued to help the Tigers' AL Central hopes tonight by defeating their closest competitor.

Jeremy Sowers pitched one of his cleanest games of the year, allowing 2 earned runs on seven base runners (6 hits, 0 walks, 1 HBP) in six innings. Jeremy's pitching this month for a spot on next year's roster, whether it be in the rotation of in the bullpen. The Indians can't option out Sowers any more, so that means if he doesn't make the 25-man roster next season, he'll probably be in somebody else's organization. Before the All-Star Break, it looked like there was no way Sowers would be part of the 2010 Indians. But since the break, Sowers has a 3.71 ERA in 7 starts (not including tonight), and for the first time since his initial stint in the majors looks like a viable major-league starter.

Before tonight's game, it was announced that Grady Sizemore would undergo season-ending surgery. Not only on his elbow, but also on his groin. The groin problem explains why Sizemore hasn't run much this season, and had to have an adverse effect on his defense. And frankly, that Sizemore managed to hit .248/.343/.445 while playing a very demanding defensive position is amazing.

Michael Brantley will fill in for Grady both in center field and the leadoff spot. Brantley, at least at this stage of his career, is a much different hitter than Sizemore, but he's impressed me all the same in his few major-league at-bats. In the sixth, he did a great job of inside-outing a Carl Pavano pitch to drive in a run with two outs.

Kelly Shoppach, on the other hand, has looked terrible recently (.192/.302/.365 in August). He struck out three times tonight, all on swings and misses. He'll probably be losing playing time to Lou Marson after the AAA season ends, and although I think the Indians should keep him around another year, if they feel that Marson and Wyatt Toregas can hold down the fort until Carlos Santana is ready, then he's very expendable.

Next Up: Baker vs. Masterson, 4:10 PM

via www.fangraphs.com

Highest WPA		Lowest WPA
Jeremy Sowers	.145	Kelly Shoppach	-.076
Jamey Carroll	.124	Matt LaPorta	-.073
Travis Hafner	.107	Andy Marte	-.069