SB Nation User Blog: InfiniteMonkeyTypists

What does 2009 tell us about the future of Cabrera and Valbuena?

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:41:58 -0000

The 2009 season is mercifully over for our boys. We are sick of it. The only reason to think about the 2009 season anymore is to try to figure out what it tells us about the future. In particular, I was interested in what we learned about the future of our middle infield in 2009. What do we have to look forward to from Asdrubal Cabrera and Luis Valbuena? The following essay reads the entrails of 2009 with respect to the fortunes of our youthful double-play combo.

It was one of the most trying and frustrating seasons in memory (which goes back to the mid-70's) for this Indians fan. Other than 2008 and 1987, no other season in the past 35 years can come close to the tremendous gap between expectations and accomplishments of this maddening year. That should not be a problem in 2010. Sadly, this is not because the Tribe will achieve great things, but because by now all but the most severely delusional of us have reluctantly concluded that we're in for a year of retrenchment, of building for a new future. We close the gap by lowering our expectations not by raising the level of results.

Some have argued that we are in for an extended time in the doldrums, a return to the status quo of the 70's and 80's. Those were years where we could enjoy stress-free baseball by Memorial Day, or the 4th of July at the latest, unconcerned about trivial wins and losses due to our spelunking in the AL East. The die-hard Indians fan had the nature of the Buddha, unconcerned with the sufferings of this world, but given to the contemplation of larger questions and higher natures. Yes, we will not win the division, but let us envision a future in which this Alex Cole fellow continues to develop and becomes Lou Brock; a future extrapolated from Joe Charbonneau's rookie year where he is one of the top sluggers in the league for years to come. A future where, some day far off in the hazy matrices of years to come, we cobble together enough spare parts (aging knuckleballers, closers with shutdown 80 mph fastballs, unheralded mid-20's rookies putting together career years) to make a run at the playoffs.

I don't think that we're in for a return to the extended futility of the 70's-80's, but clearly next year, and quite likely 2011, are years where we will happier to focus on individual players' accomplishments and development rather than on the win-loss results of the team. And I think that the prospects with regard to this situation are surprisingly good (and that's why I think we won't have the extended period of futility).

The strength of this team seems to be up the middle of the defense, and its future depends in large part how those prospects pan out, and how those young vets continue to mature and develop. Grady Sizemore is a tremendous talent; he's shown what he can accomplish at the major league level. Provided that he is able to recover fully from his physical ailments of this year, there is no reason to think he can't be a very productive player for as long as he remains with the Indians, one of the top centerfielders in the league. There is not really much to examine or analyze there - at least not without medical information and knowledge that we don't really have access to. Carlos Santana certainly looks like a great prospect. For now, he remains just that; until he gets some major league playing time, we'd just be speculating on what he can and will do. There is plenty of basis for informed speculation, from scouting reports to minor league statistical results, but I'm not tackling that here. (Same deal for our other solid catcher prospect, Lou Marson).

The situation is different for the other two key up-the-middle players. Asdrubal Cabrera (AC) and Luis Valbuena (LV) both have had significant playing time at the major league level, but are young enough, and inexperienced enough, that we don't have a clear idea of who they could become. Perhaps they are already as good as they will ever be. For Cabrera, that would be enough to make him a solidly above average shortstop. For Valbuena, that would leave him a little short of what it takes to be a regular. He might be able to stick as a utility infielder, but it would be difficult to justify a full-time starting job. But, given both players young ages, it seems likely that they have some continued development left. I decided to try to determine what they might look like as fully-developed players. To do so, I compared their results from 2009 to all other player-year results from ML history through 2008 in order to determine which players had produced seasons like theirs before, and what type of careers they went on to have. The results were interesting, and particularly for Valbuena, somewhat surprising.

The Methodology

I wanted to find seasons that were essentially similar to those produced by AC and LV this year. The first aspect of this essential similarity is age - both of these guys are young. They were born 17 days apart (AC is the old one) in November, 1985. I have their age as 23.6 years as of 7/1/2009, so I'll use that as their seasonal age. I wanted to get range of players centered on that age. For LV, I used a range of 22.5-25.0 years; for AC it was 22.0-25.5 (I used a larger range for AC because due to his excellent season, I had to widen it a bit to get a decent number of comparables).

The other aspect of context which was essential for an offensive comparison is defensive position. Players at demanding defensive positions are generally less apt on offense than those who are basically offensive specialists. To account for this, I limited the comparison to players who appeared in at least 80 games at a skill position (I used C, 2B, SS, and CF). The corner infielders and outfielders, and DH's, are ignored.

Beyond that, I considered certain statistical results and limited the consideration subset to those players whose results fell in a limited range centered on the results of the player in question (AC or LV). Since I included players with better or worse results (as long as they were similar), the group as a whole should have average performance very similar to the target player.

The measures used included batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. Since plate discipline and power are such important skills for a good offensive performer, and since they can manifest in different ways, I included several other measures to account for these skills.

To make it into the consideration subset, the player had to have results within the permissible range for all of the measures. The measures used, and the ranges for each target player are below.

I used a cutoff for plate appearances since many of the measures are ratios, and I wanted a decent sample size.

	Acceptable Range		Actual Results
	AC	LV	AC	LV
Seasonal Age	22.0-25.5	22.5-25.0	23.6	23.6
Games at Skill Pos	>=80	>=80	128	105
Plate Appearances	>=400	>=300	581	398
Plate Discipline
BB/PA	0.06-0.10	0.05-0.09	0.076	0.065
SO/BB	1.25-3.25	2.0-4.0	2.02	3.19
Power
XBH/PA	>=0.075	>=0.075	0.090	0.095
ISO	.100-.160	.140-.190	.130	.166
BA	.270-.335	.225-.275	.308	.250
OBP	.330-.390	.275-.325	.361	.298
SLG	.405-.465	.370-.450	.438	.416

Note that I did not park or league adjust the offensive numbers, so the context of the target player's results and the comparison set are not the same. Yes, this is a shortcoming of the analysis, and a player may look similar but be considerably more or less valuable based on their actual context. With a large enough data set I expect this problem to be relatively small, especially consisting the somewhat neutral run context of Cleveland/AL/2009. But if you disagree, you may just want to quit reading right here, because I'm ignoring the context from here on out.

Although the ranges of values, particularly for AVG, OBP, and SLG seem quite wide, you end up with a small set of comparable players. If these rangers were much narrower, you'd only have a handful in the comparison set.

The resulting consideration set consisted of 15 players for AC, including 4 active players. The LV set consisted of 20 players (but 21 seasons), once again including 4 active players.

Here are the players and seasons for each set

AC-set	Year	Age	LV-set	Year	Age
Roberto Alomar	1991	23.4	Lou Brock	1962	23.0
Earl Battey	1960	25.5	Ellis Burks	1987	22.8
Paul Blair	1967	23.4	Jorge Cantu	2006	24.4
Wil Cordero	1995	23.7	Jose Castillo	2005	24.3
Coco Crisp	2004	24.7	Billy Conigliaro	1971	23.9
David Dejesus	2005	25.5	Travis Fryman	1992	23.3
Ray Durham	1996	24.6	Greg Gagne	1986	24.6
Dan Ford	1975	23.1	Ron Gant	1988	23.3
Johnny Grubb	1973	24.9	Pedro Garcia	1973	23.2
Jim Landis	1958	24.3	Alex Gonzalez	1996	23.2
Ken Landreaux	1979	24.5	Alex Gonzalez	1997	24.2
Julio Lugo	2000	24.6	Dave Henderson	1983	24.9
Russell Martin	2006	23.4	Randy Hundley	1966	24.1
Jorge Orta	1975	24.6	Omar Infante	2004	22.5
Amos Otis	1971	24.2	Pat Kelly	1992	24.7
			Ray Lankford	1991	24.1
			Jimmy Rollins	2001	22.6
			Roy Smalley	1950	24.1
			Miguel Tejada	1998	24.1
			Zoilo Versailles	1964	24.5
			Michael Young	2001	24.7

That is Alex Gonzalez the Blue Jay in both 1996 and 1997 on the LV list.

For AC, here is what those guys did for their entire careers, ordered by career/peak awesomeness.

Player	Primary Position	Years	Career OPS+	All-star Games	MVP Award Shares	350+ PA Seasons with OPS+ of 110-119/120-129/130+
Roberto Alomar	2B	17	116	12	1.91	3/1/5
Amos Otis	CF	17	114	5	0.93	3/4/2
Earl Battey	C	13	106	4	0.45	1/1/1
Paul Blair	CF	17	96	2	0.20	2/1/1
Ray Durham	2B	14	104	2	X	5/1/0
Jorge Orta	2B-DH	16	107	2	X	3/3/0
Johnny Grubb	CF-LF-RF	16	120	1	X	1/0/3
Dan Ford	RF	11	108	0	0.00	4/2/0
Jim Landis	CF	11	99	1	0.20	1/1/0
Ken Landreaux	CF	11	99	1	x	3/0/0
Wil Cordero	LF-SS-1B	14	95	1	x	1/0/0

active players
Russell Martin	C	4	101	2	x	1/0/0
Julio Lugo	SS	10	88	0	x	0/0/0
David DeJesus	CF-LF	7	106	0	x	2/0/0
Coco Crisp	CF	8	94	0	x	2/0/0

This is a solid group. Alomar will be in the Hall of Fame; Amos Otis had a career that was borderline HOF-worthy, though largely forgotten. Battey was an excellent offensive performer for a catcher, and had several big years. Paul Blair was an amazing defensive center-fielder, and he actually produced more with the bat in his peak years than is apparent at first glace. If AC can match the career of any one of these guys, we should be happy with the results.

In the next tier (Durham, Orta, Grubb), you have some guys who had excellent bats but either bad defensive reputations or trouble staying on the field. Nonetheless, if AC hits like these guys but can be an average shortstop, you've got a key contributor for a championship caliber team.

After that, you've got some outfielders with mid-length careers and several solid offensive years. Dan Ford was actually pretty good, I had never heard of him before.

And then, Wil Cordero. Yech. Still, he could have been good.

Of the active guys, Martin and DeJesus look like they will have solid careers with several years of star-quality performance. Lugo is the only shortstop on the list, and he's been underwhelming. Crisp, ... you all know him.

Summary - the future looks bright for AC. The average career line for this group, excluding the guys still active was 274/342/417 over 1600 games. It looks like something along the lines of a 30% chance to be a perennial high-performer, a 50% chance of being a long-time solid player with occasional star-level years, and a 20% chance of being a decent player, but looking like a disappointment compared to 2009-based expectations. I don't know that this is all that different from what you'd say from glancing at his 2009 line, but it's somewhat reassuring.

On to the, to me, more surprising results. Luis Valbuena looks pretty good in this context.

Here are the career totals for his comparison set.

Player	Primary Position	Years	Career OPS+	All-star Games	MVP Award Shares	350+ PA Seasons with OPS+ of 110-119/120-129/130+
Lou Brock	LF	19	109	6	1.60	5/4/0
Ellis Burks	CF	18	126	2	0.54	2/3/6
Miguel Tejada	SS	13	112	6	1.39	3/3/1
Ray Lankford	CF	14	122	1	0.03	2/4/3
Roy Smalley	SS	11	77	0	x	0/0/0
Ron Gant	LF	16	112	2	0.89	2/4/2
Dave Henderson	CF	14	108	1	0.07	2/2/1
Travis Fryman	3B	13	103	5	0.02	1/1/1
Zoilo Versailles	SS	12	82	2	1.01	1/0/0
Greg Gagne	SS	15	83	0	0.01	0/0/0
Alex Gonzalez	SS	13	79	0	x	0/0/0
Randy Hundley	CF	14	77	1	0.03	0/0/0
Pat Kelly	2B	9	81	0	x	0/0/0
Billy Conigliaro	CF	5	104	0	x	1/0/0
Jose Castillo	UT	5	75	0	x	0/0/0
Pedro Garcia	2B	5	75	0	x	0/0/0

active players
Michael Young	SS-2B-3B	10	105	6	0.38	1/0/2
Jimmy Rollins	SS	10	97	3	0.91	1/0/0
Jorge Cantu	2B-3B	6	104	0	0.00	2/0/0
Omar Infante	SS	8	85	0	x	0/0/0

Lou Brock is in the Hall of Fame; Ellis Burks isn't but he was better at his peak, and he had a long, excellent career. Miguel Tejada may be in the Hall some day, and he has an MVP. Ray Lankford was an underappreciated offensive force who could handle centerfield, he's a heck of a player, too. Roy Smalley, before being diminished by injuries, was Cal Ripken before Cal Ripken was. ((EDIT - oops, wrong Roy Smalley. It's actually Roy Smalley, Jr., not Roy Smalley, III. So, he was Cal Ripken Sr. before Cal Ripken Sr. was)) Ron Gant, Dave Henderson, and Travis Fryman all had good, long careers with several years of star-quality performance (yeah, Travis was a SS that first year, and Gant a 2B). Then you have a run of career shortstops, including MVP-winner Zoilo Versailles, the weirdly age-resistant and highly competent Greg Gagne, and the first of the nearly interchangeable Alex Gonzalezii.

So far, that's 3 stars plus 4 very good players with some spectacular years plus 4 solid shortstops with long careers (including Smally Jr) - that's a lot of value.

As for the rest - Hundley had 6 years as a starting catcher (plus 2 as a backup, and 6 cups of coffee), but only two or three where he was solidly above average. Pat Kelly had a pretty good 3-4 years as a semi-regular followed by a collapse in his bat and playing time. Billy Conigliaro, Tony's younger brother, I don't know what happened there. He was decent at a young age, but he didn't play after age 25. Jose Castillo looked good at first but didn't develop. Pedro Garcia got an early start with the expansion Pilots/Brewers, but never accomplished much after his rookie year.

Of the active players, Young and Rollins are established stars (Young more deserving than Rollins despite what the MVP votes may say), and Cantu has had a couple of good years in his young career. Infante looks like Jose Castillo again, though I wonder what he could do with a couple of years as a regular - he's hit really well for a utility infielder.

In the end, it looks like about a quarter of these guys were stars, another quarter were very good with occasional star performances, another quarter were solid regulars, and the final quarter were marginal contributors with shortish careers. That is better odds than I would have given LV based on a glance at his 2009 line, and it makes it look like he has considerable upside potential. I suspect that this is based on his impressive power for such a youngster - a 166 ISO for a young middle infielder is unusual (through 2008, there were 956 seasons of 80+ Games Played at 2B/SS for players under 25, and a 166 OPS would rank 81st).

I'm not sure how useful this type of analysis is as a projection tool, but it's fun as speculation. Given how little fun the 2009 regular season was, we could use a little fun now. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts about whether or not this type of 'similarity set' comparison is useful, and how it could be improved.

Data used in this analysis was drawn from the Lahman database and baseball-reference.com

2009 First Impressions

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:52:06 -0000

Making your pitching debut for a new club is like showing up for the first day of school. You are eager to make a good first impression, so you feel a bit of pressure. The intensity of that pressure varies with the volume of the scrutiny you will be under and the newness of the experience. If you’ve been going to that school for years and you have a well-established reputation (Cliff Lee), there is only a little pressure. There is quite a bit more if you’re new to the school, even though you’re used to the idea of going to school in general (Carl Pavano). Worst of all is when it’s your first day of school anywhere, anytime (Carlos Carrasco). But no matter what, you have been given the opportunity to establish, refine, reinforce, or enhance your standing with the population at large based upon this first appearance - you want to do your best.

So it is obvious that Carlos Carrasco will be eating his lunch alone at the end of the table, and that a few spitballs may be coming his way. Looking at his pitching line from last night, you would have to conclude that he had a less than auspicious debut. Six runs, nine hits, and three walks over three innings. I suppose that might be considered a horrible start, but it seems so familiar that I can’t really find it contemptible. I thought maybe I was exaggerating when I said that every Indians starter, every Indians pitcher, was launched with similar fanfare this year. So I looked at the numbers, and it turns out that it isn’t much of an exaggeration. It is really quite astonishing.

I am not commenting on the actual talent involved, or the coaching, or the preparation. I am inclined to believe that fluke bad luck is the largest factor, though certainly not the only factor, in these collective results. The following is just an attempt to lessen the pain by sharing it and laughing at it.

Your 2009 first impressions – we’ll focus on the starters. There have been nine men to step into the 2009 Cleveland Indians classroom as starters. In order of increasing embarrassment…

April 15, Aaron Laffey

5.1 IP/3 H/2 R/2 ER/3 BB/5 K/0 HR

Aaron shows up to school properly dressed, with a decent haircut. The girls remark upon how he has started to look more and more like that dreamy older boy who used to go to school here, Jake something or other. Aaron’s entrance is solid if unspectacular, but, as you will soon see, the competition makes him look like Han Solo’s tougher, better-looking older brother who has a really good car.

-------------------

So ends the portion of our program which contains starts that would not be considered bad.

-------------------

April 12, Anthony Reyes

6 IP/3 H/4 R/4 ER/3 BB/2 K/1 HR

Anthony looks like he had a rough summer. The scars and scrapes and the ongoing bad luck aren’t making him anybody’s favorite. He sort of looks like the kid in Bad News Bears who says about Kelly Leak, “Es un bandido!”, after he has grown up and been run through a rock tumbler. Nobody wants to stand too close to Anthony because they’re afraid the jinx might rub off on them.

-------------------

So ends the portion of our program which contains starts that would not be considered disastrous.

-------------------

April 10, Scott Lewis

4.1 IP/7 H/4 R/4 ER/1 BB/3 K/2 HR

April 8, Fausto Carmona

5 IP/7 H/6 R/6 ER/2 BB/4 K/1 HR

May 7, Jeremy Sowers

5 IP/7 H/7 R/7 ER/3 BB/1 K/0 HR

Scott, Fausto, and Jeremy are the Three Musketeers (Scott = Aramis, Fausto = Porthos, Jeremy = Athos). Really, that’s how the three youngsters showed up – three-cornered hats with feathers in, cardboard swords, capes fashioned from their favorite blankies. It was really quite humiliating for these second-graders. They’ll be hearing about this for a while. Somebody is going to bring it up at graduation

April 6, Cliff Lee

5 IP/10 Hits/7 R/7 ER/1 BB/5 K/1 HR

Cliff is such a bad man that nobody really laughs when he shows up looking like a wreck on the first day, because they’re afraid they’ll be wearing their ass up around their shoulder blades. Sure, Cliff’s fine automobile has some mechanical problems on his drive to school, and in the process of fixing it on the side of the road he gets oil and soot all over his face, and ruins his shirt so that he’s forced to wear the only spare garment in his car – his girlfriend’s discarded Hello Kitty shirt. It’s frilly and too small. There is no doubt that he looks silly. Go ahead, look Cliff in the eyes and express your scorn and derision. But if you do… when you get to hell (in about 30 seconds), tell’em that Cliff sent you.

May 17, David Huff

3.2 IP/7 H/7 R/7 ER/4 BB/2 K/0 HR

September 1, Carlos Carrasco

3 IP/9 H/6 R/6 ER/3 BB/3 K/3 HR

These two little lads had their first day of school ever, and they blew it. They got lost, they were scared, there was some suspicious dampness in the groin area.

April 9, Carl Pavano

1 IP/6 H/9 R/9 ER/3 BB/1 K/2 HR

Carl has been around the block, or at least around the nurse’s office, so it is a mystery why he made the choices he did. I can see why he tripped so spectacularly when entering the classroom, those clown shoes are very difficult to walk in, but that doesn’t explain why he was wearing them. They didn’t go well with the lederhosen or the pink Steeler’s shirt. Never mind the bowl haircut, that awful Hitler mustache distracted you from that disaster.

As bad as Carlos started out, it was a close call between him and David as to who had the second-worst start. I gave the nod to Carlos based on the shorter outing and the 3 HR.

In case you were wondering, those starts result in an aggregate line of

38.1 IP/59 H/52 R/52 ER/23 BB/26 K/10 HR

‘good’ for an ERA of 12.21. Hey, they didn’t allow any unearned runs, that’s something.

Rather than step through the relievers, I’ll just offer the following: there have been 20 of them so far, and 10 have debuted with a scoreless outing, led by Justin Masterson’s 3 IP on August 1. The other 10* have made up for that competence and then some, leading to an aggregate line of

31.1 IP/34 H/20 R/20 ER/9 BB/32 K/6 HR/5.74 ERA

*special thanks to Jensen Lewis, Chris Perez, Winston Abreu, and Luis Vizcaino.

Laffey, Reyes to DL, Sowers & Rundles called up

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:50:19 -0000

Laffey, Reyes to DL, Sowers & Rundles called up

Perez and Sipp must still have some work to do in Columbus because Rundles gets the call for the pen.

Shapiro discusses the offseason agenda

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:31:37 -0000

Shapiro discusses the offseason agenda

Castrovince has posted an article about Shapiro's annual postseason session with reporters, in which he discusses the need "to execute an offseason plan"; speaking of executing, there is mention of Marte, by Castrovince if not Shapiro.

Backup catcher if Victor needs to go on the DL

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:22:44 -0000

Somebody will have to challenge Marte as the least-used player off the bench if Victor is headed to the DL. Shoppach obviously becomes our starting catcher, but who is the new backup? Toregas is the only other catcher on the 40-man roster, but he's struggling at Buffalo, it looks like he'd be overmatched in Cleveland. Any chance that we see Chris Gimenez instead? Westbrook could be moved to the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man roster.

Gimenez has played mostly at catcher this year, though in the past he's been a utility kind of guy, so his catcher defense probably isn't all that good. Anybody have a good grasp on what his defensive profile is?

He is fantastic at controlling the strike zone, so good that it actually makes his hitting numbers look a little weak. It's hard to amass extra-base hits when almost 25% of your plate appearances result in a walk.

April: 15/57 with 18 bb, 13 k - 263/440/421

May: 23/70 with 21 bb, 14 k - 329/484/571

June: 13/29 with 11 bb, 4k - 448/600/517

Did you know...?

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:01:03 -0000

Did you know...

... that the pnuematic-powered android that replaced the human known as "Eric Wedge" is imprevious to blunt force, acid, fire, and self-doubt due to the advanced design and metallic exo-skeleton created by the team of scientists who devised the Pneumatic Man and swapped it in for "Wedge" in June of 1993 when the inferior human precursor was undergoing elbow surgery?

... that those same scientists were unable to fashion punchcards that would enable Wedge 2.0 to feel human emotion? It took the beard and tender heart of Casey Blake to teach the android how to feel "love" and "mild irritability", though he was unsuccessful with the emotions of "fear" and "shame".

... that the name "Borowski" appears as an image of a clenched fist with the third digit upraised when programmed into the punchcards that Wedge 2.0 processes to manage a baseball game?

IT IS TRUE.

... that since his life was saved by Richard Gere on the set of Karate Kid IV, Jason Michaels has become a devout Buddhist, vowing never again to strike a baseball in anger?

... that the spawn of Joe Borowski dine on naught but bile and drink naught but the bitter tears of the righteous?

HAS YOUR KNOWLEDGE BEEN ENHANCED?

... that the anagram of Peralta, "Trap Ale", refers to the magniificent ale brewed by the Trappist monks of Belgium? These monks drew their inspiration from St. Peralta, an ancestor of Jhonny who drove the ocelots out of Belgium and the Low Countries?

... that one anagram of "Jhonny" is "Johnny"?

THESE ARE UNDENIABLE FACTS!!!

(tip o' the hat to John Hodgman)

2008 Projections at Baseball Think Factory

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:54:05 -0000

Dan Szymborski has posted the 2008 ZIPS projections for the Indians over at the Transaction Oracle at Baseball Think Factory. It's an interesting read, and a great way to get some outside perspective on what we should expect next year. I was interested to see the projection for Gutierrez; I've thought that the group here may be expecting a little too much from him next year. The mean projection for Franklin isn't all that thrilling, but look at the 'player spotlight' a little lower on the page, with the optimistic and pessimistic projections (15th percentile best and worst outcomes). There is a lot of variability; hopefully the consensus here is right, and Gutierrez' production is closer to the optimistic end of the spectrum.

Check it out, it's a good way to spend a Friday afternoon before the holidays. Certainly better than working.

Nationals listening to offers for Chad Cordero

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:20:33 -0000

Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Nationals are considering offers for Chad Cordero, so long as the players acquired would help in their rebuilding program. They're looking for a package of even younger pitching in return.

Cordero has averaged something like 5-4, 30 saves, 77 IP, 27 BB, 74 K with a 2.66 ERA over the last three years (he's been consistent), at ages 22-24.

The only negative that jumped out at me in his numbers was the 30 HR allowed in those 230 innings. Washington is a pitchers park, so one HR every seven IP is high.

Would a package of Lofgren, Sipp or Perez, and Guthrie or Davis be enough to acquire Cordero? Would it be worth it?

Prospect list - position players

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 18:07:52 -0000

It's been 58 years and counting since we last won the World Series. I'm almost three times as old as my father was when the Indians knocked off the Braves in 1948. A little impatience can be excused at this point. So I was thinking about our chances of winning it all in the next couple of years. More specifically, I was thinking about who there was in our minor league system who could help us achieve that goal. The result - a prospect list.

First, a caveat. This is not a typical prospect list. It isn't about who is going to have the longest career, the best career, or who has the best tools (though tools help). It's about which players have the best chances of making a contribution to a Cleveland Indians World Series victory in 2007 or 2008. Most of these guys will not be regulars in the major leagues in the next couple of years; some of them never will. That doesn't mean that can't help us win a World Series though. If the Indians had been on the edge of the playoff race last year, Garko's half season might have been enough to get them to the post-season, and that has value even if the guy never has a decent full year. Besides, if a team with resource limitations like the Indians is going to win the World Series, they're going to need a few of these 'no sure thing'-guys to come through.

OK, I didn't consider the guys who already have a fair amount of big-league exposure - Marte, Garko, Shoppach, and Inglett. Marte and Garko would be 1st and 2nd if I had considered them, and Shoppach would be in the top 6, probably around Choo/Crowe. Inglett? I don't know. He's 28, so I'm not considering him a prospect (although I think he's a decent player). My list, my rules.

Here it is (age as of 7/1/2006):

Franklin Gutierrez - CF, 23, 806 OPS at Buffalo. It surprised me, but his 806 OPS was 13% better than the IL average. He has decent speed, a good defensive reputation, and was fairly young for the league. His bat could improve enough to make him a contributor.
Shin-soo Choo - RF-CF, 23, 893 OPS at Tacoma. Choo's raw numbers look good in 375 AB at Tacoma in the PCL, but the league OPS was about 760, so he was only about 17% better than the league. He's got more power than Gutierrez, and a higher upside, but his numbers in 2006 were well above the trend of 2003-2005 (and his defensive rep isn't as good), so I'm putting him below Franklin.
Trevor Crowe - CF, 22, 798 OPS between Kinston and Akron. Awesome at Kinston, he got hurt and struggled a bit in AA, but put up some good numbers in the AFL. Excellent speed, decent pop for somebody his size. I don't think he'll make it to Cleveland this year, but he could help in 2008.
Brian Barton - OF, 24, 923 OPS between Kinston and Akron. Awesome at Kinston, awesome at Akron. No longer a sleeper, he's got power, speed, talent, a good work ethic, and intelligence. His OPS at Akron was about 31% better than the league. He's a little bit old for the level of competition he faced, but given the relatively late start to his professional career and the ease with which he has handled each promotion, it's not too much of a knock on him. If he hits in Buffalo for the first half of the year, we could see a trade deadline deal to dump one of our veteran spare part outfielders and a Barton promotion.
Asdrubal Cabrera - SS, 20, 632 OPS at Buffalo. His bat seems weak (OPS 12% worse than league at Buffalo, about 10% worse than league in Tacoma) but that's not the most important number. 20. That's the important one. He's only 20. That's actually pretty good hitting for a 20-year old shortstop at AAA. He has a great defensive rep, so if age and experience bring his bat up to league average at AAA and Jhonny struggles again, we could see Cabrera as a part-timer.
Ryan Goleski - OF, 24, 948 OPS between Kinston and Akron. Destroyed the Carolina League, merely very good in the Eastern League. He's the same age as Barton, but lacks his tools and may have been expected to advance a little further since he started his pro career in 2003 (vs 2005 for Barton). Also, that down year at Kinston in 2005 makes me a little leery. His defense isn't so good, he doesn't run very well, but he has lots of power. Sort of reminds me of former Tribe prospect Luke Scott (Astros). Scott had a great half year in Houston, probably playing way above his head, but, like Goleski, has a legit bat and can produce respectable offensive numbers in the outfield for a couple of years in his prime.
Brad Snyder - RF, 24, 796 OPS at Akron. Meh. Disappointing. Still has tools, hit OK in the second half, strikes out a lot. But, with those tools, if he puts it together he could boost production at a corner outfield spot. What's with all the outfielders though? We really don't have many infield prospects that are anywhere near ready.
Ben Francisco - OF, 24, 799 OPS at Buffalo. Ben does a little of everything and had a pretty good year at Buffalo, with an OPS 12% better than the IL average. 17 HRs, 32 2Bs, stole 20 bases while being caught only 5 times. 4th outfielder possibility in the bigs. We need to package some of this outfield depth for some relief pitching.

And one more, a bit of a dark horse.

9. Jonathan Van Every - OF, 26, 814 OPS between Akron and Buffalo. Drafted way back in 2000, in the 29th round, he signed in May, 2001 and began a long trek up the minor league ladder. He's never been a heralded prospect, held back by low batting averages and tons of strikeouts. He's been old for his league in all of his strongest years. However, he draws quite a few walks, runs well, hits for power (475 SLG in his minor league career) and Baseball America recently called him the Indians best defensive outfielder in the minors. He's still on the roster at Buffalo, so I don't think he's a minor league free agent yet.

Others - Wyatt Toregas (C), Jordan Brown (OF), Jose Constanza (OF), and Max Ramirez (C/1B/DH) aren't really far enough along to expect anything from them by 2008.

Indians sign Taiwanese prospect

InfiniteMonkeyTypists — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:30:53 -0000

According to the AP, the Indians have signed Sung-Wei Tseng. He's 21, and pitched for Taiwan in the World Baseball Classic, the only amateur on their team apparently.

Anyone have any info on him? He pitched against the US team, shutting them down for 5 innings.

Any chance he's got a sure handed brother who plays third base and hits like Manny Ramirez?