SB Nation User Blog: Jay

Will Carroll on Grady's return from surgery

Jay — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:44:03 -0000

Will Carroll on Grady's return from surgery

It's a video, but for some can't-possibly-be-anything-but-stupid reason, MLB.com doesn't do the whole "embed" thing. Will is interviewed by some Fantasy Draft guy, talks about Sizemore, A-Rod, and half the Mets roster. Sizemore is covered right off the bat, so you can just watch the first minute if you want.

Non-tender roundup: Miller and Reyes signed to minor league deals

Jay — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 01:36:45 -0000

Vaporstarter Adam Miller and the oft-injured Anthony Reyes were not tendered contracts by the Indians yesterday, rendering them free agents, but both pitchers signed minor league deals with the Indians just hours later. These transactions remove both pitchers from the 40-man roster while retaining their services for at least one more year. In the (admittedly unlikely) event Miller's career gets back on track this season, this series of moves avoids using up one of his option years, and should the Indians choose in the next year to restore him to the 40-man roster, he will have at least one option year left and will remain under club control at least through 2016. Reyes remains optionless, of course, but still hypothetically could remain under club control through 2013.

The Indians also declined to offer a contract to reliever Jose Veras, who was arbitration eligible, rendering him a free agent, and there is no indication he will be re-signed. Cleveland's 40-man roster now stands at 37, with 18 pitchers and 19 position players.

The Indians did tender a contract to pitcher Rafael Perez, who is eligible for arbitration (and to the other 28 players on the 40-man roster who are not yet eligible). The non-non-tender to Perez was non-unexpected, despite a disastrous season in which he was the fourth-worst reliever in the majors (min. 30 IP) per WXRL, which estimates a reliever's actual impact on the chance of his team winning or losing games. (That's "Win Expectation above Replacement, Lineup-adjusted," if you must know. BP rates Perez as merely the 10th-worst reliever at preventing runs from scoring, but because he blew more runs than his peers in high-leverage game situations, his negative impact on wins and losses was more substantial.)

Perez spent almost two months in the minors but still qualified for arbitration as a Super Two player with several weeks to spare. As a relief pitcher coming off a terrible season with barely enough service time to qualify, Perez is in line to be awarded perhaps the smallest salary of any player going to arbitration, probably less than $1 million. It's worth recalling, at this point, how outstanding Perez was in his truly super two-plus seasons prior to this one. He had a 2.89 ERA (and 152 ERA+) over 149.1 IP. He struck out 9.8 batters per nine innings, with 3.7 strikeouts for every walk. He held lefties to a .241 slugging percentage and allowed them only nine extra-base hits in 249 PA. As long as we keep tendering him contracts, he remains under club control through 2013, and there is a reasonable chance he will re-emerge as an impact reliever, or at the very least a useful one, at some point in that span.

Other notable non-tenders include former Indians Ryan Garko and Ryan Church. Garko of course was traded to the Giants only months ago for a decent enough pitching prospect. Just 115 abysmal AB later, Giants GM Brian Sabean is now saying he doesn't want to pay upwards of $3 million to a guy who isn't really an everyday player. I'm not saying he's wrong, but it's a pretty hilarious statement to make for a guy who will still owes $83 million to Barry Zito for the next four seasons. McCovey Chronicles has a pretty dead-on take on Sabean's curious sequence of decisions. My theory is that you just can't understand how slow this guy is on the basepaths until he's actually on your team, and maybe Wedge actually deked the Giants with respect to Garko's athleticism by playing him in the outfield.

Expect the cleveland.com crowd to clamor for Garko's return, oblivious to the fact that two teams have now deemed him unworthy of an everyday role in the space of just a few months. Despite high regard for his character, I would be surprised if Shapiro brought him back, even at a substantially reduced salary. I rather expect Garko will be signed by a GM who scouted him as a college player and was impressed with his stroke. As a lefty batter, Church doesn't really fit in with the Indians' plans. Other interesting non-tenders include Pirates closer Matt Capps, Yankees sinkerballer Chien-Ming Wang, and third baseman Garrett Atkins. Atkins is perhaps best remembered as the guy that the Indians never even considered trading Aaron Laffey to get. I wouldn't be surprised if the Indians took an interest in Mike MacDougal; they seem to like guys who used to be closers.

As for Miller, these moves were unusual, reflecting an unusual situation. The "non-tender" deadline traditionally involves only players who are arbitration-eligible, as there is little reason not to tender a contract to any player on the 40-man roster who isn't eligible, since the most the team can be compelled to pay such a player is the minimum salary, which will remain $400,000 for the 2010 season. Many such players will make less than half that much, if they don't spend much time in the majors.

The latest in Miller's deathless progression of rehab setbacks occurred after rosters were frozen for the Rule 5 draft. Otherwise, the Indians might have chosen to DFA Miller prior to that point, exposing him to waivers. That might have cost the Indians the rights to Chuck Lofgren — but then again, maybe not. The Indians might have protected some other on-the-bubble prospect like Yohan Pino, in which case, Miller's delayed setback actually saved the Indians from burning an option year on whoever-that-would-have-been. And even if Miller clears waivers (and later, presumably, also clears the Rule 5 draft), he would have been granted minor league free agency anyway, since he was originally signed more than six years ago.

In that sense, non-tendering Miller, while unusually, was actually a more straightforward path to the same destination. Either way, he ends up as a free agent, free to sign with any club, but this way, he doesn't have to pass through waivers first. Miller obviously felt some combination of organizational loyalty and faith in the club's ability to rehab him back into a prospect, assuming that's even possible. Reyes has spent far less time in the Indians organization, but he had the same options as Miller and made the same choice. If either player was actually worth something anymore, we might consider feeling good about that.

BP: double-interview with Marson and Huff

Jay — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:48:00 -0000

BP: double-interview with Marson and Huff

A unique piece from our buddy David Laurila.

FanGraphs "minor review"

Jay — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:49:21 -0000

FanGraphs "minor review"

I don't think this was posted earlier, though it seems odd that it wasn't. The premise is that these are interesting recent prospects who probably won't make the upcoming Top 10 list. (One assumes this rule doesn't apply to the "bonus entry.")

In other words, even though they call Weglarz's meh 2009 numbers a "fluke season," they still think he fell out of the Top Ten, presumably by virtue of all the new additions.

First volley of projections for 2010 Indians

Jay — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:21:38 -0000

More photos » by Nam Y Huh - AP

Could Sowers finally be the number-four starter of our dreams?

Browse more photos »

ACTA Sports has begun taking orders for The Bill James Handbook 2010, which customarily will include James' projections for every major league player. (Full disclosure: ACTA occasionally sends me a review copy of one of their books, and I am totally in the bag for them.)

James' proprietary performance projections, while perhaps less obsessed-over than PECOTA or even CHONE, are among the most credible ones publicly available. More to the point, ACTA has released the projections on a few key Indians right now, so let's put our greedy little eyes on them and get an early start on the expectation-setting.

First, the pitchers:

Key Indians Pitchers (by ERA)

Player IP W L K SV
ERA

Kerry Wood 56 4 3 62 27
3.54

Justin Masterson 171 10 9 151 0
4.00

Jeremy Sowers 150 7 9 81 0
4.44

WOOD: I don't know how James is projecting the Save stat, and I certainly don't care. James' system sees Wood as a pitcher who can still rack up the strikeouts and who generally, therefore, will prevent runs from scoring. This doesn't look like a $10 million closer, but it looks more than serviceable.

MASTERSON: Probably the best news in the press release is James' divination of Masterson as a solid number-two starter in 2010. I'm not even sure what to say about it, but I like it.

SOWERS: Less surprising but still heartening is the prediction that Sowers can settle in as a solid #3-#4 guy (don't argue), and damn it, that's all we've really asked of the guy, and it didn't seem like that unreasonable of a demand.

Of course, these projections are probably purely statistical, utilizing little if any subjective information, but they do suggest that there isn't too much urgency to the idea of adding a fungible fourth-starter type on the cheap this offseason.

Now the hitters:

Key Indians Hitters (by OPS)

Player At-bats R HR
RBI SB Avg. OPS

Grady Sizemore 574 101 25 78 21 .272 .853

Shin-Soo Choo 583 95 19 86 20 .293 .850

Matt LaPorta 451 70 20 68 3 .266 .802

Kelly Shoppach 381 57 19 61 0 .249 .798

Asdrubal Cabrera 582 96 9 74 19 .294 .779

SIZEMORE: James has Grady more or less returning to form; while his 30-30 has become a 25-21, note that this is based on 574 AB. Prior to 2009, Sizemore averaged 639 AB per season; obviously, health plays a role here.

CHOO: The numbers say that Shin-Soo Choo really is as good as we think he is.

LAPORTA: That 802 OPS no doubt is less than Indians fans want to see, not to mention the 20 HR over 451 AB. My guess is that James' system is making note of LaPorta's 2009 playing time trends but doesn't know that, barring an extreme circumstance, LaPorta actually will get 600+ AB on the big leagues in 2010. It probably also isn't entirely impressed with his 917 OPS in Columbus this year, given he was already 24. Unlike the typical LGTer, James' system is unlikely to blame any faults in his rookie production on Eric Wedge. Whether its ignorance of these factors is a strength or a shortcoming is up for debate.

SHOPPACH: Surprise! James' system thinks Shoppach is a good hitter who just had a bad year, with some real power counterbalancing his mediocre contact hitting. (In 2009, a 798 OPS was a 105 OPS+.) These projections have Kelly hitting about 90 percent as well as he did in his breakout 2008 campaign. One assumes that James' system didn't actually have to watch Shoppach striking out in every-other at bat all season, and again, one can debate whether that's a plus or a minus for the system.

CABRERA: The most disappointing projection here has Cabrera hitting almost as well as in 2009 rather than taking a step forward. In this case as well, the system is not really differentiating between Cabrera's performance through injuries and his production while healthy, and arguably, we can't, either. Asdrubal had an 877 OPS in April, and he seemed to be starting the big breakout year many had predicted for him. He went 785 the rest of the season to finish at 799 — a fine full season given his all-around game, but not quite what we'd like to see from him.

Choo's BABIP

Jay — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:12:10 -0000

Choo's BABIP

Now that the season's over, all the statboys are taking notice of our man Shin-Soo.

AFL games on MLB network

Jay — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:07:39 -0000

AFL games on MLB network

For those who can still stand to watch a baseball game, this might be mildly interesting. Hat-tip to Amazin' Avenue, where I'm off to write feedback on a "Fire Minaya" type post.

If there was one glaring lesson from last night's game, it was how quickly a dominating pitcher can...

Jay — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:39:10 -0000

If there was one glaring lesson from last night's game, it was how quickly a dominating pitcher can get humbled. Joba Chamberlain looked like he was at the top of his game, blowing away Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez with 97 MPH fastballs. After getting ahead of Pedro Feliz with two swinging strikes, Phillies hitters had missed on the six of seven swings they had taken against Chamberlain that inning. And then Feliz hit one out of the park to tie the game.

Fast forward to the ninth inning, and Lidge had no problems dispatching Hideki Matsui and Derek Jeter. All three strikes to The Captain were of the swing-and-miss variety, as Lidge showed the stuff that caused Manuel to still believe in his closer. And then, after getting to within one pitch of ending the inning, he allowed the next four guys to reach base and lost the game.

Forget hindsight - at the moment of their failure, both Chamberlain and Lidge looked great. There was nothing to suggest that a problem was lurking. They were throwing the hell out of the ball, and then they got hit. Trying to predict the future is really hard.

Dave Cameron, from the Hardball Times

Huff unaware he is a millionaire pro athlete

Jay — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:18:39 -0000

Huff unaware he is a millionaire pro athlete

"This past offseason, I got a job at a golf course cleaning clubs for tips. I'm looking to go back there again and earn a few bucks."

I'm not even sure what to say about this, it's just funny.

Neyer: Ryan Howard not quite as good as Choo

Jay — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:02:24 -0000

Neyer: Ryan Howard not quite as good as Choo

Not much excitement in the explication, but here it is.

Key Indians Pitchers (by ERA)
Player	IP	W	L	K	SV	ERA
Kerry Wood	56	4	3	62	27	3.54
Justin Masterson	171	10	9	151	0	4.00
Jeremy Sowers	150	7	9	81	0	4.44

Key Indians Hitters (by OPS)
Player	At-bats	R	HR	RBI	SB	Avg.	OPS
Grady Sizemore	574	101	25	78	21	.272	.853
Shin-Soo Choo	583	95	19	86	20	.293	.850
Matt LaPorta	451	70	20	68	3	.266	.802
Kelly Shoppach	381	57	19	61	0	.249	.798
Asdrubal Cabrera	582	96	9	74	19	.294	.779