SB Nation User Blog: TribeJay

Orioles name Datz bench coach

TribeJay — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:33:48 -0000

Orioles name Datz bench coach

DATZ A FACT!!

Sal Fasano and his quest to stay in the big leagues

TribeJay — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:21:26 -0000

Sal Fasano and his quest to stay in the big leagues

A bit of a sad story on our friend Sal and his quest to reach the big leagues this year in order to get major league health care coverage for his son, who has a heart condition.

Fire Everyone! - John Mirabelli and the scouts

TribeJay — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:59:06 -0000

More photos » by Tony Dejak - AP

Try to top those 64 K's, Huff!

Browse more photos »

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

The Cleveland Indians hired John Mirabelli as Director of Scouting in the fall of 1999. Mirabelli was promoted to Assistant General Manager/ Director of Scouting prior to the 2002 season and signed a contract extension in May 2007 that takes him through 2010. Later that year he took on an "expanded role in the procurement of amateur and professional talent, both in the United States and abroad" while Brad Grant assumed responsibility for overseeing all elements of the amateur draft. The Indians have had many young players succeed during this time, though many have been plucked from other organizations. After the disasters of the previous two years, is it time to fire John Mirabelli and the scouts?

If you're looking for an exhaustive analysis on how the Indians have drafted compared to other teams, or how they've fared with international signings, you'll need to look elsewhere on this site or in the Annual published last spring. Keep in mind the goal of this series - holding people accountable, regardless if it is actually their fault ("and even if it isn't, it's probably time to fire somebody anyway.").

Firing Mirabelli is probably not a novel idea to LGT readers. Some may say he hasn't had successful drafts, and others may say he hasn't drafted "high-ceiling" guys. Or that he hasn't signed an impact player from the Pacific Rim. Or that he speaks French, but not in Russian. In any event, I'm going to focus on a few "fireable offenses."

By and large, difference-making talent originally signed by the Indians does not exist on the current roster.

Admittedly, my mostly uninformed opinion from a year ago was that the Indians amateur drafts have been awful. After getting some perspective from within this site, I've realized that "awful" is an overstatement, and when compared to other teams (particularly in the AL Central), it doesn't look bad at all. Also, the amateur draft is just one way to add players to the organization. And no, we're not going to debate selecting "high-ceiling players" for the 10 billionth time, or even the 11millionth time.

And in Mirabelli's defense, the Indians have only selected in the Top 10 once since 1992. Budget constraints have certainly impacted their ability to select certain players. But in the end, Cleveland's highest single-season slugging percentage of players signed after Mirabelli was hired belongs to Ryan Garko, who slugged .483 in 2007. And of pitchers signed in the Mirabelli era, the highest single-season strikeout total by a Cleveland starter outside of Fausto Carmona belongs to fireballer Jeremy Sowers, with 64 in 2008 (though David Huff is making a charge this year). Screw it, these are fireable offenses!

And the trading for several power arms (C. Perez, Knapp, Masterson, and Hagadone) this year was an effort to stock pitching depth, but it may as well been an admission of their inability to find these arms in other ways. Again, the aforementioned lack of high draft picks and budget constraints have hampered the Indians in this pursuit, but remember, we're looking for accountability here.

Signing David Dellucci

Sure, scouts didn't have the final say on this signing. They may have had little, or even no input at all. But in the spirit of Fire Everyone!, we're going to hold the scouting department accountable for not talking Mark Shapiro out of this one. Outside of one good month, one great quote, and a good beard, there's not much else to take from this signing. Sure, he tore his hamstring from the bone in 2007, but he wasn't doing anything before then either. Was this a critical error that set the franchise back? No. But it was a swing and a miss.

Being unable to acquire talented minor-leaguers from other organizations

OK, just making sure you're paying attention. If we're going to blame them for the Dellucci signing, we'll have to give them credit for this, to the extent he and his scouts were involved. It's not that it's unimportant. However, I suppose any number of us could have looked over the Dodgers' system and asked, "What about that Santana guy?"

Signing Jose Ozoria Wally Bryan

Sure, it isn't the first time this has happened to a major league club. The Indians are not alone. It also may be that the Indians did everything possible to avoid this. However, in Andrew's piece on firing Larry Dolan, much of the discussion in the comments section centered on small market teams needing to become unique or unconventional in their methods. I'll submit that in signing players who are actually older than they say they are, the Indians should strive to be unconventional and make sure this doesn't happen.

It's not an exorbitant amount, but if you're going to spend $575,000 on signing an international free agent, you better make sure his ceiling is Asdrubal Cabrera and not Niuman Romero. Perhaps we'll see ~~young~~ Mr. Bryan get a cup of coffee at first base in September 2014, thereby ending Andy Marte's consecutive game streak at 788.

That wraps it up. What about Brad Grant, you say? Well, let's give him a pass. We'll keep around anyone who uses their first pick on a player named Lonnie Chisenhall, especially if that player hits .276/.346/.492 at the age of 20 in High-A in their first full season.

Should Mirabelli be fired? Did the promotion of Brad Grant mean that Mirabelli was already "fired?" Is Mirabelli now in a role that better suits him? Or is saying "It hasn't been as bad as you think" good enough when you summarize the results of someone's performance in a significant role?

More fun with B-Ref numbers

TribeJay — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:40:37 -0000

Or just another way to show just how bad the pitching is...though it's also worthwhile to note that they've only won 2/3 of their games when allowing less than 4 runs (six with three runs) with an offense that's 4th in the majors in runs scored. Bad team, bad timing. Apologies for the (lack of) formatting.

Records by runs scored per game totals:

0-3 runs

Tribe 2-32  .059
Other MLB  214-827 .206

4-5 runs

Tribe 9-11 .450
Other MLB 341-271  .557

6-7 runs

Tribe 5-7  .417
Other MLB 309-99  .757

8+ runs

Tribe 18-3  .857
Other MLB 390-38  .911

By runs allowed:

0-3 runs

Tribe 16-8  .667
Other MLB  843-208 .802

4-5 runs

Tribe 10-13 .435
Other MLB 272-337  .447

6-7 runs

Tribe 5-13  .278
Other MLB 101-301 .251

8+ runs

Tribe 3-19  .136
Other MLB 38-389  .089

Here's some useful/useless average runs scored by inning info. In the third inning, this is a World Series team!

Runs Scored
Inning	Tribe	MLB
1	0.33	0.53
2	0.62	0.47
3	0.76	0.52
4	0.60	0.56
5	0.62	0.56
6	0.57	0.55
7	0.65	0.51
8	0.40	0.51
9	0.65	0.43

Runs Allowed
Inning	Tribe	MLB
1	0.56	0.53
2	0.71	0.47
3	0.45	0.52
4	0.63	0.56
5	0.59	0.56
6	0.78	0.55
7	0.63	0.51
8	0.80	0.51
9	0.47	0.43

The continuing misfortune of Andy Marte

TribeJay — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 05:13:08 -0000

Andy just has not been getting the breaks this year. First, he hasn't gotten much playing time (documented all over this site). Then he happened to be the first hitter up Thursday after Casilla was hit for the Twins, and paid the price for Ron Gardenhire's bad-loser hissy-fit reaction (which should earn Gardenhire a one-game suspension if MLB is consistent with their rulings).

Then there's this. In thinking through the makeup of the lineup with Victor, I came to the conclusion that Marte should play every day against lefties, as Gutz and BenFran would play in the OF, Garko would DH, and Blake would play 1B. The only way he would sit is if Velandia, Choo, or Dellucci played ahead of him (hold comments, please). Then I looked at the schedule...

First off, the Padres...who throw three righties in a row this weekend. Oh well, how about next week? Interleague play on the road! No DH!! Garko stays at 1B, Blake stays at 3B, and Marte stays you-know-where.

OK, what about when they return home on 6/24? What's that? Oh, Hafner is probably going to be back on that date. He'll DH, Garko stays at 1B, Blake stays at 3B, and Marte stays you-know-where.

This guy can't buy a break! And yes, I wanted to ensure the words Andy Marte appeared in the subject line of another fanpost!

BA rankings

TribeJay — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:31:14 -0000

Baseball America has published Top Ten rankings by position of the top prospects in the minors, according to them. Some interesting rankings:

Catcher - Matt McBride (5th)
A little surprised here...haven't looked at the numbers lately. I thought he was having a fine year but wasn't tearing it up or anything. FYI, Max Ramirez is 7th.

1B - Jordan Brown (5th)
Again, a little surprised. Big question here is if the doubles power will translate to home run power.

3B - Wes Hodges (7th)

SS - Cabrera (3rd)

CF - Barton (9th)

RH starter - Miller (9th)
Injuries obviously hurting this ranking.

LH starter - Lofgren (4th)