Was just looking, out of curiosity, at the last season the Indians had given a sustained tryout to as many young guys as they have this year, and thought I would share the results. The answer is 2003. I put together a list of all the intervening years because I wanted to see a season-by-season list not of rookies, for which the qualification criteria are very low and thus often premature, but of players in whom the club made a serious investment on the field (cutoff of 26* appearances for pitchers and 270** PAs for hitters) for the first time in those players' careers.

These seasons were, generally speaking, the ones in which players became major-leaguers-or-bust. Obviously there are a couple of exceptions to that rule - guys who continued to shuttle due to injury or other reasons. (e.g., Jensen, Cliff, Fausto). But most graduated from prospectdom either by becoming regular major leaguers, losing priority at their position, or leaving baseball.

I projected this year's figures, and included Santana because he would certainly have qualified were it not for the injury, and because he was exceptional in the speed of his graduation from prospectdom. PAs or appearances are listed next to names.

2010

Marson 213 // LaPorta 327 // Crowe 373 // Donald 277 // Santana 192 // Brantley 178

Talbot 21 // Masterson 26 // Ambriz 31 // Hermann 29

2009

Valbuena 398

Sipp 46 // JSmith 37 // CPerez 32

2008

Asdrubal 418 // Francisco 499 // Choo 370

Mujica 33

2007

Barfield 444 // Gutz 301

RPerez 44 // Mastny 51 // Fultz 49 // Jensen 26

2006

Fausto 38

2005

Grady 706

2004

Victor 520

Cliff 33 // Matt Miller 57 // Cliff Bartosh 34

2003

Blake 577 // Crisp 447 // Gerut 525 // Bard 329 // Peralta 270 // Hafner 324 // Broussard 429 // B Phillips 393

Westbrook 34 // Jason Davis 27 // Betancourt 33 // Billy Traber 33

I'm interested to hear whether others think this is a useful way to look at our history of player development, or merely a reiteration of what we already know. One thing I found encouraging was that, regardless of the year, a fairly high percentage of guys given long looks for the first time in their careers produced something significant for the organization, either as Indians themselves, as trade fodder, or both. Still others have had very good careers elsewhere. I suppose we could say that at this particular stage of experience, players became good bets.

In fact, out of the 32 players listed from 2003 - 2009, 23 are current major leaguers, about half of whom are league average or better. I don't know if it's worth extrapolating, but that's what happened.

*Huff, Sowers, and Laffey were each just below this line in 2009.

** Andy Marte was just below this line in 2008.

westbrook here posting this for Ben (<i>like woah</i>)...

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Reposted here from yesterday's post-game summary, per Jay's suggestion:

I’m writing this post in order to figure out what it was about this series [the Yankees series] that made me feel, against all odds, OPTIMISTIC. None of this should be mistaken for educated guessing. It’s just gut reaction, and certainly colored by low expectations as well as the need for something to cling to. Still.

Given what I expected at the beginning of the year, combined with injuries that gutted the top of the lineup, I think we could have done worse than to have the 7th inning be our bogeyman on the road against the Yankees. The reason Masterson looked like he was on the verge of tears in the dugout in game three was because he’d been in line for the win, and what would have been a pretty great first win of the season at that. I have no idea whether this single outing portends long-term improvement in Masterson’s ability to retire lefties and keep his control, but it sure felt good to watch.

Other glimmers included LaPorta getting on base 4 times in 9 PAs against top-tier pitching, Jason Donald’s effort, and Lou Marson’s defense. Yes, these are minuscule samples, and yes, we did more than enough wrong to drop three of four. On the other hand, we did enough right to have kept all three losses competitive before late bullpen implosions. That was primarily a testament to not-awful starting pitching, but that’s not nothing, especially against a good team that’s already in a pennant race.

Also, having long abandoned interest in whether we win or lose, it’s easy to watch for discrete successes. During a booted year, I’m fine with that. This series transported me to somewhere between 1991 and 1992, on the cusp of the cusp, where good signs are like flickering fermions caught on grainy film, perhaps mechanical imperfections anyway.

Could these be hallucinations from rock-bottom? That is the risk. That is always the risk. To insulate ourselves from such risk (a purely hypothetical condition, to be sure, for anyone reading this) would be to doom ourselves to a paranoiac hell – Yankee fandom – characterized by a domination of the Other that reaches its apotheosis in the abrogation of the self.

And so I submit myself, not just willingly but enthusiastically, to a renewed excitement for this team’s prospects, with nothing more than casual observations (and a fantasy where Mike Redmond morphs into Carlos Santana) as evidence. Join me or don’t.