SB Nation User Blog: fleerdon

Every day is a must-win, it seems like.

fleerdon — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 16:19:28 -0000

Every day is a must-win, it seems like.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, whose team is now just one game in back of Detroit, and for whom every day is, in fact, a must-win. The Twins and the Tigers close out their seasons with games against the Royals and the White Sox, respectively. Both Minnesota and Detroit have home-field advantage. Saturday's match-ups are Zach Greinke vs. Nick Blackburn; meanwhile, against Chicago's Freddy Garcia, the Tigers will start 25-year-old rookie Alfredo Figaro (rather than pitch Rick Porcello on short rest). On Sunday, the Twins will start Brian Duensing against Luke Hochevar; the Tigers, Justin Verlander against John Danks.

The odds-makers give the Twinkies about a one-in-four chance of stealing the division. Anybody else following this?

Fire Everyone! - The Trainers

fleerdon — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:30:21 -0000

More photos » by Andy King - AP

IN TONIGHT'S EPISODE: Did Michael Aubrey do too much stretching with his wife, or too little?

Browse more photos »

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

The Indians are four days from finishing a second straight season of no significant injuries to a starting pitcher. In the age of multimillion dollar salaries and exploding offenses, it is a significant achievement. Pitching coach Carl Willis immediately turned and knocked on his wooden locker. He then credited the pitchers for buying into what the training staff has preached, and also credited head trainer Lonnie Soloff and strength coach Tim Maxey for being proactive.

Priestle, Scott. "Starting pitchers free of major injuries."
Akron Beacon-Journal, 28 September 2006.

Ah, to be young.

Three years later, do we still believe that the Indians medical staff is all that and a bag of bosu balls? How do we account for that stretch of seeming medical invincibility in the mid-aughts, in light of more recent, less encouraging developments? Was it an unusually young team that slid off the back of the treadmill of time? Have the team's strength and conditioning methods changed for the worse? Or was it merely a run of preternatural good luck, and now the injuries have returned, like Fate in the Final Destination movies, to finish that which was left undone?

Objective analysis of these questions is just this side of impossible. Professional athletes, by definition, can generate physical forces at the extremes of human capability, but few are blessed with the durability to withstand those forces indefinitely. Baseball players, especially, must subject themselves to a brutally long season, and the stress of the sport is borne disproportionately by their dominant-side joints. Add to that the average MLB player's miserable diet, hard-partying lifestyle, and hectic travel schedule, and you have to wonder if the Indians' preference for "high-character" guys is little more than a pretense for choosing players who are, at a minimum, not of a disposition to wreck themselves.

Mind you, baseball is somewhat famously mired in the Dark Ages of fitness. It's a game decided by explosive movements and a short series of 90-foot sprints, but slow bodybuilding-style weightlifting and plodding long-distance runs are still common training protocols. I once was talking to a friend-of-a-friend who had pitched through high-A ball with the Braves before he bowed out with a bad shoulder. "What was your training regimen like?" I asked. He scoffed -- really, he scoffed. "I went back and trained with my college coach in the off-seasons," he said. "You gotta remember, it's such a long season, and the team invests so much in you. Most guys lift like idiots, and what the team wants more than anything is for you not to get hurt."

So contrast that against this anecdotal report of Tim Maxey's spring workouts, from the Cincinnati St. Xaiver High S&C coach's blog:

The Indians place a great emphasis on the physical development of every athlete that signs with the organization ... a priority that every staff member takes very seriously, which begins with the General Manager and filters all the way down towards the Latin American Academies .... All athletes work hard and with discipline during the training and conditioning sessions. They are well-supervised and every workout card is checked off [at the end of the] workout session. There is very little standing around.

Coach Alvarez goes on to describe an unremarkable workout plan. Basic, compound-movement, balanced lifts, some straight-forward sprinting, and a little corrective work at the end of the day. I've read a Maxey quote before to the effect that, "Hey, I don't care how good these guys look with their shirts off," and that's thoroughly in line with enlightened fitness thought as it relates to training athletes in-season.

A digression: American corporations operate under the protection of something called the "business judgment rule," which says, in essence, that the directors and officers do not incur liability to stockholders for business decisions gone awry as long as the decisions were reasonably well-informed and made with independent judgment. The easy version of the BJR is, if you do the right footwork, it doesn't matter how lousy the dance turns out.

Here's what (I think) I can say about the Indians' training staff: Their methods would pass muster under the business judgment rule. (If you're looking for a joke about that one time the Indians publicly sold shares of the club, you'll have to make it yourself.) Soloff and Maxey and their co-workers are competent, credentialed, and by all accounts hard-working individuals with the respect of their peers. They're doing the right footwork. My question for you: Is competence enough? If you say "no," you start an interesting conversation.

There's a lot of crazy stuff going on at the edge of the fitness universe. Two examples that spring to mind: nervous system optimization — check out Z-Health or Feldenkrais — and Active Release Techniques, a sort of targeted massage to cure mobility issues. We're not talking about Operation: Treadstone here, by the way — I'm not proposing anything at all which could compromise the athletes' health. Nor am I endorsing these particular systems — I don't know enough to do that. But I do wonder ... we've got Keith Woolner bringing new-wave mathematics to our statistical analysis. Do we have a mad genius physical therapist studying experimental training techniques? Should we?

I remember a 2006 GQ article that brought up visual perception training for binocularity, back before MLB players started doing that on their handheld Nintendos during bus rides. The scientist behind the system was getting amazing results with a system of ocular testing and training. Then there's a quote [pdf] from none other than John Farrell:

I think [the scientist has] had a tremendous impact on individual players, but the empirical evidence is limited. There isn't a large database that says this person went through these drills and this is where he ended up.

My reaction: So what? Isn't that exactly the sort of chance this organization should be taking? By the time there's a database of empirical evidence, the sun has set on the opportunity to create a competitive advantage. Yes, Farrell's answer demonstrates competence. Is competence enough? (Side note: Still want this guy for manager?)

Even if you're not on-board with this idea of looking for competitive advantage in fitness, I think it must be asked how often Soloff and Maxey have misfired in their more traditional responsibilities, and whether you care how defensible their methods are in light of the results.

To use the most inflammatory example: A slimmed-down Hafner will be "more mobile," hey? Then, on whose watch did he get so big in the first place? What, was he sneaking protein shakes, like a high schooler smoking behind the band trailer? Or how about Jensen Lewis' evaporating velocity act in 2008, passed off as Stomp "leaving something in the tank"? At what point, if not at the start of the season, should we have expected him to be in condition to bring his A-game? June? September? Or, famously, what about Jhonny's deteriorating vision? This guy's defense looked good enough that he beat out Brandon Phillips, and suddenly he starts giving the "olé bulls***" to routine grounders ... and nothing happens until the off-season? I know there's a recovery time for LASIK, but it only takes an afternoon to fit a guy for a pair of RecSpecs. Whose job was it to identify the problems and to get these guys into fighting shape? Who answered for the failure?

For that matter, if I see one common thread in the patented .400-ball Wedge Aprils other than Wedge himself, it's the off-seasons and spring trainings which preceded them. Occam's Razor alone makes me wonder if the problem is at least partly physical -- that our guys just aren't strong enough. You might answer, yeah, but they improve as the season goes on, under the trainers' closer watch. I don't see that as a particularly strong defense. Whose job is it to monitor these guys in the off-season?

Take, for example, Michael Aubrey, who moseyed into Winter Haven a few years ago announcing that he'd spent the off-season doing yoga with his wife. Like most of you, I'm sure, I remember thinking, hmm, that might work. Retroactively, I'm incredulous. Some types of flexibility are good; others, bad. It can be a delicate distinction, by which I mean, not the kind that should be made by some chump in stretch pants making $7 per hour at the Shreveport YMCA. That's doubly true when the body in question is a notably fragile, multi-million-dollar asset. Who, if anyone, signed off on that?

Not necessarily good for baseball. via www.jrmillerfitness.com

And I haven't even started on the veritable parade of young Indians pitchers whose skill-levels seem to start falling on the day their contracts get purchased. Willis calls his training staff "proactive." I guess we're supposed to believe that, if a guy who has devoted most of his life to throwing baseballs inexplicably collapses in the bigs, it's a mental thing, or a mechanical thing, or a long-standing injury thing, or an "adjustment" thing. It's certainly not a strength, conditioning, or mobility issue, because the Indians are proactive about that, you see.

Once more: Every single decision made by the Indians' training staff with respect to these players might be perfectly defensible exercise of sound business judgment. But I contend that there are degrees of defensibility. It's possible to make a decision defensibly and, at the same time, to choose poorly.

I took the Progressive Field guided tour last weekend. You don't get to see the weight room anymore, but as we passed the door to it, the tour guide said that the Indians' training facilities are quite possibly the finest of any professional athletic team's in the country. It made me shake my head a little. Maybe, for all the higher a priority physical conditioning is in this organization, for all the discipline and the supervision and the workout-card checking-off and the not-standing-around, they're just not working hard enough. Or smart enough. Or, hey, maybe they're working too hard. Like I said, it's tough to tell, behind all that competence. And I really do believe they're competent.

Is competence enough?

Squats and deads: how necessary?

fleerdon — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:11:35 -0000

I like to think I'm an enlightened fitness hobbyist. I read Chad Waterbury and Nate Green (and Andrew Heffernan!), I've been doing total-body workouts, three days a week, with rest days in between, for the better part of a year. I do intervals, all that jazz. With one exception:

I don't squat or deadlift.

I still do lower-body work in every workout -- reverse lunges, step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, and Romanian deadlifts, primarily -- and I'll work in goblet squats or single-leg lifts every now and then. But I don't go heavy on the powerlifts, for these reasons:

1. My form sucks, and these lifts make my lower back hurt. Give me any test of whether I'm doing these exercises right -- knees over toes, overhead squats without bringing my arms forward, wall squats, whatever -- and I will fail it. I don't have any injury issues, so I know most trainers would tell me to fix my ankle and hip mobility. But...

2. I don't have any lower-body hypertrophy goals. None. I'm wide at the hips, I have naturally big legs, and my calves get bigger if I so much as glance at a squat rack. But I'm narrow at the chest and shoulders. As a purely (and I do mean purely) aesthetic lifter, I really need help getting wider across my back, shoulders, and chest. Basically, if a lift is going to make my ass or my thighs significantly bigger, I have zero interest. Call me shallow.

So here's my question. If 1) I can't do squats or deads without pain in my back, 2) I'm willing to do variations that don't involve max loading of my spine, and 3) I'm not going to tolerate lower-body mass gain, at least not until my upper half catches up ... am I missing out on something by simply omitting squats and deadlifts from my programming? I'm willing to address the mobility issues and get to work on these lifts, but I'd have to be convinced.

If it's relevant to your answer, I'm 25, 5-foot-9, about 170 pounds. Thanks for your time.

The Indians on my bookshelf

fleerdon — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:20:59 -0000

My baseball card collecting career lasted from about 1989 to 1994. Save for some oddities -- I seem to have every stage of Chet Lemon's career covered -- it's a thoroughly unremarkable collection of maybe a few hundred cards. I remember listening to my dad waxing nostalgic over the jaw-dropping value his childhood card collection might've attained had my grandmother not pitched the thing sometime in the late '60s, or if he hadn't stuck many of the '59 Yankees through the spokes of his bicycle wheel. So I diligently saved up my pocket change, pestering my mom for a pack of cards on a grocery store trip every few months.

It didn't take a college-level understanding of economics ("What the hell is a revenue curve?") to realize that EVERYBODY had heard my dad's story, or a similar one, which meant that baseball cards would never again be so valuable. And it only took one trip to a professional trade shop to understand that serious baseball card hobbyists were grown-ups with disposable income. Beyond the finances of the thing, though, I wanted to PLAY with my cards. I didn't really care how a spirited game of dice baseball would affect the quality ranking of my '91 Fleer Nelson Santovenia; even then, in fact, I didn't care who Nelson Santovenia was.

Life moved on; girls grew curves; my binder and my plastic display cases were relegated to a back shelf, where they turned into, like, a rain gauge, but for dust. Even after I moved back home for grad school, I hardly ever noticed the baseball cards, until this afternoon, when I turned my room upside-down in a mildly successful attempt to fell less unemployed.

There are a few jems in there -- a "coming attractions" card featuring Jeter in AA, a prime-of-life Bo Jackson, an early Griffey, Jr. The whole kit and kaboodle might net me a C-note or two if I took the time to organize and sell the cards individually, though I doubt it's worth the effort. Mostly it was fun for me to pick out names that ring a bell for me now -- I know these guys as grey-bearded utility players, as broadcasters, as fathers of current players ("Hey, it's Jesse Barfield!"), and as coaches. There's a bittersweet delight in seeing them when they were my age.

As ever, my interest lies mainly with the Indians. I stopped worrying about fake baseball about the time that I started worrying about real baseball in earnest. I have 15 Indians baseball cards, and for me, they encapsulate the team as it existed just before I became aware of it. Curious about the seasons these cards represented, I took some time to read up on them. Here's what I learned.

via farm3.static.flickr.com

1991 Fleer Jerry Browne
Value: $2.25

Browne was ostensibly just hitting his prime in 1991. At 25, he had just had two above-average years after coming over from the Rangers, demonstrating a good eye at the plate and enough speed to leg out doubles. As it turned out, that WAS his prime. He would collect only 334 miserable plate appearances in 1991. Browne resurfaced with the A's as a reasonably useful utility player, but he was never a regular again, and his last MLB plate appearance came in 1995 with the Marlins as a 29-year-old. Browne now works as a minor league hitting coach in the Nationals system.

1989 Topps Greg Swindell
Value: $1.83

On the surface, it looks like Swindell backpedalled a bit in 1989 from his 240+ inning 1988. At 24, he would make his first and only All-Star Game appearance, but his innings total fell off, and his walk-rate slid up to 2.5. Things got worse before they got better for Swindell: After an 89 ERA+ performance in 1990, he had what was probably his career year in 1991, his last year with the Indians. He worked as a starter for four more years before re-inventing himself as a lefty reliever. He had a nice late-career surge with the Diamondbacks (IN...THE...), finally getting a ring in 2001 before falling apart the next year. These days, Swindell's working as a post-game analyst for FSN Arizona.

1989 Topps Julio Franco
Value: $1.75

Surely there's little I can say about Julio that hasn't been said elsewhere, not least by Ryan in his much-missed retrospectives. 1989 was a good year for him: His first in Texas, and the first in which he would work exclusively on the right side of the infield.

1991 Fleer Sandy Alomar Jr.
Value: $2.25

1991 Donruss Sandy Alomar Jr.
Value: $2.06

I remember Sandy from his healthiest three-year stretch, 1996-1998, the only years in his career when he put up more than 400 PA in back-to-back-to-back seasons (at ages 32, 33, and 34 ... maybe it WAS time to trade Victor). In 1991, though, fresh off his Rookie of the Year performance, Sandy struggled to stay on the field, and didn't do much while he was there, posting a 47 OPS+ through 199 plate appearances.

1991 Charles Nagy
Value: $1.98

The Tribe's (low-ceiling!) first-round pick from 1988, Nagy would have his first full major league season in 1991, making 33 starts. He did a nice job keeping the ball in the park, but he struck out a Jason Stanfordian 4.6 batters per nine, which summed out to a thoroughly average rookie season. Nagy found his stride a year later, the start of a nice five-year run marked by good control and insane run support. I'm surprised to remember that Nagy pitched into his mid-30s, especially since the air really seemed to go out of his career around the turn of the century. Nagy is currently self-employed in antagonizing Rick Manning.

1990 Tom Candiotti
Value: $2.74

Candiotti did two things well: Throw lots of innings (he had 17 complete games in 1986), and prevent home runs. In that sense, 1990 was a perfectly ordinary age-30 season for him. Of course, "ordinary" is a difficult-to-define word when you're talking about a 15-year, 5-team career.

1993 Paul Sorrento
Value: $0.48 :(

I guess I used to think of Ben Broussard as a reasonably valuable left-handed first baseman (who then played for the Mariners) because I equated him, for whatever reason, with Paul Sorrento -- a reasonably valuable left-handed first baseman (who later played for the Mariners). 1993 was the third year of Sorrento's seven-year peak. His average fell off, but he still got on base at a .340 clip and put 18 in the seats. Sorrento went to the Mariners in 1996 and played good baseball through his career year, 1997, at age 31. Wikipedia tells me Sorrento's currently coaching a "select baseball team" in Bellevue, Washington. Whatever that means.

1991 Topps Kevin Wickander
Value: $1.88

A few of these names perplexed me, but none more than Wickander. A 1986 Indians draftee (ceiling = ?), he had pitched in parts of 12 games with the Tribe during the 1989 and 1990 seasons. He would pitch in parts of zero games with the Tribe during the 1991 season. It seems like he had good stuff, but serious, serious control problems. After stints with the Reds and the Tigers, his professional baseball career ended with the Brewers in 1996. Relievers: so it goes. If some kid pulls out a 2006 Topps Ed Mujica in 2027, he'll know how I feel.

1989 Donruss Bud Black
Value: $2.26

Nobody actually cares, right? It was Bud Black. I would pay somebody $2.26 not to have to write 100 words about Bud Black. Great schnozz, though.

1993 Topps Mark Whiten
Value: $1.54

Whiten became a Cardinal shortly after this card was printed. A toolsy switch-hitting outfielder, Whiten kept getting chances, but the 626 plate appearances he made in 1993 were far and away the most he would make in any one season of his career. Wikipedia says Whiten pitched one inning, in his late-career return to the Tribe, versus the A's, in 1998. His career pitching line is 1 H, 1 R, 2 BB ... and 3 K, giving him a career K/9 of 27.

1990 Fleer Andy Allanson
Value: $2.05

The Indians drafted Allanson in 1983. I will concede this was a low-ceiling pick. The Tribe was the only team that ever used him as anything more than a back-up. Allanson's last major league at-bat took place in 1995.

1990 Fleer John Farrell
Value: $1.98

They say great players cannot coach. I have very high hopes for the coaching career of John Farrell.

1991 Fleer Dion James

Value: $2.25

James was a high-ceiling first-round prep pick (being serious here) by the Brewers in 1985. He was traded to the Indians for (former high-ceiling first-round pick) Oddibe MacDowell in 1989. He lasted two seasons in Cleveland, sort of, barely hitting enough to pass as a fourth outfielder (on any team but the 1991 Cleveland Indians, that is). James ended his career as a reserve player for the Yankees in 1996.

BA Top 25 Prospects, mid-season edition

fleerdon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:23:50 -0000

BA Top 25 Prospects, mid-season edition

Also known as "Mark Shapiro's shopping list." Of interest to us is that only 7 of the top 25 are pitchers (and only 20 of the top 50), which lends some credence to the idea that young, premium arms are notably scarce this season.

Listed Indians include Santana at 7 and LaPorta at 22. Chisenhall and Weglarz! make "The Next 25."

Independence Day Rumor Rundown

fleerdon — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:01:25 -0000

Independence Day Rumor Rundown

Reds, Cubs, Mets, Giants, Phillies: were also in on DeRosa (Stark)
Kerry Wood is probably too expensive to move; Betancourt isn't (Stark)
Indians have scouted Red Sox' system recently; more Victor rumors result (Heyman)
...and the Giants have scouted the Indians' big-league club (Heyman)
In a thin market for arms, nobody has mentioned the exquisitely available Carl Pavano (me)

The only way the Indians will trade Lee, sources say, is if they are offered a potential...

fleerdon — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:09:55 -0000

The only way the Indians will trade Lee, sources say, is if they are offered a potential top-of-the-rotation starter at the level of the Braves' Tommy Hanson or [somebody better than] Red Sox's Clay Buchholz. [my edit]

Rosenthal, on rumors Los Angeles's interest in Cliff: "The Dodgers' best young starting pitchers, right-hander Chad Billingsley and lefty Clayton Kershaw, are part of the major-league rotation and all but untouchable. Their best pitching prospect, right-hander James McDonald, is not considered top-of-the-rotation material. Thus, a package of say McDonald, third baseman Blake DeWitt and one or two other prospects would not be enough to satisfy the Indians. The Phillies have also asked about Lee, but balked at the price, sources say." Naw, you don't say.

Early Weekend Six-Pack (18 June '09)

fleerdon — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:37:50 -0000

1. John Meloan is not helping his cause or ours...

On a 40-man roster this shell-shocked, it's hard to muster up a complaint about any one given minor leaguer. But it's telling that the Indians turned to journeyman relievers before the young and (presumably) healthy Meloan, whose 2009 was supposed to be a dramatic return to form, since he'd been decoupled from the starting duties to which the Dodgers had so irrationally shackled him. As it turns out, the problem may have more to do with John Meloan, and less to do with how John Meloan's being used. Take a look at his numbers since he left L.A. (as a starter) and came to Cleveland (as a reliever).

YEAR (TEAM): AVG / WHIP / FIP / LD%
2008 (LAD): .285 / 1.66 / 4.31 / 19.0%
2008 (CLE): .235 / 1.43 / 4.43 / 16.7%
2009 (CLE): .293 / 1.57 / 4.61 / 27.0%

Whatever's gone wrong with John since his standout 2007 season, moving him back to the 'pen doesn't appear to have fixed it. It's especially frustrating because even a modicum of effectiveness probably would have earned him a call-up by now.

2. Michael Brantley might be better than Trevor Crowe right now

Lost among the commentary about Brantley's rocky AAA debut was the fact that he kept getting good wood on the ball -- a LD% over 20% in April and May, and nearly that so far in June. As his discipline has caught up to the level of the competition (BB:K in April, May, and June: 7:14, 15:14, 6:4), Brantley's become a legitimate threat at the plate, not to mention a Net-demon on the basepaths, stealing 20 and only being caught twice. If Brantley's June level of performance is what he's really capable of, Sackmann's MLE predicts a Major League OPS in the mid-700s.

Should Grady's elbow turn out to need a good ol'-fashioned athroscropic scopin', the Indians will have some tough choices to make regarding the outfield. Obviously they could replace Francisco with LaPorta, but that still leaves a significant offensive hole in center, barring a turn-around from Trevor Crowe. The front office would have a number of reasons not to add Brantley to the 25-man -- not the least of which would be that he also would have to be added to the 40-man -- but doubts about Brantley's capabilities probably won't be one of those reasons.

3. The Indians do not have signability issues with the draft

And 2009 doesn't look to be an exception. Tony Lastoria reports that the Tribe has already inked 9 draftees, including 8 of the top 16 picks. Several more high level picks, including 3rd- and 4th- rounders Joe Gardner and Kyle Bellows, are unofficially signed and will be reporting to their minor league affiliates within the next few weeks. As Brad Grant said in a couple of different interviews, the Indians' prioritize signing the first 15 picks, then follow the rest for the summer and sign them as they see fit. Off we go.

I'm curious to see how this organization values Jason Kipnis in particular. As I noted in the comments to last week's 6-pack, Kipnis and 2008 pick Tim Fedroff are both college center fielders, very nearly the same age, so comparing their signing bonuses ought to give us a decent idea of how the Indians value Kipnis's talent relative to Fedroff's.

4. Given the opportunity, here's a dumb question I asked Brad Grant

"Do the Indians scout non-NCAA conferences and JuCo teams more heavily than do other clubs?" I was thinking about Mills coming from an NAIA team, and Chisenhall coming from a JuCo team. Except -- except -- that's not really what happened, is it? Both Beau Mills and Lonnie Chisenhall were NCAA Division I talents. Mills left for academic reasons, Chisenhall for trouble with the law, but ... shoot, these guys were only bargain-bin signs in the most superficial sense. While I'm at it, Mills didn't leave for just any NAIA team, but for the NAIA team. Lewis-Clark State is its own animal.

So if we think of Mills and Chisenhall as NCAA players, that means the Indians have used their first-round pick on a Division I guy every year since after Corey Smith in 2000 and Dan Denham in 2001. If that's not a ringing endorsement for selecting college players in the first round, I don't know what is. (By the way, from the "Did you know this? 'Cause I didn't" file -- Denham and Smith are still in baseball. Name the organizations they're with.)

5. Okay, so, Stomp ... what gives?

As long as we're talking about things I've written that are wrong, how about that glowing everything's-okay-now profile of Jensen Lewis in the Annual? Here's what FanGraphs' Marc Hulet had to say about Lewis, J. recently:

If you're a fan of FIP, you're probably not a fan of Jensen Lewis. The right-handed reliever has posted pretty good superficial numbers over the parts of the past three seasons that he's been in the Majors. However, his FIP has gone from 2.49 to 4.59 to 5.54. His line-drive rate was also a worrisome 24.5% in 2008, although it currently sits at 11.5%. His HR/9 rate has gone from 1.03 to 2.30 in the past two seasons. For what it's worth, Lewis does have a nice K/BB rate at 3.00.

A glance at Jensen's FanGraphs profile sheds some light on the problem, if not on the solution: His first-pitch strike percentage has fallen from 67.2% in 2007 to 55.4% in 2009, and he's inducing 10% fewer swings at pitches outside of the zone over that same timeframe. As Jensen is pretty strictly a fastball-changeup reliever anymore, I'm going to guess this is a fastball location issue more than anything. In 2008, PitchF/X says Jensen got most of his swings-and-misses up in the zone, and his called strikes at a medium height, on the corners. I'm left to conclude that Jensen's missing off the plate so badly that he can't set up the high heat or the change-up.

On the plus side, his stuff doesn't seem to have deteriorated, and he's still working in the zone, as Hulet points out, so there's no reason to think he can't be fixed. But the less-appealing reality might be that he's not a dramatically different pitcher than he's ever been, and that the league is simply on to him. Either way, the fact that the Indians haven't exercised that option year shows just how abysmal the bullpen really is these days.

6. If Carl Pavano's goose is cooked, what's left?

Saved the best for last, didn't I? In his recent round of in-game interviews, Shapiro said the team was trying to keep its "nose above the water" until the return of Westbrook, SLewis, and Laffey (and of course Sizemore and Droobs). What I don't think he had in mind was those three pitchers taking up slots 2, 3, and 4. But Zach Jackson's going through a rough patch, and after him, the only other starter on the 40-man is Hector Rondon. I'm stumped. What do we do if Pavano's hurt, or gassed?

Well, it's been a tough week. Have a couple extra of Milwaukee's ACTUAL best, in honor of our having hosted the Brewers.

via www.thebrewsite.com

UPDATE: Okay, since this is technically an 8-pack, here's two quick ones to slam.

7. "Carlos Santana! Carlos Santana! Ooohhhh, $%!#, Carlos Santana!"

Have you looked at this man's profile lately? If not, I'll tell you, it left me so sassified I started callin' out his name. That would be a 529 SLG basted with a 45:29 BB:K ratio, and no, you're not reading those numbers backwards. Oh, and he's throwing out 34% of attempted base-stealers. At the very least, I think Carlos will be seeing a promotion to AAA in the near future, but the larger reality might be that we're watching a Major Leaguer already.

Casey Blake, people. Casey. Blake.

8. CoolStandings still thinks 85 wins takes the Central

Which means, any way you cut it, that the Indians will have to play nearly 600 ball for the remainder of the season.

LaPorta, Valbuena, Barfield coming up

fleerdon — Sat, 02 May 2009 03:09:29 -0000

LaPorta, Valbuena, Barfield coming up

Smith DL'd, Crowe option'd, Graffanino DFA'd.

Good things come in threes, too, right?

The Indians appear to be close to signing closer Kerry Wood to a two-year contract.

fleerdon — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:23:20 -0000

The Indians appear to be close to signing closer Kerry Wood to a two-year contract.

Castrovince, official site.

UPDATE: 3:45 p.m. A.C. says it's down to technicalities. Shapiro to meet with reporters later this afternoon.