This won't be the most scientific analysis of Manny Acta's managerial influence, but hey it's at least a talking point. The three categories listed in the title, "bunts", "steals", and "intentional base on balls" are chosen as the elements to be assessed in my attempt to quantify Acta's role. I'm choosing these categories because of the available data on baseball-reference.com, and because these three categories seem to have the most managerial influence. I'm mostly interested in the number of attempts made by Manny Acta's teams with regards to the two first categories, bunts and steals, which also happen to be both offensive categories. While the intentional base on balls (IBB) category is on the pitching side of things, and is unlike the other two, is exclusively a managerial decision. This last point is an important caveat to this "analysis". There's no way to tell if the decision to attempt a stolen base is ordered by the manager or simply made by the player on the fly. We can probably assume that players will rarely attempt a stolen base when a sign to not steal is given, there isn't much of a problem here. But, we don't know how often the permission to attempt a stolen base is given by the manager, but never acted upon by the player due to any number of factors. So although I'm using data like stolen base attempts to gage Manny Acta's tendencies, the data is incomplete and leaves the analysis open to invalidation.

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I'm grasping at straws here trying to prepare myself for what the next few months of baseball in Cleveland will have in store. The horrors of the past few weeks have given me pause with regards to how to brace my emotions as I follow this team. It's maybe because of these past few weeks that like a shrunken-within-it's-shell turtle I start my sense making with the starting pitching of this terribly euphoric and heart-wrenching team. I don't have the heart to delve into the offense at this moment. Its mix of shameful performances and bad luck over the past few weeks has me flumaxed and without the energy to attempt to peek underneath the ugly surface to see if the currents are indicating a promise of change (or in other words, a team BA with RISP over .300). So it is the safer route, but one that is also important if things are to brighten....or worsen over the remainder of the season.

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Tipping my hat to notthatnoise from the Game 26 post-game wrap up where he posted about Matt Laporta quietly having a solid year thus far. notthatnoise mentioned Laporta's .818 OPS (135 OPS+) and particularly his GO/FO ratio that may be a key to the overall success thus far. I wanted to see how Laporta is doing compared to the other first baseman in the league because when I first saw the OPS, my thought was that it wasn't that good for a first baseman. Then quickly considered the 135 OPS+ and remembered that my mind has been trained to think that an .800 OPS was league average, which of course is nowhere near the truth these days. So optimistic about Laporta all of the sudden, I wanted to see where he stacked up against the rest of the American League's first baseman.

Baseball Prospectus doesn't yet have their 2011 individual player valuations up yet, so my original plan on including multiple points of reference went by the wayside there. Instead I just scanned Fangraphs wRC+ leaderboard for qualified AL first baseman and discovered the following:

Laporta's 131 wRC+ ties him for sixth in the AL for first baseman with Adrian Gonzalez of Boston, who has gotten off to a slow start himself. I think if anyone would have told the majority of us here at LGT that Laporta would be the sixth best offensive first baseman in the the AL and carrying a 131 wRC+ or 138 OPS+, we would be ecstatic. If Laporta can maintain his presence in the top 8 of first baseman in the AL for the rest of the season, would you still be satisfied with him or would some of that previous prospect projectionism come back into play and raise expectations that he moves up the list?

notthatnoise made this point, but check out the baBIP, Laporta is at .254 coming into today. Both his BB% and K% are adequate when compared to his peers at the position, and there is a more than .100 point spread between his AVG. and OBP. indicating that low OBP is likely mostly the function of his poor baBIP than poor plate discipline (I will mention this caveat that his O-Swing % is 32.1, one of the poorer percentages at the position thus far and certainly a sign of caution about his prospects). As things normalize, and he can keep his approach consistent, we could see Laporta climbing these rankings. For some reason I was surprised by his ISO being near the top grouping of players at the position as well. I guess with all of the bombs Carlos Santana, Grady Sizemore, and Shin-Shoo Choo have hit recently Laporta's hits are going under the radar for me. Though once again, this might just be a function of the baBIP. I would love to see that SLG. climb into the .500 territory and stay there. At that point we could be talking a near .900 OPS and in this age, that would be something.

As briefly noted above, Laporta has some points of caution in his plate discipline percentages. In addition to his out of zone swing percentage, he has the third highest swinging strike percentage of the group (12.2%) and overall has the contact percentage on his swings (76.5%). These can be troubling signs that he is struggling with pitch recognition and adjusting to major league quality off-speed pitches. I would be interested in what those who have been able to watch him (I mostly listen to the games on the radio as I don't have cable and am blacked out of mlb.com because I live in Cleveland zone) what you think of his plate discipline and ability to recognize and lay off of breaking balls out-of-the zone is thus far.

Finally, what's the consensus feeling on Laporta at this point, are you still in "wait and see" mode or have you moved past worrying about him and now see him as a legitimate answer for the position through the near future.

Your Cleveland Indians:

The Good:

#1 in Pitcher Ground Ball to Fly Ball Ratio (1.00 GB/FB)

The Bad:

#14 in Pitcher Strike Out % (13.4 SO%)

#14 in Pitcher Base-on-Balls % (11.3 BB%)
I think you can all figure out where we are ranked in strike out to base-on-balls ratio.

The Better Than Last Year:

#8 (and very close to League Avg.) in Total Zone Runs Above Average (1.7 Rtot).

Some More Good:

#4 in Batter Base-on-Balls % (10.3%)

Some more Yuck:

#13 in Batter Home Run % (1.4%).... Only the Milton Bradely Apologists are worse.

#13 in Batter Strike Out % (21.0%).

So in summation....I got nothing. Maybe our groundballer staff can't strike out guys, but what if they at least focused on not walking batters? The hitting is definetly set up to work the count, but are we simply unlucky with our Balls-In-Play, or is it a lack of punch? (Linedrive % is around 20% so there's that.)

I stumbled upon this collection of early 1900 and before baseball photographs that The Cleveland Public Library has in their collection, but also present online. Here's the link to the archived photographs, its a good way to kill some time on a weekend day.

Here's a few examples of the collection:

Tris Speaker - 1915

Ty Cobb - Prior to 1926

All Americans - 1901

Nap Lajoie is second from the left on the top row. The caption for the picture simply states that the All Americans played in California in 1901

Bill Wambsganss - 1920

In his Cleveland uniform. Taken the same season he completed an unassisted triple play against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series.

Hi, I'm stopping in from Fear The Sword (Cleveland Cavs blog) to see if the parents of one of your posters, atlantalove want to pick him up as he apparently got lost (maybe ran away?) and wondered over to our blog and posted this (the post has been removed, thankfully)....(oh, wait here, apparently atlantalove has returned and posted this over at Fear The Sword). And removed once again). Please see for his well being as he was quite angry in his posting.

Now since I'm here and now done with the unfortunate trolling. I wanted to ask what kind of response Atlanta fans would have if a spot opens up on the All Star roster (maybe Paul Pierce will be out) and Josh Smith wasn't added? He's been a 8.9 WARP player thus far...that's pretty damn good. Where as if another Cleveland player was added neither Mo Williams or Shaquille O'Neal (the most likely two players) have a WARP above 4. I think Smith should be in instead of Paul Pierce anyways, he's simply played better thus far.

One last question, the way things are shaping up the second seed is completely up for grabs (Orlando is down 15 pts at home vs. New Orleans as I write this), what I'm wondering is of the potential first round match ups, which team (if any) would Atlanta want to avoid, not necessarily that they would lose/be upset by this team, but that would be a bad match up and push the series longer than you'd like. Charlotte, Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee, Toronto, Boston (hey, its possible that they slip right!). I know for the Cavs it would be Charlotte due to the frustration they cause for our offense and their solid home record. Miami or Milwaukee would be preferable as they are both weak teams that look like they'd fold after going down two games in a series.