Checking the Hot Stove: Updates on All the Cleveland Indians’ Offseason Trade Rumors
It’s been a real snoozefest of an offseason for the Cleveland Indians. Four months after Michael Brantley grounded out to end the Tribe’s 2010 season, the Indians have signed just one major-league free agent and haven’t made a single trade. Cleveland fans weren’t expecting the team go on a shopping spree this winter, but still, things have been eerily quiet.
Fortunately, we Tribe fans have had plenty of rumors to get excited about in the absence of actual deals. Here’s a list of all the as-yet-unresolved gossip we’ve heard this offseason, with updates about where things stand. (more…)
Cleveland Indians Called About Bruce Chen, Kevin Millwood
The Cleveland Indians have reportedly talked to baseball super-agent Scott Boras about two of his starting pitcher clients: Kevin Millwood and Bruce Chen.
The Cleveland Indians All-Decade Team
Over the last couple days, I’ve assembled an All-Star team of the best Cleveland Indians players of the decade piece by piece. The results have now been compiled into a full 25-man roster.
When considering quantity versus quality of player contributions I tend to weight the latter more heavily than most, but neither was a silver bullet for making the team; the No. 3 starter has the best ERA in the rotation, while the hurler with the longest Tribe tenure came in at just No. 4.
In order for a player to qualify for this project, he had to have appeared on the Indians’ big-league roster in at least two different seasons since 2001. So no complaining that I forgot Roberto Alomar, Kevin Millwood, or John Rocker (just because he had more losses than saves doesn’t mean he was a bad closer).
The starting lineup and rotation were made up of the best players, period, but the bullpen and bench were compiled with specific roles in mind. For example, Ricardo Rincon was not one of the top six Cleveland relievers of the last 10 years, but he was the best choice to be the lefty specialist (click the section headings for full breakdowns).
The Cleveland Indians All-Decade Team: The Rotation
Yesterday, I began constructing a roster of the Cleveland Indians’ best players of the decade with the starting lineup and the bench. Today, we move past the position players and tackle the pitching staff—starting, of course, with the starting rotation. We’ll look at the bullpen later this afternoon.
Any player who appeared on the Tribe’s roster at some point in at least two different seasons since 2001 was eligible for consideration (sorry, Kevin Millwood).
Without further ado, here is the all-decade rotation:
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No. 1: CC Sabathia. Carsten Charles wasn’t a great pitcher for most of his Cleveland career—his ERAs didn’t settle below 4.00 until his sixth season—but his 106 wins and 3.83 ERA in over 1,500 innings with the Tribe from 2001-8 are impossible to ignore. With 33.6 WAR, he is the team’s decade MVP.
Do the Cleveland Indians Really Need an Innings Eater?
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Much ink has already been spilled over the Indians’ desire to import a starting pitcher this offseason. But while Cleveland reportedly wants to bring in a veteran starter, no one expects to see a new ace warming up in the Tribe’s bullpen in 2011. We don’t want a great hurler—we want an “innings eater.”
In case you’re not hip to the latest baseball lingo, an innings eater is a roughly average pitcher whose value comes solely from consistency and durability. We’re talking 150-200 innings with an ERA around 4.25, plus or minus half a run. An innings eater isn’t supposed to carry his team on his back. His job is to go out every fifth day and not screw up too badly.
But let’s forget the apparent inevitability of such a move and focus on the normative—should a team like the Indians really be going after a pitcher like that?
For the sake of argument, let’s say that there are three types of teams, herefter referred to as A, B, and C. Team A enters the season looking like a surefire contender and considers it a disappointment if they miss the playoffs; Team B isn’t expecting to see the postseason, but they have a realistic chance of making it to October if everything goes right; and Team C has raised the white flag on the season before it even starts. Think of Team A as like the Red Sox and Yankees every year, Team B as 2010′s White Sox and Mariners, and Team C as the Royals or Pirates. How would an innings eater fit into each team’s plans?
If Team A has any holes in its rotation, an innings eater would be a great addition. Why? Because if they’re already expecting to make the playoffs, they presumably have the talent to contend before filling the gap in their staff. On a good-hitting club, his job is to keep his team in the game; on a pitching-heavy team, the point is to ensure that the back of the rotation isn’t a complete disaster. The Cardinals’ signing of Jake Westbrook is a good example of the latter.
With Team B, things get a little fuzzier. For a team with an outside chance of making the playoffs, potential is more important than stability. A consistently average pitcher will probably be better than someone who has, say, a 30% chance of being an All-Star and 70% chance of busting, but if a team is in need of someone to put them over the top, playing it safe is counterintuitive. The only reason to go after an innings eater is if there are no other options whose realistic upsides are better than what you’d expect from the innings eater.
With Team C, we get to the worst case of all. If the team has nothing to play for, the only productive use of the season is to further the development of the team’s young players. Every pitch an innings eater throws is an opportunity lost for a prospect to refine his stuff in the bigs. Unless all of a team’s best pitching prospects still have major refinements to make in the minors, signing an innings eater makes no sense at all.
So what of the Indians? The 2011 Tribe probably falls somewhere between Teams B and C, so the argument that an innings eater would bring stability doesn’t hold much water.
And we don’t have a dearth of pitching. Unless they’re traded, Fausto Carmona and Mitch Talbot are virtual locks for rotation spots, and Justin Masterson will probably keep his as well. One has to assume Carlos Carrasco will get the chance to start after impressing in seven starts at the end of 2010, and Josh Tomlin should be the favorite for the fifth spot after leading Triple-A Columbus Clippers starters in ERA last year (2.68).
That means Corey Kluber, Zach McAllister, Jeanmar Gomez, and Justin Germano will be battling it out for backup duty—and that’s assuming no lower-minors prospects take the next step and there’s no resurgence from Aaron Laffey and David Huff. How will that situation be bettered by adding Vicente Padilla or Freddy Garcia?
The bottom line is, the Indians needn’t worry about eating innings. Maybe we should just wolf down some Cracker Jacks instead.
