You don’t necessarily have to be out of the country for a few weeks and basically cut off from the local sports scene to really appreciate the numbing sameness that is the Cleveland Indians, but it helps.
For the last few weeks I’ve been in Italy enjoying the views from Rome, Florence and Venice and enjoying the lack of substantive updates on Project Shapiro V. 2009. Back in the country for mere hours though and it’s quickly apparent that this version is more bug-ridden and faulty than Windows Vista. And all Sheldon Ocker can tell us is that manager Eric Wedge isn’t at fault.
Maybe none of this is Wedge’s fault and maybe none of it ever will be, but it is interesting how a flawed team brings out his flaws as well. But this isn’t about trying once again to bury Wedge. By this point the arguments and counterarguments have been hashed and rehashed. You’re either glass half full or, in the classic words of George W., half glass empty.
The one thing you can’t be, however, is delusional. You can blame injuries, bad luck and bad decision making to explain away a season that looks far more inevitable than anomalous, but what you can’t take away from any of this is that this organization is any closer to figuring any of its problems out than it ever was.
This team is stuck in the mud and the front office seems to be standing slack-jawed at the wreckage as if this outcome never even appeared on the numerous computer runs the interns made of the team back in February. At the moment, this is a team more than 20 games under .500 and heading for 30 and you don’t have to look any further than one Andy Marte to understand why. So paralyzed have they become that they can’t even decide whether to give Marte another chance, despite the impressive season he’s having in Columbus.
It’s not that Marte, personally, would have made a bit of difference to this season’s outcome. He wouldn’t have. It’s what he stands for. Wedge and Shapiro shuffle pitchers in and out of Columbus with all the forethought of someone driving down the freeway at 100 mph while sending a text. But with Marte they wring their hands as if this very well could be the most important decision in the history of professional baseball. It isn’t even the most important decision they’ll make in the next hour.
It’s true enough that Marte has had his opportunities and it’s true enough that he’s squandered them. But that only matters if you view player development in a straight-lined fashion instead of the amazingly jagged line that it really is.
According to a story by Paul Hoynes in Sunday’s Plain Dealer, Marte’s seemingly breakout season in Columbus has drawn the organization’s attention but they remain reluctant to take another chance on him at the moment.
There are probably a number of reasons that Marte is still in Columbus but you get the feeling that when you sort through the organizational doublespeak, it boils down to one thing: Wedge. Marte just doesn’t seem to be Wedge’s kind of player. Either was Brandon Phillips. Now do you understand why the team seems to keep inserting new CDs into the player but the same song keeps playing? Marte would have had to have hit .271 at some point in his career and been “good in the clubhouse” for him to get on the right side of whatever ledger Wedge keeps.
You can almost hear the pain in his voice when he told Hoynes that “[Marte] doesn't seem to be the same guy who was here the last couple of years. We have to see if it translates up here at sometime.” Yes, sometime. What’s the hurry? It’s only late July in a season that was effectively over months ago. Don’t rush.
The issue, though, really isn’t Marte. It’s the organization. Marte is having a good season in AAA and the front office treats is like a mysterious rash on its arm. Beyond just the Wedge factor, which can’t be underestimated or overstated, you had to almost smile at the Lewis Carroll meets Joseph Heller rationale offered by assistant general manager Chris Antonetti, when he explained, presumably straight-faced, that Marte remains in Columbus for the time being because he is out of options and thus he couldn’t automatically be sent to the minors if he flames out again.
Let’s stop and pause on that for a moment. The Indians were so dismayed with Marte that they sent him outright to Columbus earlier this year even though he was out of options. In doing that, they sent the message that they were completely indifferent to whether or not he remained in the organization at all. In fact, the only reason he’s in Columbus is because no other team in the league claimed him, which is saying plenty. Factor in that the reason Marte’s playing time increased only because of an injury to Wes Hodges and you can understand where he sat on the team’s depth chart. If this was the Browns and Marte was a tight end, he’d be behind Martin Rucker.
But like a 12th alternate just lucky to get into the tournament, Marte has made the most of what is surely his absolute final chance and that seems to be the worst news the front office has heard since the Princeton men’s tennis team finished 6th in the Ivy League this past season.
Now that Marte’s playing well, for the first time, the Indians are suddenly managing around the potential of losing him. The question is, why? In the worst case scenario, Marte comes back up to the big leagues and fails, for the fourth time. If that happens, Shapiro can outright him again, just as he did a few months ago. Marte either gets claimed or he doesn’t but either way his career is over in the Indians’ organization anyway. In other words, what downside?
It may very well be that Marte is the second coming of Karl Pagel. Every team has had its share of players over the years that can’t take that final step. But with the kind of year Jhonny Peralta is having you would have thought that Marte would have been in Cleveland the moment he hit his second home run, if only to light about the 83rd fire under Peralta this year.
As I said, Marte isn’t really the issue, it’s the organization. In context, the fact that it is even fretting over him is more a marker for everything that’s wrong than it is a sign that everything is going as planned. Every day Wedge continues to pound the square peg that Peralta has become into the round hole that is the lineup is another day lost to actually trying to build a team for the future.
The Indians right now are a team without much of a plan. They can’t decide if they have enough money to keep Cliff Lee and/or Victor Martinez and they can’t decide if they will have any pitching and hitting if they don’t. They refuse to commit to Asdrubal Cabrera but seem oddly fascinated with the car wreck that’s become Peralta’s career. The next player that Wedge develops will be his first all the while he and the front office continue to pin their hopes on an eventual return to form by players like Travis Hafner and Jake Westbrook.
This team, this organization is far more coulda than shoulda at the moment and the only ones that seem to notice are just about everyone who doesn’t rely on the team for a paycheck.
Yes, it’s late July, the season’s lost but there is one saving grace. The Indians season is like a Spike Lee movie. You can leave for 20 minutes in the middle to get some popcorn and talk to a friend inSa the lobby and when you get back you will not have missed anything and it will make just as much sense as it did when you left.
Showing posts with label Andy Marte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andy Marte. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2009
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
A Mystery Wrapped in a Riddle
As mysteries go, it’s hardly the most compelling. But with major league baseball at the halfway point, it’s a question worth both asking and answering: why are the first-place Cleveland Indians one of the best kept secrets in Cleveland?
Over the weekend, the Indians finally surpassed one million fans for the season, the last division leader to do so. There was a time, of course, when the Indians front office handed out key chains in gratitude for having a million fans for the entire season and there were many seasons in which the Indians didn’t come close to drawing a million fans at all, so everything is relative. But the thought then was that if the team is ever a winner, the fans will show.
That was certainly true in the ‘90s. Now, not so much. The team is a winning and the fans aren’t showing, at least as much as a first place team deserves. And it’s not as if they aren’t a good home team. As of July 3rd, they have, at 31-12, the best home record in the entire major leagues. And it’s not as if they lack for promotions. The Indians front office runs so many fan promotions to this point the only things left are a cow-milking contest and bring your dog to the park night.
There are all sorts of theories as to why the Indians aren’t drawing. Some have suggested that the bad taste of last year’s disaster, particularly given the promise of the previous season, is mostly responsible. There’s probably something to that.
There is no question that generally many fans feel let down by the Dolans. The team has one of the lowest payrolls in the league still and despite owner Larry Dolan’s often-quoted promise to spend when the team was competitive it’s a promise that still remains mostly unfulfilled. The fans felt betrayed by the decision not to spend going into last season when the Indians seemed on the precipice of greatness and felt further betrayed when the Indians dumped salary last year. Those feelings were hardly assuaged by the lackluster free agents signed going into this season.
But whatever the ramifications of such fan mistreatment, the point remains that right now the Indians are 50-31 and only one team, the Angels, have a better record, and only then by one-half game.
Another popular theory is that the yearly roster turnover has created a team without an identity, making it more difficult for fans to embrace. There’s probably something to that theory as well.
Given the way the Dolans choose to fund this team, every off-season involves a fairly healthy amount of turnover. GM Mark Shapiro spends nearly every moment of his life with a cell phone glued to his ear for a reason. There are always 5-7 roster spots that he needs to fill. And it’s not as if those roster spots are being filled by identifiable, marquee-type players. Jason Michaels? David Dellucci? Joe Borowski? If anyone has their baseball cards, it’s by accident.
But on the other hand, the Indians have their share of stars. C.C. Sabathia, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore. These are guys that could and would start for any team in either league. They’re all young with incredibly promising careers.
Which leads to a corollary of the “lack of identity” theory: even if they have identifiable players, the Indians won’t re-sign them when their contracts come due, thus investing the time now is mostly time and money poorly wasted.
There is something to this, too. Despite the Indians record, one of the most popular topics among fans is whether or not the Indians will re-sign Sabathia and Hafner. Though neither is a free agent at the end of this season, there is an abject fear, rightfully obtained, that the Dolans will not spend to sign either player. It’s difficult to know exactly how much this fear plays in the overall calculus of fan disinterest, but it would be foolish for either the Dolans or Shapiro to ignore it completely.
While each one of these theories likely plays some role in the number of empty seats at Jacobs Field each night, there is also a more obvious reason you don’t hear much about: the 2007 Major League baseball season simply isn’t very interesting.
Consider the American League East. Right now, exactly one team is over .500, the Boston Red Sox. Whatever your feelings may be about the New York Yankees, they are a flagship franchise and when they struggle there is a ripple effect throughout the league. In the AL West, the Angels remain a top-tier team and while Seattle is playing well and Oakland is a few games over .500, none of those teams capture the imagination, at least here in Cleveland. Unlike the Yankees, the quintessential team that fans love to hate, every team in the AL West garners, at best, a shrug.
In the AL Central, the White Sox this year are like the Indians last year, a major disappointment. But other than that, the division is playing out pretty much as expected, meaning that there is no compelling story to capture the imagination.
The National League is every bit as uninteresting. Whereas every division leader in the American League has at least 50 wins, the closest in the National League is Milwaukee with 48. Milwaukee! Most fans couldn’t name more than two players on the Brewers. The National League East, on July 2nd, had the dubious distinction of going 0-5. That pretty much captures what that division is all about. As for the NL West, it is highly competitive, but given its geographical distance and the fact that most of its games start at about the time most people go to bed around here, it remains an afterthought.
Contrast all of this with just last season. At this point last year, the AL East was the strength of the league, with Boston, New York and Toronto all at least 10 games over .500. In the AL Central, the Tigers had re-emerged after a lengthy slumber and were dominating the division, which makes for a very interesting storyline for Cleveland fans given how many times the teams play each other. Moreover, three teams in the division were at least 10 games over .500 with the Tigers having won 56 games by this point. The National League was still a mess, but the Mets were dominating their division and even the Reds were fighting it out for first place in the NL Central.
Moving beyond the league in general and to the Indians in particular, despite their record there is the lingering feeling that this team really isn’t all that interesting or all that good. That may be true if your benchmark is the 1920 Yankees or even the 1995 Indians, but in context to the rest of the league it’s untrue.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this team revolves around how it is that it finds itself with 50 wins already. At times, it seems held together by paper and paste. The defense is average, they aren’t hitting as well as anticipated and the middle relief remains a source of frustration.
But yet they are one of the best teams in the league. It’s this paradox that begs for further analysis not indifference. For example, the starting pitching has been nearly as good as advertised. In fact, with the emergence of Fausto Carmona, in some ways it’s better. That’s a story worth following, in and of itself. If that isn’t good enough, consider that Borowski has 24 saves despite the fact that nearly everyone of them was a struggle and is probably the team’s MVP to this point.
If that still isn’t good enough, look at some of the others. Sabathia is easily having the best season of his career and is well on track for a 20-win season. For anyone watching closely, this is the season that Sabathia has officially gone from a potential number one starter to an actual number one starter. When he takes the mound, good things generally follow.
It would be hard for any player, let alone a catcher, to play any better than Victor Martinez is playing to this point. His offense, always solid anyway, has been spectacular. Defensively, his improvement has been dramatic. Currently, he is ninth in the major leagues (third in the American League) in the percentage of would-be base stealers thrown out. For comparisons sake, consider that Ivan Rodriguez is 14th overall. His selection to the All Star team was every bit the no-brainer that was Sabathia’s selection.
Sizemore may not be a superstar yet, but he continues to play like a superstar in the making. Offensively, only Torii Hunter of the Twins is enjoying a better year than Sizemore among American League center fielders. Defensively, there are few better right now. Casey Blake has been, perhaps, the biggest surprise, particularly defensively. He is playing so well at third base, it will be tough, barring an injury, for Andy Marte to get back to Cleveland before September 1.
But rather than see these positives, too many fans seem to waiting for the other shoe to drop and are doing that waiting anywhere but at Jacobs Field, which is a shame.
It may be that the Dolans, once again, fail the fans by not investing in what it might take come trading deadline. It may very well be that Joe Borowski may wake up and realize that he is Joe Borowski or, maybe even more likely, that Casey Blake wakes up and realizes he is Casey Blake. Travis Hafner may stay in a slump all season. But for right now and for half the season already, that isn’t the reality.
Considering how few winners this town has known in any sport, one would think that whatever its warts, this is current Indians team should be embraced, not ignored.
Over the weekend, the Indians finally surpassed one million fans for the season, the last division leader to do so. There was a time, of course, when the Indians front office handed out key chains in gratitude for having a million fans for the entire season and there were many seasons in which the Indians didn’t come close to drawing a million fans at all, so everything is relative. But the thought then was that if the team is ever a winner, the fans will show.
That was certainly true in the ‘90s. Now, not so much. The team is a winning and the fans aren’t showing, at least as much as a first place team deserves. And it’s not as if they aren’t a good home team. As of July 3rd, they have, at 31-12, the best home record in the entire major leagues. And it’s not as if they lack for promotions. The Indians front office runs so many fan promotions to this point the only things left are a cow-milking contest and bring your dog to the park night.
There are all sorts of theories as to why the Indians aren’t drawing. Some have suggested that the bad taste of last year’s disaster, particularly given the promise of the previous season, is mostly responsible. There’s probably something to that.
There is no question that generally many fans feel let down by the Dolans. The team has one of the lowest payrolls in the league still and despite owner Larry Dolan’s often-quoted promise to spend when the team was competitive it’s a promise that still remains mostly unfulfilled. The fans felt betrayed by the decision not to spend going into last season when the Indians seemed on the precipice of greatness and felt further betrayed when the Indians dumped salary last year. Those feelings were hardly assuaged by the lackluster free agents signed going into this season.
But whatever the ramifications of such fan mistreatment, the point remains that right now the Indians are 50-31 and only one team, the Angels, have a better record, and only then by one-half game.
Another popular theory is that the yearly roster turnover has created a team without an identity, making it more difficult for fans to embrace. There’s probably something to that theory as well.
Given the way the Dolans choose to fund this team, every off-season involves a fairly healthy amount of turnover. GM Mark Shapiro spends nearly every moment of his life with a cell phone glued to his ear for a reason. There are always 5-7 roster spots that he needs to fill. And it’s not as if those roster spots are being filled by identifiable, marquee-type players. Jason Michaels? David Dellucci? Joe Borowski? If anyone has their baseball cards, it’s by accident.
But on the other hand, the Indians have their share of stars. C.C. Sabathia, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore. These are guys that could and would start for any team in either league. They’re all young with incredibly promising careers.
Which leads to a corollary of the “lack of identity” theory: even if they have identifiable players, the Indians won’t re-sign them when their contracts come due, thus investing the time now is mostly time and money poorly wasted.
There is something to this, too. Despite the Indians record, one of the most popular topics among fans is whether or not the Indians will re-sign Sabathia and Hafner. Though neither is a free agent at the end of this season, there is an abject fear, rightfully obtained, that the Dolans will not spend to sign either player. It’s difficult to know exactly how much this fear plays in the overall calculus of fan disinterest, but it would be foolish for either the Dolans or Shapiro to ignore it completely.
While each one of these theories likely plays some role in the number of empty seats at Jacobs Field each night, there is also a more obvious reason you don’t hear much about: the 2007 Major League baseball season simply isn’t very interesting.
Consider the American League East. Right now, exactly one team is over .500, the Boston Red Sox. Whatever your feelings may be about the New York Yankees, they are a flagship franchise and when they struggle there is a ripple effect throughout the league. In the AL West, the Angels remain a top-tier team and while Seattle is playing well and Oakland is a few games over .500, none of those teams capture the imagination, at least here in Cleveland. Unlike the Yankees, the quintessential team that fans love to hate, every team in the AL West garners, at best, a shrug.
In the AL Central, the White Sox this year are like the Indians last year, a major disappointment. But other than that, the division is playing out pretty much as expected, meaning that there is no compelling story to capture the imagination.
The National League is every bit as uninteresting. Whereas every division leader in the American League has at least 50 wins, the closest in the National League is Milwaukee with 48. Milwaukee! Most fans couldn’t name more than two players on the Brewers. The National League East, on July 2nd, had the dubious distinction of going 0-5. That pretty much captures what that division is all about. As for the NL West, it is highly competitive, but given its geographical distance and the fact that most of its games start at about the time most people go to bed around here, it remains an afterthought.
Contrast all of this with just last season. At this point last year, the AL East was the strength of the league, with Boston, New York and Toronto all at least 10 games over .500. In the AL Central, the Tigers had re-emerged after a lengthy slumber and were dominating the division, which makes for a very interesting storyline for Cleveland fans given how many times the teams play each other. Moreover, three teams in the division were at least 10 games over .500 with the Tigers having won 56 games by this point. The National League was still a mess, but the Mets were dominating their division and even the Reds were fighting it out for first place in the NL Central.
Moving beyond the league in general and to the Indians in particular, despite their record there is the lingering feeling that this team really isn’t all that interesting or all that good. That may be true if your benchmark is the 1920 Yankees or even the 1995 Indians, but in context to the rest of the league it’s untrue.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this team revolves around how it is that it finds itself with 50 wins already. At times, it seems held together by paper and paste. The defense is average, they aren’t hitting as well as anticipated and the middle relief remains a source of frustration.
But yet they are one of the best teams in the league. It’s this paradox that begs for further analysis not indifference. For example, the starting pitching has been nearly as good as advertised. In fact, with the emergence of Fausto Carmona, in some ways it’s better. That’s a story worth following, in and of itself. If that isn’t good enough, consider that Borowski has 24 saves despite the fact that nearly everyone of them was a struggle and is probably the team’s MVP to this point.
If that still isn’t good enough, look at some of the others. Sabathia is easily having the best season of his career and is well on track for a 20-win season. For anyone watching closely, this is the season that Sabathia has officially gone from a potential number one starter to an actual number one starter. When he takes the mound, good things generally follow.
It would be hard for any player, let alone a catcher, to play any better than Victor Martinez is playing to this point. His offense, always solid anyway, has been spectacular. Defensively, his improvement has been dramatic. Currently, he is ninth in the major leagues (third in the American League) in the percentage of would-be base stealers thrown out. For comparisons sake, consider that Ivan Rodriguez is 14th overall. His selection to the All Star team was every bit the no-brainer that was Sabathia’s selection.
Sizemore may not be a superstar yet, but he continues to play like a superstar in the making. Offensively, only Torii Hunter of the Twins is enjoying a better year than Sizemore among American League center fielders. Defensively, there are few better right now. Casey Blake has been, perhaps, the biggest surprise, particularly defensively. He is playing so well at third base, it will be tough, barring an injury, for Andy Marte to get back to Cleveland before September 1.
But rather than see these positives, too many fans seem to waiting for the other shoe to drop and are doing that waiting anywhere but at Jacobs Field, which is a shame.
It may be that the Dolans, once again, fail the fans by not investing in what it might take come trading deadline. It may very well be that Joe Borowski may wake up and realize that he is Joe Borowski or, maybe even more likely, that Casey Blake wakes up and realizes he is Casey Blake. Travis Hafner may stay in a slump all season. But for right now and for half the season already, that isn’t the reality.
Considering how few winners this town has known in any sport, one would think that whatever its warts, this is current Indians team should be embraced, not ignored.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
If You're Not Part of the Solution...
Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. Sometimes it’s the beginning of a trend. The challenge for Mark Shapiro, Eric Wedge and the rest of the Cleveland Indians is figuring out whether the rather mediocre play of the team to this point, particularly defensively, is just a series of coincidences or the continuation of a disturbing pattern that defined its disappointing 78-win season of a year ago.
When it’s early in the season like this, the information from which one is forced to draw conclusions is limited and hasn’t had time to settle. But the victors are often those who get out ahead of the curve rather than waiting until the definitive pattern is set. By then, it may be too late.
At this point, the Indians find themselves in frighteningly familiar territory, stuck in neutral and unable to gain any early season traction. Much of this is due to failures in the most fundamental aspects of the game. First, the Indians simply aren’t hitting in the clutch. Going into Sunday’s game, they were among the worst hitting teams in the American League with runners in scoring position, even with Travis Hafner finding a groove over the last few games. Second, when they do get on base they commit far too many embarrassing base running mistakes. Third, and perhaps most alarming, they continue to play incredibly poor defense.
As Indians fans saw with this team last year, starting pitching and scoring runs alone won’t get you to the playoffs. Heck, it won’t even guarantee you a winning record. You need a solid bullpen and good, if not great, defense. To this point, though, the bullpen seems relatively settled, the starting pitching average, the hitting poor and the defense abysmal. It’s no surprise, again, that they have shown themselves thus far to be merely an average team.
You have to think that the hitting will sort itself out, at least to the point that it’s the least of the worries. The early season injury of Victor Martinez destabilized the middle of the lineup and no one really stepped up to fill the breach. Recall that last year, Casey Blake and Martinez got off to great starts at the plate and this allowed the rest of the lineup to the time it needed to settle in. Though that hasn’t happened to this point this year, the return of Martinez to the lineup will help tremendously, given his track record. Hafner, as noted, has warmed up as of late after a terrible spring. Grady Sizemore has cooled off since his hot start the first week of the season but he’s the real deal and will hit .300, giving those behind him ample opportunities to drive in runs.
There are still some questions to be answered with respect to the offense, however, particularly with respect to players like Jhonny Peralta, Andy Marte and Ryan Garko. Shapiro and Wedge, too, need to figure out what to do with Blake. Playing him every day and watching his repeated failures at the plate to this point is eerily reminiscent of Aaron Boone last year. But again, there is enough pop in this lineup that to this point you have to believe the Indians will score enough runs.
But what of the constant base running errors? Hafner, a seasoned pro, ran himself into outs twice in Friday’s game. Others have done similarly, many times. Perhaps this is a string of bad luck but you can’t like the trend, particularly when one factors what is still the most glaring shortcoming of this team: defense.
Going into Sunday’s game, the Indians were the worst defensive team in the American League. Peralta has been credited with three errors, Marte four and Barfield two. And these are just the official errors. To anyone watching, there are many more defense lapses that weren’t labeled errors by generous scorekeepers but were every bit errors by omission. Barfield’s misplay of a pop up in shallow right field on Saturday was the perfect example. Venturing too far out of position to make a catch that was more easily made by right fielder Trot Nixon, Barfield was not able to make the play and Delmon Young was credited with a double. On the one hand, the official scorer likely felt that the difficulty of the attempted catch made it more reasonable to credit the batter with a hit. On the other hand, the failure of Barfield to beg off the play in favor of Nixon, coupled with Nixon’s failure to communicate that he was barreling in on the catch, made it an error of omission. But however categorized, it was a case of bad fundamentals as it led to two Devil Rays, both of which were technically earned but neither of which were deserved.
This kind of thing has happened repeatedly this season to the point that Shapiro and Wedge can’t simply hope that the situation will correct itself. It’s early, but Peralta doesn’t seem to have improved in the field. His range factor, which is the number of plays made per games at the position, is still a very mediocre 4.68. His zone rating, which tracks the location of balls hit into his zone and the ability to turn those balls into outs is less than mediocre at .824. Currently, he ranks 15th in the league in that statistic. This has to be alarming given Shapiro’s statements earlier that an improved Peralta is integral to the Iindians season.
Marte, someone whom Wedge assured the fans was a major defensive upgrade at third, has been even worse. His range factor is an appalling 2.13 and his zone rating is among the worst of all third basemen at .619. Barfield, another player whom fans were assured was a major upgrade defensively, ranks a paltry 18th among American League second basemen in range factor, though his zone rating is .900, putting him 7th in the league.
Finding meaning in such statistics is a favored past time of most GMs these days, including Shapiro and his band of statistical wonks that support him. But the statistics only tell part of the story. The tougher question that needs to be answered is whether mistakes were made in the assessment of the talent collected for this year’s version of the Tribe or whether it portends of something more serious. In particular, fans and Shapiro alike have to wonder why these same things keep happening to Wedge’s teams.
Wedge says all the right things during each post-game mortem. He appears visibly upset at the recurring defensive and base running lapses and he continues to promise to get it corrected. But the nature of the baseball season is such that there are few off days. That makes making in-season corrections difficult, at best. Sure, there is always time for additional hitting and batting practice, but unless a team is willing to send a player back to the minors, the learning is mostly on-the-job. Unfortunately for Indians fans, they’ve been forced to endure more than their share of players learning on-the-job.
But in the end, the question still remains: why do these things continue to happen to Wedge’s teams? Does he not place enough emphasis on fundamentals during spring training? Is he so interested in maintaining some sort of mythical team chemistry that he is reluctant to take any sort of action against the offending players? Is he unable to communicate with his players in a way that resonates and produces the intended results? Does he have the right coaching staff? It’s likely that there is no single answer to this lingering issue but there most assuredly remains a problem and to this point Wedge has not effectively corrected it. It may not be due to a lack of determination but instead a lack of ability.
When Shapiro named Wedge manager, it was an under-the-radar screen hiring because the Indians were in rebuilding mode. As a result, the fans asked few tough questions and made even less demands of him. But this season is the first time Wedge and Shapiro are no longer tethered by contracts of similar length. Shapiro recently signed on to another five years while leaving Wedge to labor under his old contract that has essentially two years left. This, more than anything else, seems to signal that Wedge is now being evaluated on a different matrix than in the past. Whether or not you are a Wedge fan, this heightened scrutiny is a welcome development.
Baseball is now in the golden age of the general manager. Thanks to people like Billy Beane in Oakland, managers have become, in the minds of many GMs, nothing more than mid-level supervisors. This systematic de-emphasis of their role has caused fans to place an overemphasis on the acquisition of talent, as if merely getting the players is all that matters. But though the job of manager has been devalued over the years, it’s still the most vital link between what happens in the front office and what happens on the field.
The offensive lapses of this early season may very well be merely a series of unhappy coincidences but given the repeated failures each season on the base paths and in the field, it is getting well past the time that this should be written off in the same way. It may be too much to suggest that Wedge is the real problem here but until he finds a way to reach Peralta, Marte and the others whose mistakes are now defining this team it also is not too much to suggest that he’s not been part of the solution either. And that, more than anything else, will determine not only his future, but that of this team.
When it’s early in the season like this, the information from which one is forced to draw conclusions is limited and hasn’t had time to settle. But the victors are often those who get out ahead of the curve rather than waiting until the definitive pattern is set. By then, it may be too late.
At this point, the Indians find themselves in frighteningly familiar territory, stuck in neutral and unable to gain any early season traction. Much of this is due to failures in the most fundamental aspects of the game. First, the Indians simply aren’t hitting in the clutch. Going into Sunday’s game, they were among the worst hitting teams in the American League with runners in scoring position, even with Travis Hafner finding a groove over the last few games. Second, when they do get on base they commit far too many embarrassing base running mistakes. Third, and perhaps most alarming, they continue to play incredibly poor defense.
As Indians fans saw with this team last year, starting pitching and scoring runs alone won’t get you to the playoffs. Heck, it won’t even guarantee you a winning record. You need a solid bullpen and good, if not great, defense. To this point, though, the bullpen seems relatively settled, the starting pitching average, the hitting poor and the defense abysmal. It’s no surprise, again, that they have shown themselves thus far to be merely an average team.
You have to think that the hitting will sort itself out, at least to the point that it’s the least of the worries. The early season injury of Victor Martinez destabilized the middle of the lineup and no one really stepped up to fill the breach. Recall that last year, Casey Blake and Martinez got off to great starts at the plate and this allowed the rest of the lineup to the time it needed to settle in. Though that hasn’t happened to this point this year, the return of Martinez to the lineup will help tremendously, given his track record. Hafner, as noted, has warmed up as of late after a terrible spring. Grady Sizemore has cooled off since his hot start the first week of the season but he’s the real deal and will hit .300, giving those behind him ample opportunities to drive in runs.
There are still some questions to be answered with respect to the offense, however, particularly with respect to players like Jhonny Peralta, Andy Marte and Ryan Garko. Shapiro and Wedge, too, need to figure out what to do with Blake. Playing him every day and watching his repeated failures at the plate to this point is eerily reminiscent of Aaron Boone last year. But again, there is enough pop in this lineup that to this point you have to believe the Indians will score enough runs.
But what of the constant base running errors? Hafner, a seasoned pro, ran himself into outs twice in Friday’s game. Others have done similarly, many times. Perhaps this is a string of bad luck but you can’t like the trend, particularly when one factors what is still the most glaring shortcoming of this team: defense.
Going into Sunday’s game, the Indians were the worst defensive team in the American League. Peralta has been credited with three errors, Marte four and Barfield two. And these are just the official errors. To anyone watching, there are many more defense lapses that weren’t labeled errors by generous scorekeepers but were every bit errors by omission. Barfield’s misplay of a pop up in shallow right field on Saturday was the perfect example. Venturing too far out of position to make a catch that was more easily made by right fielder Trot Nixon, Barfield was not able to make the play and Delmon Young was credited with a double. On the one hand, the official scorer likely felt that the difficulty of the attempted catch made it more reasonable to credit the batter with a hit. On the other hand, the failure of Barfield to beg off the play in favor of Nixon, coupled with Nixon’s failure to communicate that he was barreling in on the catch, made it an error of omission. But however categorized, it was a case of bad fundamentals as it led to two Devil Rays, both of which were technically earned but neither of which were deserved.
This kind of thing has happened repeatedly this season to the point that Shapiro and Wedge can’t simply hope that the situation will correct itself. It’s early, but Peralta doesn’t seem to have improved in the field. His range factor, which is the number of plays made per games at the position, is still a very mediocre 4.68. His zone rating, which tracks the location of balls hit into his zone and the ability to turn those balls into outs is less than mediocre at .824. Currently, he ranks 15th in the league in that statistic. This has to be alarming given Shapiro’s statements earlier that an improved Peralta is integral to the Iindians season.
Marte, someone whom Wedge assured the fans was a major defensive upgrade at third, has been even worse. His range factor is an appalling 2.13 and his zone rating is among the worst of all third basemen at .619. Barfield, another player whom fans were assured was a major upgrade defensively, ranks a paltry 18th among American League second basemen in range factor, though his zone rating is .900, putting him 7th in the league.
Finding meaning in such statistics is a favored past time of most GMs these days, including Shapiro and his band of statistical wonks that support him. But the statistics only tell part of the story. The tougher question that needs to be answered is whether mistakes were made in the assessment of the talent collected for this year’s version of the Tribe or whether it portends of something more serious. In particular, fans and Shapiro alike have to wonder why these same things keep happening to Wedge’s teams.
Wedge says all the right things during each post-game mortem. He appears visibly upset at the recurring defensive and base running lapses and he continues to promise to get it corrected. But the nature of the baseball season is such that there are few off days. That makes making in-season corrections difficult, at best. Sure, there is always time for additional hitting and batting practice, but unless a team is willing to send a player back to the minors, the learning is mostly on-the-job. Unfortunately for Indians fans, they’ve been forced to endure more than their share of players learning on-the-job.
But in the end, the question still remains: why do these things continue to happen to Wedge’s teams? Does he not place enough emphasis on fundamentals during spring training? Is he so interested in maintaining some sort of mythical team chemistry that he is reluctant to take any sort of action against the offending players? Is he unable to communicate with his players in a way that resonates and produces the intended results? Does he have the right coaching staff? It’s likely that there is no single answer to this lingering issue but there most assuredly remains a problem and to this point Wedge has not effectively corrected it. It may not be due to a lack of determination but instead a lack of ability.
When Shapiro named Wedge manager, it was an under-the-radar screen hiring because the Indians were in rebuilding mode. As a result, the fans asked few tough questions and made even less demands of him. But this season is the first time Wedge and Shapiro are no longer tethered by contracts of similar length. Shapiro recently signed on to another five years while leaving Wedge to labor under his old contract that has essentially two years left. This, more than anything else, seems to signal that Wedge is now being evaluated on a different matrix than in the past. Whether or not you are a Wedge fan, this heightened scrutiny is a welcome development.
Baseball is now in the golden age of the general manager. Thanks to people like Billy Beane in Oakland, managers have become, in the minds of many GMs, nothing more than mid-level supervisors. This systematic de-emphasis of their role has caused fans to place an overemphasis on the acquisition of talent, as if merely getting the players is all that matters. But though the job of manager has been devalued over the years, it’s still the most vital link between what happens in the front office and what happens on the field.
The offensive lapses of this early season may very well be merely a series of unhappy coincidences but given the repeated failures each season on the base paths and in the field, it is getting well past the time that this should be written off in the same way. It may be too much to suggest that Wedge is the real problem here but until he finds a way to reach Peralta, Marte and the others whose mistakes are now defining this team it also is not too much to suggest that he’s not been part of the solution either. And that, more than anything else, will determine not only his future, but that of this team.
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