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Mid-Season Managerial Review

The final entry of a three-part All-Star Break review by the writers at Tribe Report.

Part I: Offense

Part II: Pitching

As part of Tribe Report’s All Star Break coverage, I was asked to compile a review of Cleveland’s front office and coaching staff. That sounded easy enough at first considering all the poor decisions, botched trades, and managerial shenanigans. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that Shapiro and Wedge really aren’t to blame for the season getting off track so dramatically. Some of the more pessimistic fans in the crowd might want to sit this post out because (gasp!) this team was managed much better than their place in the standings would indicate.

There’s not much point in me just throwing out what Shapiro should have done because that would be nothing more than a cheap shot at this point. I think it’s fairly obvious that the team has issues with its offensive production and in the bullpen, but it would be a disservice to the reader if I were to wrap a pretty bow around “Borowski sucked” and call it a day. Instead I’d like to address a few complaints often directed at the management this season and explain why these decisions made sense at the time and still do, even though they’re after the fact. Another aspect I’d like to discuss is how the management adapted to some pretty bad breaks and how they’re now wisely using a “lost” season to prepare for 2009.

The Off-Season

Cleveland entered the winter of 2008 with a relatively short to-do list. Nearly every major member of the 2007 squad was still under contract for 2008 and there were no major holes on the roster. Granted, there were a few question marks, but the team was fortunate enough to have the depth to adequately handle any mid-season emergencies.

Aaron Laffey was waiting in Buffalo heading into Spring Training and had already proven he could pitch in the Majors by taking over for Westbrook late in 2007. Masahide Kobayashi, the all-time saves leader in the Pro-Yakyu league, had been brought in to bolster the back of the bullpen. Fans couldn’t stop talking about prospect Asdrubal Cabrera who was likened to be the second coming of Omar. The platoon of Michaels and Dellucci had proven to be a fair alternative to a more expensive, everyday, league average outfielder, but even that was ready to give way to emerging players like Gutierrez, Francisco, and Choo.

Last year, the offense had scored 811 runs (5.00 runs per game), sixth best in the American League and just 11 runs below fourth place Anaheim (Boston, Detroit, and New York rounded out the top three). Cleveland also boasted the third best run differential in the league at 107, behind Boston (210) and New York (191) and had given up the third fewest runs in the AL (704) behind Boston (657) and Toronto (699). The returning starting pitchers and bullpen had compiled an ERA of 4.19 and 3.75 respectively; good for third best in the AL.

It’s very rare that a team comes off a championship season where they ranked near the top in every category and doesn’t lose any major pieces. If anything, the combination of developing players, veterans, and proven All Stars should have gotten even better with a full season and playoff experience on their resumes.

It’s important to not confuse complacency with working within one’s limitations. Cleveland has a limited payroll to work with and odds are any major addition to the team via free agency would have been detrimental to this critical financial flexibility later on. Assuming the plethora of outfielders failed to perform above replacement level in some combination (pretty unlikely), the price tag of signing a full time outfielder who would perform significantly above replacement level would have been very high.

Based on past performances and assumed depth provided by Gutz, Choo, Francisco, and Blake the team did not have a major incentive to bring in another outfielder unless the price was right. In other words, if it’s affordable and it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The same criticism of inactivity has been applied to Cleveland and the trade market. Staying with the theme of the outfield, Jason Bay was bandied about as a possible target for the Tribe last winter. Bay would have been very affordable for the next two years of his contract ($13.25 mil) and was supposedly on the block after a terrible season (there were a lot of red flags at the time, hence the affordability).

The Tribe had the option of gunning for Bay to plug into left field for two years, which would have bolstered the middle of the lineup and solidified the outfield. However, there was significant risk involved here (would Bay bounce back?) and any impact trade would have seen the departure of any combination of Lee, Cabrera, Laffey, or another top player from Cleveland or Buffalo. Many trade rumors this offseason featured one of those three names as the headliner for the package. Just think about how valuable each of these players are based on their career track records, age, contract, and the positions they occupy.

Would Cleveland be any better off now if they had traded Lee or Laffey for an above average outfielder? There would be at least one major hole in the starting rotation and we would have either sold Lee for a basement price or shipped out a potential mid-rotation anchor in Laffey for two years of above average offense from one player who might not have been necessary if the team stayed healthy in the first place.

A team with a limited payroll can not afford to sell the farm for an impact player unless said player will absolutely blow away whoever he’s replacing. Detroit is kind of a lame example because they don’t match up money wise with Cleveland, but look at all the pitching issues they’re having right now and then look at who they traded away (Jair Jurrjens and Andrew Miller, both very good, young starting pitchers) to bolster an already solid offense.

Adapting to Injuries

Despite the hindsight argument that Shapiro failed to bolster the offense as teams like Boston and Detroit got stronger, we’ll never know the true potential of this group of players because two of the three main offensive cogs were never healthy to begin with. There is no way anyone could have predicted such a handicap, thus there was no way to prepare for it in the offseason (how much he knew about Hafner’s shoulder is arguable, but that would be pure speculation here). An offense does not fluctuate like a bullpen; these players had a history of success offensively and Shapiro made a perfectly defensible decision to stick with them.

The offense was designed to run around Sizemore, Martinez, and Hafner. I honestly can’t think of a practical insurance policy to counter the long term loss of one or more of these players. Combine that with nearly every member of the starting lineup playing well under their career numbers and there’s not much hope of winning despite having the best laid plans.

Cleveland’s offense (and in a nutshell, its season) fell flat because of injuries, underachieving players, and plain old bad luck. I’m not going to claim to have any idea as to how you would mold such a damaged team into a playoff contender this season without emptying the farm system at the first sign of danger, so I’m not about to make any sweeping proclamations stating otherwise. Even if you subtract the injury factor, who’s to say half the lineup wouldn’t have underachieved and sunk the season anyway?

It’s better in the long run that Shapiro didn’t pull the trigger on any major life raft trades because, in hindsight, this seems to be a seriously flawed team. Trying to redecorate a house whose foundations are weak is not a wise investment. It’s possible that Shapiro overestimated the potential of the team based on last year’s successes, but I doubt it. I think the front office knows how to evaluate players by now, so the risk of sticking with what the team already had likely outweighed the risks associated with a trade or new contract.

That’s not to say there weren’t warning signs or a few missteps along the way. As mentioned, it’s unclear how prevalent the issues with Hafner’s shoulder were as the new season approached. The matter may have never reached Shapiro if Hafner hid it from the training staff, but based on a lack of action I think everyone was betting on Hafner being healthy to start the season (again, this is speculation).

The same argument can be applied to Martinez, although even after his injury was discovered he was allowed to play on. The team was so desperate for offense that Martinez’s elbow surgery was delayed until the absolute last moment. Martinez was still productive for a time, despite a lack of power in his swing; even the fans didn’t realize Martinez was playing hurt most of the season. While it’s admirable that Victor would play through the pain for his team, one would hope that Shapiro was investigating a replacement in the middle of the order before the injury became public.

One warning sign that many fans and analysts were curious about was how the pitching staff would fare after such a long and arduous season, particularly the bullpen. It’s been said before that building a quality bullpen is pretty much a crapshoot and I tend to agree with this sentiment. Shapiro himself once said that he brings in a ton of useful arms with the hope that some of them stick each season. The Tribe appeared to have a solid four to anchor the back of the pen, but then things fell apart.

Betancourt had pitched a career high of 79.3 innings in 2007, when his previous high was 67.7 IP in 2005. Perez threw a career high 60.7 innings, when he hadn’t thrown that many innings since 2006 in Akron. Lewis has the same story, throwing a career high last season with 81 IP, but hadn’t reached that total since 2006 when he was a starter at Kinston. League rookie Kobayashi had averaged just 48 innings in his last three seasons in Japan, but already has 44.3 in 2008. None of these numbers even include all the stressful innings thrown in the playoffs last year.

See the trend I was talking about? Given the amount of time separating the playoffs and the start of the season, it may not seem like this would hinder a pitcher’s performance, but that many innings can inflict some serious wear and tear on an arm. Something had to give here and the fact that more help was not brought in besides Masa was a mistake from the start.

Even after the season had gotten underway, Wedge should have shifted late inning duties away from Betancourt and distributed them elsewhere. It’s not like there were a lot of options; the team was banking on Betancourt at least living up to his career numbers. With a bullpen though, you can’t really bank on much, so I feel the bullpen was destined for failure from the start, with Wedge only exacerbating the situation by going with the same bullpen hierarchy night after night. It doesn’t cost nearly as much to bring in a proven reliever and this team needed a set-up man badly.

Borowski’s risks were well known, but I’ve said before that Cleveland targeted former closer Kobayashi as insurance against an injured or ineffective Borowski. In that regard, I feel the team was prepared for Borowski to fall of a cliff like that. They just needed someone to step up while Kobayashi moved up the ladder and Betancourt was unable to do that by himself.

Current Trends

One benefit of waving the white flag so early this season is that it gives you that much more time to retool for next season. It’s fairly obvious that this team had no shot as a serious contender without a healthy Martinez and Hafner in the middle of the lineup. Now that the team is officially out of contention, candidates for next year’s squad can be properly evaluated.

Asdrubal Cabrera was called back to Cleveland after posting a .376 AVG, .375 OBP, .475 SLG line in Buffalo over 141 at-bats. The slick fielding second baseman was able to solve his offensive woes in a low pressure situation in AAA and now he may be able to translate those numbers into a successful second half in Cleveland. Cabrera is still just 22 years old, but should figure prominently into the Tribe’s 2009 season.

While far from a lock to stick this time around, Cleveland should have a much better idea of what they have in Cabrera by the time the 2009 season opens. Cabrera was handed the starting job at second base this year, but instead of repeating his .775 OPS (159 AB) from 2007, he struggled with a .529 OPS (158 AB). Whether Asdrubal was overwhelmed at the prospect of a starting job or pitchers just figured him out, it was obvious he needed to go back to the drawing board with his swing.

There are still a few unknowns the Tribe must figure out (Barfield’s health, where they want to play Peralta, the trade market), but they should have a large enough sample size to determine if Cabrera will be a starting infielder for 2009; very valuable information when trying to identify weaknesses in the infield later on.

Andy Marte has seen a surge in playing time as well, despite never leaving Cleveland to begin with. The team had high hopes for Marte not long ago, but he seems to have fallen out of favor with Wedge. 2008 is the team’s last chance to evaluate Marte, since he doesn’t have any minor league options left and must be signed to the Major League team or set loose after this year. Even when the team was contending, Wedge declined to give Marte any substantial playing time, deferring to veteran Casey Blake.

This is probably my biggest criticism of Wedge this year. Marte was once considered one of the best prospects in the game, is only 25 years old, and may be the starting third baseman in the near future…if he ever comes off the bench.

Blake’s most appealing feature is that he hits with runners in scoring position, despite hardly ever being on base himself. Blake is second on the team in RBI with 52 and a ridiculous .390 BA to match (that’s accompanied by a less inspiring .426 BAbip). However, Blake posted a miserable .670 OPS in April and a .691 OPS in May, but has only recently turned on the offense with a .954 and .946 OPS in June and July respectively.

It hardly seems fair to have Marte rotting on the bench behind a player who is posting below average numbers for two straight months on a terrible offensive team. It took a monumental slump by the rest of the offense and the Sabathia trade to finally allow Marte into the lineup on a regular basis, assuming the recent trend continues.

Marte has seen over 30% of his at-bats in seven July games and has started more games in two weeks than he did in all of June. In response, Marte has posted an .820 OPS over those 24 at-bats (small sample size alert). I’m hoping Wedge takes advantage of a golden opportunity to avoid another Brandon Philips fiasco and plays Marte every day. No matter what Wedge does, Shapiro definitely won’t let another stud prospect go for nothing again, but it would be nice if the manager finally got over whatever issue he’s had with Marte.

Finally, the white flag scenario will give Martinez and Hafner ample time to heal and be evaluated by the team. If Martinez was playing hurt earlier I think it’s a safe bet he would have lobbied hard to come back early, which would have been a risky venture. It’s fortunate that Victor’s injury was not long term, but bringing him back from elbow surgery early because the team needs his bat may have done more harm than good.

I’m very pleased with the way the team has handled Hafner so far. Given how critical Hafner is to the lineup and how much money the team has invested in him, hearing that the source of his slump was likely a weakened shoulder is actually good news. Allowing him to fully rehab that shoulder won’t do the team any favors for 2008, but I have a feeling Hafner hasn’t been at 100% for quite a while and we may see Pronk return for 2009. Combine a healthy Hafner with the newly acquired LaPorta and you have two major pieces checked off the to-do list in fixing the offense.

So there’s the mid-season recap, I hope there was at least some useful information in there. It’s always tricky writing this type of recap article because, well, all this stuff has already happened and been talked to death. Did I overlook anything? Next season is already shaping up to be a lot better with this year’s problems identified and on the mend.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Mark Shaprio, Eric Wedge, Cleveland Indians, bullpen, offense. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.