Sunday Notes

[kshutchins]

Beans,

Since our newest poster seems dissatisfied by the content here, I feel the need to intervene. Please post anything interesting you can find about baseball. Or else.

Oh... and I'd like to continue following that Harper kid. It's an interesting story.

You do an excellent job keeping us informed.

[CIMO.]

@beanpot said:

BTW, Olney had a paragraph about Harper that was picked up on Rotoworld:

lol.

And in Sunday Notes tradition....here's the latest example of the truly amazing discrepancy of the quality of PD beat writers. Brian Windhorst is one of the best in the business covering the Cavs, while Hoynsie is answering questions like these....

Hey, Hoynsie: Is there any reason to have hope this season or are we in for a very long season? -- Angelo Costanzo, Cleveland.

Hey, Hoynsie: Mark McGwire made a dumb statement when he said performance-enhancing drugs did not help him hit more home runs. What do you think about such a stupid statement?-- Jim Jones, Las Vegas

Hey, Hoynsie: Do you feel that the Dolans misled MLB when they were allowed to buy the Indians? How does MLB police how a team or owner uses revenue sharing money? -- Justine Potter, Cleveland.

Hey, Hoynsie: Shouldn't the Tribe have tried to minimize its mistake by trying to trade for Kevin Kouzmanoff? -- Ken Powers, Cleveland

Hey, Hoynsie: Can you find out if Larry and Paul Dolan and the front office took pay cuts this year since money is supposedly so tight? -- Pierce Allen, Columbus

Hey, Hoynsie: I have followed the Indians since 1954. Are we seeing the same thing that we saw in the 1960s? We are the minor-league team for the rest of Major League Baseball. -- John Sandor, Marion, La.

Feel free to click through for his answers.

http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2..._answer_63.html

Side note - how long will it take for people to stop thinking they're clever by using the "we're the farm team to MLB" line?

Side note 2 - of all the things for Shapiro bashers to latch on to....why Kevin Kouzmanoff? The guy is a worse, older version of Jhonny Peralta...only Peralta played short.

[CIMO.]

As for good outlets for Tribe talk....here's another good Lazy Sunday from the Diatribe. Click for the full story/links

http://clevelandtribeblog.blogspot.com/201...how-we-got.html

I'll highlight where he starts talking about the Tribe's front office strategy. He refers to a Baseball Prospectus article ranking Cleveland the #3 best-run organization of the 2000s in MLB, with Shapiro the #6 GM, and Oakland/Billy Beane getting high marks.

Both the Indians and Athletics realize what they are and while the off-season may be boring for Indians’ fans and may cause an inordinate amount of hand-wringing over Mike Redmond and his ilk (present company included), how does the alternative look for teams that aren’t nearly as self-aware of their place in the MLB pecking order?

Would you prefer an off-season where our team “adds” a guy like Rick Ankiel (who posted a .285 OBP last year…Trevor Crowe’s was .278) for $3.25M, leading Joe Posnanski to evaluate his Royals-related stages of grief?

It goes back to the Passan piece in that he asserts that “the disconnect between the Cleveland Indians and their fans has spread from fissure to full-fledged canyon, and this offseason is doing nothing to heal a relationship gone rocky” and while I don’t disagree with that, it points to the idea that people want activity for a team to point to in an attempt to show that the team is improving, even incrementally. However, the quiet offseason that “is doing nothing to heal a relationship gone rocky” shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who was around last July when Lee and Victor were dealt with a club option for 2010 on their contract. Debate all you like about whether adding those two to the 2010 Indians’ team makes it a contender, but in the case of Lee, there’s no question what he has his eyes on this coming offseason, at least according to Jayson Stark’s sources:

“Everyone in baseball knows,” said one AL executive, “that the two things Cliff Lee and Darek Braunecker will want next winter are a lot of years and a lot of dollars. This guy just played with a Cy Young (CC Sabathia) who got seven years on the open market. So why would anyone think he wouldn't be saying, ‘Why shouldn't I get that, too?’”

If that was the Lee’s position when he approached the Indians before 2009 about a contract extension and the Indians were sitting at 42-60 at the time he was dealt, is there any question that Lee wasn’t going to be around for 2010?

That being said, did the Indians get enough for him?

We’re not going to know for a while, though people are quick to forget that Carrasco, Marson, and Donald were among Baseball America’s top 100 prospects entering 2009 with Carrasco at 52, Marson at 66, and Donald at 69. While each started 2009 off slowly in the Phillies’ system (causing much of the consternation when the trade was made), the bodies of work that put them at that level in prospect rankings still exist.

In terms of why the Indians included Lou Marson and Jason Donald in the deal (in the context of the addition of Mike Redmond and, to a lesser extent, Brian Bixler and Mark Grudzielanek), I had an e-mail exchange with a consistently insightful reader (who asked not to be named) who had some interesting thoughts as to why the Indians opted to acquire Marson and Donald instead of OF Michael Taylor, who was reportedly available to them and has now been traded twice this off-season, once to the Blue Jays in the Halladay deal, then to the Athletics for Brett Wallace last month.

His thoughts on the inclusion of Marson and Donald (as well as perhaps why the Indians chose Carrasco) do make sense on a number of levels and it goes a little something like this…hit it:

The Lee trade ... I've been saving this one, but as a very belated baby shower gift, I'll give it to you...

A-21(A-): 227/300/365, 23:53 BB/K

B-21(A-): 263/347/362, 23:42 BB/K

A-22(A/A+): 346/412/557, 50:89 BB/K (671 mleOPS)

B-22(A/A+): 304/395/473, 64:109 BB/K (603 mleOPS)

A-23(AA/AAA): 320/395/549, 48:70 BB/K (730 mleOPS)

B-23(AA): 307/391/497, 47:86 BB/K (689 mleOPS)

You probably guessed: Player A is Michael Taylor, Player B is Jason Donald. The grains of salt here are that Donald is about 15 months older, and spent all of last year hurt. On the other hand, Donald is a middle infielder. Taylor's a left fielder. Taylor's numbers are gaudy, for sure, but his viability as a major leaguer will be contingent on his making the power translate; otherwise, he's Ben Francisco the Younger. Donald's defensive value -- and, look closely, his roughly equal effectiveness as a baserunner -- mean that even if his pop falls off a little against MLB pitching, he's still pulling his weight.

And remember the Andy Marte Rule: Do not get worked up because a minor leaguer hits 20 home runs.

So how's this for a trade narrative: The Phils offer Taylor, and the Tribe counters with Donald -- a legitimately better prospect but for the injury -- and Marson to make up the difference, thereby filling the need for a right-handed, MLB-ready middle infielder, and getting a young, solid, cost-controlled catcher who serves as Santana insurance, and whose presence allows the Indians to clear payroll and beef up the starting depth by moving Shoppach.

You could make a similar case for Carrasco/Knapp over Drabek, except, of course, for the fact that Carrasco compares favorably to Drabek already, as you've pointed out plenty.

So, Dave Cameron at FanGraphs (who ripped the deal saying Shapiro got “taken to the cleaners” or something to that effect) would be happy if we'd hauled in Drabek/Taylor. But the reality is, we needed two pitchers more than we needed one, and we needed skill position players more than we needed Yet Another GD Left-fielder, and Cameron, bless his heart, wouldn’t have to live with the Lee trade failing to equate to long-term MLB production.

Perhaps it was that idea of quantity in light of the attrition rate of these prospects (particularly the pitchers) and perhaps the Indians have put more stock into the idea that Carrasco, Marson, and Donald were “undervalued” a bit because they didn’t positively light up AAA Lehigh Valley in their first 3 months there. Perhaps it was the idea that a body of work longer than 3 months could be leaned upon more heavily in terms of taking a guy like previous flavor-of-the-month Carrasco over current flavor-of-the-month Drabek and likewise with Marson and Donald over Taylor (who did not appear among Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects entering 2009) in that they put more stock in three years of performance over three months of performance.

At this point, only time will tell if the Indians chose the prudent path…

[Beanpot]

@cimo. said:

Side note - how long will it take for people to stop thinking they're clever by using the "we're the farm team to MLB" line?

Side note 2 - of all the things for Shapiro bashers to latch on to....why Kevin Kouzmanoff? The guy is a worse, older version of Jhonny Peralta...only Peralta played short.

I'd go with "forever" to your first side note. Now the second one gives me pause. Could well be the granny he hit in his first AB but more likely it had to do with his success in the minors. Once that success is attained and the player is dealt to another organization, that player is placed in the "what could have been" category. And it's nearly *impossible* to be removed from that category until retirement. Doesn't matter one bit if the current starter is performing better than the former player. No sir. That former player would surely have fit in "somewhere" on this team and Shapiro was an idiot to get rid of the guy.

It's an interesting dynamic that is most often presented without a bit of logical reason.

Beanpot