Marte: Fail
by APV on Dec 6, 2008 4:55 PM EST
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PrintAs the Indians quest for a long-term solution goes on, I think it’s worthwhile to step back and try to understand the failure of Andy Marte. He came to Cleveland on the cusp of the majors and now, more than 3 full season’s later, he’s put in less than a full season of ABs in Cleveland and has a batting average right around .220, OBP of about .270, and a SLG of about .345. Fail.
In thinking about why he has failed, I came up with a couple of different possible categories.
Personal Factors:
Marte simply wasn’t ever any good – his minor league numbers were somehow misleading (skills weren’t there)
Failure to adjust to the challenges of top competition (makeup problems)
Organizational Factors:
Playing time and promotion decisions (handling of player development)
Coaching (failure to connect with Marte)
External Factors:
Injuries
These obviously aren't mutually exclusive and many of these things are closely related to one another. Nevertheless it gives us some structure for which we might assign guilt for Marte's failures.
Let’s look at the first idea, that Marte really wasn’t as good a prospect as everyone thought he was. As Paul recently reviewed, Marte was very successful at AAA as a 21-year old. Not too many guys do that. We can go back and reconstruct Andy’s Prospect Progress scores as a prospect and he looks very much like the real deal (these are estimated as I couldn't get Marte's neutral OPS). As a 19-year old in A+ (2003) he registers a 7.5, the next season in AA a 9.2, his final season with the Braves in AAA he scores a 10.0. As a 20 and 21-year old he was a better looking prospect than anyone we currently have in our system (sobering news). And his peripheral numbers were good. He showed good power, he had a healthy walk rate, his strikeout rate wasn’t high, and he didn’t have significant problems or show much deterioration as he was promoted. Marte was a stud, no doubt.
Skills weren't there: Rejected
I don’t know if Marte’s ability to adjust to the higher competition at the major league level is something that can easily be examined. Anecdotally, I think most of us who have watched Marte would say that he’s got some significant hole’s in his swing and doesn’t do well against off-speed stuff. Personally, I thought Marte’s swing was looking more compact and better at times when I saw him last season, but the results obviously weren’t an improvement. As mentioned above, Marte didn’t show any problems adjusting to competition as he progressed through the minors. His numbers in his first appearances at A+, AA, and AAA were the equivalent, if not better, than his numbers at his previous level, with not significant jumps in K% or drops in BB% or ISO.
Fangraphs lets us look at what kinds of pitches Marte gets thrown and not surprisingly, he gets a very high proportion off-speed stuff. Over his three seasons in Cleveland the % of fastballs he sees has declined from 53.5, to 52.5, to 49.2 last season. Cleveland’s regulars saw about 57% fastballs on average, with Marte’s 49% actually the lowest on the team. Gutz, also with a bad reputation for off-speed stuff, was 2nd lowest at 52%. I think players see a lot less and a lot lower quality breaking stuff in the minors and its possible Marte’s fairly rapid ascent meant he actually didn’t get exposed to a lot of it before reaching the major league level. Another adjustment Marte seems to have failed to make is his ability to drive the ball to all parts of the field. His spray chart data from the Prog last season suggest only 3 of his 22 hits at home were to the right side of the field (2 singles and a HR). More telling, even most of his fly balls to right field were weak pop-ups that didn’t even make it past the shallow part of the field. This failure to adjust to breaking pitches and failure to use the whole field effectively helps explain why Marte’s best BABIP over the past 3 seasons, despite pretty decent LD%, is the .299 he put up in Buffalo in 2006. Marte is pretty good at making contact, but more than most players he struggles to make solid contact effectively.
Failure to adjust: Likely
The coaching and handling issues are also hard to try and quantify. One thing we can do is look at his playing time. This comes with some caveats, though, as we all know that even when he played last year he regularly got the 6th or 7th inning trip to the bench. So…all told last season Marte had about 1 day between games…so he played about every other day. This is misleading, though, as it really came in two parts. Before the All-Star break, Marte averaged 2 days between games, so playing about every third game (I didn’t take the time to factor in off days), averaging 2.5 plate appearances in those games. So a true part-time player. The s.d. on that number, 1.7, also suggests there was a fair degree of volatility to his playing schedule. After the break he averaged just 0.5 day between games (s.d. 0.8), averaging 3.6 PAs per game, so he was basically an everyday regular. Before the break he sucked big-time (.143/.182/.175, 2.9 BB%, 24.6 K%). After the break he sucked, but not so massively (.250/.299/.366, 6.4 BB%, 18.6 K%). Those still aren’t good numbers, aren’t consistent with the numbers he put up coming through the Braves system, but actually are similar to what he’s done ever since he arrived in Cleveland. I think this suggests that playing sporadically hasn’t been good for Marte, but even when he’s gotten a fair shot he has still not looked like the player we thought we were getting.
Playing time and handling: Minimal effect
It is true that Marte’s numbers dropped off considerably with his arrival in Cleveland for the 2006 season. Repeating AAA, his OPS dropped from 878 to 784, his BB% dropped from a very good 13.9 to an average 8.7, and his K% went from a pretty good 18.0 to a much more average 20.6. These drops largely continued in 2007 when his BB% dropped to a downright bad 5.5 and his OPS dipped even further to 766.
So why did Marte’s numbers drop when he entered the Cleveland system. Did Cleveland somehow (verb) him up in his development? I have no idea how to answer that question, but we can look at an alternative idea, mainly that injuries hampered Marte beginning in 2006.
What about Marte’s injury history…he ended last season on the DL with a strained calf. In 2007 he spent a couple of weeks on the DL with a strained hamstring. But these aren’t major injuries. What I was really interested in was whether Marte had any injury questions when he was first traded from Atlanta. Marte’s winter league performance that off-season actually (2006) wasn’t great, but he was still very young and had just been traded to Boston. Still…trading with Atlanta seems to have the tendency of working out badly for the other team. Scanning MLBs database I couldn’t find anything about any earlier injuries for Marte and his playing time (133 games in 2005, 146 in 2006) would suggest injuries weren’t a big factor. It’d be nice to think the Indians got damaged goods, but there’s no evidence, aside from Marte’s statistical collapse, to support that idea.
Injuries: Rejected
So…injuries don’t seem like a good explanation for any major aspect of Marte’s failure. Perhaps then his connection with the coaching staff in Cleveland has been. Obviously a player’s ability to make adjustments, receive coaching and the coaching presented to a player are interlinked. But I think there’s some reason to suggest Cleveland didn’t ever find a way to effectively communicate to Andy the adjustments he needed to make.
Coaching: Possible
Summary
I'd be interested in others takes, but Marte just seems like a guy with makeup problems. His inability to adjust to his own deficits at the plate have allowed opposing pitchers to increasingly take advantage of his deficiencies. It's possible the coaching staff shares some of that blame, for simply never effectively finding a way for him to make those adjustments. My only hesitation in this conclusion is how good Marte was in his early development and how little he struggled against progressively better competition. Also, the fairly large and immediate degradation in his performance from 2005 to 2006 makes me want to find an injury explanation, but as far as I can find, one doesn't exist.
At various times with various degrees of enthusiasm I've advocated for more playing time for Marte. Given our lack of a 3B at the moment, it would seem obvious. And reports that Marte's defense scored well above average last year only add to this sentiment. But putting this together made me more fully appreciate Marte's significant and worsening deficits at the plate. He's really shown no signs of correcting for these short-comings and I really don't think there's more than the slightest hope of him putting up something more than a .650 OPS in a full season of action.
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Thanks, APV. Very thoughtful, as always.
Years ago we got another 3b who had come up through the Atlanta system. Brook Jacoby didn’t do a thing for us until he was 25. He had a few really productive years, then slipped back into mediocrity. By the time he was 31, he was all but done.
I’m not sure what the lesson is here, but the Braves have an enviable record of accurately evaluating their own talent. Hitting a curveball and off-speed stuff is hard; I’m not sure it has anything to do with “makeup.” All I know is that Marte turns 25 this year.
by ken from alexandria on Dec 6, 2008 6:48 PM EST reply actions
Jacoby actually had a perfectly good career. Part of the value of an elite prospect is that even if he fails to develop into an All-Star, there’s a very, very good chance that at least he’ll be a complementary player, like a Garko or Francisco or even Blake, and players like that have significant value, too. Jacoby played more than eight full seasons with an OPS+ of 104, and at third base, there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
I wouldn’t bet good money on Marte being a solid player given the chance in 2009 — I’ve finally let the Indians’ handling of him influence my thinking, giving them the benefit of the doubt that there is some legitimate reason he doesn’t get any real chances to establish himself. But I would bet good money that at some point in the next five years, he’s going to post at least two or three decent seasons for one team or another.
by Jay on Dec 6, 2008 6:53 PM EST up reply actions
It’s a good overview and survey of the issues surrounding Marte. I would only quarrel with this part of your conclusion:
I really don’t think there’s more than the slightest hope of him putting up something more than a .650 OPS in a full season of action.
The problem with this statement is that Marte has almost no track record of hitting worse than 650 given regular playing time. He has only played as a semi-regular for a month or more on two occasions. First, at the end of 2006, when he had a 708 OPS over 178 PA. Second, from July 4 through the end of the 2008 season, when he had a 664 OPS over 196 PA. (Resisting the urge to resurrect the notorious 41 PA theory.)
So what you are saying above is, there is only “the slightest hope” of his hitting only as well as he has always hit given the regular playing time. At age 25, there’s just no support for that degree of pessimism — or if you’d rather, there’s no support for pessimism at that 650 OPS level. What you have said here is that it’s extremely likely that he would collapse below previous levels given more playing time.
I think the pessimistic projection — the 20° if you will — is that he can’t do much better than 650 OPS, that is he the hitter we saw in the second half last year. The 50° probably lies somewhere around a 680 OPS, and the 80° is probably around 740. (There’s an imbalance simply because he has more upside than downside.)
It would not be surprising for him to post a 650 OPS, but it is highly likely that he would do better than that. He’s in his prime, and he has always hit better than that given the chance.
I guess what I meant was that I’m very skeptical he would hit much better than .650. Part of this is that Marte’s trend has actually been downward. Yeah, he does better with playing time…but again, that was only a about .650 in 2008. I actually would expect it to be worse next year, barring some transformation in what he does with off-speed pitches. Making contact but doing nothing with it isn’t a recipe for success. Where has Marte’s power gone? He’s got a .293 BA in the Dominican League, but that only amounts to a .345 SLG. Pitcher’s are very effectively throwin Marte stuff not that he can’t hit, but that he hits very weakly. Given the degradation of his BB%, the only way I could envision Marte putting up a .700 OPS is with something like a .300/.340/.360 line, and I don’t see Marte hitting .300 at the big league level anytime too soon.
If you had asked me this morning whether or not given 145 starts next season Marte could put up a .700 OPS, I’d have probably given it a 60% chance. Now, I’d say more like a 5-10% chance. I might very well be overly pessimistic, but I just have a hard time finding anything good about Marte’s numbers or their trend over the past three seasons. And honestly, I no longer think the playing time thing can be a defense. He’s had regular playing time in Buffalo and this season he had regular playing time in Cleveland. The results haven’t been good.
by APV on Dec 6, 2008 7:18 PM EST up reply actions
Here’s some projections for you:
Bill James — 722
Marcel — 672
MINER 20° — 615
MINER 50° — 696
MINER 80° — 734
(MINER is a sort of “Smart Marcel” system developed by Jeff Sackmann for the book The Graphical Player — I got a sneak peak at the Indians data, but I’m not allowed to just post it all here. The 50° projections will be part of the FanGraphs player pages some time soon.)
These systems are mostly or entirely ignorant of anything Marte did prior to 2006, which includes his entire impressive 18-21 run, so the above is based almost entirely on his disappointing years, 2006-2008. They also don’t distinguish (as we often have) between sporadic PA and semi-regular playing time, so his abysmal performance when getting 40-50 PA over a couple months is part of the mix, too.
Despite this, Bill James comes up with a relatively rosey 722 and MINER says 696. Marcel — advertised by its inventor as a totally “dumb” system and definitively the least sophisticated of the three — puts him the lowest, at 672, which is still higher than your 650. And your 650 isn’t even a mean or median projection, you presented it as being your “slightest hope” threshold, which I take to mean something like an 80° projection. (That is, you are saying there is perhaps a 10% chance he can do significantly better than 650, which probably makes 650 the 80° number.)
Based on the projections above, I think it’s fair to say that the objective data (both Marte’s and the history of all players’ development curves) puts the 80° number at 725, if not better, i.e., your projection is about 75 points of OPS off from a purely objective analysis.
The onus is on you to explain what it is you have observed about Marte and his performance that leads you to project him as being 75 points of OPS worse than what the objective data projects. I think there is a world of difference between 650 and 725.
by Jay on Dec 6, 2008 7:33 PM EST up reply actions
I’m going to fail in any attempt to defend myself against those projections. But basically, I think most of the projections present a more positive view than me because of two things. He’s still on the uphill side of the age curve, and based on his BIP data, I’m guessing these systems think he’s been getting really unlucky. I happen to think neither of these will happen. I think unless he learns how to hit off-speed stuff pitchers will keep throwing him pitches he can’t make solid contact with and that the effect of this will negate whatever age bump he gets, and maintain his “unluckiness” on his balls in play.
by APV on Dec 6, 2008 7:54 PM EST up reply actions
And I see now I’m already wrong on at least one point. Bill James projects Marte with a .281 BABIP, certainly not much of a step up from where he’s been. The .160 ISO and to a lesser extent the 8% BB-rate do seem optimistic. Hmm….also notice Bill James only projects him as getting 125 ABs…
by APV on Dec 6, 2008 8:06 PM EST up reply actions
I’ll betcha a case of Christmas Ale that James would tell you that the rate stat projections are the same even if he gets more playing time. The 722 isn’t a projection that he’ll get lucky over a small sample of PA.
Again, I think the data on which the projections are based are actually stacked against Marte — though only a little. You’re free to disagree, but you certainly haven’t made an argument that they’re stacked in favor of him. Certainly all this business about hitting off-speed pitches has been experienced by other 24-year-old hitters.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 1:38 AM EST up reply actions
I know the playing time doesn’t affect his rate projections. I’m not letting my Marte pessimism degrade my thoughts that far.
My hesitation comes from the fact that Marte has spent 4 years facing AAA and higher pitching, and he’s gotten worse every year. Not better.
by APV on Dec 7, 2008 8:20 AM EST up reply actions
Hesitation? You’re not hesitating, you’re just exaggerating.
The problem here is two-fold. One, you want to be pessimistic, fine, that’s very reasonable, but you just picked a ridiculous number. If you want to make the same statement with the number 700 rather than 650, I don’t think you’ll get much argument, and as fwembt noted below, 700 still sucks.
Two, you want to say that Marte is flawed in some significant way that does not apply to others with his profile, i.e., receiving minimal playing time with weak results through age 24. There is no real basis for assuming that Marte is worse or less promising than all the other players who have been similar to him statistically. If those players had better skills, they’d probably have better results, and if they had better results, they’d have gotten even more playing time — and thus would not be part of Marte’s projection. Marte’s projection is based on the norms, and those no reason to think he’s worse than his own projection — which is plenty bad enough.
You know what this is like? If you wanted to get into a Grady vs. Grandy debate, and beyond arguing that Grandy isn’t on a HOF trajectory and Grady is, you want to go further and say that Grandy is no better than Juan Pierre. Well, you’re right about the main point, but you’re just taking it to an extreme that has no support, and for no reason.
I think the playing time thing has to stop. Marte got more than 450 plate appearances every year between 2002 and 2007, and from 2005-present those were all at the AAA and ML level. Only this past season was his playing time down, 257 plate appearances. And his downward trajectory started long before the 2008 season.
I’m sure my 650 OPS statement is too low, but I have a hard time seeing Marte’s path to a 700 OPS right now, especially with a BA under .250, which is where both Marcel and James put him.
And as one more data point, fangraphs just added UZR defensive scores to their display, and UZR is not nearly as big a fan of Marte at 3B as PMR (although it does really like Carroll).
Marte was supposed to have a chance at a full time starting job in 2007, he got hurt early and was forced to repeat a year in AAA again. While he still got at-bats, Jay makes a good argument that repeating AAA that many times may have contributed to Andy losing focus. It’s not an excuse for his poor play, but at the same time he spent the remainder of 2007 collecting those at-bats recovering from injury and repeating a level that he had been stuck at for 3 years. Last year, I think we can all agree that Marte was not in the best position to demonstrate what sort of skills he had, good or bad.
He could have been a victim of unlucky circumstance or he could just plain suck, either way he was an extremely promising prospect and it is completely valid to question if the Indians handled him appropriately
Only this past season was his playing time down, 257 plate appearances. And his downward trajectory started long before the 2008 season.
Re: the playing time, this is one of those things where there’s important information that isn’t part of the stats, but I’m not going to rehash all that.
I have a hard time seeing Marte’s path to a 700 OPS right now,
Your ability to see is baffling. Marte has generally hit in the 700 neighborhood given the slightest chance. Your argument (I guess) is that he will continue to trend down, but no statistician would agree with that. He’s projected higher because his power should improve with age, it’s that simple. Why you would insist that that isn’t the case is what’s baffling, there is just no support for it.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 1:13 PM EST up reply actions
Re: the playing time…players just have to step up and show they deserve it at some point. Marte certainly deserved playing time in Cleveland in 2006 and the start of 2007, and that’s where I would definitely fault the organization…but since then. No. Look at what Gutz or Francisco did when they repeated AAA or got shuffled back and forth (which was more Gutz’s case). They earned their way back. And we often use Garko as the example of stagnation associated with repeated AAA, but if you normalize his 2005 and 2006 numbers to a standard BABIP (his number went from .345 to .257), his underlying fundamentals look the same. Marte has regressed every opportunity he has had in the organization.
Even last year, after playing well for two weeks after the AS-break, he went his final 150 PAs without a HR. That’s two months of being an everyday player after an initial adjustment period. That was good for a .319 SLG. The reason i don’t see him putting up a .700 number is I think he’d have to hit close to .290 to get on-base enough and put up enough of a SLG to get .700. And yes, Wedge benched him repeatedly in high pressure situations which certainly puts a statistical bias into his numbers since batters do better the more they face a pitcher in a game. But that, to me, seems like a lot of explaining away.
I know given Marte’s age and former prospect status there are a lot of up indicators related to his performance. But pretty much everything Marte has produced on the field has been bad and getting worse.
by APV on Dec 7, 2008 1:42 PM EST up reply actions
Re: the playing time…players just have to step up and show they deserve it at some point.
See, I had a feeling I was arguing with Joe Morgan this whole time, but it said “APV,” so that was confusing for me. APV, wherever you are … Joe Morgan has stolen your password and if forging your posts.
As for you, Joe, I will try to explain that the confidence interval on any analysis of Marte’s major league performance to date is about as wide as the Grand Canyon. You can’t judge any player on a paltry 200 PA, and how many times has Marte gotten 200 PA as a starter? Zero. Never. This one time, he got 196. Another time, 178. Another time, 41. And that’s it.
Shapiro’s own definition of how many PA it takes to evaluate a guy is 800 — and I’m going to assume with confidence that he meant spread over two seasons. Marte has 561 PA spread over four seasons.
Marte has regressed every opportunity he has had in the organization.
I have not and will not even attempt to defend his big-league performance. Arguing over the results of <200 PA is for children. You may not think that’s what you’re doing, but it is.
I said this back in July — that it was already too late to use 2008 to get a good read on Marte, that Wedge had blown it completely, and even after I said that, he made no effort to maximize Marte’s reps. Your argument comes down to his regressing in the minors in 2006 and 2007. He hit miserably in April 2006, but by the end of May was back to real slugging, and he hit decently for two months in the majors. Is it really a regression if it’s only the first six weeks, and then he’s moving in a positive direction for the rest of the season?
There is a reason Marte won the 2007 starting job, and that is because his last four months of 2006, both in the majors and in Triple-A, were very solid, and in case you need reminding, he did this at age 22. If you’re really going to tell me that 2006 was an example of his regressing at every opportunity, then you really are a hopeless semantic.
So your argument is then down to just 2007, when he played badly in the majors for three weeks and got injured and was asked to spend a third year in Triple-A. Your argument is that he should have done better that year, and he should have done better in those last 196 PA in the majors after essentially being benched for months. And you are quite confident that based on those disappointments, he won’t ever hit better than 650.
Does that about cover it?
This demands a response from the only tool I have left at my disposal – photoshop. Too busy today, though…
by APV on Dec 8, 2008 1:06 PM EST up reply actions
The question then, Jay, is would you stick him out there again to start this next year? Would you do that instead of signing Blake, assuming you got to control Wedge’s decisions also?
The only problem I have with the sample size number is that you don’t get to restart the numbering every year. You have a small confidence interval with 200 PAs (or whatever Marte had last year), but we get to add up year after year, and add in the weighted the minor league numbers as well.
Of course, you’ve got to consider the minor league numbers, because 800 at-bats is a whole lotta suck to potentially invest at the major league level.
All this aside, your bold still holds – these numbers all need to be filtered through age.
Actually, you do essentially restart the confidence interval every year. For one thing, the player is changing every year — possibly getting worse, but definitely changing — and then we also have the playing time issue.
Nobody in the industry has a reasonable expectation that a young player can come off the bench and “break in” the majors by playing once every 2-3 days. I think it’s an important point that 800 PA over five seasons (at least) is not remotely the same thing as 800 PA over two seasons.
by Jay on Dec 8, 2008 1:44 PM EST up reply actions
I agree, they’re not the same thing. And you’ve got to discount each year more as it passes farther into the past. But obviously you don’t start each year over in terms of information. 800 over 5 is certainly more information than one year of 200.
I really am not sure that’s the case. I mean, it’s more information in that there’s more actual data, but I don’t know that it’s much more meaningful. PECOTA and other systems are based partly on the premise that it doesn’t even matter what happened more than three years ago, so that lops off the first two of the five years right off the bat.
by Jay on Dec 8, 2008 8:04 PM EST up reply actions
Do I stick him out there this year rather than re-sign Blake? Truthfully, I’m at a point where I’m forced to believe that the organization has some great reason not to even give him a chance, and I’m not even going to advocate that anymore.
I would have shifted Blake to the outfield early last season, especially with other guys struggling. I fail to see how rolling the dice on Dellucci’s 2009 season was more important than evaluating Marte, and we may yet cut Dellucci. I would have ordered Wedge to play Marte six times a week from late June on, and not to pinch-hit for him without at least a platoon advantage in play. Essentially, I would have made it clear that nurturing and evaluating Marte was a strategic priority, something that Shapiro evidently did not do.
At this point, though? I can only assume there is something wrong with the guy that we’re just not allowed to know about. Either that, or Shapiro has decided it’s inappropriate to make this an issue between Wedge and him, he’s picking other battles.
by Jay on Dec 8, 2008 1:58 PM EST up reply actions
Hello Adam,
Nice analysis, as usual. :-)
I agree that I think Marte’s chances of improving and performing even close to where he was projected are very unlikely (in an Indians’ uniform, and unless he really gets his swing tailored and/or his approach at the plate redefined, it would not surprise me if he never puts up great or even solid numbers for any team).
The one problem I always had with him was that his swing was too long and it was too taylored to pull the ball. Marte, for whatever reason, cannot use the whole field, and when he does attempt to go to RF, and even CF at times, he can’t consistently drive the ball with authority. It almost seems like his approach and his swing are tailored only for the fastball and only for pulling it. He could likely get away with that at the Minor League level, because most Minor League pitchers are going to try to overpower you with hard stuff or make more mistakes with their breaking stuff (i.e. hang it, where Marte could hit it hard by pulling it), so his Minor League stats and reports would suggest that Marte was going to be a stud because he could hit with sustained success against Minor League pitchers who threw more like I described above.
Unfortunately, it seems that this constant problem of pulling the ball and the fact that ML pitchers are much more capable of throwing better-quality offspeed stuff where they want it (i.e. outside corner or just off the outside corner) has exploited Marte’s biggest weakness, a problem he has not been able to overcome, despite efforts to try to hit the ball the other way. It just looks to me like his swing and approach are not tailored to drive the ball with authority unless he’s pulling it.
Additionally, as was mentioned, he does have a long swing, and most players with long swings tend to go through extreme hot and cold streaks, especially if they sit for lengthy periods of time like Marte has in his Cleveland tenure.
Therefore, unless Marte gets a lot of regular playing time AND improves his swing and approach at the plate, I don’t see him putting up big or even solid numbers for ANY team, regardless of his pedigree. Sure, he could put up a mini-hot streak or even a few, but so have Francisco and Gutierrez – essentially, any player can do that for a short period of time, but I think for Marte to have sustained success at the ML level, he will need a team that will give him both factors above.
Mentioning that, it makes me wonder if the Indians have tried to fine-tune Marte’s swing and approach a bit, but that it just hasn’t worked, and trying to restructure his swing and get him comfortable with it at the ML level will be too much of a challenge. As a result, I wonder if they just tried to fine-tune it a bit, get him to focus on hitting the ball the other way and up the middle, and hoped he would take off, as his track record suggested he would, but he just hasn’t (though, again, he hasn’t gotten much playing time, which likely hasn’t helped that long swing). The fact that Marte can no longer be sent down to the Minors without likely losing him would hinder any real chance of reconstructing his swing and his getting acclimated to it (like the Indians did with Gutierrez as he was coming up through AA Akron and AAA Buffalo), so unless a rebuilding team (Pirates, Reds, Giants, etc.) would be willing to give him a full year of deconstructing his swing, reconstructing it, and letting him get acclimated to the new swing, I’m just not sure Marte will ever hit with any sustained success at the ML level. I’m not convinced he’ll be able to hit consistently at the ML level with the swing he currently has, even if he is looking for the offspeed stuff and looking to take the ball to CF and RF.
Just my 2 cents.
The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.
I’m not sure if it’s rational, but I think I get more worked up over how thin the organization got in positional talent. Heck, we may still be thin. These guys aren’t depth until they put up the numbers for us.
I mean, the thing about Marte not being The Solution sucks. But that was an acknowledged probability when we traded for him. Why was our next best option Casey Blake…still?
I’ll put it a different way. The organizations that have actual position player depth: what are they doing that we’re not?
by fleerdon on Dec 6, 2008 7:59 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Why was our next best option Casey Blake…still?
Rec
by ken from alexandria on Dec 6, 2008 8:20 PM EST up reply actions
I don’t know if you can really call it thin-ness exactly. Out of the 14 position players who were on our big-league roster for most of the year, 11 of them were first signed by the Indians or were acquired while still prospects. (Everyone but Dellucci, Carroll and Blake.) Thin just doesn’t seem like the right word when 11 prospects have graduated and generally thrived in the majors.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 1:31 AM EST up reply actions
Admittedly my language is overbroad. I’m trying to determine whether there’s a grain of relevance to my frustration. We resurrect Casey Blake; we sign Aaron Boone and move Casey to right; we trade for Andy Marte; and then … we move Casey back?
The point is not about Casey per se. It’s that moving him back was marking time, as evidenced by the fact that the team didn’t pursue an extension with him. That makes sense to me if there’s an obvious replacement. There isn’t.
To me, the only reasons we make the moves we’ve made at third are 1) we had some hope that Andy could still put it together, or, assuming as Adam does that the Indians have minimal faith in Andy’s career, 2) there simply weren’t any affordable (in cash or prospects), compelling long-term options at the position.
Is this what Shapiro means when he says, “On a seventy-million dollar team, there are going to be some warts”? No third baseman?
by fleerdon on Dec 7, 2008 9:46 AM EST up reply actions
So is this just a matter of a guy being good enough for AAA (he was putting up solid, if unspectacular, numbers in his time in AAA in 2006 and 2007) but not good enough for the majors, or, in other words, a AAAA player? Actually, he’s probably not even a AAAA player since I don’t know how you can argue that he is too good for AAA. I generally associate AAAA with an older, washed up (or something) guy. My question, i guess, is how unusual is this? A 21 year-old putting up great numbers at AAA is relatively rare. How much rarer, then, is it for this 21 year-old’s good season in AAA to be his cieling?
You have no idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person
I wish the data existed to see what pitchers threw his way in AAA between 2005 (when he was awesome), 2006 and 2007.
by APV on Dec 6, 2008 9:20 PM EST up reply actions
It seems like a lot of the above is predicated on Andy’s presumed inability to react to major league pitchers’ adjustments. Could it be that minor league teams and pitchers didn’t also scout Marte and, thus, throw him more off-speed pitches? To me it seems doubtful. It’s not much of a stretch to say that the off speed stuff he faced in the majors is simply consistently better than what he saw in the minors.
In other words, I agree with you, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that they also threw him lots of off-speed stuff in the minors (or at least in AAA) and he was just able to do more with it.
You have no idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person
by jakesinger777 on Dec 6, 2008 9:53 PM EST up reply actions
Marte, in four years, has barely over 500 ABs at the MLB level. Normally, 500 ABs may tell you something. But I’d suggest that 500 ABs over four seasons tells you nothing.
Let’s just put it this way…Andy Marte can spend the next four seasons in Buffalo. If in 2013, during his age 29 season, Andy gets his first full-time starting job in the big leagues, he’ll have made his starting debut at the same age as did Casey Blake. Marte’s been around forever, but it’s entirely too soon to label him as 4A fodder. I’m not saying with four more years of AAA experience that Marte is guaranteed to have a Casey-like career. But it just lends some perspective on how long a journey Marte may have left.
I agree that the only way he’ll get consistent playing time in a Tribe uni in the future is from necessity – as a last option due to injury, etc. I also think that he’s too young and his opportunities to date against ML pitching to limited to make any projections worthwhile.
Seems to me he’s gotten worse in the last year and a half, both against AAA and ML pitching. Why? I don’t know – maybe his reflexes have dulled at the ripe old age of 24. But he’s also been in the position of having to do something “different” over the last couple years to force his way into the lineup. Maybe that screwed him up, who knows.
Whatever the case, it was pretty obvious that Wedge wasn’t going to give him an honest opportunity until Casey left, and I’m sure he was aware of the lack of confidence.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if he eventually becomes a decent ML 3B. Not that I’d be shocked if he didn’t, but it’ll take steady playing time and some patience for him to get there.
i feel like my life trajectory has followed andy marte’s
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Dec 6, 2008 10:58 PM EST reply actions
For one thing, he was actually given a real opportunity to hold down a starting slot. The only reason Droobs got his chance was that Barfield played himself out of a job, and that’s putting it nicely.
And in a way, that’s the what if: Barfield was traded for to be the starting 2B. Marte was traded for to go back to AAA and wait behind Casey. He actually didn’t have a horrible year in that position, hitting 20 home runs and 38 doubles between Buffalo and Cleveland.
Just reeling it out for the record, Marte was then handed the starting 3B job in 2007, and was pretty ineffective in the cold weather until he pulled a hammy after 6 weeks, giving Casey back the 3B job. And that’s all she wrote so far.
Marte was injured after three ineffective weeks, not six.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 1:34 AM EST up reply actions
Marte was traded for to go back to AAA and wait behind Casey
Sorry to bring it up, but it was Boone.
whups, yah. But the point remains the same: we may feel a little different about Barfield because he actually got a consistent shot where they gave him a lot of leash, and he ended up, if not hanging himself, at least getting severely tangled. Marte on the other hand, at least to my perspective, has yet to get the chance to play himself out of a starting job.
Of course, if he had put up a .280/.350/.480 line during July and August this year, he may have been handed that spot. But he didn’t, and that makes it hard to see how he’s gonna get that chance in Cleveland other than by injury/necessity.
Barfield’s failure may be less epic, but it is equally mystifying as he was more of a sure thing, though within a more limited range. The reason that an infielder is a priority right now is because both players failed.
Was he more of a sure thing? I’m not so sure. He had one solid season in the NL, and that was it. He looks to me more like a guy who peaked at 24, which while certainly not typical isn’t exceptionally rare. Nobody peaks at 21, though.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 8:36 AM EST up reply actions
I’d say so, again within a much more limited range. Generally, wouldn’t you feel more comfortable projecting from a full season in the majors than from AAA?
The Indians appeared to feel this way, handing him the job and not going out of their way to acquire any depth at his position. I think the general feeling was that Barfield would adequately take care of 2B for several years, while a whole lot of different things might happen at 3B.
I think Marte was(is?) a free swinger that got caught up into our system (working pitch counts).
If you remember his little window of success this past season, it was because he was allowed to be a free swinger (with no retribution of being benched). Many of his hits came on the first pitch.
Marte hit .387 (near 1.00 OPS) on the first pitch and has hit .328 over his short career on first pitch.
So maybe the next time the Indians invest into a young guy with gaudy numbers, make sure his approach at the plate fits into our overall team concept. You can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. You just get a confused, deflated player.
The first pitch doesn’t tell you what you think it tells you. What if Marte hit so well on the first pitch because he only swings at first pitch fastball down the heart of the plate?
That’s a fair point. But, I would imagine the opposition can read the stats just like you or I. If a guy who is batting .220 happens to be hitting near .400 on the first pitch, is he going to see many heaters down the middle on the first pitch?
That’s exactly the argument…my memory fails be, but I believe it was either Scott Hatteberg (Moneyball?) or Moises Alou who was talking about swinging at first pitches (I’m probably completely wrong and it was neither). Anywho, one reporter asked him why, if he’s got such a great average on first pitches, doesn’t he swing at more first pitches? His response, and I’m paraphrasing, “I only swing at first pitch fastballs right down the middle. If I swing at too many, the scouting report will change and say that I’m aggressive on first pitches, and then I’ll lose the advantage of swinging at a first pitch get-me-over-fastball because the pitcher will less often throw a meatball on the first pitch.”
xrickx,
It has been a few years since I read it, but I think your Moneyball reference is on the mark. I don’t have it on the shelf, but in my memory it was Billy Beane, talking about how he got a tongue-lashing from Jim Rice (his hitting coach), because Rice noticed that Beane had a fantastic average when he swung on the first pitch and wanted Beane to swing on the first pitch all the time.
by Deep South Ken on Dec 7, 2008 4:35 AM EST up reply actions
Marte actually had very good walk rates prior to joining Cleveland. He had maintained about 100 point differential between his BA and OBP all throughout. In his first season in Buffalo that dropped to 60 points, the following season in Buffalo it dropped to 40 points.
by APV on Dec 7, 2008 8:22 AM EST up reply actions
So, it’s almost like his impatience made him less patient.
I’ve mentioned before this idea of “repetition myopia,” where a guy supposedly gets bored after sitting on the cusp of the majors for too long. I think the effect is real, but I also think it’s ultimately meaningless. A guy who can’t stay focused in the minors is going to have problems on that score at some point, even if he gets the break he wants. You can sort of see this in Francisco’s performance this season. Bored repeating Buffalo, then explodes upon promotion (for the second time), but then he can’t sustain it. Of course, I’m probably just imposing that perspective on a randomly fluctuating series of trials.
What I’m getting at is, on the one hand, Marte likely suffered from a loss of focus for having to repeat Triple-A a second time, and then a third time. We can excuse that in a way, but it seems likely that a failure to maintain focus in the minors ultimately is going to become a problem in the majors.
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 8:46 AM EST up reply actions
I’m really just looking for one positive thing, aside from his defense last season, that Marte has shown while in Cleveland.
by APV on Dec 7, 2008 8:54 AM EST up reply actions
The one and only positive thing is that he’s just now reaching the age where he’s due to break out. I’d really like to see them find Andy a platoon partner and give him regular ABs against lefties. Maybe that’ll get him started. And maybe there’s still hope for Will Hartley.
by ken from alexandria on Dec 7, 2008 11:04 AM EST up reply actions
So I’m thinking its probably worth the shot at DFA’ing him and hoping that no-one will want to assume the situation we are in with him (stuck on the ML roster with no options left), and assign him down in AAA.
This is probably true (that he gets claimed), but he’s not really a major league third baseman now is he? The best possible outcome for us is to have him down in AAA, receiving regular playing time and because of his age giving him a chance to figure it out over the next few years (at least until he approaches minor league free agent status). Its high risk/high reward, but unless he’s given the job for this season (not necessarily what I’m advocating for) he’s not getting a chance to breakout/overcome his regression while sitting on the Tribe’s bench all year.
As it is right now, the Indians have one of the worst 3B situations in the league, the plus side to this is that there are only a few teams who would view Andy Marte (w/o any options left) worth the roster spot. He doesn’t fit into any sort of utility man role, doesn’t really play another position other than 3B, and apparently doesn’t handle the irregular playing time that is inherent in the utility man job well. Other than what he did over three years ago in the minors, some touting of his defensive ability at third, and that he is cheap, there isn’t anything else he really offers at this point.
Say you’re the Royals, or the White Sox. Rather than fiddle around with trying out a few things at third (Uribe or Gordon), why not claim Marte and give him a try? He starts the season as your regular third baseman. If he works you’ve discovered gold, and if he doesn’t you cut him. Low cost, high potential.
Yes, but the question always remains, why the Royals or White Sox, and why not the Indians?
by Jay on Dec 7, 2008 8:28 PM EST up reply actions
He might be one of those guys that just needs a new situation and organization to suceed. We’ve seen that happen many times. I’m not saying the Indians should get rid of him, because I think he still can be a decent player, but it may never happen in Cleveland for whatever reason.
The best thing probably is to hit [Grady] 2nd -- Jay
Great mystery. As you said above, the Indians clearly have some secret reason why they won’t give him a chance. Perhaps next year they will have no choice but to try.
But we all know that if another team gave him a chance he would succeed. He wouldn’t be Mike Schmidt, but he would be better than Aaron Boone.
Not that much of a mystery, really. The Tribe brass, Wedge in particular, is loath to rely on anyone who is unproven. They’ll take a mediocre track record over no track record, because its the less risky option. I could nuance it, and point out some areas where an exception might be made, but that’s what it boils down to.
And then we reclaim him and DFA him again. The only way another team is going to keep him is if he hits enough to be a passable thirdbasemen, and then only if they have no other alternative prospects that would better deserve a shot. If he breaks out and turns into the hitter we all thought he would be then good for him and the team that claimed him, he’s not going to get that shot here.
Also Gordon had a 110 OPS+ last season and didn’t embarrass himself at third. You don’t demote a developing product like that just to “try out” a failed Andy Marte. The White Sox as screwed up as they look are still considering contending next season. They aren’t going to block Fields or not use Uribe for Andy Marte.
Before the Royals made that bizarre Mike Jacobs trade, they could have moved Gordon to first and given Marte a shot. Likewise, the White Sox might be tempted to go with Marte rather than Uribe—who wouldn’t? would Wedge play Uribe over Marte?—because they don’t seem sold on Fields. Fields wasn’t blocked after Crede went down again, and Guillen gave the job to Uribe. He’s 26 years old and didn’t exactly tear up the International League. You give Marte a shot, and if he doesn’t stick, you get Fields out of Charlotte (assuming he still has options). You’re not demoting or blocking anyone. What about the Twins?
Well they have Jacobs, and they have the Hawaiian at first. And despite either of these players, they’re not moving their top young prospect from a position of value to a weaker position for a guy who hasn’t done anything in three years, just because three years ago he was a highly thought of prospect in AAA.
And I’m not sure I understand your argument about the White Sox. They aren’t going to give a guy who’s age 23-24 seasons were markedly better (including 23 HRs in the majors in 2007 at 24 yrs old with only 373 ABs) than the other guy’s age 23-24 years, the job at third base just because both players struggled last season?
And I find this contradictory:
the White Sox might be tempted to go with Marte rather than Uribe—who wouldn’t? would Wedge play Uribe over Marte?—because they don’t seem sold on Fields. Fields wasn’t blocked after Crede went down again, and Guillen gave the job to Uribe.
If Fields was as bad as Marte last season and wasn’t given the job over Uribe by Guillen, why would they give it Marte over Uribe this year? And when did they all of the sudden become more sold on Marte over Fields? So the White Sox are going to risk turning Fields into a “Marte” so that they can give Marte a chance. This is also Fields’ last option year if he starts the year in AAA. I think at this point Fields is clearly more likely to to be the better player (not necessarily the higher ceiling) and it would benefit the White Sox to start the year off giving him a shot at 3B unless they have a legit (i.e not Andy Marte) 3B alternative. This was exactly how the Indians had handled Marte until he was injured in 2007 and optioned back to AAA (using his last option) when they gave the job to Blake. So picking up Marte, starting Fields off in AAA, will automatically burn Fields’ last option year, putting them in our situation with their prospect the following year.
Oh and the Twins, the Twins who were reportedly offering 2 years plus and third year option to Casey Blake, and will now turn their attention to trading for a 3B. Sounds like they are prioritizing a legit starting 3B option as they follow up just missing out on the playoffs last season. No they aren’t going to settle on giving Andy Marte the job. And this is the crux of the problem, Andy Marte needs regular playing time, and as much as you would think that amongst all the teams in the league there would be many teams willing to simply claim him off waivers and steal him from the Indians for free as a low risk high reward, it only makes sense if that team is committing to playing Marte regularly, and for a player that has performed as poorly as Marte has in the past three seasons there is little reason to think that you are going to get that “high ceiling” potential out of him. The team would have to be out of any chance of contention and without any sort prospect already at the position or about to enter the position. There are three teams that I can think of that would fit this mold and two of them (FLA and SEA) have to move their current 3B in a trade for this to work, the other team, SF, is the team that is rumored to be picking up the FLA 3B in trade (Cantu), so we are really talking about two teams that at the conclusion of spring training may be going into the season with a worse 3B situation than the Tribe (currently).
Well put. You’re right. Perhaps the Marlins see those once-gaudy numbers and decide to take a chance. It’s not as if you have to play him the whole season. If he sucks after 100 at bats you dump him and go to plan B.
Yeah I see the Marlins as a perfect fit for a team that would pluck Andy Marte off of waivers and give him a shot as of right now, We’ll have to see as we near spring training though. I still take a shot at DFA’ing him around then and see if he slips through, if he does that will be the best possible outcome for us.
But don’t the Marlins have Dallas McPherson waiting for them at AAA? Why go for Marte when you’ve got McPherson?
by woodsmeister on Dec 8, 2008 12:37 PM EST up reply actions
The point, again, is that the Indians are no better situated at 3B than those other teams — in fact, they’re worse.
Well for my point, its a little overly simplistic. The first point that can be made, is that any contending team is not going to pick up Andy Marte and give him the full season he needs to potentially develop into the star player he was thought to be, So you lop off all those teams there, then the point about whether Andy Marte represents an upgrade over another team’s current 3B can be made (your point above), which lops off another group of teams and we’re left with maybe 1-2 teams that currently can be considering giving him a shot, and that may drop down to 0 teams by spring training.
Yes, that’s true, but the Indians—for whatever their ineffable reasons—aren’t giving Marte a chance. I concur that they should. They should go to Goodyear with the plan of making him their starting third baseman, and have a backup scheme. But that isn’t going to happen. I disagree that they can try to sneak him through waivers and send him to Columbus.
Marte is boring.
Furcal is not. And Jon Heyman from SI says we’re emerging as a possible suitor for furcal
here’s a link
key phrase:
My next guesses are the Twins or Indians. And believe me, both are strictly guesses.
Yeah I saw the latter of the twi entries
by world dictator on Dec 7, 2008 10:08 PM EST up reply actions
All together now: new leadoff hitter! Move Grady down to the three spot!
by jakesinger777 on Dec 8, 2008 12:24 PM EST up reply actions
The Marte Look
To me, Andy looks like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming, career ending crash. He looks helpless and lost. It is a sad thing, but he has failed to adapt at the MLB level. What Team could be more user-freindly for a young spanish speaking player?
I am positive, behind closed doors, he has been given all the assistance anyone could need to develop his skills. For whatever reason[s] he has not developed the mental aspect of competing on the biggest stage of them all.
Maybe when Wedge gets Andy behind closed doors, when he lets his hair hang down, then he makes him glad that he’s a man, but no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.
I was struck during spring training last year by the sheer neutrality of the language used by Wedge and Shapiro to describe Marte, his progress, his attitude, his prospects. In contrast, everyone was glowing about Barfield and his work ethic and attitude. This was followed by the public humiliation Andy suffered throughout the season. The message delivered in public was that Andy is not part of this team, just something they are stuck with. Maybe something else was going on privately, but why was there not so much as a hint of encouragement or support in public?
The thing we really don’t know is how much Andy really deserved this.
I know we’re beating a dead horse to death until it dies, but I can’t help myself.
Marte did come in to camp looking a bit overweight, and there’s nothing that burns Wedgie more than that in a young player. Does Wedge have a doghouse? Does he play favorites? It’s hard to find any manager that doesn’t have preferences, but Wedge’s are clear: if you actually are in competition for a spot or playing time, you have to earn it. The “it” can vary as well, but for Wedge, the “it” is trust. His trust.
I thought Wedge’s treatment of Marte last year was awful, and a true discredit to him as a manager. He has no problem letting young talent rot on the bench if they don’t satisfy some threshold of performance and attitude that is defined by him and him alone. This in a franchise that has publicly declared its reliance on turning young talent into ML contributors.
It was interesting that at one point in the season a little daylight actually opened up between Shap and Wedge regarding Marte. I forget exactly when it was, but Shap did go on record saying Marte should get more playing time. It was diplomatic, implying both that he likely will get more time in the future and that he should’ve gotten more to date, but it was another in a very short list of instances where Shap states an opinion not totally in line with the decisions of his manager.
I am so sick of people’s “expert body language” comments. This kind of talk is almost 100% theory confirmation bias. You see his numbers, and that tells you what you’re going to see when you look at him.
OK, I’ll post. My opinion differs with APV, in that I believe the skills were just not there. I know this does not jibe with his early minor numbers; watching him now I have no idea how he could put up those numbers in the minors. His swing is so long, and he never seems to be “on” a pitch.
I think the Braves did what the tribe may be doing with Shoppach this offseason, they sold high. Marte’s only major skill in the minors was his power. (Yeah his defense is fine, but it is nothing to get excited about, and he once had plate discipline, but that is it). Maybe this just doesn’t translate nearly as much as (gasp!) batting average.
Marte was not destined to fail, but fail he did.
I may just be ridiculously ignorant of baseball biomechanics, but I use something called the Ben Broussard test. Until I figure out what is wrong with Ben Broussard’s swing, I’m never going to call somebody’s swing long. His cuts look great to me. He looks smoother striking out than Garko does homering.
Not imputing that same ignorance to you, Dave, I’m just saying this argument will never carry weight with me because I don’t have the knowledge or ability to identify a good baseball swing by anything other than plate appearance results.
by fleerdon on Dec 8, 2008 4:56 PM EST up reply actions
If you did impute the ignorance, you would be correct. As you can tell I know nothing concrete about baseball swings. But doesn’t it look like if Marte has one swing, no matter where the ball is. If he gets the ball in the right spot (down the middle, waste high), he will kill it. If it is on the outside part of the plate, it is off the end of the bat, and if it is inside it jams him. He doesn’t really show the ability to pull his hands in and still get a good swing, thus he has to stand so far off the plate. Then outside pitches eat him up. Maybe it is not a long swing per se, just a lack of plate coverage.
Marte’s swing reminds me a lot of Troy Glaus, having seen Glaus play a number of times this past season in person
I certainly don’t think the swing precludes Marte from becoming a successful player. The mental makeup seems to be my biggest worry with him
i used to have something called the Ben Broussard test, too. if a woman in the bar that used to be less attractive than Ben Broussard to start the evening suddenly is more attractive, it’s time to pay my tab and go home (alone).
I was in a bar in Westlake the other night when Ben Broussard walked in with his manager. Did you know that Broussard is only about 4’9" and maybe 85 pounds? And the manager wouldn’t let me take any pictures. He said he didn’t want anyone to know how small Ben really is.
by odradek on Dec 8, 2008 11:19 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
These last two made me laugh out loud.
by jakesinger777 on Dec 10, 2008 3:11 PM EST up reply actions
My opinion differs with APV, in that I believe the skills were just not there.
I actually find this to be a more reasonable supposition than the idea that he’s been collapsing for three years. Maybe that age-21 season was a fluke, and if you put him in Triple-A 20 times, he’d only get over an 800 OPS once, and maybe he peaked at 23. Plate discipline isn’t always a great indicator for a young hitter, nor is it great to see a guy hitting almost as many homers as doubles when he’s in his early 20’s. That could be a lot more long flies than line drives, and that isn’t going to persist into the majors unless you have immense raw strength.
The theory’s main flaw is that it’s circumstantially improbable — but we already know that something improbable has happened to push an elite prospect to the fringes, so that isn’t much of a flaw. Its next biggest flaw is the sheer depth of Marte’s fall. In 2006, he didn’t perform as an elite prospect … except that he kind of did. His Progress score for that season is (at least) 7.1, which puts him ahead of all our current position players except Santana, i.e., just head of LaPorta and Weglarz.
So it’s not a stretch to say, optical ilusion, fluke performance, the guy was never really an elite talent. But even looking only at 2006, the start of his hypothetical regression, you’d still have to say he’s a very fine prospect. I can make that re-adjustment in expectations, I just don’t know if I can believe that even beyond that point, he really fell off a talent cliff after his age-22 season. In other words, I can believe he didn’t become as viable as Carmona, but how can he not be as viable as Laffey?
by Jay on Dec 8, 2008 8:16 PM EST up reply actions
As for your last point, pitchers are different animals. Hitters should be less volatile. Marte is the exception. I was never high on Marte, but I would never have guessed that he would perform this poorly. Major enigma. I’m sure the Indians FO has put in countless hours trying to figure out what went wrong, and how they can avoid this again. It would be interesting to know what their theories/conclusions are. The FO has been really above the curve with the subsequent major league performance of the minor leaguers that have been acquired in major league trades (Hafner, Asdrubal, Choo, Crisp, SIzemore, Lee, Phillips (yes I am counting him), maybe Gutierrez). Marte sticks out like a sore thumb compared to these guys.
Well, that’s what’s bugging me. You might think that if Marte was going to be a star, he’d have done better than he has. But I don’t think it follows that if was just going to be an okay player for a few years, he might not have performed this badly, given somewhat adverse and limited opportunities. I think the whole of the data, on balance, still suggests that he’d be a decent player over the next five years, given the chance.
Phil Nevin was fully branded a prospect bust by the media, before going on to hit 208 career homers and OPS+ing 114. He had a pretty excellent career.
Helium Watch: Chuck Lofgren, OF
Yeah, Nevin was a #1 overall pick and really struggled even through his age 27 season. Then he started mashing the ball in 99. He is a very possible comp.
It is interesting that Nevin’s breakout and Marte’s collapse are roughly the beginning and end of the PED era. Maybe there is a correlation.
I thought of that. There isn’t a shred of evidence, but I can’t dismiss the possibility.
by Jay on Dec 9, 2008 3:09 AM EST up reply actions
Does anyone look forward to the possibility of Mark Shapiro retiring and then stopping by late one night and explaining what happened to Marte? Is there a situation he could shed more light on than this?
He will still tell a cock and bull tale: “Well, actually, shortly after the trade with Boston, the FBI informed us that Andy was working as an agent for the republic of Kyrgyzstan. We couldn’t release him for national security reasons, but we obviously didn’t enjoy our association with him. Eric took it kind of personally.”
rec for correctly spelling Kyrgyzstan… (unless you had to look it up, then I take it back) (ftr, I had to look it up to see if it was spelled correctly)
by Logodaedalus on Dec 9, 2008 11:28 PM EST up reply actions
i could spell it without looking it up
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Dec 10, 2008 12:43 AM EST up reply actions
Tulip Revolution baby
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Dec 10, 2008 2:34 AM EST up reply actions
No trip to Kyrgyzstan wouldn’t be complete without trying Kymyz, pronounced “Kee-mees” (don’t mix it up with Komus, a traditional music instrument) made of fermented horse mare’s milk.
- From Wikitravel.org’s Kyrgyzstan page
by jakesinger777 on Dec 10, 2008 3:15 PM EST up reply actions
I think the Indians’ eccentric usage pattern for Marte has wrecked his confidence. He feels like he has to prove he belongs on the field with every single at bat or he might not get another one. He was traded for an extremely popular player and I think he feels he needs to justify it every time he gets to the plate. He has tended to be a slow starter at most levels, and when he got off to a slow start, combined with the sporadic usage, he’s never been allowed to get into any sort of rhythm where he could build up any confidence in his performance.
I think the Indians have wrecked Marte to the point where he will never be able to perform for this team and will need a complete confidence building reload with another franchise. I hope he gets it.
I don’t believe in wrecking. They didn’t wreck Fausto and they didn’t wreck Phillips. There ought ought to be a lesson in there somewhere.
by Jay on Dec 9, 2008 12:06 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I really hope I’m wrong and that Marte is able to put it together with the Indians. I just doubt at this point that he’ll be given that chance. Based on a couple of the interviews I’ve seen, it seems like he wants to succeed so badly that he’s pressing every time he goes to the plate, and the way the Indians have treated him, who could blame him for feeling this way.
by woodsmeister on Dec 9, 2008 12:13 PM EST up reply actions
So glad to see you’ve gotten the hang of this place.
by Jay on Dec 9, 2008 5:47 PM EST up reply actions
So it had nothing to do with him showing up to his most important camp in ‘08 a little out of shape and not really that aggressive? If the media was right on those reports, Marte has only himself to blame. He definitely gains Wedge’s respect if he had. And that seems to be where he lost it.
He has only himself to blame for Wedge not liking him? Seems like that’s a two way street. For the overall benefit of the club, Marte needed to be vetted during the season, and if that didn’t happen simply because Wedge didn’t like him that’s on Wedgie. He can make his point any number of other ways than by simply ignoring him altogether. That’s part of the job description.
Let’s not forget that Marte also played winter ball and spent that time learning a new position (first base) at the team’s request. And then people got all over him for butchering balls at third base when he’d spent the off-season at first base. And, he was the only player that I can remember that Wedge commented publicly about coming in “a little” out of shape, as if nobody else there were a little out of shape.
as in, high?
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Dec 9, 2008 7:34 PM EST up reply actions
woods & mc, the thing I don’t understand was Hamilton’s comments during the game broadcasts during spring training. He was really down on Marte. That really is not like Hamilton. I just think there is something to things like that. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with the handling either. If he’s that bad, DFA him. If there is an issue, DFA him. If not, then vett him. I think he had some of this in his control before he came to camp last year and let the opportunity slip away. When in doubt, Wedge will usually go with the experienced play no matter how much anyone likes it.
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