Marte sits, smart team gets dumber
by Jay on May 14, 2008 11:16 AM EDT
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PrintYou would think, as a stymied prospect, that the best place you could possibly be is backing up a guy who is the the worst-hitting starter in the league at your position, and one of the worst fielders as well — not to mention, he's in the last year of his deal, while you're with the team for the long haul. Hell, forget playing time, that other guy will be lucky if he doesn't get DFA'ed, right? Right?
No — not if you're Andy Marte. That other guy is apparent manager's pet Casey Blake — and let me emphasize, I really hate saying that, "manager's pet." I hate resorting to that kind of reductionist cartoon characterizing of players or managers, because it can keep us from seeing small moves for what they really are, and from working harder to understand the reasons behind large moves. But really, at this point, what is there left for us (or Andy Marte) to think?
And in a way it's even worse than that, because Blake doesn't have to sit to get Marte in the game. Blake plays a fine first base and is also a very capable outfielder, something the Indians seem to have forgotten. That makes five spots in the lineup that Blake could occupy — 1B, 3B, LF, RF, DH — and as it happens, the Indians have struggled to find production in all five of those spots, with the worst OPS in the league at 3B, the second-worst in RF, the third-worst at DH, and the fourth-worst in LF and at 1B. Not one of our regaular corner players (Garko, Hafner, Gutierrez and Blake) boasts even a meager 700 OPS, and even Dellucci and Francisco are putting up numbers that are merely league average, and below-average for left field.
So you would think, as a stymied prospect relegated to providing depth from the bench, that when your team is struggling at all five possible positions where you could indirectly or directly provide depth, that you would be getting a ton of playing time. But no. The Indians have shown no interest in playing Blake in the outfield this season, despite the fact that he's been one of the league's best defensive outfielders by many measures and one of the league's lesser third basemen. And yet, the Indians have been desperate to get offense, and Shapiro has admitted not having any real explanation or solution. They're willing to try anything, shuffling the batting order, resting guys in slumps, dumping Michaels for Francisco, even Jason freakin' Tyner, "the Neifi Perez of outfielders."
Basically, they're willing to try anything except giving Andy Marte a real shot. Which is odd, because just a year ago, they were willing to try that. Back in 2003, Brandon Phillips got 300 at-bats, starting 82 games out of 94. Just last season, Josh Barfield got 390 at-bats, starting 106 games out of 113. Marte, however, got just 39 at-bats and 12 starts last season before going on the DL, and he's never gotten another chance.
If the plan wasn't to give Marte playing time in the event of struggles at 1B and 3B and LF and RF and DH ... then what the hell was the plan?
By last week, even before the confusing Tyner move, the local media had noticed the absurdity. At a press conference to announce the un-big Francisco/Michaels moves a week ago, Shapiro was unexpectedly pelted with vaguely tough questions regarding, and I quote: "Is there a chance, like you're plugging in that young guy, I mean, for the heck of it, Andy Marte?" Shapiro responded that "what we're waiting for is for him to get the opportunity" and that maybe — maybe — Wedge would consider "playing some different guys." It was, frankly, hard to tell what he was trying to say, other than nothing. Shapiro seemed to be ducking responsibility for the whole affair, pretending that he and his subordinate Wedge aren't directly in charge of doling out the opportunities on this club.
Wedge did start Marte for both of the next two games at third base, with Blake resting for the first game and moving over to first base for the second. Marte did his increasingly familiar routine of playing very fine defense, often hitting the ball hard but only rarely getting an actual hit. The fans were amazed — could Marte finally be getting a real chance? Could the new plan be to get Marte two or three starts per week, maybe even four or five?
No. Wedge's new plan was to play Marte twice (possibly to placate the boss), then sit Marte in favor of Blake for the next few days, then get romanced in by a couple of clutch hits from Blake, and then possibly not give Marte any more playing time than before. Marte got a third start in seven days on Monday, but it seems likely that he only got it because of the rain-forced double-header — otherwise, he might have gone another 8-10 days without starting, rather than just five. As it is, he was lifted for Blake late in that game, for no strategic reason whatsoever, other than just liking Blake better. It sure as hell wasn't for his defense.
Marte's ten plate appearances this week were the most he's had in any ten-day period since last May. In the week Wedge used him the most, he still had less playing time than any position player except Jason Tyner, who has only been on the roster for one day. Marte already has fewer at-bats this season (22) than Ben Francisco (25), who has been on the roster only 12 days compared to Marte's 44.
So when Marte, famously a slow starter, came up to the plate in the first inning on Monday, bases loaded and two outs, in his first start in five days and only his 23rd trip to the plate in 43 days ... was there any doubt at all that he wasn't going to get a hit?
It would be fair for newer readers to ask, why all the fuss about Andy Marte — doesn't he suck? The fuss about Marte is that:
- We don't really know if he sucks, because
- he's never gotten a chance in the big leagues for more than a few weeks at a time, and
- we don't have any third baseman under contract for 2009 and only one solid but unspectacular prospect a couple years away, and
- Marte might just make for a totally decent option for some part of the next five seasons, and for dirt-cheap salaries at least through 2010, not to mention
- it's not like Casey Blake is actually good,
so it wouldn't exactly kill us to find out if Marte maybe doesn't really suck, would it?
Never mind what we gave up to get him — that's a sunk cost, it doesn't matter. What does matter is Marte's potential as a player, and since he's under team control for five seasons, without having to pay him free agent dollars, his potential value to the team is essentially five times greater. Even players who are merely serviceable as starters create a signfiicant hit to the payroll — Aaron Boone was making about $4 million as an Indian, and Blake is making $6 million right now. If Marte stays with the team, he likely will make less than $10 million total, for the 2008-2011 seasons combined.
Marte was once considered an elite prospect, consensus top 10 in the world, and what has happened since then has mostly been trades and injuries and being forced to spend a third year in Triple-A. Many prospects experience a jarring transition after being traded to a new organization, and Marte was traded twice in the same offseason. And Marte certainly would not be the first recent Indian to put up disappointing numbers when asked to repeat Triple-A an extra time — Ryan Garko and Brandon Phillips had almost identical regressions, but when they finally got their chance in the big-leagues, both proved that their first full Triple-A seasons best represented their true ability.
That won't necessarily be the case with Marte, but there's no reason to think it won't. Prior to the trades, prior to being asked to repeat Triple-A — twice — Marte had an impressive and consistent track record, succeeding in his first year at every minor league level, and at exceptionally young ages. Statistically, these are compelling markers of future major-league success — not just that he marched through the minors successfully, but that he did it in his late teens and early 20's, rather than in his mid-20's.
Marte's minor-league track record is better than Ben Francisco, Franklin Gutierrez or Ryan Garko's — his numbers at every level are as good or better than theirs, and he achieved those numbers at younger ages. Francisco's nice 2007 season in Triple-A, at ages 25? Marte posted the exact same OPS, 878, in his first Triple-A season at age 21. Remember how Garko tore through A-ball and Double-A in 2004, at age 23? Marte blew through those levels at ages 19 and 20 — and was a standout defender, too. Gutierrez spent the bulk of two seasons in Double-A, ages 21-22, and another two in Triple-A, ages 23-24, and never approached Marte's numbers at either level. Yet Gutierrez and Garko's opportunities on the big-league club have dwarfed Marte's, and Francisco seems to have moved ahead, too.
As for this season, not only is it a meaningless number of at-bats, but Marte obviously isn't being put into a position where he or any young player would likely succeed. The Indians themselves have said many times that it's a special skill to be able play effectively with limited playing time, and it's rare to find that skill in a young player who never got a chance to break in.
In the short term, at least, the only slightly reduced playing pattern seemed to work for Blake, who had a strong set of games following a couple of days rest. But even if we could agree that this is a strong strategy going forward — favoring what works for Blake over what works for Marte — at best, it just perpetuates the organization's failure ever to prioritize the long-term with respect to Marte, and ultimately with respect to the position of Third Baseman.
A year ago, when Marte was demoted to Triple-A just days after returning from the DL, apparently because Blake was getting hot, even Marte's partisans had to admit that playing the hot hand wasn't a bad idea. Marte presumably was better off sulking (possibly) in the Buffalo lineup than rotting (definitely) on the Cleveland bench. But everyone in the organization, including Wedge, should have understood when they used up Marte's third and final option year in that move, playing hot-hand now (then) meant playing the long-term odds later (now). Marte's shot at a starting job in 2007, yanked away before he had a chance to prove anything one way or another, should have been restored as an iron-clad rain-check for 2008.
Yet the team has not made good on that strategic trade-off, which seems to run head-long into conflict with the organization's fairly dogged leaving-with-the-guy-who-brung-ya mentality — and, apparently, with Wedge's increasingly notorious hard-nosed-guy favoritism. The favoritism that had him favoring the exceptionally replaceable Ramon Vazquez over Brandon Phillips. The favoritism that keeps him from calling out Ryan Garko and Travis Hafner by name for their horrendous failures, as he once did for a much younger Jhonny Peralta (whose main problem, it later turned out, was blurred vision).
Ironically, sophisticated fans who have been accustomed to enjoying the Shapiro regime's deeply savvy sensibilities — its lack of deeply stupid moves — are now forced to endure decision-making that is absolutely the same as favoring the likes of Darin Erstad or David Eckstein — moves those fans have had the luxury of ridiculing for years. How can it be that Shapiro, presumed to be cut from similar analytical cloth to Billy Beane, now leads a team following a course better suited to Kenny Williams, whom Beane openly called an idiot? Just five days ago, Christina Kahrl of Baseball Prospectus was singing some of these very praises:
It's been so easy for statheads to like the Indians because they do so very many sensible things. They're stubborn about challenging players to rise to the level of their greatest value, whether that's with Cliff Lee as a starting pitcher, Victor Martinez as a major league-caliber starting catcher, or Jhonny Peralta as a shortstop.
Blake's highest value isn't a position, though; it's performing at a decent level with versatility, giving his team the option to use him in a variety of positions. The Indians used to preach the value of versatility, so what changed? It's yet another odd decision that seems to favor Blake's peace of mind over Marte's opportunity.
What's worse, what's best for Blake cannot be assumed to be what's best for the team. Blake has seduced us with strong weeks before, better than this one, and it hasn't changed his overall performance level. He had a tremendous opening two months in 2006, and a phenomenal two-week burst in 2007 — yet his OPS since the 2006 break is just 758, and since the 2007 break, it's 688.
It's unclear whether Wedge's decisions surrounding Blake are supported by Shapiro or merely tolerated by him. It's hard to believe, on the one hand, that Shapiro could be supportive of continuing to give Marte no significant share of playing time, which easily could be shared among seven players at five positions, given Shapiro's reputation for not being stupid. His comments from last week, though obtuse, did reveal possibly a hint of frustration at finding Wedge's predilections once again at odds with the team's strategic mandates going forward: "... we have a long-term need at that position as well. But, I think what we're waiting for is for him to get the opportunity this year ..."
But who is the "we" in "we're waiting for," anyway? Is it Shapiro and Wedge both, waiting for some unknown supernatural force to give Marte an opportunity? Or is it Shapiro and his front office staff, waiting for Wedge? If Shapiro were forced to restate that second sentence without using the weaselly passive voice — "we're waiting for X to give him the opportunity this year" — well, who or what else could it be that "we" are waiting for here, if not Wedge?
It's impossible to say whether Shapiro has a breaking point, some combination of conditions under which he would actually order Wedge to deploy his players in a certain way. That would be a very un-Shapiro thing to do. But then again, evaluating players based on wishy-washy characteristics rather than solid principles, doing the same stupid thing over and over again for months at a time — those are also very un-Shapiro things to do. When it comes to squandering a player who could be valuable to the team long-term, the record is still mixed, and the jury is still out.
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Fantastic to see it all laid out here like this. And why is it impossible for any of the traditional Cleveland columnists to do so?
I think most of us disagree with the rationale behind Marte’s usage. The rationale behind Tyner, on the other hand, is beyond my comprehension.
Looks like a typo or two in the last sentence of the second to last paragraph (the passive voice one).
I know. Plus, if he gets elected to the Hall of Fame, you know he’s going to pick a Twins hat. So what’s the point?
by dgcambridge on May 13, 2008 6:26 PM EDT up reply actions 7 recs
HIRE JAY!!!!
One thing I know Wedge is using for his doggedness is that Blake is actually leading this team in RBIs (sad, but true). But that is more a reflection on how poor the rest of our lineup is performing (Basically everyone but Vic tho still missing power and Grady who isnt lights out either)
Shap needs to sit Wedge down and tell him to play him 3 times a week at least. Then if Marte can’t hack it by July, then Wedge has his “data” to cut him. Until then we all just continually get frustrated.
This is an excellent summary of the entire Marte situation. I have read that Wedge and Shapiro work closely in every aspect of running the org. At times, it appears that they are at odds with one another, but I don’t understand how that can be given their supposed closeness. And, assuming this closeness, the two must have discussed the Marte situation literally dozens of times. I am operating under the assumption that Wedge and Shapiro have a concensus concerning this matter. While their conclusion defies rational thinking to us, either there is a deep flaw in their thinking or they believe they have information that trumps what we know.
Excellent post, I wholeheartedly agree. I’m finally starting to understand the rules around here. Jay is the only person who can criticize the coaching or management without being run out of town. I’ll try to keep that in mind.
No no, you can criticize the management if you’d like, but you better have something to back it up with. A plain old Shapiro/Dolan sucks won’t get it done. And when you do provide the evidence, just don’t cherry pick stats either ;)
by talonk on May 13, 2008 6:44 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
That’s it exactly.
mbtruer, in the event you ever back up anything you write with any actual facts, or something resembling a thought process, I’m sure your views will be better received.
Also, you don’t appear to have been run out of town.
Jay,
Even though I’m the resident Blake defender, I think this is (mostly) a good post.
But I think the (correct) point that talonk was making, though, is that there are lots of other hitting stats you could’ve picked where Blake would not have been at the very bottom—and a few like RBI where he’d be near the top.
Of course, he’s not being selective by ignoring RBIs. It’s general practice around here, and with good reason.
by dgcambridge on May 14, 2008 11:02 AM EDT up reply actions
I’m not advocating using RBIs. I’m simply stating that there are other stats where he wouldn’t be dead last.
The larger point is that Blake in particular, and the collective of corner position guys in general, are simply not playing anywhere near well enough that Marte still should not have an opportunity.
Agree: Marte is only medium term solution.
Agree: Marte moves laterally better on defense.
Agree: Marte does not hit the ball well after sitting for a while.
Agree: Marte was definitely going to make an out with the bases loaded last night.
Disagree: Marte has a better minor-league track record than Cabrera or Garko (I’m appropriately weighting recent years).
Disagree: Marte got an extended try-out in 06 and failed to impress.
Disagree: Marte’s range is better than Blake, but Blake doesn’t let balls hit directly at him eat him up like Marte does. I’m sure this drives Wedge nuts.
The heart of the question is how many PAs does a contending team wish to spend on Marte to find out if he is useful? In a career 320PAs he is well below replacement level. Will 100 more tell us something? Or, as supposed by Jay, he just needs 100 to warm up, and then we need 100 more to find out if he useful? He could easily be a -2 to -3 win player with that many PAs. How many possible playoff appearances is one willing to risk to find out if Marte is a useful player?
I do think it’s worth the risk, because the only alternative is Blake. Blake is failing at this position; the 688 OPS fig post 2007 ASB proves it. Who really doubts that Marte can’t match that? Who thinks that Blake is the superior fielder overall? He’s our best best for /this/ season, nevermind following years.
Dave, I take your point to be that Marte most likely sucks, and its not worth a contending team’s time to explore the small chance it might be otherwise. If that’s the case though, why would he even be on the team? Why not carry a proven decent bat that might help in a small number of PH opportunities? I think that’s what makes it all the more frustrating. Dave
Yes, Marte most likely sucks, but he doesn’t definitely suck. If Blake gets injured, without Marte we are looking at Andy Gonzalez or Jamie Carroll at 3B, and they definitely both suck. So Marte serves his purpose in depth. It is far from an ideal situation, but it isn’t terrible either.
Patience. There is a plan. It is not a great plan (like this organization’s starting pitching depth plan), but it is the best plan they have now.
Dave, I won’t go ten rounds on this with you, now or possibly ever.
But the minor league stats thing, I have to be blunt. You would have to be willfully mis-reading the minor league stats, and also have a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of how to read minor league stats, in order to think that Marte’s minor league numbers weren’t equal to and generally better than Garko and Cabrera’s.
There is a reason he was given the starting job to open 2007.
Minor league stats. Most stats for each player are accumulated at levels AA or better.
Cabrera (18-21) .283 .347 .415 + superior defense for a middle infielder
Garko (23-25) .293 .370 .488 + bad defense
Marte (18-23) .271 .348 .476 + avg defense
I have no idea how you say that Marte’s stats are clearly better. Sure, Garko is older, but he crushed the ball at Stanford. What is holding back Marte is his last 2 years of substandard performance at Buffalo. If you want to ignore his most recent years, feel free, but don’t call it logic.
That’s because you got those numbers by looking at the bottom line of baseballcube, and forgetting to consider ABs, level, or, most importantly, age.
my helmet has, like, no pine tar on it.
Age and defense are included in my numbers above. The thing is that Marte’s numbers have gotten worse with age. When Marte was 20-21, there was no comparison, he was easily the best. But that was over 2 years ago. I could have also added the major league numbers, and then Marte looks much worse.
As for reading minor league numbers. BA is knocked, and maybe rightly so in some instances, at the major league level. But I contend that you need to hit for average in the minors to be able to hit at all in the majors. Marte has never done that. It looked like he could when he was 20-21, but again, that was a long time ago.
And so how do you account for his stratospheric performance - relative to age - a few seasons ago? Fluke? Do you think there were some hiccups in not only his performance since then, but perhaps also his health and handling? Are you content to throw him away at this point?
His glove is above average at that position, at the least.
Unlike Blake, however, Garko has some upside.
Whether Marte starts tonight is not the point. They need a plan to use Marte consistently so they can find out what he can do. They don’t have one.
Marte is very consistent with the variety of things he can do with the bat. He can fly out to LF and RF and to CF. And if you ask nicely he can strike out also.
I don’t think Blake has much ability to fly out to right field. But, the statistics may prove me wrong.
by peter m on May 13, 2008 10:06 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I can’t get beyond the question ‘WHY?’ in this issue. I have a healthy respect for Shapiro and a reasonable amount of respect for Wedge. I don’t think either of them is completely obtuse, and therefore I don’t believe that Marte’s benching is a result of their reasoned analysis of what gives the team the best chance to succeed. I also refuse to believe that Wedge would play Blake and sit Marte merely for reasons of favoritism or a preference for “grit,” and if he did I don’t think that Shapiro would stand for it. The arguments for increasing Marte’s playing time are obvious and, I think, undeniable, and yet it doesn’t happen. There’s something else going on here, something we’re not privy to and haven’t been able to figure out. I have to believe this in order to continue to have faith in the organization.
I agree with the Wagnerian here. The situation is ludicrous, and our speculation about favoritism, etc.— while amusingly spiteful—doesn’t really seem credible. There has to be some private justification for not playing him.
I just hope that the ‘justification’ does not run parallel to the vasquez/phillips decision-making – what Jay called Wedge’s hard-nosed guy favoritism. That is my only true worry. Fortunately we have the eventual outcome of the Nixon/Guttierez situation to draw on from last year.
Nixon/Gut may be what Shapiro means when he says they want Marte to get a chance to play: that he has to force the situation, much as a fighter has to unambiguously whup the champion to win the belt.
The Nixon/Gutierrez parallel is nonsense — I mean, the idea that Gutierrez “forced the situation.”
After his last callup on May 31 last year, Gutierrez played in 12 games in the next two weeks — he started six games and was a late-inning replacement in six others. They were giving him a lot more regular playing time than Marte — and what was his line up over those two weeks?
.136 average, .174 OBP, .409 slugging.
So he didn’t “force” a damned thing, they just decided to see what he could do with more playing time, rather than watch Nixon do his damage out there.
So in response to his mediocre hitting but fine fielding, they decided to give him more playing time, rather than less. He appeared in 23 of the next 30 games, starting 16, and at it was only at that point, after they kept playing him in the face of poor performances, that he “forced” anything. He put up an 1100 OPS over those 30 games, and after that, it didn’t matter if he was kind of lame at the plate for the entire second half.
And keep in mind, they gave him these chances with less to go on from his minor league performance than they have had with Marte. Gutierrez, after almost four years working on his swing in Double-A and Triple-A, still never hit as well at either level as Marte did at age 20 and 21.
agreed. i see the outcome as reason for optimism, regardless if gutz/marte force the issue or nixon/blake force (via underperforming) the issue.
that may 31st date may not be entirely arbitrary. bit of a stretch, perhaps, but marte’s time on the bench and gutz’s time in AAA are not too different (in-game at bats not withstanding) and it’s quite likely that the focus – from wedge – is to give blake (like he did nixon) two months (or so) of roughly full-time action. time will tell if blake’s leash runs out similarly, thus providing marte with the opportunity that gutz had last year (with less merit). i’d much prefer interpreting it from the blake-needs-two-months angle than from the marte-has-to-earn-it silliness, given that he can’t possibly earn it by sitting. (even if giving blake two months is kinda silly.)
of course, this does not explain why blake hasn’t seen time in the outfield or 1B . . . but, shoot, i’m trying to seeing the logic here and desperately trying to understand this very odd situation.
by macasson on May 14, 2008 6:39 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I guess this is what gets me on this – I have yet to see a reasonable explanation or rationale as to why Marte should be sitting. Generally, with this FO, I can at least graxsp what direction they’re coming from on the decisions that they make.
This one continues to elude me.
by The DiaTriber on May 14, 2008 12:32 PM EDT up reply actions
This is why I was so irate after Shapiro’s last press conference on this and tried to get someone to do an Andy Marte/Incredible Hulk photoshop job. Why? Why is he not playing? Give me a reason and I’ll listen…but it just doesn’t make sense.
All I can come up with is either the party in the Tribe FO that was in the “Marte camp” has soured on him to the point that nobody’s pitching for this guy to get in the lineup or that person (the pro-Marte camp leader) is no longer in the organization…and could be in Pittsburgh.
It just looks like such a organizational disdain for all things Marte that it confounds, knowing what we all know about the 3B situation past this year.
by The DiaTriber on May 14, 2008 1:36 PM EDT up reply actions
i’m just depressed about this.
Sizemore-Shapiro 2008. The Official Red Bull of Let's Go Tribe Game Threads.
by Gradyforpresident on May 13, 2008 7:39 PM EDT reply actions
I’m going to do something that I never thought I would do – defend Casey Blake.
I agree definitely agree that playing Marte for the long-term makes sense. The defensible position that Wedge and/or Shapiro can make, however, is that Blake is getting it done for the short-term goals of winning the World Series in 2008 (from a purely offensive perspective).
I thought about this as “Doing the best you can in the opportunities given to you” type of thinking. I am going to post in more detail once I get a bit more comfortable with a stat I just made up, but I started by wondering about how Casey Blake could possibly be leading this team in RBI.
(1) Turns out he has the greatest opportunity – % of Plate Appearances with RSIP. Blake has had 32.5% of PA with a runner on 2nd or 3rd or both. The team as a whole, thru May 12, has had 26.4%. Top 5 are:
Blake [40 of 123 PA = 32%]
Carroll [22 of 70 PA = 31%]
Looch [31 of 103 PA = 30%]
Droobs [36 of 123 PA = 29%]
Hafner [43 of 149 PA = 29%]
(2) However, Blake has also been among the most EFFECTIVE in those opportunities. I am playing around with this idea of generating a positive Win Probability Added (WPA) per plate appearance (PA). Using the play by play from FanGraphs, I basically looked at the situations where Blake had RISP AND generated a WPA greater than or equal to zero – thru a hit, walk, whatever. My reasoning being that if he left the situation with as much or greater likelihood of winning than when he entered it, it was a decent PA. I made up a name of +WPA rate.
Turns out that Casey is doing quite well in this measure (compared to other Tribe players). Top 5 on the Indians, who are generating a +WPA rate of 0.435 as a team:
Sizemore: 0.615
Victor: 0.533
Casey Blake: 0.525
Droobs: 0.472
Dellucci: 0.419
Hafner: 0.419 (tie)
Again – I’m not sure what all this means, because I just did this today, just for the Indians, and I want to bounce the concept off people here to see if this stat already exists in some better (already calculated) form, and/or if people find it to be useful or legit conceptually.
But like it or not Casey is driving runs in, both because he has the opportunity and is taking advantage of those opportunities with good AB that increase the probability of the team winning. If you say that he’s going to regress or whatever over the season, you can believe that. But I don’t think the A’s are going to stop playing Emil Brown because of that – they want to win today. And I think Wedge/Shapiro feel the same way.
Blake breakdown on the 21 positive WPA events in those 40 PA:
3 BB
6 1B
8 2B —(impressive)
1 HR
2 Ground out
1 Sac Bunt
As a final point, the numbers for Marte are:
26 PA ; 7 PA with RISP (27%) ; +WPA rate of 0.143 (worst on the team) Small sample size noted.
Blake has seduced us with strong weeks before, better than this one, and it hasn’t changed his overall performance level. He had a tremendous opening two months in 2006, and a phenomenal two-week burst in 2007 — yet his OPS since the 2006 break is just 758, and since the 2007 break, it’s 688.
QED.
A strong week is one thing. He’s been the third most productive person on this 2008 Indians team (which has played 1/4 of the season). How far do we need to go into the season before he’s legitimately considered a positive addition to the offense.
I don’t care if he is using HGH, if he got LASIK, if he is lucky as hell. As long as he’s producing, I don’t buy the argument to sit him.
As an aside, Jay – I think this and most of your points are well-written and salient. I also agree with the need to balance long-term and short-term needs. But in a lot of ways, Casey Blake is carrying this offense right now. I feel like people on LGT tend to discount that because of the greener grass that’s sitting on the bench.
Well – that is why I made up this WPA rate. It bugs the hell out of me that Casey Blake is leading the team in RBI while his OPS is 82.
But when he has a chance, with RISP, to affect the game and drive in runs, he has been effective. At least, in my world, with my made up statistics, he has. And at some level, I think you ride the horse until it can’t go anymore.
Maybe that’s unfair to Marte & his development and getting him 100+ PA, but a win in May is worth as much as a win in September.
A manager’s job is not to be excited that Blake is 8th in the league in RBI and hope it continues. A manager (and GM’s) job is to assess the likelihood of success, and make decisions accordingly.
Just because a donkey sprints out to the lead after two lengths does not mean he’ll keep that lead in the end of the race. If you believe that, you’re betting on the wrong animal.
I don’t disagree, but we’re not exactly sure of the pedigree of Marte. I’m betting that Wedge and Shapiro are riding the donkey they know instead of the zebra they don’t know. That damn zebra could just be a donkey painted like a zebra.
And the thing that really is unfortunate in this situation is that if Blake is driving in runs and they want to leave him in, Marte has to sit because he’s out of options. Ideally, if the wheels fall off the Casey train (even though no one seems to believe the Casey train exists), then you’d love to have Marte getting his AB’s in Buffalo and bring him up.
The fact that he’s out of options is definitely making this a more sensitive and painful issue.
One point I think you CAN make is that part of the reason that Sizemore hasn’t had a lot of opportunities with RISP is because Casey has sucked when there aren’t RISP, then I buy that – and since Sizemore has been even more successful in those situations, that sucks.
And I just don’t think I have the energy to back Casey Blake because I don’t really believe most of what I’m typing.
Casey has a 1.237 OPS with RISP. He has an .889 OPS with men on base (59 PA) and a .450 OPS with the bases empty (64 PA). Over the course of the season those numbers will trend toward convergence. His overall OPS is .667 right now. His overall BABIP is .291.
steincat, I agree that Blake is hot right now in RISP situations and he has happened to be in alot of them thus far. I can buy an argument that you ride this out a little longer and milk it for what it is. But, the way he has been hitting with the bases empty, and since last year’s all-star break in general, has been terrible. I say we need to start moving Marte in the lineup little by little at this point, because Blake won’t keep it up.
1/4 of a season is a nice benchmark, but when you parse it down to only plate appearances with RISP (40 PA) you are talking about too small of a sample to formulate predictability. Take a look at this link. OPS doesn’t become meaningful until about 350 PAs. More likely than not, over course of the season, Blakes OPS with RISP will drop and the only reason to argue for Casey Blake will slowly disapear. I can understand riding it out another week or so, but Marte deserves the shot because overall Blake is not going to provide a marked difference offensively.
I begrudgingly have to agree that for a team that has been below 500 and struggling, Blake gives the team the best chance to win on any given day. Blake is 5th on the team in number of pitches seen and tied for second in extra-base hits. Wedge loves batters who make pitchers work.
I don’t remember what Marte’s plate discipline is like. (insert joke here) But I don’t remember him being better than Blake in that aspect.
All that being said, I still want to see more Marte, maybe as DH and as a defensive substitution late in games.
Thanks for stepping up to defend Blake, steincat.
While there’s good reason to want to see Marte get a chance and (with any luck) do well and be the long-term solution at third, more often than not this board just descends into irrational Blake-bashing.
The problem here is your use of the word “irrational”. Most of what you call “Blake bashing” is eminently rational. The Tribe’s treatment of Marte so far is what is irrational.
Free Andy Marte!
by woodsmeister on May 14, 2008 3:48 PM EDT up reply actions
but part of the point is that Marte AND Blake can play. You don’t have to sit Blake regularly to play Marte regularly. Especially when we’re getting sub-par production out of two corner outfield spots, 1B and DH.
The most salient point is this one: We now know what Casey Blake’s ceiling is. We have no idea what Andy Marte’s ceiling is. But give them both 500 PAs this season, and they’re likely to end up in similar statistical neighborhoods—Marte, at the very least, is not likely to be appreciably worse than Blake, because NO ONE is.
by tabler84 on May 13, 2008 7:44 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
I guess I don’t see that as the salient point for 2008. It’s important for beyond, yes. And if Marte adds value defensively that would offset Blake (which I think is true) then that’s another story.
But I’d rather win a World Series with Casey Blake than not make the playoffs finding out what Andy Marte’s ceiling is. We’re 1/4 of the way through the season and Casey Blake leads the team in driving in runs. I don’t see why you sit him at this point.
If you truly believe that we’re potentially a playoff team with Blake and not a playoff team with Marte, I don’t think it’s worth discussing the finer points.
And I’m wondering when one broadcaster - just one - will point out that while Blake is hitting the ball well with RISP, he was at the bottom of the league in that category for three years. Three freaking years. What, did he figure it out overnight? He sucks, but he magically knows how to not suck in “the clutch?”
If you’re willing to concede that Blake is an inferior defender, why aren’t you a proponent of Blake in one of his other positions, or - better still - in all of them except third base?
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 8:53 PM EDT up reply actions
I think that’s realistic solution, really. Following from hans comment above, I think that rotating in Blake and riding him out until he doesn’t produce in run-producing situations makes sense. I don’t really agree that you bench him right now in favor of Marte. If there’s a way to juggle and share the plate appearances, then all the better.
The thing that is bothering me is the personal bias that sometimes exists when we’re throwing stats around. If you want Marte to play because he has greater upside and Casey is going to regress – I agree that is what will happen. But then what do you say about Laffey vs. Cliff Lee. Cliff Lee has performed beyond his historical capabilities by far and away more than Blake, but there aren’t calls to hop off Lee and see what Laffey’s true upside/ceiling is.
The real issue here is that we can send Laffey down and put him on the hill every 5th day – we don’t have the option with Marte. So we’re screwed. But just like we all agree we should keep on riding the Sleepy Kitten, I’d rather ride Blake out – let him drive in runs from the 8 or 9 hole, until he’s gone. Whether that is at the expense of ABs for Marte, BenFran, or Gootz – I don’t really care. I just hesitate to bench Blake only because we’re jonesing (myself included) to see Marte excel or flop.
For the record – the Laffey v. Lee thing was an exaggeration in an attempt to point out that we often turn to an expectation of regression to the mean for people who are disliked, while hoping for non-mean performance for people that we’re cheering for.
I personally believe that Lee is pitching differently (in a good way) this year, and don’t expect him to regress to his personal projections/ trend for this year. No way in hell that he keeps a 0.67 ERA, but I also think he’ll be much better than league average from this point out.
Casey is not going to OPS 1.100 in RISP opportunities for the rest of the year, but until he starts evening that out with a 10-12 day stretch where he goes 0-fer, I say keep him in there.
The most salient point is this one: We now know what Casey Blake’s ceiling is. We have no idea what Andy Marte’s ceiling is. But give them both 500 PAs this season, and they’re likely to end up in similar statistical neighborhoods—Marte, at the very least, is not likely to be appreciably worse than Blake, because NO ONE is.
Unbelievably, its that simple, but it seems we make this same mistake across the board. The only arguments against playing young unknowns in place of old knowns are really service time (and the resulting contractual consequences) and the possibility of stunting a players growth, BUT in Marte’s case neither is relavent. Somewhat of a strange dynamic – instinct manager/numbers gm – then again maybe its not that strange
A potentially erroneous assumption here is that, had Marte placed a hit in the pressure AB last night, it would have resulted in more playing time. There’s no evidence to suggest that he would be anywhere but back on the bench tonight.
I don’t believe it’s any coincidence that Casey Blake’s “hot streak” coincides with him getting some time off. If you happen to be the type who subscribes to no other argument in Marte’s favor, at least admit that Casey, who turns 35 this August, now four years removed from his career season, is likely to benefit from regular rest.
Casey’s age is an important factor in one other respect. Here’s his before and after the break OPS from the last few years.
2004: .821 / .859
2005: .697 / .797
2006: .906 / .752
2007: .838 / .697
Yikes.
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 9:09 PM EDT reply actions
To finish the thought, there is every reason to expect Casey to decline significantly as the season progresses. That’s been his pattern for two years, which are the most relevant; 2005 was pretty much a disaster all the way around; and 2004, as I said, was not only quite some time ago, but was also his career season.
But the point is, what we’re seeing right now - RBI leader Casey Blake - may quite possibly be Casey’s last gasp as a productive major league hitter, and that’s only because his bat’s hot, and his bat is only hot as compared to the rest of a godamighty awful offense.
To me, this isn’t even about Andy Marte anymore, other than that he’s the best present alternative. It’s about Casey Blake. He’s bad. He’s bad, he’s bad, he’s bad.
He’s bad.
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 9:20 PM EDT up reply actions
i don’t care much for being put in the position of defending blake, number 1, but in his last two years of decline he’s managed to remain an above league average hitter (114, 101) at a skillz position. your point re splits and the most recent trend are well taken, but i don’t see ground for concluding with any finality that he’s a trash-heaper right now.
at his age, it’s not unreasonable to think that less time at 3B would speed his return to league average hitting. hopefully a lot less time. i’m just saying he may be bad right now, but used properly, not bad bad bad.
Obviously, or I guess not-so-obviously, I meant “productive everyday hitter.” I’ll buy that he has his uses. Starting third baseman isn’t one of them. I think we’re talking the same language here.
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 11:34 PM EDT up reply actions
This post was like popping a Viagra. Well done good sir. At Tabs suggested above, can this be presented to management, but signed simply “LGT”?
I’ve been wanting to say this for years now, and am just going to let it fly as the evidence builds: Wedge may be racist. There’s Bradley, there’s Phillips, Peralta, and Marte. Then, there’s Nixon, there’s Blake, there’s Hollandsworth, now Tyner, and no doubt several others I’ve forgotten who have gotten playing time way beyond what they deserved. Did anyone really doubt that Tyner would not see playing time on a Wedge team. Wedge sees a gritty guy who can get things done, probably because he looks to Wedge like he can contribute.
Eek. Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?
by supermarioelia on May 13, 2008 10:15 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think it has to do with race. Maybe it has to do with Wedge’s self-image as a player: He sees himself more in Jason Tyner than in Brandon Phillips. Their race has nothing to do with it. He’s comfortable with players who “play the game right.” I presume that would include Henry Aaron but not Joe Charboneau.
by odradek on May 13, 2008 10:38 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
I think this is a more accurate assessment. Although any Tribe fan that claims to have never had a thought of “gee Wedge does seem to play 30+ year old white guys a lot” is lying. Racist? Nah that’s going way too far…I see it more as a default internal construct of what kind of player he falls back on.
by supermarioelia on May 13, 2008 11:23 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Rafael Perez? Asdrubal Cabrera? Fausto Carmona? Ben Francisco? Hell: Coco Crisp? Arthur Rhodes? I’m pretty terrible at constitutional law, but I don’t see the building evidence you allude to.
Bradley was openly defiant, and Phillips was an outlier, in this as in just about everything else.
I don’t doubt that there’s some kind of pattern among Wedge’s favorites. I’m not convinced race is it.
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 11:46 PM EDT up reply actions
Crisp I think is a better example of organizational bias against players who exceed their expectations. As I remember, Crisp had to win the starting job about 8 different times even though he had out-performed all comers.
I know I’ve said this before, but Wedge is kind of crazy. On his STO one-on-one interview he said he LITERALLY got into fights with guys in single-a because they “didn’t play the game ‘right’” and were “just there to have fun.” Something, to him, is lacking in Marte and since he can’t kick his *ss, he has to settle for never playing him.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and I don’t think there’s anything there — or at most, something very close to nothing. I think, considering we’re talking about Marte and Blake, it can’t be denied that over a dozen Latino players have developed and flourished under Wedge, including Carmona, Perez, Peralta, Betancourt, Cabrera, Martinez and Gutierrez.
Wedge seems to have about as much of a man-crush on Ben Francisco as he does on anyone, and Francisco is about as white as James Brown. He didn’t have much use for Joe Inglett, or ultimately for Jason Michaels. Sabathia blossomed under Wedge and has gotten plenty of protection. Wedge also allowed Gutierrez to supplant Nixon, despite Nixon’s several Blake-like qualities and Gutierrez’s less-than-impressive offensive numbers.
If you really look at the question, there’s nothing there.
Also, in defense of Wedge’s personal skills: It appears, without the benefit of having been in the locker room, that the Indians don’t fall into the sort of cliques that a lot of teams do: the Latin players in one corner, the (few) African Americans in another, the white guys in a third. Nor do the Indians seem to be a 25-cab team.
I think that’s great, but it’s at least as much of a function of Shapiro’s deliberate assembly of certain personalities.
And anyway, not to be crass, but do I really give a crap when we can’t score three runs a game?
Blake is 1-14 career against Blanton. A Marte start tomorrow HAS to be a done deal. Right? Right?
I’ve been thinkin about this for a while, and apart from the general dislike for Marte that Wedge seems to enjoy, I wonder how much of the Marte-benching is actually attempted pandering to the public. Certainly not to LGT, but to the thousands of mindless fans who really do hate Marte with a fiery intensity. It was amazing down in Winter Haven how everyone in the stands seemed to have a scorching venom anytime Marte would come to the plate or make a play in the field. I was at the game when he hit two homers, and no one seemed to be impressed in the least.
I wasn’t going to bring this up, because it really does seem crazy for such a smart organization to do, but I’m starting to get a little concerned. Going into Marte’s start against the Jays yesterday:
Marte had started 3 of the Tribe’s 15 road games. Not great but not a terrible injustice.
Marte had started just 2 of the Tribe’s 22 home games. What the hell.
Whether it’s pandering to the public, or protecting him from that pressure, I don’t know, but that’s quite the discrepancy.
by supermarioelia on May 13, 2008 10:11 PM EDT reply actions
The casual fan’s take on Marte is pretty perplexing. I think it dates back to shipping out Coco and the attendant ill-will. Which is dumb.
by fleerdon on May 13, 2008 11:53 PM EDT up reply actions
I think that’s it. If Andy Marte had a cuter name, he’d be better off. It sounds like I’m disagreeing with you, but I’m not. Andy’s propensity for big swings and misses surely doesn’t help with the casual fans.
I really think it’s the fact that at the time of the trade, Marte had a career big-league average of .140. The average fan is not one ounce more sophisticated than that—never mind age, readiness, sample size or anything else. None of those fans were saying, “Yeah, but he’s only 21, and did you see that walk rate?”
After reading through all these posts, I’m getting dizzy. I don’t think this issue is the key to the Indians fate this year. I agree with Jay: they should play Marte in some kind of consistent way to see if he can play. They’re going to need to know before this year is out. Whether or not they play Marte (or Blake) will have only a limited effect on the team THIS year. Blake is Blake. We don’t know what Marte will give us. Neither one of them is going to sink ( or make) the offense for the 2008 Indians. Which is one more reason they should play Marte (and, if Blake is better than Garko or someone else, play him at other positions).
That may be true, but we don’t limit ourselves to discussions that significantly effect this year’s success. (Check out our recent discussion of Ron Rivas!) And why should we? It’s our board.
by dgcambridge on May 14, 2008 11:07 AM EDT up reply actions
The way I heard Shapiro’s press conference, it sounded like he was suggesting it was somehow up to Andy. But I thought that was Shapiro being evasively mealy-mouthed.
That was the point I was trying to make. It has to be Wedge that we’re waiting for, to give him an opportunity, because who or what else could it be? I mean, it could be an injury, but I don’t think that’s what Shapiro meant.
At this point we’re waiting for Godot.
Shapiro needs to drop the passive aggression and go to full-on, open aggression. I thought Wedge/Shapiro would have learned their lesson from the Phillips thing. Mark, you are in charge, we need to see if Marte can do anything – he has to play 4 or 5 times a week. What’s the big deal? There’s no opportunity cost to finding out! Wedge can still get his Blake on with one of his other positions where – bonus – he’s better defensively.
I used to think Blake had incriminating pictures of Wedge. Now I’m beginning to think Blake has incriminating pictures of Wedge AND Shapiro . . . possibly together . . . and maybe with a goat.
Well, I was just pointing out the Brick-like typing in an otherwise well-written opinion. My wife goes crazy when I have a chunk of lettuce stuck in my teeth. That’s how I feel now.
by dgcambridge on May 14, 2008 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions
You boyz have no patience. Marte’ll get his chance, after all it’s only the second week of May Somebody’ll get hurt or otherwise make themselves unavailable – suspension etc.
And like I said, he looks like a playa to me. Let’s see if he can play like a playa
"the most vehement Yankee-hating guy I know" - Jay
I just came back to this post and on second reading, I cannot believe how asinine it is. The premise of the post is that only a moron (dumb person) would play Blake instead of Marte (this is in fact the title reworded). Then, since Shapiro is not a moron, ergo, he is being pushed around by Wedge (who must be the moron), or that Shapiro is a moron for letting this happen.
Now, like most, I have called Wedge a moron from time to time, but I have never made a post or diary with the title “Wedge is a moron”. Nor has it been the main post on the blog.
Finally, why is Wedge a moron? Because he won’t play a guy with a 53 OPS+ over a half season in the majors? A guy who had .322 and .309 OBP in AAA the last 2 years?
Sheesh.
Do you realize how long a list you can make if you decided to only judge a player’s MLB stats in their entry years—a list of players who sucked based on small sample and age?
Marte has had 300 MLB at bats. His OPS is .593.
In ARod’s first 200 MLB at bats, over two seasons of part-time play, his OPS was.603.
Is Marte going to be ARod? Almost certainly not. Are you going to get drunk on his miniscule and interrupted sample—and then make inebriated decisions about his talent and potential? You clearly are.
I think your misrepresenting Dave’s point. Dave is also very concerned about Marte’s last two season in AAA. Those aren’t small sample sizes.
Look, I’m concerned about the walk rate declining. I don’t think Marte is bound to an All-Star. I just don’t comprehend anyone arguing against the idea that 1) We know Blake’s ceiling, 2) We know Blake’s likely performance, which sucks, 3) We don’t know Marte’s ceiling, and 4) Marte’s likely sucky performance over a full season is likely similar to Blake’s sucky performance. And with those factors, you choose to play the guy who is old, declining, and a weaker defender?
The point wasn’t to support Blake or Marte, it was just that I didn’t appreciate you selectively picking out parts of a post in order to make a guy look silly. For the record, I have been a Marte proponent for a quite a while and still am.
I’m not selecting parts and ignoring others. I selected the most egregiously silly part of the post because I was bored with the rest; it’s been discussed. Marte has struggled for two years running triple-A, and yet his struggles still project him to be good enough to equal Casey Blake’s likely production, which is to say, again, not much.
If you think it makes a poster sound sharp when they rip a kid for his OPS+ in his first half season, then you and I are bound to disagree. I mean, does anyone expect rooks to come up and not struggle? Should the standard be that they must produce immediately or they’re stripped of a chance?
And the poster also ripped Marte for his OBP—I responded by ripping Marte’s OPS as a whole. But as long as we’re isolating OBP, I’ll say this: I like the fact that Casey sees a lot of pitches. It doesn’t result in an overly impressive walk rate. Marte has shown an ability to control the strike zone at a young age, and that’s a good reason to believe that he can eventually be a solid OBP guy.
My point is that there are obvious reasons not to play Marte. As Jay points out there are obvious reasons to play Marte. It is not a slam dunk in either direction.
Yes it is. Saying that there are reasons that Marte sucks and reasons that Blakes sucks does not even things out. That should be obvious based on Jay’s post.
Your obvious reasons appear to be two: the first, the notorious strawman argument. No one, especially Jay, said the either Wedge or Shapiro are morons. They aren’t. On the contrary, they characteristically display good sense in the these matters, save the occasional hiccup.
And the second, using a small sample size over irregular playing time for a young player, 53 OPS+, to say that Marte is undeserving. When pray tell, shall he be deserving? He certainly isn’t going to raise is OPS+ sitting on the bench. And we traded for him because we were impressed with a track record to that point that elite prospects display. It’s really time to give Marte a chance.
I think we should subscribe to the weight of those reasons, rather than just counting them. All reasons are not created equal.
I’m looking for these obvious reasons. They may be obvious to Shapiro or Wedge, but they aren’t obvious to us, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Blake is worth his money, and if he doesn’t get it from us next year, he’ll get it from someone else. He creates an extra roster spot for any team to bring in another specialist, like a power hitting pinch-hit, DH type, someone who can hit but do nothing else. That’s valuable.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 9:57 PM EDT up reply actions
the third, and most compelling argument against Marte, is his two mediocre seasons at AAA (.773 OPS in 06 and .766 in 07). This is the most recent and significant sample that we can draw conclusions from.
I totally agree that Marte should be playing more, but I think it is unfair to say there are not objective reasons to doubt his ability to outhit Blake. He has been trending down over the last several years against competition worse than Blake’s. Blake has been trending down too, but let’s be real, he has outperformed Marte (.835 OPS in 06 and .776 in 07) in Cleveland vs. Marte in Buffalo. Why is it so incredible for Wedge to think that Blake would significantly outperform Marte in 08 at the major league level????
If Blake was performing even adequately as a full time third baseman, we’d all be doodling about something else. But his OPS isn’t .835 or .776, it’s .656, with mediocre defense, and in the last year of his contract. Yeah, if Marte gives us equivalent production, I’d take it with the better defense, even straight up. But he’ll likely hit for more power, and take more walks. As is being harped on, it’s the relative circumstances that merit our attention here. It’s time to find out what we have with Marte. That last two years are not the only statistics we have to work with here…if they were, he would’ve been waived and not put on the roster. I’m not sure he’s even the long term answer at 3rd, nor is anyone here. That’s never been the point. If not now, when? Finding out now does seem like the wiser course of action, especially given the make-up of our third base situation. If he sucks wind, we can put Blake back in there after two-three months, then we cut bait and have a clear idea of what we need to do. And compared to current performance, we probably come out even, or even above where we are at now.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 15, 2008 9:32 AM EDT up reply actions
I agree with you. But, the point I’m making is that htis is a unsurprising, usual Wedge move. He thought that Blake would do better coming into 2008 and he will not allow 35 games to change his mind. He is not concerned with Marte’s longterm development, and frankly, I’m glad he isn’t concerned with this. His decision HAS to be based on one thing: who will perform better right now. We are not building for next year and the manager cannot have that mind set.
Now, every game that goes by and Blake doesn’t play better, the more clear it is that he needs to be replaced in the lineup. Do I think Marte gives us the best chance to win this year? I happen to say yes, but its very close. And I don’t think relative ceiling based on career minor league production is particularly useful in this decision.
by Ryan Kelsey on May 15, 2008 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions
We know Wedge likes veterans, and he is loyal. But Jay’s point in the saying “manger’s pet” is that it appears Marte’s situation is being handled differently. Just look at last year and this year. We brought up all sorts of guys…Gutz taking over for shrinking Nixon, dumping J-Mike, Garko given a chance at first, not to mention the Perez, Lewis, Masney etc in the pen. Jamey Carroll gets all sorts of at bats because he’s a just a solid defensive upgrade. Marte is even a defensive upgrade and can’t get in. How much less performance must be tolerated from 3rd before Marte gets in? The guy has to be thinking that the bar is set pretty darn low for him to get a chance, when he sees others with less upside potential getting more opportunity. Your last point about career minor league production couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s what gives Marte his relative value that he has a something of a track record and recognizable skill set. It’s a measuring stick to get guys in the majors. It has to do with a lot. If we didn’t recognize any upside, there would be no reason to even have him on the roster.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 15, 2008 10:44 AM EDT up reply actions
His career minor league production is why Shapiro has him on the roster. It is why there is some relative value in the long term. LIke I said elsewhere in this thread, the decision we are talking about is different- it is Wedge’s decision to play one or the other at third. For that decision, the only relevant calculus is who is going to perform better on that given day or over that week or that season- it doesn’t get more big picture than that for Wedge and it shouldn’t.
Now, again, I would agree that Wedge should look at this situation and because of Casey’s decline, Marte’s upgrade defensively, etc. decide to play Marte more.
by Ryan Kelsey on May 15, 2008 12:30 PM EDT up reply actions
I think we kind of agree. I would just say that any decision to play a guy is based on predicting the future. No one knows how a player will perform on any given day. We can only use the previous performance, history, current circumstances, etc, etc. Given what we know in the current circumstances, it seems that a move to Marte may be a better choice. I’m not even saying it will work out in the long term. It may not. We can only try to make the best choices available. I like playing Marte, even if he makes some mental errors. Like today, Marte hesitated a bit on a double play ball. I want him to get that experience now in that situation. Even him getting picked off will teach him something. BTW, he looked good fighting off that pitch into a bloop hit. Fine pitch, good hitting.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 15, 2008 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Like I said above, I e-mailed this to Terry Pluto last night. Just heard back from him.
He gave me his thoughts. He disagrees with Jay. I’m not going to post them here without permission, but I think most of his points have been brought up by others at one time or another.
I asked him if I could forward his reply to Jay at least. Waiting to hear back.
Operation: Mountains of Change has apparently stalled.
Steel Nick
by nickjs21 on May 14, 2008 7:04 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
It should be considered required reading for writers who are serious about analysis.
I hope he’s generous enough to share his reply with Jay and the rest of us, though I don’t think it’s out of bounds for you to share it. I respond to viewer complaints all the time, and I expect that my remarks will be shared with that viewers’ friends and / or colleagues. But it’s thoughtful of you to seek permission.
Got an update.
He would rather I didn’t forward his response to Jay (or, I assume, post anything), just for the sake of avoiding a “he said, he said” back and forth.
But all in all he was very nice about it and he did lay out all of his issues in a pretty clear and logical matter.
Steel Nick
Huh? He’s an opinion columnist communicating with the public. It’s not a he said / he said situation if we simply publish his email in full. No editing.
Other Issues in the Post
These things haven’t been commented-on yet, but I think Jay’s point about Wedge not really publicly calling-out anyone besides Peralta a few years ago is interesting. I don’t have any firm thoughts on it now. (Was it a mistake to have done that to Peralta? Or was it right and he should be doing it to more guys now?) But it’s a great point.
Also, I think I’m a little more skeptical about Shapiro and Co.’s analytical brilliance. They certainly don’t make decisions on stats alone. But their “intangible” is “upside,” rather than “grit” or whatever else. That’s why people like Kouzmanoff (and, going back further, Giles, though that’s pre-Shapiro as GM) seem to have very low stock with this organization. Guys like Marte with less impressive numbers, but who are younger and have that intangible “upside” really appeal to the Indians. Obviously, it worked brilliantly with someone like Grady, but not in other situations. (Of course, Shapiro wanted Wilkerson at first.)
Finally - and this is a legitimate question - does anyone else wonder why several highly touted young hitters - like Phillips, Marte, and Barflied - have all floundered with the Indians, either proceeding or preceding success elsewhere? Is this just a fluke? Part of a larger pattern of a lot of our hitters of all ages (Hafner, Peralta, etc.) under-performing? Something to worry about? No big deal?
People seem to hate Peralta for some reason (because he’s like the only guy Wedge has ever called out publicly?). He is disproportionately named the “problem” on radio talk shows and such. I’ve always liked the guy.
Peralta suffers a bit from “not being Omar.” You can see that in how excited people get, justifiably in some degree, from Cabrera’s play at short. Peralta is pretty solid, but Cabrera has the kind of facility and spectacular flair that Omar brought to the table. If Peralta were a consistent slugger or on-base machine, he’d be less criticized. Instead, he’s been a good, but not great, hitter whose on-base numbers aren’t very good. I don’t think he’s “the problem.” The fact that the team is hitting poorly, leading them to bat him fifth (or second!!) puts him under a microscope and into a situation where his on-base issues are magnified. It’s made him a symbol of the team’s problems advancing runners, their propensity to strike out, etc., although the problem is the team’s, not his alone.
by peter m on May 14, 2008 10:13 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
you’ve posted this before, right? and it was true then and true now. so, yeah, props.
Sizemore-Shapiro 2008. The Official Red Bull of Let's Go Tribe Game Threads.
by Gradyforpresident on May 14, 2008 1:24 PM EDT up reply actions
i wasn’t trying to be snarky. i was actually giving you props.
Sizemore-Shapiro 2008. The Official Red Bull of Let's Go Tribe Game Threads.
by Gradyforpresident on May 14, 2008 1:49 PM EDT up reply actions
here’s something i can’t seem to get my head around.
1. the indians seem committed to keeping marte because they know they need him in the future – otherwise why handicap to the rest of the league that roster spot.
2. they don’t seem to want to use him this year.
would they really have him on the roster all year and not use him, just to jettison him in the off season? i doubt it – might as well get rid of him now. but then why won’t they use him in the meantime?
is this just a matter of a young guy being blocked by a veteran in his final year with the team – the only difference being that he is out of options and can’t wait his turn in the minors – where “it’s your job next year andy, just got to ride it out this year. just be patient” ?
one way to see this is that point #1 is shapiro’s decision and #2 is wedge’s decision, illustrating their disagreement and resulting in conflict. the question may be, does shapiro’s stated trust in wedge begin to deteriorate from this disagreement or does shapiro see this as merely a minor annoyance.
I think this point has been missed a lot, and may be the answer. Wedge and Shapiro are not the same person, they have differing views, and they have different jobs. I think Shap said this recently regarding Marte, but it could be from a different situation: basically, who plays on the 25 man roster when is Wedge’s decision, not Shapiro’s.
of course. And Jay seemed to be asking the question, how much does Shapiro have to do with this decision. Besides the quote that Jay used, I think he did say something in the past couple weeks about Wedge controlling who plays and when. Now, this is the general job discription of a manager, so this isn’t a surprise, but I think it does say something as to how we talk about Wedge and Shapiro together so much.
Yes, Jay said a lot of this at the end of his post, but it gets lost in the merits of why playing Marte is a good idea. I think the connection between Wedge and Shapiro is overplayed and it shoudln’t be so shocking that while Shapiro wants to have a still promising, unproven, high ceiling player as a long term solution at a position of need ont he 25 man roster, Wedge doesn’t want to play a young player in a 3 year slump in trying to win every game possible in a competitive division race.
But Wedge should be able to see that what he’s getting out of the plucky veteran is the worst possible production.
That’s how I see it really.
Initially, I was thinking Blake’s ability to play at multiple positions allows Wedge a lot of flexibility. Right now, the Tribe is very fortunate that no one has been injured (knock on cyber-wood). If someone does get hurt, then Blake is a pawn that you can move around the diamond to fill in the gaps. Seems that they want to keep Blake engaged (getting ABs) as an insurance against injury.
The problem with this theory is that Blake hasn’t been productive outside of RISP situations, and I don’t get the BenFran thing in this context. Really, Blake should be shifting out to LF/RF and Marte getting some ABs once Michaels is let go if they thought Marte was better hitter than BenFran.
My default thought, then, tends to be in line with Brick – that they don’t want to give up Marte for peanuts (and possibly run into a BP situation all over again), so they’re stashing him as almost a duplicate of Jamey Carroll on the bench until either injury or 2009 happens.
i thought cyber-wood was something else.
another thing that i keep trying to see is that maybe wedge is just playing match-ups. and since blake and marte are same handed, he doesn’t have any compelling reasons to put marte in. now, if he is 1-14 against blanton, then that has to be one of those match-ups… i guess we’ll see tonight on that one.
I honestly don’t – but I would rather ride out whatever Blake is doing now until he shows signs of regressing into suckiness, from a run-creating standpoint.
On the same THT site that Jay links to, Blake ranks 5th in the AL for third basemen with 20 Runs Created. When you can have your #8/9 hitter ranking 5th in the AL for creating runs, I think that warrants consideration and you have to ride that out.
His three-year average (‘05-’07) OPS with RISP is .611 – so I can hardly say he’s clutch. But his 2008 OPS with RISP is 1.237. Why not keep that in the #8 or #9 hole?
You contradict yourself in a matter of mere sentences. You say that
1) Blake is not a good “clutch” hitter, but then you say
2) His 2008 OPS with RISP is high, so keep him in there.
Well, which is it? If his career record indicates that he doesn’t have any kind of special ability to over-perform with RISP - and, in fact, indicate that he might be a rare player who can not perform to his normal capabilities in “clutch” spots - then why are you trusting 6 weeks and a much, much smaller sample? How would you be “keeping” his high OPS in the lineup if you acknowledge it’s a fluke?
I guess I don’t see it as a contradiction.
I have said throughout that it’s a fluke and let’s ride that damned fluke until it evens itself out. Hopefully they notice the downward trend early on and act quickly.
No way in hell do the Cardinals win the World Series in 2006 or do the Rockies make the playoffs last year or do the Mets miss the playoffs last year except that their “good play” or “bad play” – flukey as hell – comes at the exact right time.
I don’t think it’s contradictory to say that Blake is traditionally NOT clutch but that he’s particularly clutch in the first 40 games this season.
Understood.
But I also think hot streaks and cold streaks are a part of the game. While he’s hot, I say keep him in there.
And what constitutes an “evening out” kind of cold streak? Are you not going to satisfied until his RISP OPS is back down to the 600s? Cause it will take a long, cold streak to get there. All part of riding it out, you know.
I don’t think there is any reason to ride out the bad. I said above:
Casey is not going to OPS 1.100 in RISP opportunities for the rest of the year, but until he starts evening that out with a 10-12 day stretch where he goes 0-fer, I say keep him in there.
Same way picking stocks works – you ride it up and sell at the peak. For Casey, selling at the peak equates to giving his PAs to other players, hopefully to Marte. But let’s wait until Blake peaks, because otherwise we’re missing out on potential gain down the line.
I'm an anxious as anyone to see what the kid can do, once the opportunity makes sense.I don’t expect it to go any higher, it’s just that I’m not ready to say the slope on the downside is going to be a Wily Coyote cliff. I’m hopeful of a more gradual decline back to normalcy. If it happens to be more gradual, then there’s still value over the next few weeks as he’s hitting RISP OPS of .900 and .800.
If it turns out that the bottom falls out rather quickly, then start handing out his ABs like Halloween candy.
It boils down to chance – Blake is playing “well” (though I strongly disagree with that) – far, far above his career norm, based on a hot streak of chance. So what’s to keep him from going 0-fer his next 20? Or maybe 4-20, something much closer to his career norms?
My only reply is “when do the dice mean something”?
By that, I mean that the whole argument of projections, statistics, regression, etc. is that these are measurement tools that we observe and analyze to help us get some understanding of player value and what we predict future performance will be based on past history.
Baseball isn’t like throwing dice – assuming a fair die, you get the same chance every time. If I go up and bat in the major leagues, I get out 10 out of 10 times. There is skill involved (no matter how little Casey Blake might have), and that makes it different from dice I think.
Where do you draw the line to say "You know what, our #9 hitter is second on the team with 21 runs created. Maybe he's adding value to the team"?
I think this is really much ado about nothing.
Marte will be here for the entire year, he should get about 100 or so PA if everything stays the same. If someone gets hurt (a very real likelyhood) that number will jump up accordingly as Blake can be slid over to fill the hole.
Some young guys have had to be exceptional in limited AB’s to make the team (Garko/Francisco)and some guys just have to get the right breaks (FrankyG) to get some PT. Marte is probably going to be the latter … because he sure as hell isn’t the former.
by Toxicadam on May 14, 2008 12:12 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
I’ll anticipate Jay’s objection and ask when Francisco was exceptional (except in Spring Training) so as to earn AB’s? He seems to me to be a guy who’s benefitted from the team’s need to do something, not from forcing his way on to the team (and I actually like the guy). Frankie G. you’re right about - Nixon’s generally awfulness made a place for him. If I recall, Garko is similar - he almost didn’t make the team in Spring 07, then became a regular when Blake wound up playing third (I’m no longer sure about this one, but I think that’s right). Cabrera benefitted from Barfield’s failures. In fact, as I type this, I’m thinking the team seems to have a pretty clear pattern - kids don’t play regularly unless the guy in front of them fails. The difference here is that in all of those other cases, they were able to let the young guy get regular PT in the minors and avoided having them rot on the bench. They’re stuck with a different situation with Marte and haven’t adjusted to it - they’d probably rather he could go to AAA (rightly or wrongly), but since he can’t, what they’re doing makes little sense.
Except, you know, he wasn’t.
I’ll granted the .803 OPS in ‘07 looks good. But how about striking out in 30% of his plate appearances? Or only walking 3 times in 65 plate appearances? Or his yikes-that-is-really-terrible post All-Star break OPS of .487 (in more at bats than his pre-all star stats).
Or how about the fact that he had 65 at bats, with a .350 BABIP and had a HR/FB % of 20%! 20%!!!! Very good? No. Good? Not really. Above average – I suppose?
And his first callup in ‘08 was for all of – get this – 6 plate appearances.
NOUN BEN FRANCISCO.
Sizemore-Shapiro 2008. The Official Red Bull of Let's Go Tribe Game Threads.
by Gradyforpresident on May 14, 2008 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions
Look, you can pluck out stats for any young player and make them look bad. Hell, you can do it for almost any player period. The things is, Ben did some great things in the limited amount of time he was with the club. Marte has Z.E.R.O.
You can’t complain about sample size when we are in a discussion about Andy Marte. All of it is too small.
Much ado about nothing.
If small sample size is your concern, then there is no case for Francisco. The case for Francisco is all about small sample sizes, that and a minor league “batting” title at age 25.
As for Marte, four full seasons 2002-2005 are not a small sample size.
I still don’t get it.
There is no real stats argument for Ben at any sample size. He ought to be decent and is unlikely to be any better than that, based on his Triple-A numbers form 2007. He was phenomenal for a week when he was called up in 2007, but since that hot week, he’s got a 588 OPS in 22 games.
The total for 2007 was 803 OPS, and it’s 780 for 2007-2008. Neither is above average for a corner outfielder, and nobody really thinks he has a high ceiling.
ehhh .. I’m getting into one of “these” conversations again.
There are obviously people here that are very passionate about Andy Marte and his play time. I’m really not one of them. I figure as long as he stays on the team his play time will happen. Hopefully he is judged accordingly by it.
What does that have to do with the fact that you made a baldly inaccurate assertion and you’re having trouble saying so?
The intent of my first post wasn’t to be the Ben Francisco Defense Force or the Anti-Marte Swat Team. It was just to point out that the current players receiving play time have exhibited SOME success at the major league level (either in limited playtime or spring training). Marte has done nothing. As long as Marte remains on the team, he will get his playtime. It will come. It just seems to early in the season to kvetch about it.
If this continues through the summer, then ya, it’s pretty crappy. But in the big picture Andy Marte’s PT is the least of this clubs concerns.
by Toxicadam on May 14, 2008 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Our offense is so problematic that we need to find whatever edge we can find—not only for 2008 but beyond.
Btw, at what point during the summer would you say it’s an appropriate time to kvetch about Marte’s continued lack of play?
Probably mid-July.
Do you really believe Marte can provide this offense “an edge” by getting more AB’s?
Not enough to drastically affect our wins and losses, no. But we’re shaping up to be a team that struggles to score at all, so if I were managing the team I’d think real hard about 1) potentially improving the offense, even in a small way, and 2) finding out if the club has any kind of long-term solution at 3B.
The entire second half of the agrument is that even if he truly sucks, nothing will change, and we can (mostly) close the book on Marte. If we leave Blake in, we get the same level of production, and we still have no idea what Marte can do, and whatever that was may even be diminished by the lack of regular playing time. So the potential outcomes are this:
1. Identical offensive production with Blake over Marte. We know nothing about Marte, have screwed ourselves for 2009, and maybe even made Marte worse that the unknown quantity he was.
2. Better offensive production from Marte and a plan for the future.
Really, it is a slam-dunk.
This is really a driving point for me. I certainly don’t root for it, but at this point I’d rather know that Marte is a wasted investment than keep him on the bench. I would rather see him fail with playing time than not know.
Of course, I’d rather see him flourish more than anything. But you get the point. We have to know by the end of the season.
Steel Nick
What are you talking about? You made an assertion in a previous post (“Francisco was very good in his time here in 07”) that was baldly, wildly wrong. Then GFP refuted it, and you decide that he’s just plucking out stats to suit his point of view? You were wrong, that’s all.
I said Francisco was “exceptional”. He did things that made people take notice.
Then GFP sums up his point by saying he was “above-average”. So which was it … was he horrible in 07 or above average?
Um, dude, I directly quoted you.
What you said was wrong.
GFP did not say he was above average, he indicated he wasn’t even sure how to categorize Francisco’s performance, which is probably why he ended it with a ?. I mean, we were all thrilled with BenFran’s early contributions, and that probably swayed a lot of us to assume he was productive thereafter.
i totally missed the rest of this.
Sizemore-Shapiro 2008. The Official Red Bull of Let's Go Tribe Game Threads.
by Gradyforpresident on May 15, 2008 7:37 PM EDT up reply actions
This really seems to have rallied the troops…
...a related issue that angers me: Why are we playing with a 21 or 22-man roster? I understand the idea that you want to give more time to your better players, but there are reasons and situations for having those other 3 or 4 guys on the team.
I’m looking at you Eric Wedge.
well, what are you going to do with your bullpen when your starters all go 7-9 innings and games are tight – every game?
“Well, i know Cliff put up zeros for 9 innings and it’s a tie game – haven’t used julio in a while – time to get him some work. got to use the whole roster, ya know. It’s not even a save situation, anyway…”
like I said…there are reasons and situations. A 0-0 game in the 9th is obviously not the situation or the reason.
That’s not nearly a good enough argument for choosing to shrink your roster. Sure, we haven’t required the full slate of bullpen guys of late, but Wedge is giving up roster spots by choice.
i don’t know that he is. aside from blowouts, you go with your best releivers. he’s needed them so narrowly lately that he’s been using perez for one out on a regular basis. stomp goes plenty of games in a row without pitching. if we hardly need masa, there’s no excuse to bring in breslow. they even recognized this and said – well, might as well bring up another bench player (tyner).
i think marte is the only egregious use of a roster spot. you know how many teams would KILL to let the bottom end of their bullpen languish from not needing to use them ever.
Absolutely. But I’m just pointing to the time a week or two ago when the starting pitching was great but not essentially going the distance every freaking night. We hadn’t seen Bres, Mastny, or Julio in ages.
I don’t have a lot of leverage in this argument otherwise, granted. But I could go back to a handful of games in which we could have used one of the forgotten arms from the pen. It’s not a major issue, and of course is a good problem to have.
What – Jason Tyner on this roster isn’t a waste of space?
Free Andy Marte!
by woodsmeister on May 14, 2008 3:59 PM EDT up reply actions
“Why not try Marte?” The answer must be that the Tribe decision group, whomever that is, has made up it’s collective mind that Marte isn’t ready. They seem to be waiting for a good moment to slip him through waivers and send him to Buffalo, where he’ll get to play every day. If it were possible to have started the year with him there then we would have been spared this charade. He isn’t getting playing time in the interim because, are you ready for this? (it’s all I can come up with), he might succeed just a little too much to make it possible to get him through waivers when the inevitable time comes. They want to keep him in the organization, and to get him to Buffalo they need to persuade the world he should be in AAA. Thus, he sits.
I am envisioning a co-ordinated car-bombing of 29 major league front offices at 2 AM on a Sunday morning.
“Jesus! While we were cleaning up the broken glass, Andy Marte got through waivers.”
by odradek on May 14, 2008 10:01 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
“We don’t know the man personally, we don’t have access to the depth and detail of statistical information on Hafner (and everybody else) and analysts to look for warning signs. We don’t have a whole organization of scouts, coaches and special assistants (mostly former players) reporting their own observations.
I was (and still am) at peace with the decision at that time because I knew that unlike you and me, the Indians had all of that stuff. And with those people advising me, and knowing that the scouting and statistical data we had on the guy was unbelievably comprehensive going back through his whole career, before we ever even acquired him “
I’m curious as to why this argument doesn’t apply to the Marte situation?
Very good question.
One key difference is that we don’t have clear accountability on this. Our best understanding is that Shapiro, Antonetti, Wedge and others all work closely as a team, but that Shapiro ultimately allows Wedge to make the call on how the players currently on the active roster are deployed.
This in itself is different from the Hafner contract, which I can guarantee was not left ultimately up to any subordinate, regardless of how capable and trusted that subordinate would be. Our best understanding of that aspect of decision-making is that no deal like that would ever happen without Antonetti closely managing the details, Shapiro agreeing both to pursue the negotiation and strongly recommending the final decision, and of course ownership signing off.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that no $57 million decision ever gets made without a strong consensus among Shapiro, Antonetti and ownership. It’s too big, and too risky. But I don’t understand that to be the case with short-term playing time decisions, and short-term playing decisions over many months have long-term strategic impacts. Squandering Marte may not be a $57 million decision, but it could very easily be a $20 million decision.
This also goes to a pattern of Wedge being allowed to subvert the club’s strategic interests, for reasons that don’t seem life-or-death for his ability to manage a clubhouse. I never for a moment questioned Wedge’s insistence at immediately purging Milton Bradley, and I even supported dumping Brandon Phillips — wrote a fun little piece about it at the time, still a great read, and almost entirely wrong. What we didn’t know about BP at the time was that there were still significant voices in the organization saying that he wasn’t washed up, that he could still be a valuable major leaguer — and we had no long-term plan at 2B at that point, just as we have no long-term plan at 3B now.
I believe the front office still considers Marte to be a potentially valuable asset. I believe that because he’s still on the team — if he’s not potentially valuable, he should’ve already been gone. That suggests to me that we have a manager/front-office disconnect on this. As I elaborated when I revised the article, we’ve got problems at five different positions, and Marte still doesn’t get playing time. If that was what the front office intended — that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should Marte ever become a semi-regular, then he wouldn’t have been on the roster.
On some issues, the club’s management team has earned a great deal of credibility, and they get it, at least from me. But on this kind of issue, I don’t see much reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Very well put, but I am not sold on the fact that the front office still believes in Marte, everything about the situation seems to suggest to me that they are confused and undecided. I just can’t buy the fact that if they strongly believed in him, they would allow for him to rot on the bench. But as you point out, if they didn’t believe in him at all, he wouldn’t have made the team.
Right on Jay!
You are SO right. When Wedge pinch hit Travis Hafner for Marte the other day, I was upset, but I told myself, well, it is at least the ghost of Travis Hafner, the one time best hitter in the AL, keepin’ hope alive. I didn’t agree very much, but I found a pinprick of rationality. But when Blake pinch hit for Marte, that sent me through the roof. I think Wedge simply doesn’t like Marte, for whatever reason, and Cleveland announcers if you’ve heard got their hate on for Andy too. Why not stick Blake in left and let Marte play third instead of bringing in Jason Tyner! I’d go further, I’d make Marte the 3rd baseman. Period. He plays everyday, with a day off once/twice every two weeks. He gets the job for 2 months straight. It’s the perfect time to see what we have, and to let him come in with less pressure because everyone else is sucking wind offensively, especially the guy he is replacing. Something is going on that is not being reported by our valiant press corp, or they would be all over it. From a performance perspective, your arguments are spot on.
I love Blake for what he is. Just a wonderfully versatile guy I’d still pay $6 million for to stick in many positions and perform at an average level.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 2:46 PM EDT reply actions
Wouldn’t agree with the announcer portion of your take as I distinctly remember Hamilton and Heagan talking about the promise that Marte was showing during the game where Hafner pinch-hit and that he was finally getting the opportunity to contribute (of course, that stopped once the pinch-hit was made).
Thanks! I’ve been lurking, and actually following the season intensely. I couldn’t get my avatar together in illustrator, so just fell out there for awhile. I even went to spring training this year. Saw an Andy Marte bomb. Walked Chain O’Lakes in the twilight. I’d recommend anyone to walk around the diamonds of a minor league camp in the setting sun. Field of Dreams stuff. If you can’t enjoy that, you probably have no soul.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions
At least we have seen slightly more of Marte recently:
3 starts in first 13 days of May vs.4 in all of April; 10 PA so far in May vs. 16 in April
The point isn’t to see more of him, it’s to give him enough playing time to start settling in and adjusting to major league pitching. He’s never had that chance, never had even 40 at-bats in a month, except at the end of 2006, when he started 49 of the last 62 games. He got no hits in his first four starts — sound familiar? — but had a 761 OPS the rest of the way. Considering his defense, that makes him already better than Blake.
In fact, if you throw out his first 39 at-bats from 2006, he had an 829 OPS the last six weeks of the season — that’s better than what Asdrubal did in the last six weeks of 2007. And this is the kicker … this is the only time he’s gotten more than 39 at-bats in any stretch of time.
Hamilton and Hegan were more flummoxed by the move than showing outright disagreement, especially noting Hafner’s struggles. I’m mostly referring to others I’ve listened to off and on who were hammering Marte from spring training. Wish I could remember the guy, but I came off wondering if Marte had run over his dog. I just get the feeling he is not “one of the guys” to Wedge’s liking. I should have been more clear about Hamilton and Hegan, but I haven’t heard them express support for playing time Marte deserves either. Maybe they’ll come around, but it’s probably a peripheral issue to them. Marte is not a reason for them to spoil a perfectly good relationship.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 3:43 PM EDT reply actions
Avoiding conflict often is exactly what spoils a perfectly good relationship, and confronting it, establishing boundaries and roles and authority, generally strengthens it.
Dear Jay: I’m a third baseman on a professional baseball team and I can’t seem to get the manager to notice me. I’ve tried everything from flashing a little leather to statistical poetry! Help!
Sincerely,
Perched on the Pine
I hope when Marte does grow a beard, Wedge is willing to factor in the significance of age and level. I mean, the kid is 24, and he’ll be putting his beard up against major league beards grown by men a full decade older. If he comes up with so much as a Jhonny chin-strap, I’ll be impressed.
I wonder what Casey’s beard was like at 24. In high-A Dunedin.
by fleerdon on May 14, 2008 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions
That is why something is not being reported accurately about Wedge’s (or Indians management) assessment of Marte. They could ask Wedge directly and present the evidence. Wedge will give a Wedge answer, which you need to read the tea leaves to understand. There is likely some pressure building to give Marte more playing time. Shapiro is usually more transparent about his rationale, it is likely a bone of contention. The frustrating part is that the facts have traditionally dictated the Indians actions (to their benefit and our admiration). Hope they can see the light on this one, or let us see the light.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions
Hamilton was constantly ripping Marte during all the Spring broadcasts I heard. He really took the crotchety old man meter to 11 whenever Marte approached the plate or came anywhere near a ball in play. He seems to have come back from that since the season began and Marte did, in fact, make the team.
You hear correctly – Hamilton was brutal in regards to Marte in ST.
Free Andy Marte!
by woodsmeister on May 14, 2008 9:36 PM EDT up reply actions
I think there’s something to this. As they say, the 25th man on the roster isn’t worth arguing about. Shapiro and Wedge may tacitly agree to disagree about Marte. For the sake of their working relationship, Shapiro may be willing to let Wedge have his way.
But I disagree that Wedge would let a good player rot on the bench because he’s not “one of the guys.” Any major league manager worth his salt will play a guy who hits doubles, whether he can tolerate him personally or not.
“One of his guys” can mean a lot of things. Personality conflict, previous disagreement, doesn’t like his style of play, or even because Blake is seen as a great teammate, which means other players would be prefer Blake because of team chemistry. See Phillips, Brandon. Could be other things too. To deny that a manager wouldn’t make that distinction if he can justify it as a tie-breaker in his head neglects basic human nature. I think Jay’s point is that it has to be something else because the facts of the situation don’t justify his lack of playing time. We had the same discussion when people said not to get our panties in a bunch because of a utility infielder, Brandon Phillips. Sometimes to do the right thing on peripheral issues, you need outside pressure. Otherwise, considerations other than what is absolutely best for on-field performance will win out. A manager can convince himself of all sorts of reasons if he thinks it is basically an even argument, Blake or Marte, especially non-performance considerations. Maybe it was, but it sure isn’t now. To me, this is the absolutely best time to make the move to Marte, most definitely if one subscribes to the shot-across-the-bow school, that the mangers won’t keep tolerating this terrible offense.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 14, 2008 8:04 PM EDT up reply actions
I agree with you. I too think there’s more than meets the eye. I was trying to contemplate the psychological dynamic between Shapiro and Wedge.
Marte doesn’t appear to be an acerbic, antisocial guy, a clubhouse cancer like Milton Bradley was supposed to be. I could see a manager wearying of that sort of act.
But, as I was saying above, a manager is likely to overlook the fact that he doesn’t care for a player, wouldn’t necessarily want to have a beer with him, if the said player has a solid OPS.
I know it’s a very different situation, but for the record, here are Jim Thome’s numbers from his first two short stints with the Indians.
1991 Cle 27 98 7 25 4 2 1 9 5 16 1 1 .255 .298 .367 .665
1992 Cle 40 117 8 24 3 1 2 12 10 34 2 0 .205 .275 .299 .574
Not very good, eh? No real signs of what was to come. Yes, some of this was September call-up stuff, but it does indicate that you can’t argue that the fact that someone has not YET done anything at the major league level is evidence of anything much. Thome had good minor league numbers, obviously. Marte’s were good enough to make him a much-desired prospect. They could send Thome down and bring him along; they can’t do that with Marte. Don’t you want to see what turns out? (not suggesting that Marte will be Thome, but there’s reason to believe from his minor league record that he can be a good player.
Then again, Thome was pretty hard-nosed and was a pretty bad third baseman. Maybe Marte should drop make some bad throws and give up playing dominoes with the guys.
Here’s a little notion I constuct (once again) out of thin air. Having observed Wedge’s m.o. for some seasons, a couple of patterns emerge. One, Wedge doesn’t like the quick hook on his starting pitcher. I think it’s one of his psych tools. He is communicating that he doesn’t believe you simply plug people into situations based on statistics. If the starter is in a jam, the starter be given the opportunity to make it right. It’s the starter’s game to lose. The starter comes in with the idea that it’s his game to win or lose, he’s not just a cog. Another psych tool Wedge uses is the concept that a player must play his way onto the team. This is not to protect the team, but so that the player feels like he played his way onto the team. I think Wedge is looking for Marte to do something, anything, in a positive manner (like having a big RBI day or hitting a couple of home runs in a game) so that Andy will feel like he fought his way onto the team. I’m not sure why Wedge feels this is so important vs simply handing a starting position to a young player, but Wedge seems to believe in this concept. If Andy is any kind of player, something good will happen eventually.
Great post, Jay, and great discussion.
Without any evidence to back me up, is it possible that Marte would get more PT if the offense were more productive as a whole?
From what I have seen of Marte in the last few springs and limited in the bigs, there is little doubt in my mind that if you played him every night, after 7-10 games, he’d be hitting .100/.100/.100. The real debate is after he figured out what was going on, would he hit as well as Blake (or anyone else on the corner spots) or perhaps even better.
The problem in the short term is that the Tribe can barely score with a couple of players batting .200. They might have negative runs if they put Marte in full time, in the short term. And that would just verb-up our Pythagorean record. So maybe if Pronk was carrying the team offensively, there would be room for Marte to warm up a little bit.
I’m-a try one more time. The alternative is Blake. Sometimes I feel like William Shatner looking at that monster on the wing of the plane that nobody else can see: Casey Blake’s not good.
The man wasn’t even a big-leaguer until he was 29. His production was a little better than that age-level discrepancy would lead you to believe, but good gracious, 29! His lowest OPS since then was .723; his highest was .840. To me, this says: Through his very best years, he was an adequate major leaguer.
His best years are over, by at least a year, and probably by more than that. Perhaps Jay erred by only linking to his offensive production in 2008, instead of posting it. Here’s the close-up:
23% K/PA. 8% BB/PA. .304 OBP. 11 XBH in 126 PA. This is what we’re supporting? Jumpin’ Jesus. Imagine if Marte had been the starter this season and was putting up that line. Shoot, imagine if Marte were hitting okay, but playing Blake’s defense. People would be calling for his head. But because it’s our 6-million-dollar man, Capt. .444 BA w/RISP, all’s well, carry on with sucking.
Maybe, if you’re Eric Wedge, you just don’t like Andy Marte. Well, nobody said you had to like him. Your job is to put the best possible team on the field. And if Andy Marte was incapable of OPSing better than .661 - SIX SIXTY ONE!!! - he would never have gotten a roster spot.
I’m going blue in the face here. Maybe I’m just being too long-winded. How’s this? Casey Blake, 2008 < Aaron Boone, 2006.
by fleerdon on May 14, 2008 5:18 PM EDT reply actions
The thing that really gets me is the perception of Ben Francisco compared to Andy Marte. All I hear from some Tribe fans was that Francisco ripped the cover off the ball in spring training. I get the feeling that our beat writers say the same things, but don’t read any of them close enough. It’s obvious though what they are referring to: Francisco hit .300 in spring training while Marte probably hit around .250 (a guess since I don’t follow spring training stats).
Marte had what, 5 or 6 home runs though? There is still this perception that the casual fan and maybe even Wedge can’t get past when they glance at stats. They look at the paper and see that Francisco is batting .050 higher than Marte and immediately in their mind they think that Francisco is doing better. It’s tricky because it definitely feels like oh the guy is hitting better because he actually has more base hits. As for me, I’ll take Marte’s spring over Ben’s along with his future
for all the talk of marte being a plus fielder, he had 6 errors in spring training in only 48 total chances. i know, small sample size. but, in watching a handful of games in person this spring and on the computer, he just didn’t look comfortable out there, like his defensive miscues had gotten into his head.
in quickly glancing at marte’s 06 fielding numbers on BR, they certainly were above league average (one can only say that about blake in 07). i couldn’t find any minor league #’s other than RF for marte, which also look like they would be above league average, despite the low fielding %.
perhaps marte’s defensive issues factor into wedge’s belief that he isn’t a gamer…he didn’t show enough grit in bouncing back from his fielding problems. ie he can’t be trusted to handle adversity.
I talked about this in another post awhile ago, but I absolutely think this hurt him some. To say he was abysmal would be an overstatement on how good he looked. He flat-out looked afraid of the ball and played everything off to the side. Maybe he was wary of the infield in Winter Haven, but it was ridiculous. He still has a weakness of playing things off to his side, but he’s looked much better since the regular season started. He can be real smooth over there.
But from Wedge’s point of view, here’s a young player who should be trying to impress and force his way into more playing time, and he goes out and plays defense like that? And you can argue whether that should be considered a factor, but if you’ve followed this team at all, you danm well know that Wedge didn’t like it. And frankly, neither did I.
OK, since I haven’t been able to have any quality time with the PC over the past couple of nights, it looks like I’ve missed the fun. Here are my thoughts.
First off, I’m not a big Marte fan. There is a lot to dislike. He has a loop in his swing, he steps in the bucket and pulls off a lot of balls, and I’ve probably seen him hit less than five hard-hit balls to the right side of second base in his Tribe career. He just doesn’t look like a good hitter, at least from a making-solid-contact point. For example, Francisco “looks” like a much better hitter because he hits a lot more line drives. Of course, he doesn’t have the power potential or the plate discipline history that Marte does.
That all said above, my head tells me that Marte needs to be given more of a shot. I’m a big believer that if you show the ability to be very good, whether in the bigs or at a young age in the minors, it’s there. You can do it again. Marte’s 2004 just can’t be ignored, though you can wonder if it’s an aberration. Also, in respect to Marte not looking good at the MLB-level so far, he really hasn’t been given an extended chance. And you also need to consider his MLB stats in this context:
- As mentioned above, Thome struggled to establish himself in the bigs.
- Ramirez (though at a very young age) basically was in a platoon at the time of the strike in 1994 due to his struggles against RHP.
- Hafner was sent to the minors one month into his first year for the Tribe (no jokes about sending him back down there, please) and ended the year with a .812 OPS.
- Victor Martinez had a .678 OPS in 159 AB’s in 2003. I remember remarking to my dad (who doesn’t get to see many games) that it didn’t seem that he ever hit anything hard.
- Peralta had a .621 OPS in 242 AB’s in 2003.
- Sizemore had a .739 OPS in 138 AB’s in 2004.
- When Gutierrez first got some extended action in 2006, I thought his first 25 or so AB’s were quite possibly the worst “first 25” AB’s I had ever seen.
Now, some of those numbers are influenced by the age of when these players first debuted, but the point is that a lot of the better offensive players the Tribe has seen in recent history weren’t great right out of the chute at the big-league level.
I think Marte will probably turn into a decent power hitter with a few walks and a lower BA. Someone that can be easily pitched to, but a dangerous mistake hitter. Add in what I think will be plus defense, and that turns into a pretty decent third-sacker. He needs to start playing more.
Well said. The difficulty with Marte playing is that he can only play 3B, and thus takes playing time from Blake and Garko (the secondis only due to Blake’s flexibility). Now Wedge may have an irrational love for Blake and Garko, but the real problem is that they are all right handed semi-power hitters. There is no natural way to get Marte at bats. This is unlike the Gutierrez/Nixon situation where Gutierrez got to bat against lefties and play defense in the late innings. Also we may believe that Marte’s defense is better than Blake’s due to Marte’s lateral range (and I think this is true), Marte still has problems with balls hit right at him. This drives managers crazy, and prevents Marte from being used as a defensive replacement.
These platoon arguments were probably a factor in the Vazquez/Phillips situation. Wedge saw no obvious way in working in the right handed Phillips with right handed Peralta and Belliard.
If we absolutely must play Blake ( I still don’t see the case for playing him regularly), he is versatile enough to play in right, 1B and presumably LF.
Blake will not play in the OF this year. The FO does not think it is useful. People keep talking about how Marte should play because Blake is versatile. This makes no sense to me. If Marte could play an adequate 1B or OF, he would be playing more. If Marte is limited to one position, it limits his ABs. It is not Blake’s fault that Marte can’t play these other positions.
If you are advocating that Blake not play anywhere but 3rd and 1st, his value to the team drops dramatically. He’s the worst hitting 3rd basemen in the league, and would be likely be even worse hitting 1st baseman too. Arguing that Blake’s versatility shouldn’t be exploited is an inefficient and ineffective use of his talents. Marte’s value isn’t in his versatility. Never has been. It would be nice. But 3rd base is a premium defensive position, we should be thrilled he has that skill at an average/above average level for the major league.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 15, 2008 11:14 AM EDT up reply actions
“I’m telling you there’s a monster on the wing of this plane!”
by fleerdon on May 15, 2008 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Terry Pluto made mention of this post (he referred to it as an e-mail) on WTAM tonight (around 9:25 pm). They were talking about Marte’s PT and he mentioned that he doesn’t agree that Blake is Wedge’s “pet dog” like some e-mailer said and than said that if (good 3B, I forget who) were on this team .. Blake would be riding the bench.
He knows I didn’t author the thing, because I asked him if I could forward his reply to the author. But at least we got some press.
Mountains of Change.
Steel Nick
From the secondhand report of what he said on the radio, Pluto seems to think, “Blake is better than Marte, so he should play. Simple as that.”
I wish he’d respond to the specific points in your post. Not because I value his every word, but because other fans do, and they seem to think he has a better understanding of sports in general.
My memory may be faulty here, but I think I recall Pluto writing, fairly recently, that it was odd that they weren’t playing Marte more than they are. I don’t think he advocated benching Blake, but getting Marte some PT, at least on the level that Caroll and Shoppach are getting as bench players. I didn’t hear the interview being referred to, so I can’t comment on that—the issue seemed to be whether he thought Wedge was in love with Blake, which he seems to have denied.
I do think it would be interesting to hear him comment more on Marte (and Wedge’s approach to younger players generally). I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see this come up in his Sunday article in the PD. He often does seem to be responding to things people said to him/emailed him, etc.
Full disclosure: I like Terry Pluto, most of the time. Of all the local journalists who write regularly on the Indians, he’s one of the very few I can think of who does more than just report on press conferences or, a la Livingstone, spread negativity all over the place.
So, Cleveland is the hottest team in baseball, in first place and we are still arguing over whether dufus A or dufus B should be playing third base. We need 3 upgrades to become “dorks”.
This is exactly the moment to be thinking about who should be playing 3rd base. That’s what superior organizations do. They think about how to get around the next curves they may be approaching. One doesn’t wait for the crisis to occur, then complain about why we didn’t prepare for this earlier. If you haven’t noticed, we’ve got no laurels to rest on. That we are in first place on May 16 isn’t a call to start the party.
by Bogalusa Bomber on May 17, 2008 11:54 AM EDT up reply actions
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