Race to the Bottom: "Why Losing is not Bad" or "How I Learned to Love the Bombing"

Hello hans,

I too agree with KevinV and Nick – we have virtually no shot of contending for a postseason spot this season, so essentially, we’re either going to miss the postseason by being a middle-of-the-pack record team or we’re going to miss the postseason by being one of the worst-record-in-the-league teams.

Personally, I’d rather have the latter – that way, you have the chance to add another high-ceiling, blue-chip pick to your farm system, much like LaPorta (though it could be a high-ceiling pitcher, but either way, it should be a blue-chip, high-ceiling prospect, unlike Sowers in 2004, but that draft pool was unremarkable from what I remember of it, and even guys like Homer Bailey, who was picked one pick after Sowers, has not panned out as expected, with a lack of command and diminishing K rates, so all-in-all, that draft pool in particular was more of a crapshoot than usual, something that hopefully won’t be as much of a case in the 2009 Draft).

This doesn’t mean I want the Indians to purposefully throw games, of course – I don’t think anyone is advocating that. But by the same token, we shouldn’t view losing games this season as a bad thing any more – the more losses improves our draft position, and being able to add another high-ceiling, blue-chip prospect like a LaPorta in a season where we’re likely to lose more games than we win (being under .500, or just over .500 at best), I think it’s an opportunity we should take advantage of, short of throwing games.

Besides, I don’t think the losing will affect Martinez, Carmona, or even Hafner in terms of their ability to produce next year – we know pretty much what Martinez can do, based on his track record, and if Carmona is healthy and his stuff is 100%, I think it’s reasonable to assume that he can be quite effective as a starter. Hafner’s arguably the biggest question mark of the three, but whether we win or lose this year likely won’t affect him either.

I also think guys like Marte, Shoppach, Francisco, Choo, and Gutierrez can have productive periods without us winning. I think last season proves, especially in the case of Gutierrez, that one good full season or partial season on a winning team guarantees or ensures that the same player will have a good full season or partial season the following season, so just because the Indians lose a lot of games this season doesn’t mean that those young players won’t be productive and enable us to return to contention in 2009. I don’t think the team winning or losing more in 2008 guarantees anything about 2009 in regards to the younger players – if that were the case, Gutierrez should be excelling right now because he (and the team) did so well in 2007 – that certainly is not the case, as Gutierrez has struggled mostly when he has played, and is playing the least between him, Francisco, and Choo.

As a result, in my opinion, losing more games would be more beneficial for us rather than finishing around .500 or so and having a mid 1st-round pick. History shows that the higher you pick in the first round, the better the chances of that player becoming an impact player at the ML level, something our farm system could benefit from. We’re very likely going to be losing many games this year, so why not make it count for something worthwhile, something that could help us in future years (possibly 2009, more likely 2010, 2011, and beyond)?

Just my 2 cents – no offense.

You are right, that second group is better. I am not going to dispute the fact that there is no certainty in the amature draft. The MLB amature draft is clearly the most unpredictable of all the major sport drafts.

But at the same picking early means more opportunity to get an impact player, if not a much greater certainty of getting one. Further, who is actually taken in as a top 5 pick is not a perfect way to look at the value of that pick. Sometimes a more talented player is passed up due to high signing bonus demands.

Shapiro himself lamented the lack of high ceiling prospects yesterday. He attributed that lack to draft position. Getting a top 5 pick gives you an opportunity to take what you think is the best player available and that opportunity is greater than with a lower pick.

The only potential downside I see with losing is in courting free agents. But I think even that is minimal.

Holy crap. $13 million for a closer who has had recent injury issues?

We are not a good team at the moment, maybe the worst in MLB. And over the next few weeks, as we trade away more parts, we will get worse before we get better. But once you get past July and in to mid August, things should start to look a lot better as we get back Victor, Fausto, Barfield and possibly Hafner. We should get even more help in September from Asdrubal and others.

We won’t be a .333 team for the entire remainder of the season.

Hello odradek,

Sorry – this post is a bit longer than I originally intended, but I wanted to address all of your points.

Here are the current records of the White Sox and Twins in 2008:

White Sox: 53-38 (need to go 42-29 to finish 95-67).
Twins: 51-41 (need to go 44-26 to finish 95-67).

Here were the final records for the White Sox and Twins in 2007:

White Sox: 72-90 (24.0 GB of the Indians)
Twins: 79-83 (17.0 GB of the Indians)

While neither reached 95 losses in 2007, the White Sox were relatively close and the Twins weren’t .500 either. That’s why many prognosticators didn’t see either challenging for the AL Central this year.

The point is, drastic changes can occur from one season to the next. Heck, look at the team we’re facing now – the TB Rays have the best record in baseball (55-36); last year at this time, they had one of the worst, finishing with the worst record in the Majors at 66-96 (the exact inverse of our record last season).

Therefore, it’s certainly possible and happens more often than you’re implying that bad teams can turn it around and become quite good the following season. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee the Indians will, but keep in mind that unlike the Twins, White Sox, and Rays from last season, to my knowledge, they didn’t lose as many key players as we have (Carmona, Westbrook, Martinez, Hafner).

If the three of them (excluding Westbrook, who won’t return until the second half of 2009, and won’t be himself, if he ever is, until the 2010 season) can return and be more like their track records suggest, that in itself will improve this team by a few notches alone.

As has been mentioned often on this site, virtually all bullpens are erratic from season to season; even the Twins’ bullpen, a strength of recent seasons, has not been the same this season, not with the fall of Rincon, the injury to Neshek, and the unimpressive seasonal peripherals of Bass (who was hit hard yesterday by Boston if I remember correctly). Therefore, a turnaround by the same members of the bullpen, most of whom were quite good in 2007 (and even in past seasons in Betancourt’s case), is quite possible in 2009.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I think both Betancourt and Lewis’ arms are not at 100% this season – I think both are struggling with tired arms, both due to the long 2007 season (including the postseason), plus the fact Wedge had to call on them constantly due to the fact that outside of those two, Perez, and JoeBo (who had enough harrowing adventures in 2007), Wedge didn’t have much confidence in anyone else. That’s why I’d advocate shutting both down in the near future for the rest of this season and hope the additional rest can help their arms be more like they were last year, and in Betancourt’s case, like it has been really since he arrived in 2003.

No offense, but in our small to mid-market, draft choices ARE important – without them, you have almost no chance of competing. Signing Domincian and Asian players are as much, if not more, of a crapshoot than drafting players out of American and Canadian high schools and colleges, who are often more polished and don’t usually need as much seasoning as those from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Far East. (I mean that as no disrespect to the players from those countries or the countries themselves – there are certainly talented prospects from those places, but like draft picks, they are no sure things either, and often, need more time and development than draft picks from American and Canadian HSs and colleges).

Therefore, it’s more likely signing more Dominican or Asian players would take even longer to get any meaningful help from them (unless you mean to sign some Japanese FAs like a Matsuzaka, Ichiro, or Matsui, but again, our limited resources and smaller market prevent us from making big consequential signings in those markets, so again, that possibility is pretty much out of our reach, which is again what makes the draft so important to us).

I agree with you that I think the team will play better and probably have a modest winning streak or two before the season is over (and even show some offensive outbursts like they did on Thursday). I also think the team can make some improvements (such as finding a legitimate closer and trading away players that likely won’t be part of the next run – Byrd, Blake, Dellucci, maybe Garko and Carroll, etc.), but I think the Draft is more important than you’re making it out to be.

Many are excited by the fact we added LaPorta to the system, and are eagerly awaiting the PTBNL, as that player is expected to be a solid to major contributor as well. Well, if we reach the projected Top 5 or Top 10 pick we would receive now, we’d have a very good chance of obtaining another blue-chip prospect, something our farm system is weak in, and being that we are not winning (the WS or even being at .500) this year anyway, what added benefit will we get from finishing with 75 wins instead of 65 wins? Nothing much that I can see.

I don’t think our win total from this year is going to have much effect on next year, especially if the key players we are missing stay healthy and perform next year – that too will likely help the players we have now – instead of relying on Francisco, Choo, Marte, Gutz, and Carroll to be the main cogs in the offense, and have Sowers and Laffey being main keys in the rotation, you can have Martinez and Hafner shoulder the load with Sizemore and have those aforementioned guys being productive in the bottom part of the order. At the same time, you team Lee with Carmona (and if we’re really lucky and fortunate, Adam Miller in the middle of that rotation, or alternatively, David Huff,) and push Laffey and Sowers back toward the back-of-the-rotation, arguably where they should be with their limited experience and lack of blow-away stuff, and I think this team could make a quick turnaround next year – in my opinion, it is certainly more possible than you are implying.

Just my 2 cents – no offense.

Probably I’m responding to this - I think winning some more games this year would be a good thing - because to me, winning games will have a lot to do with the temporary help over-achieving as well. I mean, if Jeff Weaver has a decent second half, we’ll probably pull down a few more W’s, but that doesn’t materially change our outlook. I agree with your list of worries, though I’d also remind you that help, like Aaron Laffey, can come from unexpected places.

I don’t want any of those things to be true either, but I think it is unlikely that they all will be true.

Neither Choo nor BenFran are “OPS’ing .675”. Choo has continued to show excellent OBP skills and BenFran has been fairly solid. There could even be OF help coming from AAA in 2009 from Trevor Crowe.

Garko and Gutz really have been total disasters this year at the plate (Sophomore Slumps?), and badly need to to back to AAA.

At least the 1B hole has likely been already filled by LaPorta.

Marte? Sowers? Who knows? Those are biggest questions for the rest of the year.