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Around SBN: Knicks Beat Lakers With Familiar Strategy

"For a likely contender, the Indians don't look very threatening at the positions where the offensive expectations are the highest. As noted last week, the left-field platoon of Francisco (forecast for 260/.328/.424) and Dellucci (.254/.316/.425) is of a piece with the Tribe's seven-year trend of mediocrity from its corner outfielders, while Garko at first base is similarly lacking in punch (.261/.333/.420). There's slightly more room for optimism here than in some other quarters, however. While shoulder problems eroded Hafner's performance from .308/.419/.611 in 2004-2006 to just .248/.364/.417 in 2007-2008 (including a sub-Mendoza showing last year), off-season surgery to clean out scar tissue offers hope that he can outdo his .248/.352/.422 forecast, even if living up to his $57 million contract through 2012 is a pipe dream. Additionally, top prospect Matt LaPorta, a 2007 first-round pick obtained from the Brewers in the CC Sabathia trade last summer, will start the year in Triple-A, and could provide more punch by slotting in at left field or at first base by mid-season."

about 3 years ago Images_tiny odradek 70 comments 0 recs  | 

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Christ, the guy that wrote this is named Jay – what the hell would he know about baseball?

by mauichuck on Feb 7, 2009 10:40 PM EST reply actions  

Ryan basically wrote this same piece a few days ago.

by Jay on Feb 7, 2009 11:35 PM EST reply actions  

What particularly interested me were the PECOTA projections. For all the optimism about Garko, and all the animosity toward Dellucci, they’re not far apart. In fact, Francisco’s projected OPS (.752) is close to Dellucci’s (.741), Garko’s (.753) and Hafner’s (.774). And none of them are good.

by odradek on Feb 7, 2009 11:55 PM EST reply actions  

projections

there you have it.

Travis Hafner is overrated. Clarity is underrated. David Dellucci is David Dellucci.

by westbrook on Feb 8, 2009 12:31 AM EST up reply actions  

As far as projections go, PECOTA seems like the best.

by odradek on Feb 8, 2009 12:56 AM EST up reply actions  

My Uncle Earl’s projections are pretty good too. And every now and then he’ll buy a round.

by mauichuck on Feb 8, 2009 1:41 AM EST up reply actions  

I’m a big fan of Uncle Earl. Didn’t know they were into baseball, though.

by SuddenSam on Feb 8, 2009 8:33 AM EST up reply actions  

Abigail Washburn has a really excellent solo album out, and a quartet album which is also very good, with Bela Fleck and Ben Sollee and Casey Dressen.

by woodsmeister on Feb 8, 2009 11:06 PM EST up reply actions  

God, do I hate Bela Fleck.

by mauichuck on Feb 8, 2009 11:06 PM EST up reply actions   1 recs

You and me both Chuck.

by NickFantana on Feb 9, 2009 12:15 AM EST up reply actions  

I have an irrational optimism about Francisco improving on last season, no sure way of backing it up though. Interesting how he cited Garko as a weakness at first base, but made no mention of Shoppach allowing Martinez to bolster that position.

by Pronk33 on Feb 8, 2009 1:38 AM EST reply actions  

This is for nick: Garko’s gonna OPS at .850+ clip in 2009.

by mauichuck on Feb 8, 2009 1:41 AM EST up reply actions  

Career year? 50+ points better than his career average? Can’t rule it out, I guess. Wouldn’t be that big of a jump for his age-

Take a look sometime at some of the punk pitching he was facing in those last 12 games, before which his season OPS was 691.

by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:43 AM EST up reply actions  

I’m giving you guys lots of ammo here. I was a little too timid with Lee and Hafner. Gonna step out with this one. Yep, I know this would be a leap and yeah, I know he wasn’t facing Doc Halladay every day but I gotta feeling about Garko.

How’s that, no stats, no science just plain ol’ hunch.

by mauichuck on Feb 8, 2009 1:36 PM EST up reply actions  

I’m sitting in a lawn chair at the corner of Euclid and East Ninth already.

by odradek on Feb 8, 2009 5:50 PM EST up reply actions  

All I can say is, “Dude, pack a lunch, cuz it’s gonna be a loooong stay.”

by mauichuck on Feb 8, 2009 6:35 PM EST up reply actions  

Hello everyone,

To counter that Jay’s point, I offer this from TheClevelandFan.com I read on Saturday.

I’ve made this point before about where you don’t need to have great offensive performers at the usual corner OF positions when you have good to great hitters in CF, C, and SS, three positions that you don’t normally expect offense. Sure, you’d like to have great hitters at every position (like we did with the 1995 Indians), but the fact that you have Sizemore, Martinez (and even Shoppach would likely grade out a bit above-average offensively for a catcher if he gets most of the playing time, especially in terms of power) and Peralta in that lineup can help mitigate the weaknesses of guys like Francisco and Garko so that if they are even halfway-decent, your offense is still one of the better ones in the AL. If one or both of them are better-than-expected, so much the better. Plus, if you get any semblance of the old Hafner, again, the fact we don’t have big-time boppers in LF and 1B is not as much of a concern as if we had any other AL Central lineup (none of which can match the Sizemore/Martinez-Shoppach/Peralta trio I mentioned above at the unexpected positions on the diamond), where they essentially have to have big-thumpers at 1B and LF, and outside of the White Sox (Konerko & Quentin), the other three AL Central teams don’t (Twins – Morneau, but who in LF? Tigers – Cabrera, but who in LF? Royals – Don’t think they have a big-bopper at either LF or 1B).

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 8, 2009 3:31 AM EST reply actions  

Shoppach led all AL catchers in home runs despite only being the starter for four months. I’d say he has a chance to grade out a lot better than "a bit above-average offensively." Some of these guys have never hit 10 home runs in a season, let alone 20 in four months.

by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 8:39 AM EST up reply actions  

Hello Jay,

Truth be told, I was going to say “above-average offensively,” but without looking up the stats ahead of time (time-constraints and just relying on memory and intuition), I thought I would go on the safe-side and say “a bit above,” but the main point is, even if Victor plays regularly at 1B, we still have an elite offensive catcher that grades out better except for a handful of catchers in baseball (like Joe Mauer, who likely can’t match Shoppach power-wise, so even that advantage for Mauer is marginal; and defensively, Shoppach and Mauer are pretty close for the most part, so again, a minimal advantage at best for Mauer, so that again makes Shoppach an elite catcher, even if not in the same vein as Martinez).

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 8, 2009 10:32 PM EST up reply actions  

I’ll take Mauer as a solid notch or two over Shoppach, but Mauer is an MVP-caliber player as often as not. You said it right, Shoppach is likely to grade out better than all but a handful of starting catchers.

by Jay on Feb 9, 2009 2:10 AM EST up reply actions  

Mauer’s durability scares me. If he’s not straight up on the DL (2005, 2007) he always seems to have little nagging stuff. Probably true of most catchers, but for a 25 year old catcher, I don’t know how well it bodes for his long-term sticking potential behind the plate.

400+ OPS from a catcher is DAMN sexy though.

Don't be stupid. PUT IN MELOAN.

by gte619n on Feb 9, 2009 9:29 AM EST up reply actions  

Gleeman screams about this all the time. Mauer is something like 3rd among all catcher in PAs since 2003. His durability issues are entirely imagined.

by afh4 on Feb 9, 2009 2:57 PM EST up reply actions  

The forthcoming BP book has an article about how the Indians have essentially failed for the past seven years in corner outfield spots. I agree with you Joe that you don’t need great offense from the corners if you’re getting such production up the middle. But as has been said elsewhere, you lose the advantage of a strong middle if your corner players hit like Nick Punto.

by odradek on Feb 8, 2009 12:54 PM EST up reply actions  

Hello odradek,

I understand your point, though I would bank on guys like Francisco, Choo, and Garko hitting a bit better than Nick Punto (who provides virtually no power – has Punto even hit 10 HRs in a season, or even 5 for that matter? For the record, I looked it up on TheBaseballCube and he did hit 4 in 394 ABs in 2005, while hitting 5 for AA Reading in 2000 while in the Phillies organization).

Therefore, I wouldn’t put our corner OFers that low; even Dellucci has outdone that – Punto, with all due respect, is in a class by himself when it comes to low offense. The guys we have are better than that, and I’ll take them before Punto any day of the week.

Of course, you always want to try to build your OF corners, just like the 1995 Indians, but at the same time, I’d rather have the lineup we have right now than have more question marks like the Twins, Tigers, and Royals have. And the White Sox have injury concerns with both Konerko and Quentin, and especially the former. Not to mention the fact of the swirling Dye rumors, which again surfaced because they reported are interested in Bobby Abreu.

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 8, 2009 10:38 PM EST up reply actions  

Nick Punto is a pretty low bar.

Don't be stupid. PUT IN MELOAN.

by gte619n on Feb 9, 2009 9:29 AM EST up reply actions  

Joe, I was using Punto as an extreme example. Evan Ryan Garko is better than Punto. But the point is, the Indians have failed in the corners for some time. BP would say this failure has kept them from succeeding on a grander scale.

by odradek on Feb 9, 2009 9:34 AM EST up reply actions  

Hello odradek,

I figured you used it as an extreme example, but Nick Punto is like John McDonald (well, not THAT low, though Punto isn’t McDonald’s equal with the glove either), but those two are closer together than any of the guys you mentioned.

“the Indians have failed in the corners for some time.”

That depends on how the rest of your team is constituted; why is it that the corners MUST have power, especially if CF, SS, and C have that power that you don’t expect? In my opinion, it’s not the fact that your corner OF or 1B need to have power; it’s the idea that you have 3-4 guys with power on your team that is the main goal, regardless of where they play. Yes, it’s unusual that you have them at CF, SS, and C and not at LF, 1B, but the main point is, the Indians have that power, whereas teams like the Twins, Tigers, and Royals don’t – in my opinion, they’ve failed to provide that power that you expect on a team (especially the Twins, who haven’t had any significant HR hitters outside of Morneau since the early 1990s, nearly 20 years ago, in a ballpark that is not an extreme pitcher’s park like Dodger Stadium or Oakland Coliseum is).

That (referring to the Twins’ lineups over the past 20 years) constitutes true failure in my mind when it comes to power, not the fact that the Indians don’t have power in the typical positions on the diamond. The fact that the Indians have power on their team doesn’t lead me to think that the fact that they don’t have power on the corners as a failure. An area to improve upon, sure, but a failure? Not in my opinion – I think you have to look at the constitution of the lineup as a whole rather than just look at one or two places in the lineup based on where they play on the baseball diamond, as Thomas mentions in the article I linked to in my post above.

That’s why I and some others are looking forward to Brantley being able to show what he can do at the ML level when the time comes, even if he can only play LF – he fills the presence of a prototypical leadoff hitter we really haven’t had since the days of Kenny Lofton (all due respect to Grady, whose power and combination of skills can really be utilized in the #3 spot or somewhere in the middle-of-the-order to add to his RBI totals and boost the offense that much more if Brantley can establish himself as that prototypical leadoff hitter we are expecting him to become). If Brantley allows Grady to do that, I will not see having Brantley in LF as a “failure,” since it helps to improve the lineup as a whole. Again, that’s why I don’t think you can look at just one or two pieces of the lineup and constitute them as failures without looking at how the whole lineup is affected and how it performs.

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 9, 2009 11:56 PM EST up reply actions  

I hope you’re right about Brantley. He’s not there yet, but close.

by odradek on Feb 10, 2009 2:04 AM EST up reply actions  

That makes two of us, but his ability to get on-base and his young age have me hopeful – hopefully, he turns out to be a great (or at least, very good) player for us! :-)

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 10, 2009 6:39 PM EST up reply actions  

Such piercing insight… was this written for USA Today?

by KevinV on Feb 8, 2009 3:34 AM EST reply actions  

Another way of looking at this is that Garko and Francisco may well bat 7th and 8th. The 2008 AL average OPS for these slots was .730 and .714. Jaffe’s dreary “forecast” already has both players over these numbers (.753 and .752).

by SuddenSam on Feb 8, 2009 9:13 AM EST reply actions  

I don’t want to get into projections, but a .750 OPS from any starting left fielder should have a GM at least start thinking about other options. If he’s the best we have, so be it, but it doesn’t mean the Indians should happy with it.

by Ryan on Feb 8, 2009 8:19 PM EST up reply actions  

Not targeted at you, Jay, but everyone who says “this” really should just rec the post. That is what recs are for.

by Voltaire on Feb 9, 2009 12:01 AM EST up reply actions   1 recs

How’s the view up there on that high horse, V?

by mauichuck on Feb 9, 2009 12:37 AM EST up reply actions  

Do you enjoy mindlessly ripping on people, or what is your deal?

by Voltaire on Feb 9, 2009 1:57 AM EST up reply actions  

It’s not so much mindless as it is wanton, I think.

by Jay on Feb 9, 2009 2:12 AM EST up reply actions  

He’s not into the persnickety.

Signature to be named later.

by emd2k3 on Feb 9, 2009 11:14 AM EST up reply actions  

Voltaire – bubela – je suis votre amis, n’est-ce pas? I wasn’t rippin on you cugino, it was just a little chide – a reproach – a tiny, itty-bitty reproval – not a rip.

Here’s how you can tell if I’m rippin’ on you: there’s usually some obscure Italian epithet – often in italics – and some reference to a feminine hygiene product. Sometin like this:

Sabathia that cazzi culone, what a douche noozle.

See, like that.

by mauichuck on Feb 9, 2009 11:03 PM EST up reply actions  

Saying I’m on a high horse in the steroids thread – probably correct.

Saying it when I’m making a tongue-in-cheek comment that there’s a built-in system designed to rid the need of posting “this” and that we do it anyway – makes me unnecessarily defensive (see: steroids thread).

by Voltaire on Feb 9, 2009 11:59 PM EST up reply actions  

I will not allow you to suppress my subtle expressions of admiration for Bobby Timmons.

by Jay on Feb 9, 2009 2:11 AM EST up reply actions  

I figured it was a play on someone.

by Voltaire on Feb 9, 2009 2:38 AM EST up reply actions  

Hello Ryan,

I agree we shouldn’t be complacent, but at the same time, if we’re out of money, then that might have to be it. Besides that, I think the moves they made this offseason addressed the more pressing issues in my opinion. It’s better they upgraded the closer position (Wood), the bullpen situation (Smith), the INF situation (DeRosa), and the future INF situation (Valbuena) rather than perhaps overpay for a corner OFer who may upgrade the offense, but can’t help out the other areas of the ballclub (that includes guys like Dunn, Abreu, Ibanez, Man-Ram, etc.).

I know Terry Pluto mentioned in Sunday’s article (could have been Friday’s) that he too would kick the tires on a low-guaranteed, high incentive-laden contract for Adam Dunn and present it to him as Spring Training comes around to see if he’d bite. It wouldn’t hurt to try it, but if he wants more, then I’d just let him pass.

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 8, 2009 10:42 PM EST up reply actions  

I think that’s a backward way of looking at it. They’re batting seventh and eighth because they’re so bad. It’s not like Shapiro said, “Who do we have with an OPS of .715 we can bat eigthth?”

by odradek on Feb 8, 2009 9:14 PM EST up reply actions  

No, of course not. I just think it’s a different angle on the main point, which is that the Indians are getting plus offense from three of the traditional defensive positions. It doesn’t mean we should be satisfied with mediocrity form 1B and LF. But it counters Jaffe’s implication that our offense is doomed.

Put it another way: It would be more common to see the 1B and LF batting in the top five slots and the C and SS hitting 7th and 8th. The Indians are sort of convoluted in this sense. But it occurs to me that this might be somewhat positive, as an offensive upgrade is easier to find at those positions.

by SuddenSam on Feb 8, 2009 10:26 PM EST up reply actions  

Look, it’s an easy target. You can take any team’s worst three positions, blow them up big, and conclude that any team doing this badly in these three spots is not off to a good start.

It is true that our LF and 1B and DH situations aren’t a great place for a team to start. But we do not end there. We start with a catcher who’s a real threat to win a batting title, a shortstop who’s a real threat to hit 25-30 home runs, and a center fielder who’s a threat to win an MVP.

I bet that our best three and worst three positions (by projected VORP) stack up rather well against most other clubs’.

by Jay on Feb 9, 2009 2:15 AM EST up reply actions  

That’s true, but it is odd that the Indians have failed to come up wirh a suitable corner outfielder for seven years. I’d like to think Choo will break that stretch.

by odradek on Feb 9, 2009 9:38 AM EST up reply actions  

Could we not argue that Choo already has broken that stretch?

Jody Gerut had that very nice 2003 rookie campaign, the great majority of it in LF and RF. He was injured consistently after that and was probably playing over his head anyway.

Lawton was decent in 2004 — not impressive, but decent, in particular with a .366 OBP. They sold high. (That contract gets a lot of flack, and deservedly so, but it wouldn’t look nearly as bad had he not gotten injured. Same with Gutierrez, the guy had a fuzed spinal cord, how’s the front office supposed to be accountable for that?)

Crisp was a solid contributor in 2005, with a 117 OPS+ and off-the-charts plus defense for the LF position. We sold high on him.

Blake put up an 835 OPS in 2006, and he was also great in the field, but he missed 50 games with injuries. We moved him back to 3B the following year, but I forget why.

So 2002 and 2007 were really the only years without even one decent corner outfielder, but still, the above performances weren’t impressive, they weren’t expected to persist for multiple years (and didn’t), and most important, those four performances were only on per year, and there are two corner spots, and the other performances were awful.

by Jay on Feb 9, 2009 1:22 PM EST up reply actions  

We moved him [Blake] back to 3B the following year, but I forget why.

The “addition” of Looch to “complement” Michaels?

The “loss” of Boonie?

I forget, too.

by JulioBernazard on Feb 9, 2009 4:59 PM EST up reply actions  

I think Jay was being sarcastic. It was after Marte’s bad start.

by Voltaire on Feb 9, 2009 5:13 PM EST up reply actions  

That’s pretty much my point. Ordadek says Garko and Francisco fell to 7-8 in the batting order because they aren’t any good. Fair enough. But the data suggests that they are as good, or better, than the players who fell into those slots on other teams. Not only that, but quite a few of these 7-8 hitters play key defensive positions, making upgrades more difficult.

That’s the point that I hadn’t really thought about before. Namely, that if you must have weak spots on your offense, there could be a slight advantage to having them at the 1B-LF-DH positions, as counter-intuitive as that sounds. We have LaPorta at the ready and a whole slew of corner types behind him. Most teams have guys of that skill set in their system, plus this type of player is fairly readily available via trade or, at the moment, free agency. If your catcher is OPS’ing at a league-average .715, many teams (but thankfully not the Indians) would be stuck with him.

by SuddenSam on Feb 9, 2009 10:33 AM EST up reply actions  

That’s the point that I hadn’t really thought about before. Namely, that if you must have weak spots on your offense, there could be a slight advantage to having them at the 1B-LF-DH positions, as counter-intuitive as that sounds.

I’m pretty sure that we agree. I hope that if we’re not meeting the modest expectations we have of our corner positions that we don’t hesitate to experiment, whether it be playing LaPorta or plugging in a Jack Cust-ian journeyman.

Paraphrasing Future Wedge, “you don’t have as long to savor a fine wine as you might think. Drink deep.”

by jhon on Feb 9, 2009 1:39 PM EST up reply actions  

Hello odradek,

As we’ve mentioned often, I don’t think anyone sees Francisco as a middle-of-the-order hitter. Garko, at his best, might pass in the 5th or 6th spot, but even that is debatable, and virtually out-of-the-question when you have guys like Martinez, Hafner (if healthy), Peralta, and even Choo if he’s able to show most of the skill he showed in 2008.

When you see guys like Sizemore, Martinez, and Peralta, how many OFers in the game today would you put in their usual spots? Outside of a small handful (guys like Howard, A-Rod, Man-Ram, etc.), you still wouldn’t replace those guys at their positions with too many OFers playing today, so I don’t think it’s just because it’s Garko and Francisco and how “bad” they supposedly are that would lead to them batting lower in our order. Heck, would you replace any of those guys with the likes of Ibanez, Abreu, or Sheffield? I personally wouldn’t – they would bat after Martinez and Peralta in my opinion (yes, that includes Sheffield). The guys I mentioned above (Howard, A-Rod, Man-Ram), yes, I would insert them into the middle-of-the-order, either before both or after Martinez and before Peralta, but that second group would likely come after both those hitters, so again, I don’t think there are that many great OF hitters I would place in the middle-of-that-order in place of the ones we already have.

They might not bat 7th and 8th like Garko and Francisco, but I think they would more likely bat 6th and 7th in our lineup as it’s presently constituted (and I’d give serious debate to them batting before Choo if Choo proves he’s more like 2008, so they could wind up lower in the order like 7th and 8th, so again, I don’t think it’s just because Francisco and Garko are “so bad” as you claim. It’s more a factor of how good those other guys are that you wouldn’t think of placing too many guys, outside of a handful, in place of our middle-of-the-order hitters).

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 8, 2009 10:52 PM EST up reply actions  

I disagree. It’s not that Peralta is better than Ibanez, because he is. It’s that the Indians have had a hard time finding a decent first baseman and left and right fielders. That’s it. They have failed in trying to find decent players in those positions. Those failures are mitigated by success at short, catcher and center, but it doesn’t mean they haven’t failed.

Please, though, no Man Ram! Manny is shorter, even.

by odradek on Feb 9, 2009 9:42 AM EST up reply actions  

If every team but the Indians had an 850 OPS first-baseman and ours was 650, it doesn’t mean we don’t suck at scouting 1Bs just because our SS happens to OPS 900 while no other team has one above 700.

Travis Hafner is overrated. Clarity is underrated. David Dellucci is David Dellucci.

by westbrook on Feb 9, 2009 7:03 PM EST up reply actions  

Especially when even that 1B was a catcher

by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Feb 9, 2009 7:11 PM EST up reply actions  

Again, odradek, you’re automatically presuming we HAVE to have the prototypical power hitters in those positions.

Again, I don’t think that’s necessary or the case; as mentioned above, if Brantley does establish himself as that prototypical leadoff hitter and plays LF and moves Grady, our CF, down in the order, does that mean Brantley is a failure because he “only” plays LF and doesn’t hit for the power you expect out of a “prototypical” or “usual” LF, even though Grady provides more power and production than virtually every other CFer out there?

Again, I think you have to look at the whole of the lineup, not just one or two positions and grade them based on how other teams construct their lineups. Of course, every team would love to have power hitters at every position in the lineup, just like we did with the 1995 Indians, but again, as Thomas mentioned in his article, the fact that Brantley can (hopefully) fill that prototypical leadoff hitter role, even while playing LF, has value in itself and helps to strengthen the Indians’ offense (mostly because Brantley’s skills are fully utilized in the leadoff spot, while Grady’s power and overall skills can be even more utilized lower in the order to take advantage of guys who are usually more on base than the lower part of the order that comes ahead of him now, which will only boost his RBI production when he does hit those HRs and/or hit for a solid BA). Additionally, you really can’t expect any team (unless you’re the Yankees, and maybe the Red Sox) to put together 9 power hitters in a lineup; it seems you’d usually have 3-5 at most, so if you have that amount in your lineup, I don’t see that as a “failure,” even if they are not in the positions they have traditionally been in.

So, again, I think you have to look at the whole of the lineup and how it produces, not just look at one or two positions and say that the indians have “failed” at those positions because they don’t have the prototypical power sluggers that other teams have at those positions. After all, who’s to say that we’re not entering a new offensive era where more power hitters and offensive powerhouses play more in the middle of the diamond, rather than on the corners? There are other teams besides the Indians who have these types of players – Joe Mauer, Michael Young, Robinson Cano, Chase Utley, etc.

I think the sum of the power hitters you have in the lineup is more important than WHERE those power hitters play on the diamond.

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 10, 2009 12:09 AM EST up reply actions  

You’re right Joe. I’m just anticipating the BP article. I haven’t seen it yet, but I have read references to it and think it’s an interesting idea. The Indians haven’t had much success in corner outfields (with some brief exceptions, as Jay points out elsewhere, for Jody Gerut and Matt Lawton). Their drafts haven’t panned out too well there. They don’t need prototypical sluggers. They could have good gap-hitters with on base skills. But they don’t, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say they have failed at establishing major league talent at those positions.

by odradek on Feb 10, 2009 2:08 AM EST up reply actions  

Hello odradek,

“I don’t think it’s unfair to say they have failed at establishing major league talent at those positions.”

I think you can make the argument, but again, looking at the lineup as a whole, I’d worry about having 3-4 power hitters from the whole group and not be as worried about where they play. Obviously, you’d take our lineup constituted as is, even with atypical 1B and LF like Garko and Francisco, as compared to the Twins’ lineup, even though they have a prototypical slugging 1B like Morneau in it. It all relates back to the whole of the lineup in my opinion – do you have at least 3-4 power hitters in that lineup? I’d say yes – Sizemore, Martinez, Peralta; solid to strong possibility – Choo; wild card possibility – Hafner. That’s potentially 5 guys, which is why I’m not worried or concerned about Garko and Francisco being in that lineup – if they hit 15-20 HRs this season, I’ll be happy with that. Anything extra is “icing on the cake” or “gravy” in my opinion.

Certainly, you try to improve the spots if possible, but we definitely could do worse than what we currently have (and have done worse in the recent to near past – even guys like Lawton weren’t that great, outside of one or two seasons that I can recall; Gerut also was only great for one season. And I don’t think I even need to mention Dellucci, right? Francisco with even a decent year could likely outperform Dellucci in LF).

Just my 2 cents.

The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.

by indiansfan on Feb 10, 2009 6:46 PM EST up reply actions  

I agree the Indians have an offense sufficient to finish sixth or so in the AL. All I’m saying is they haven’t had much in the corner outfields in seven years.

This lack is mitigated by talent at other positions, but it still is a lack.

by odradek on Feb 10, 2009 10:06 PM EST up reply actions  

link above comes back to this page—here’s the proper link (subscriber content, I think)

by jds16 on Feb 8, 2009 11:10 AM EST reply actions  

Yes it is subscriber content, so I was reluctant to link to it. Is it okay to link to such?

by odradek on Feb 8, 2009 12:50 PM EST up reply actions  

I don’t set the policy here, but I’d guess that it would just be a useless link for those who aren’t subscribers, and convenient for BP subscribers to get the link (I had to search BP to figure out which article this was from). I’ve linked to subscription content once or twice before and didn’t get scolded for it.

by jds16 on Feb 8, 2009 7:13 PM EST up reply actions  

It’s totally okay and appropriate to link to subscriber content. Generally, and specifically at BP, it gives non-subscriber a short preview of the article followed by a subscription come-on.

by Jay on Feb 8, 2009 7:16 PM EST up reply actions  

All I’d ask is that you just put (Subscriber Content) in there somewhere.

Don't be stupid. PUT IN MELOAN.

by gte619n on Feb 8, 2009 8:26 PM EST up reply actions  

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