Spring Training News and Notes: 3-8-2010
by Ryan on Mar 8, 2010 12:49 AM EST
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Brown, Grilli to undergo surgery | indians.com: News
Both Let's Go Tribe Favorite Jordan Brown and Jason Grilli aren't going to make the Opening Day roster due to major injuries. Brown injured his knee last Friday, and will be out 4-8 weeks. If he's back on the field by the beginning of April, he won't miss much time, but that month is a big deal for a player who could have made the big-league club. Grill's qudriceps injury looks even worse, as he could miss the entire season. For a non-roster player who already had little margin for sticking in the majors, that's a devastating injury.
Indians insider: After a wait of nearly two seasons, a one-day delay doesn't faze Westbrook | cleveland.com
Paul Hoynes notes that Scott Boras, Shin-Soo Choo's new agent, has shown him some multiyear contract offers from the Indians. Boras clients historically have tended not to sign these types of pre-arbitration lockup deals, trading higher risk for higher future salaries. For a player in Choo's situation, it's very tempting to take that guaranteed $15-20M in exchange for not maximizing your earning potential. As Fausto Carmona can attest to, promising careers can crater very quickly. I hope something can get done, but with Boras in the picture, it's likely that Choo will be going the arbitration route.
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As Fausto Carmona can attest to, promising careers can crater very quickly.
I love your devastating matter-of-fact tone (something that so, so few people can pull off). This statement doesn’t sound like a pronouncement – it sounds like an unfortunately certain verdict.
But can he open up a can of cold Fausto with his eye socket?
"Nobody ever thinks, 'Hey, maybe I’m actually an idiot.'" - Jay
by woodsmeister on Mar 8, 2010 10:34 AM EST up reply actions
Why? What metric could you possibly be using to think there’s a bounce back. Fausto’s been terrible for two years. Our expectations for the team being competitive during the past two seasons were based, in part, by the belief that he’d develop into a stud. Reality now points to him being a one pitch, one year wonder.
The hope metric? Come on man, it’s spring.
by TheVanillaGorilla on Mar 8, 2010 12:28 PM EST up reply actions 2 recs
I believe Craig Ferguson used to dance under the name Hope Metric.
"Nobody ever thinks, 'Hey, maybe I’m actually an idiot.'" - Jay
by woodsmeister on Mar 8, 2010 12:45 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Why? What metric could you possibly be using to think there’s a bounce back. Fausto’s been terrible for two years. Our expectations for the team being competitive during the past two seasons were based, in part, by the belief that he’d develop into a stud. Reality now points to him being a one pitch, one year wonder.
In response to why, I can’t give you a good reason. Hope (like TheVanillaGorilla says)?…maybe. But also the belief that Fausto doesn’t fit the one-time wonder profile. Yes – Fausto is something of a one-pitch pitcher. But that same pitch is still there, he hasn’t lost much in the way of velocity or movement. What he has lost is control. If he were a pitcher who had never had control and just had one season where things “clicked” I’d be more inclined to view him as a one-year wonder. But he was a control pitcher coming up through the minors. His ‘power’ developed as he got bigger and as he continued to get bigger his power stuck around and his control left. I guess my optimism comes from a belief that he can get the control back, and if he does, he still has the same stuff he has always had which has a track record of success.
I guess what you’re really saying is, he wasn’t a one-year wonder. Maybe we can’t have the Cy Young contender back, but if he’s healthy, we should be able to get back the very good pitcher that Fausto was developing into through the mid-00s.
I’m not sure where I would put his ceiling now, but yes, I don’t think he is a one-year wonder. Without putting too much effort into looking into this, I would think one-year wonder pitchers fall into several categories.
- Really incredible luck for one season. Fausto’s 3.08 ERA from 2007, especially given his GB-heavy style, is not out of line with his 3.94 FIP or 3.88 xFIP. I don’t think 2007 was “lucky”.
- One incredible year culminating in devastating injury. This was my fear for Fausto…but I actually don’t think it is the case. I think the workload may have led to some of his problems, particularly in 2008, but his power and movement are still largely there. To the extent that injuries have been a problem I think his ballooning size is a more likely, or at least co-contributory, candidate.
- A gimmick pitch that works until the off-season scouting reports/videos get sent out. Fausto’s one pitch isn’t a gimmick. It really is a power sinker, and there really aren’t that many guys who can throw it.
- League switch/rookie. Fausto pitched 74 innings in the AL the previous season, including his catastrophic bullpen implosion. He was not an unknown quantity.
by APV on Mar 8, 2010 1:25 PM EST up reply actions
I’m also optimistic that Fausto can be much better than he has been the last two years, but then i’m always optimistic this time of year.
I had the impression that his loss of control was partly due to his tendency to get over excited and over-throw, and partly because hitters learned to lay off his sinker because it often breaks down out of the zone. He’d get behind in the count and have to come in with a fastball which they could hit, or he would walk them.
I’m not sure this explanation is inconsistent with his history of better control in the minors. Still he has dominant stuff and with maturity and good coaching he should be a very good pitcher.
Paul Cosineau of TCF mentions in his latest article a theory that I never really considered, nor that I recall seeing discussed here (though perhaps you did and I missed it), but he wonders about whether the change in Carmona’s weight, and subsequently, his body has caused him to change his mechanics a bit to compensate for the increased weight.
His increased weight did occur right before his sudden loss of command in 2008 and 2009, and as was mentioned before, one would think that his getting used to his “new” body might result in some change, even if only subtle, in his mechanics. That could, perhaps, at least partly explain why he’s all of a sudden can’t consistently command the strike zone like he did up until 2008 (even in the Minors) and why he can’t seem to regain that pinpoint command, despite his and the former pitching staff’s efforts to iron out his mechanics.
Recall that, as Cousineau mentions, that Anthony Castrovince mentioned at the beginning of 2009 Spring Training that Carmona had a “spare tire” – certainly, his body has undergone quite a change in terms of looks, and possibly in conditioning as well. If Carmona could get closer to his previous weight and/or tighten up that “spare tire,” perhaps that could be the missing element to help him regain his former command, as I too find it difficult to believe and accept that he just suddenly lost all semblance of command after displaying it for so many years, even at the ML level as a setup man and as a starter (and he wasn’t even that wild in his brief tenure as a closer – a few bad pitches, sure, but not where he was all over the place; it was more of a problem of leaving the ball out over the plate rather than walking guys left and right like he’s often doing now).
Just my 2.2 cents. :-)
The "cream of the crop" doesn't always rise to the top.
Just to jump off of that, I posted this over the weekend, but Fausto’s control in the Minors was one of his strengths:
Cumulative MiLB Totals
2005 – 173 2/3 IP, 106 K, 35 BB
2004 – 163 IP, 122 K, 44 BB
2003 – 154 1/3 IP, 86 K, 14 BB
2005 – 5.5 K/9, 1.8 BB/9, 3.03 K/BB
2004 – 6.7 K/9, 2.4 BB/9, 2.77 K/BB
2003 – 5.0 K/9, 0.8 BB/9, 6.14 K/BB
Since the end of 2007, he’s walked 140 batters in 246 IP (5.12 BB/9), so yes…the pitcher he is now is not the pitcher that came up from the Minors in 2006.
by The DiaTriber on Mar 8, 2010 1:45 PM EST up reply actions
I’m at work, so I don’t have time to find the exact link, but I remember when Fausto was sent down at one point that one of his form coaches basically wondered aloud to a report “What in the heck happened to him.” I got the impmression that the coach meant that Fausto had been somehow mismanaged/coached in Cleveland somehow. Maybe my bias is coming through, but I have hope that a new set of coaches will help. This isn’t to say that our coaching staff was horrible (two consecutive Cy Youngs will quickly end that conversation), but maybe they weren’t the best for Fausto. In some ways, I’m pinning my hope to that, plus his winterball changes/numbers.
Well, that and everything APV said much more elloquently above.
I just wanted to believe.
How about these quotes from two of his minor league managers in an MiLB piece published in January:
“When I had him that year, I remember him being a hard thrower — he was a strike-thrower, pounding that strike zone. It seemed like 95 percent of the time, he threw a strike.”
“It was unusual to see a young pitcher at that level pounding the strike zone. The problem most have is command, but in his case, his control was unbelievable, he was challenging everyone.”
“His ability to compete on the mound — when you throw strikes, you make a lot of things happen. He was doing that back then and I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that he’d have the opportunity to reach the Majors.”
Those are from his AA manager, Brad Komminsk, and his Rookie-level manager, Rouglas Odor. Does that sound remotely like the guy we see now?
by The DiaTriber on Mar 8, 2010 3:13 PM EST up reply actions
The Komminsk quotes were dissected pretty heavily here. My feeling was, Komminsk didn’t know what he was talking about. I’m on my phone but my recollection was that Komminsk had not actually manages Carmona that long and that he made some statements about velocity that were obviously misremembrances.
by afh4 on Mar 8, 2010 10:15 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Here we go.
I got very lathered about this for some reason. I maintain the same opinion the Komminsk quotes though; he saw 30 Carmona starts over four years spread out over three minor league seasons.
So, his recollections and opinions are pretty irrelevant.
And, as with all these quotes, it’s not hard to find a baseball guy that will reinforce a storyline if you feed it to him. The question “What’s happened to Fausto Carmona?” with the implication that he used to be awesome is going to lead everyone who ever worked with him in the minors to give a soundbite just like this-vague, positive and rooted in old memories of a player who wasn’t considered all that memorable at the time.
Two different stories with two different sets of quotes…the one that was originally dissected (where Komminsk took his shots at Fausto’s approach) is here.
The one above is from just a few months ago. Komminsk could still be just taking shots at the Indians, but the quotes from Odor are new to me.
Odor is currently the hitting coach in Kinston.
by The DiaTriber on Mar 9, 2010 8:15 AM EST up reply actions
Ahh, my fault. Still, I don’t put a lot of stock in this stuff. These guys are, in my estimation, repeating what’s become the book on Fausto, not offering original insight. That’s obviously hard to differentiate but my biggest problem is these guys saw Carmona so, so long ago. They were his coaches before he was a dominant force-his 2007 was not exactly portended by his major league record; so, at some point post their coaching, he changed significantly as a pitcher anyway and they don’t know how or why that happened.
That makes more sense. The quotes you posted above just didn’t seem as dubious as I remembered from the original discussion.
by Jay on Mar 9, 2010 9:31 AM EST up reply actions
…the pitcher he is now is not the pitcher that came up from the Minors in 2006.
I don’t disagree, but the question then becomes what exactly does that mean for Carmona going forward. And I do not have a clear answer to that question.
by APV on Mar 9, 2010 9:12 AM EST up reply actions
But, again, the pitcher in 2007 was not the pitcher from 2005 (Fausto’s 2006 minor league numbers are SSS, and bad). 2007 he was better in nearly every regard and clearly used the sinker more effectively than he ever had (he had a lower ERA at the ML level than he’d had in AA/AAA while not significantly adding strikeouts).
Everyone who was around in the minors wants to act like they made Fausto awesome and the major league guys screwed him up. It seems more likely to me that Fausto took the leap from good prospect to great pitcher on Willis’ watch and then also took the huge step back on Willis’ watch. The minor league guys were developing a solid mid-rotation guy and, yeah, right now it’d be great if Fausto could just be that.
However, let’s not forget that his trajectory changed rapidly in Cleveland-he wasn’t regarded as a stud by any major scouting service and Willis made him pitch like one and it’s the whole reason the Indians went to the ALCS. Credit where credit is due and, more than that, enough with the armchair quarterbacking from guys that watched him in the minors (I mean, his career ERA in Akron is 4.32-that’s whatt Komminsk thinks represents vintage Carmona?)
The metric, to just grab a simple one: the 2007 and pre injury 2008 Carmona was 32-9 in QS. The 2008-2009 injury game & post injury Carmona was 11-26 in QS. But you can divide that between the 5-21 QS through July 2009, and the 6-5 mark in August and September. This is not to say that Fausto’s carrer path doesn’t resemble that of Laurel and Hardy, as described by James Agee: “Laurel and Hardy are trying to move a piano across a narrow suspension bridge. The bridge is slung over a sickening chasm, between a couple of Alps. Midway they meet a gorilla.” It’s just that maybe this year there’s no gorilla.
As the season draws closer, I realize that this is the first one in quite some time (maybe 2004?) where I don’t have opinions or projections. There aren’t any ‘big questions’ looming over the team or the position players. A preseason without anxiety.
Which is probably a good thing as a fan, because I won’t have any of that Mid-May angst or June melt downs that seem to happen every year. In fact, maybe there will be a nice run of winning baseball where we find ourselves 5 games out in late July and we can close our eyes and lie to ourselves and dream a little bit.
I agree. I’m looking forward to watching the team build from the ground up. Sure, I’d rather have it be like the late 90’s where we are big favorites to make the playoffs every year. I love contending, and the playoffs, but it’s usually (OK, always so far) just a big dramatic march to a final gut-wrenching loss (gearing up for the Cavs). Let’s just watch this team grow.
While I agree in principle, I love this quote from Shapiro about contending (from the Yahoo article quoted in mjschaefer’s fanshot).
"I think we’re not as far as most people would think," Shapiro said.
That just raises my expectations a bit.
I just wanted to believe.
You shouldn’t love that, you should hate it.
We are absolutely committed to low expectations this season.
Possibly site header needs to reflect this.
by Jay on Mar 8, 2010 3:07 PM EST up reply actions
Working for me – Brantley had a leadoff triple and scored on a groundout in the first. Westbrook is clearly rusty, with a HBP and a walk, but he made it through his inning relatively unscathed. Castrovince in the booth as an added bonus.
I’m listening via the iPhone app. Not really gameday, but it does provide a delayed play summary and box score.
Here’s a link to bookmark, which provides the unpublicized Gameday links: http://liam-moran.com/links.html. Via Viva El Birdos.
Why MLB provides the info, but doesn’t publicize it, I do not know.
Lotsa balls for Westy so far. Sounds like he had a tailor-made grounder a minute ago, but Parra was on the move. He’s walked three and hit a batter through 2 1/3.
Your inning count’s off by 1, but yeah, he’s clearly rusty. Glad he made the two-hour drive to Tucson instead of staying in Goodyear to pitch to Grady, though.
Sorry, typo. 1 1/3 for Westy. A single drives in a run, Duncan misses the cutoff man and lets the batter go to second, and Westbrook trudges off the mound.
Still, at least his arm is still attached.
And that’s it for Westbrook, as he gives up a hit and a run. Bad defense by Duncan, failing to hit the cutoff and turning a single into a double.
Hah! I just figured that out as well after looking at my inbox about 3 times and not seeing anything.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Wasn’t mine. I’m struggling to come up with anything I would actually want them to talk about.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
We could ask them to announce their names. Maybe see if they’ve tried the fried baloney on a stick.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
tried listening on wtam.com and loudmouth triv was on instead
... Paul Hoynes is a really great guy ...
They may have clicked the link I included to this thread and read about the email alert as I’ve not heard it since. I wish they would have answered my question about the fried baloney. Or Marte.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
They just mentioned e-mails in general…someone from Nashville…question about LaPorta…and THERE’S THE E-MAIL DING AGAIN! IT LIVES!
by Voltaire on Mar 8, 2010 5:19 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
This morning I received this email:
Hi Jim,
Sorry I didn’t get to your email on yesterday’s game. I’m Jim Rosenhaus and yesterday I was working with David Kelley, who lives in Tucson, but used to work in Cleveland for WTAM. Today I’ll be working with Matt Underwood from STO. Have not tried the fried baloney yet, but there is something to look forward to. I think you will see Marte slide between third and first most of the spring. Thanks for listening and the email.
Jim
So that was a nice surprise for what it’s worth.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Musta been Donald, guess I zoned out. Brantley had that double and was stranded on second when the inning ended.
Just calling it as I read ’em.
castrovince Trevor Crowe groundout scores Luis Rodriguez from third. It’s 3-2 #Indians.
Steel Nick
Weglarz in left, Horwitz in right, and to a lesser degree, Gimenez catching.
by Voltaire on Mar 8, 2010 4:39 PM EST reply actions 2 recs
Wait, how is it pronounced?
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 8, 2010 8:20 PM EST up reply actions
Well, I’m off to the batting cages for the first time this year. Over/under on swings until I put my back out?
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Cages? Where?
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 8, 2010 8:21 PM EST up reply actions
Bah. Figured that or Randall’s Island. So inconvenient.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 9, 2010 6:20 AM EST up reply actions
On the Tribe’s intrasquad game yesterday:
Back in Goodyear: While the Indians ran their spring training record to 3-0 in Tucson, Carmona pitched two scoreless innings in a simulated game Monday at the Indians complex. … Matt LaPorta had three RBI in the same game.
Doesn’t “simulated” mean no defense and baserunning? It’s like T-Ball for pitchers.
by Jay on Mar 9, 2010 9:32 AM EST up reply actions
I don’t know, but I’m not sure I like LaPorta’s new haircut:
by APV on Mar 9, 2010 9:37 AM EST up reply actions
It’s not clear – the PD calls it a simulated game. Castro calls it an intrasquad game, which suggests something different.
Of the two, who do you suspect got it right?
I just wanted to believe.
by mjmarble on Mar 9, 2010 10:27 AM EST up reply actions 4 recs
Is that like when you race against yourself in Mario Kart?
by cleveland teamer on Mar 9, 2010 6:00 PM EST up reply actions
Anyone else listening today? Cabrera starts us off with a single.
Also, our first audible email alert.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
Listening as I’m able. Not sure how much commenting I can do today but I’ll be around.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
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