The Indians need Grady Sizemore
by APV on Oct 7, 2011 10:27 AM EDT
in Analysis
Email
Print
The Indians need to find a way to keep Sizemore around for two or three more years, even if it means biting the bullet and exercising his $9M option for next season. Writing that line pains me, but I think it is true. The basic argument, which I'll expand below, is simple. What the Indians need if they hope to contend sometime in the next two to three seasons is talent at the major league level. The area of the diamond they most lack talent right now is outfield and first base. Sizemore, with a positive health prognosis can play the former, and even with a negative one can man the latter. Sizemore is the Indians best option for adding (keeping?) real talent to the outfield/first base mix. The Indians have no viable options in the upper minors and the free agent outlook is bleak. But it is obviously a huge gamble. And maybe that is a good thing.
First, this argument is obviously contingent on the reports the organization gets from the doctors who performed Sizemore's most recent (of five) knee surgery. If he looks irreparably damaged, so be it. But if not, the Indians need to keep him. But they need to leverage their position to keep him for not just the 2012 season, but preferably through the 2014 season. This window covers the main parts of the current pitching staff and also provides a window for talent to (hopefully) percolate up through the Tribe's farm system to replace Grady (though there are no obvious outfield replacements at the moment). Paul Cousineau (at the DiaTribe ) and Terry Pluto (Plain Dealer) have argued for a highly incentive-based deal that keeps Grady in town through 2014 (Paul gives a complete breakdown here). If Grady were to accept such an offer, great, but I think it is unlikely he would. I think the starting point for signing Grady to a risk-minimizing extension begins with agreeing to exercise Sizemore's 2012 option in its entirety. Painful, but if it allows the team to sign him to such a risk-minimizing extension, it is worth it. Also, if we consider the team to have a 2012-2014 window, the team payroll is likely to climb each of those years as players move through contract extensions and/or progress into and through arbitration years. If you want to add one season of a bloated contract, 2012 is the year to do it.
Why do we need Grady? First, the Travis Buck and Austin Kearns dynamic duo is gone. The minor league options simply lack any real major league talent. Trevor Crowe, Jered Head and Chad Huffman represent the minor league veteran crop, and as a group, they represent at best an emergency injury filler. The younger guys include Tim Fedroff, Nick Weglarz and Thomas Neal. Weglarz is broken and there is no reason to evaluate him otherwise until he shows he can tie his shoes without pulling a hamstring. Tim Fedroff is in Arizona this Fall after a marginally successful season (.308/.385/.408), but his numbers collapsed in Columbus and there is really very little positive upside in a close examination of his numbers. Thomas Neal is arguably more interesting, but he is two years removed from a plus offensive season (2009 - .337/.431/.579, A+), and has shown nothing above the high-A level in the minors. The argument for a free agent upgrade is even harder to stomach. If the best market-price option available to the Tribe is someone like Coco Crisp, is that really a better option than paying near market-price for a devalued Grady Sizemore?
The guys who filled in for Sizemore this year had mixed results, but don't make up for a world without Grady. Shelley Duncan should be a part of the team in 2012, but he is not really a potential replacement for Sizemore on the roster. Ezequiel Carrera is a 4th or 5th outfielder (if he improves his defense). Michael Brantley is the only viable replacement for Sizemore at the major league level, but a shift from LF to CF of Brantley creates its own problems. Furthermore, Brantley has his own injury concerns following surgery on his hamate bone which ended his season. Brantley showed what appeared to be positive development across the first two months of the season in 2011 (.287/.354/.410 through the end of May), but completely collapsed afterwards. His inability to consistently get on base, take advantage of his contact abilities, and utilize his speed continue to frustrate. Brantley might still take a significant step forward, but he does not appear to be a viable starter on a team hoping to contend at this point.
So that leaves Grady. Grady's advantage is his potential to deliver a plus bat to the lineup. We all recall how Grady was hitting before his first DL stint in mid-May last season (.282/.333/.641), but that was just 18 games. But can we honestly hope for that kind of production over an 18-game stretch out of any of our other options? The 43 games Grady played after his sting on the DL featured an identical .302 BABIP but a far more wretched .214/.289/.377 batting line. And his September denouement was even worse. But talent wins out, and Grady is significantly more talented than any other viable options. It is worth reminding yourself tonight when you watch Chris Carpenter pitch game 5 for St. Louis that he was a complete injury wash-out. Labrum surgery for a pitcher is the death sentence, but after being waived by Toronto, missing a complete season in recovery, he eventually made it back and has been a key cog of the Cardinals pitching staff since (even with two additional lost seasons). Carpenter is the exception, not the norm, but he is an example of talent winning out.
Sizemore's unwavering support from fans seems to have reached a tipping point this season, and the ownership and front office run the risk in re-signing him of hearing chants about the Indians being "cheap" change into lamentations about how "stupid" the club is. But that is a risk the Indians should take. The Indians pitching staff is unlikely to transform into the Philadelphia Phillies anytime soon. It has the potential to be "good enough," but not on its own. The Indians will need to have above average offensive support and holding onto Grady Sizemore (and lighting a few devotional candles) should be part of the plan to try and accomplish that. Again, it pains me somewhat, but sign me on to the "keep Grady Sizemore" bandwagon.
22 comments
|
3 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
As much as it also pains, I’m interested in taking the option (if that’s all it is) on Kosuke and keeping him around for a year, IF they move Grady to a less taxing position. (1B) there is a plateau that the outfield falls off after Choo, Brantley, and Grady…..and not a high one to begin with.
Good writeup, as always,
"Mixed emotions. Rather see him hit PEDroia [with that pitch]. I don’t care if he is in the dugout"
I think it’s a great argument. The one flaw is that you may be underestimating the chance that Sizemore and the Indians will agree amicably on a two-year or three-year deal without picking up the option first. You don’t really think they should pick up the option without seeing how open he is to negotiation?
I think the option is part of the negotiation. I am envisioning a scenario where the option is picked up at the same time the extension is announced.
Great article. Thanks for clarifying that point. I was going to respond that I doubt picking up the option without negotiating first gives the team much leverage. After all, if he’s determined to maximize his value on the market, the option makes no difference. The team’s only real leverage is getting him to agree to some security now after having three down seasons. What could he get on the market this offseason? Is Berkman a comp? He only had one down year, but he landed a 1-year $8 million contract. I would hope he’s not, but who is?
As an aside, I wonder if Grady either A) feels some loyalty to the team after disappointing seasons, or B) on some level blames the organization and Wedge for their (over)use of him 2005-2008. That could affect how he feels about working out a new deal.
by J83 on Oct 7, 2011 3:50 PM EDT up reply actions
Well, on B … they said many times that whenever Wedgie tried to give him a day off he’d be in there trying to talk his way back into the lineup. He wanted to be in there that much. So I don’t really see that being an issue.
This scenario sounds freakishly similar to Asdrubal, no? Please let it not be manifested in future years in the same way.
This. (And rec for Adam)
"I want to be playing at the end of October or the end of September -- not just at the beginning of April." —Grady
I agree. I think people automatically assume that Grady, like most other players, will want to take the most $$$ he can get and therefore would turn down a redone contract for less $$$. But I’m not so sure about that myself. Maybe, but I’ve never seen any indication that he’d be one to do that.
This is what I typed up the other day about this: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/dfl9dt
Though, if I were Grady and wanted to stay, I may ask for some kind of trade approval in the new contract. Not that I think they’d actually do it but, what would stop the Tribe from redoing the contract just to make him a little easier to trade? Therefore cutting his salary from the payroll AND getting something in return. I’m sure that, if he wanted to go somewhere else, he’d much rather have the option to choose for himself as a free agent where end up. I’d just want to include something to protect myself against that if I were him.
His current contract had some effective clauses that stopped short of requiring a trade veto. Notably, the 2011 club option converted to a player option if he was traded before this point. Also, his salary went up by several million. No reason you couldn’t do those clauses again.
The fan in says “bring him back no questions asked.” The historian in me thinks he’s a modern day Pete Reiser… too aggressive for his own welfare and unable to play any other way. I agree with Jay’s scenario only and view Fukudome as the backup plan.
Baseball fans are junkies, and their heroin is the statistic. - Robert S. Wieder
I think the the team has a little more leverage than you think, unless I’m missing something. I don’t think Grady will get anywhere close to $9m on the open market next year, and I don’t see much reason for other teams to offer him a multi-year deal either. Why would they?
The Tribe certainly has a need, but the odds are they can spend the same $9m on the open market and get a better solution than Grady in the OF. For next year. As far as Grady playing 1B, somehow I just don’t see it.
But I do think Grady, Netti, you and I and most Tribe fans want to see him remain an Indian somehow. If we are the only one that will offer him a multi-year deal, then there seems to be a mutual incentive to do so, putting the team on the hook for $10-12m for 3 yrs.
If they want to front load that, you’re right, it might preserve payroll flexibility after next year and give Grady most of what his single year option would bring in ‘12. But it wouldn’t be a matter of picking up his option and then adding another 6-10m to it, it would still be a re-structuring of sorts.
I don’t really get the connection between our need for offense and the increased need for Grady. We need offense in the OF precisely because Grady has been unable to play. His absence is the entire reason we have a big hole in the OF production in the first place. Pointing out that we need him because we don’t have anyone else is kind of a strange tautology – he can’t play therefore we need him more? More than someone else who CAN play?
I love Paul’s idea for extending him, but I think the base salary would have to be increased (and perhaps the milestones go down some?). Perhaps picking up the 2012 option and adding to it. So maybe $4.5M/season instead of $3. Something along those lines.
Or, the third year could be turned into a player option. If Grady magically heals and is worth a multi-year deal which is where he hoped to be in 2013 season anyway) he can still get one. If, and this is far more likely, he is toast somewhere along these next two or three years he still earns his $9 million plus potentially some incentive money along the way. I think Paulson idea is the workable way to keep Grady without hurting the Tribe too much and, when he is physically able to hit, he is still the key to generating offense on the team so he is worth keeping.
Spot on. If we had Desmond Jennings sitting in the wings, this is a different conversation. We don’t. No internal options get us to Grady’s talent level and $9 million is not going to get us there. I don’t know how we could spend $9 million better than filling a gaping hole in our lineup.
Sure for less we can get Coco Crisp? But we’d be guaranteeing mediocrity and it’s not like he doesn’t have an injury history himself. The open market would only get us marginally better than EZ or Brantley. As a fan, at least with Grady I can dream. Say what you will, frustrating as it is, that’s something.
Through 232 ABs he had 33 Xtra base hits (10, 22, 1). That’s a still stud. Got to go with talent. It’s still there, somewhere. Olly olly oxen free. Come come out wherever you are!
Sore subject, but when is the last time we drafted or developed an outfielder worth anything? Brian Giles?
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on Let's Go Tribe
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
Featured Stories
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- The Juice: Bryce Harper’s triple against Halladay keys Nats win, Dodgers roar back
- Heather Nabozny of Tigers, Nicole Sherry of Orioles: Women groundskeepers in MLB
- 10 notable team reps for MLB’s upcoming draft
- Rays’ gladiator helmets: Fernando Rodney, Joel Peralta do as Romans do (VIDEO)
- Rickie Weeks forgets number of outs, passes up chance for inning-ending double play (VIDEO)
