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June 29, 2009Jackets Draft Recap; Questions Abound as Free Agency Looms
June 29, 2009ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick wrote today about the Tribe’s fall from grace. One win away from a possible World Series title in ’07, the Indians find themselves at the bottom of the American League. He covers everything from injuries, to bullpen implosions, to poor drafting and even inflated expectations. The piece is well done and worth reading, even if you have been paying attention the last two seasons. It does make me cringe though, to think about how close this team was in ’07.
The question I find myself asking more and more is what in the world are we going to do about Travis Hafner? Here is a guy making $11.5 million dollars that can’t play in the field, and apparently can’t rack up more than 16 at bats a week or his shoulder will flare up and he’ll be out for a month. Ironically, he is probably hitting the ball better right now than at any point in the last two years. He’s hitting .325 for the month of June with an OPS of just over 1.0, but with only 40 at bats. That’s less than half the at-bats Victor Martinez has for the same time period.
Can we really let a part time guy eat up so much team payroll and get so little in return? I know that we can’t just release him and not pay him, this isn’t the NFL. Can’t we at least make him hit every day? If he isn’t going to be able to hold up for a season then the Indians should be able to recoup some of that contract through insurance right? Perhaps it doesn’t work that way in this case either.
So, does this make Travis Hafner’s contract (which doesn’t run out until 2013 by the way) the worst deal in Indians’ history? Say Travis manages to get 300 at-bats a season. That means the Indians are paying him $38,333 PER AT BAT. Not per hit. Not per home run. Just for standing there. Wow.
21 Comments
It is pretty insane to think how much Hafner is getting paid compared to how often he actually plays, especially if this trend of monthly visits to the DL lasts throughout the duration of his contract. However paying kerry wood $10 million this year is equally outrageous. It’s not entirely woods fault that the bullpen as a whole is terrible, but he was suppose to be our anchor, not the next joe borowski.
Most telling quote from that article:
Some draft watchers think the Indians are too stat-focused and select too many corner infielders, outfielders and DH types rather than athletes and middle-of-the-diamond players.
I think that its been a known issue for a while, at least for most, that Hafner was basically let go from the RANGERS because they knew his shoulder was screwed up and didnt want to throw money at something that wasnt going to be a long term investment…I dont know why people seem to be all worked up about it, I thought everyone knew about it already…
as for the “fall” of the Tribe…its not really on the players at this point…its the people in position of power…how many teams can you really look at and say that they had the amount of talent that traded them away and you could assemble a near all-star lineup…we let too many good players walk, and let too many schmucks (lately) stick around for waaaay too long…i understand that we cant afford a lot of them due to the revenue lacking city/ venue, but cmon…the run in the 90s was built on young guys that you could see were very good prospects, that played the game hard, and wanted to win, not wanted a paycheck…
it seems to me like its a crapshoot for the front office in cleveland the past 4-5 years or so…sure you’d like to think that Carmona wouldn’t have regressed so far to where he cant find the strike zone, but I would be interested to see how many of those “strikes” were actually balls that people swung at…it seemed to me in the Boston series when we lost in the ALCS, that as soon as they stopped swinging at the sinker, he couldnt get anyone out…its more of a tease pitch than a quality pitch…because in order to throw it for a strike, he elevates it, and therefore loses the arm angle he HAD that made it work to begin with…pitching is a game of inches and slight adjustments…I would have liked to see him work a curve or slider into his arsenal, rather than try to throw the sinker 90% of the time…or a changeup…anything…
who could see Francisco regress? he has a nice swing, but after he had the success against Sonnenstine, he hasnt done squat, figuring if he just kept up the same mentality of just sitting on the fastball, he would be successful…he goes thru times where he looks good, and then the rest of the time, he swings and tries to pull everything to the point of he is on his heels halfway thru his swing…head pulling off and everything…
garko…is just a trainwreck…he really has no natural position…and again, for as big as he is…little to no power at all…
Shoppach is at best, a 3rd string catcher that looks completely overmatched and lost at the plate…and again, tries to crush everything he sees…even if hes in a batting cage, he’s bound to miss…
seems like everyone on this team wants to be the savior, rather than knowing your role (carroll seems to know his very well)…too many guys trying to hit home runs, rather than play baseball…
the pitching staff needs a new face…Willis just looks like hes talking to a 5 yr old (very condescending) when he talks to the pitchers on the mound…someone that will make them understand quality strikes…
my pitching coach in college had the best practice drill…he would put a steel slab on the plate that stood about 6 feet tall and covered the center of the plate and have us practice just on the corners…if we hit the steel slab, he would tell us that was a base hit at the very least…it definitely taught us to work the corners and consistantly hit them…dont know how many times I’ve seen Tribe pitchers leave the ball directly over the middle of the plate, belt high over and over and over and over again…
i just puked in my mouth a little because i completely forgot about this…
“In 2005, the Indians drafted Washington high school pitcher Tim Lincecum in the 42nd round, but ownership wasn’t willing to buck the commissioner’s office and spend the $1 million or so required to sign him. Think Lincecum wouldn’t look good in that rotation right now?”
“I think that its been a known issue for a while, at least for most, that Hafner was basically let go from the RANGERS because they knew his shoulder was screwed up and didnt want to throw money at something that wasnt going to be a long term investment…I dont know why people seem to be all worked up about it, I thought everyone knew about it already…”
So…when Hafner was hitting .300 with 30HRs and 100 rbi for three straight seasons in Cleveland with no signs of a shoulder injury (which was what earned him the long term deal) you’re saying EVERYONE knew that his shoulder wasn’t going to hold up? 3 seasons is decent sample size.
Hafner was moved from Texas because he was stuck behind Palmeiro, Hank Blalock and Mark Texiera.
I don’t think Hafner’s salary is the problem. Should we really let all the Thomes and Mannys leave town, time after time? I think the problem is our cheap owner and our GM for drafting so poorly.
As for this line “Garko couldn’t have predicted the great bullpen disaster of 2008 or a similar meltdown in 2009 after general manager Mark Shapiro made relief pitching a priority during the hot stove season.” If by “hot stove” he means this off-season, I call BS. If relief pitching would have been a priority, we would have signed K Rod.
I have to disagree. Hafner’s salary is a problem because the Indians will have a fifth of their total payroll wrapped up in a player who doesn’t play a position or is even able to hit on a regular basis.
Too make you feel even worse, anyone follow recently-traded RP Mujica this year?
Rick –
just saying I have heard about that shoulder being a potential issue with hafner for years…yes, when he was crushing the ball, no one said anything about it…I’m just saying again that I thought everyone knew that was a possibility with him, much as we learned later about Albert Belle’s hip…
this was from an earlier convo on this site…so its not just me who remembers hearing about it 🙂
# 3 Craig Says:
February 16th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Well, I am content at pointing out other people who whisper. I think you have probably gone a little further than I feel comfortable with in suspecting Hafner.
The one thing that separates Travis Hafner from the others you mention is that he had a suspected problem with that shoulder since his days in Texas. That shoulder was always known as a real risk to his career and is one of the reasons that Texas was willing to trade him here.
That being said, I don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility that his shoulder just started to break down like the Rangers thought it would when they traded him to Cleveland. Again, the whispers will always be there, but he isn’t exactly Sammy Sosa who disappeared off the landscape with no real injury to tie his drop in production to
…and yes I know that texas moved a prospect that they might not need because of depth, but at the same time, for ryan drese who had knee problems and einar diaz, the defensive catcher with little to no bat? it just seems like they fleeced the Rangers if that turned out to be another colon -sizemore-lee-phillips deal…just seems to me like they thought it would be more even as they might have had some inkling that his Hafner…just my opinion…
*that his shoulder sucked (Hafner)
good Lord I cant wait for Tuesday…I havent been able to think straight today!
How dare you go back into the history of this site and use my words to argue with Rick in June! 🙂
I would call the Hafner thing bad luck more than incompetence. The real problem with the Tribe are guys that don’t seem to progress as members of the team. I am looking at Ben Francisco, Kelly Shoppach, Josh Barfield, all the pitchers not named Cliff Lee, etc.
I think it is time to stop some of the cheap owner nonsense. Dolan is not blameless by any means but the Tribe is 15th in payroll. I am OK with that considering we are a mid-market. The problem that I have is that 31.5 million of the 81.5 million payroll is tied up in Hafner, Westbrook, and Wood. That falls on Shapiro. He has to go.
hahaha…I knew I saw someone else comment about it on here before!!!
I never said he was incompetent either…I love the dude when hes healthy…just saying that his shoulder was a known issue…thats all…
trust me, I wish that we were looking at a first place team, and offensive juggernaut led by Pronk and Vic! but we’re not…unfortunately…
I’ve always wondered if Hafner’s problems really took a big turn for the worse after being hit by a white sox pitcher a few seasons ago. I would be really interested to see his before/after being hit batting stats.
I’m thinking Hafner has never been the same after hbp, it could even have had a mental cascade effect where it caused him to alter his swing to protect himself, and that made his shoulder worse. The only good thing is, that is something he may be able to work out someday…
Nobody ever talks about this, but in that Game 5 against Boston, Sabathia struggled, but after six innings, he’d thrown over 100 pitches and was only trailing 2-1. Eric Wedge inexplicably sent him out for the 7th even though there was an off-day prior to the game and one after. I was there and I remember being shocked to see CC walk out for the 7th. He ended up giving up 2 more runs.
Wedge said afterward he didn’t want to use Betancourt, one of the best set-up men in baseball that season, for two innings despite the days off.
I still think Eric Wedge lost that series just as much as CC and Carmona because of that move.
How about that Chris Perez, huh? Good thing he gave up those four runs otherwise they could have won this game. Looks like he’ll fit in just nicely in the Tribe bullpen.
the questions asked about Hafner above were the same I asked when he signed his contract, followed by asking where CC will go, because we obv wouldnt keep him. That Hafner contract is Wayne Garand-esque, even if it hasnt hit those proportions (yet).
I’ve been following baseball for quite a while, and have always heard that the best athletes on the team are always SS and CF (aside from C, which is a specialty position) Wouldnt it make sense to go after SS and CF and try to convert them instead of putting a slow former C who now plays 1b in LF sometimes?
@18: Just another example of the horrors of this season. No matter who they bring into the bullpen, it’s a disaster all over. And by and large, it’s all pitching this year, save Lee. Although clutch hitting could be better, they are what, 3rd in the AL in runs? So we know offense isn’t that big of an issue…
@4: Just thinking that we had Lincecum and let him walk makes my blood boil.
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