The LeBron/Cavs Boots: Cleveland Curse, Optimism and New York Magazine
May 13, 2010Tribe/Royals Open Thread
May 13, 2010With Kerry Wood’s return, Jon Steiner is back to tell us why the Indians opted to send down Jensen Lewis and if it will ultimately prove to be the right decision. I’ll give you all two guesses to that answer. This one is light on math, but still heavy on science. Enjoy.
I know this sort of thing gets overdone on the series of tubes, but I’m going to present you with two relief pitchers, and you’re going to tell me which one is better:
Pitcher A: 66.1 IP 8.41K/9 3.93 BB/9 4.61 ERA 4.44 xFIP
Pitcher B: 48.0 IP 6.00K/9 4.69 BB/9 7.31 ERA 4.73 xFIP
First, let’s say this: neither of these guys looks to be a world-beater, especially considering they’re both relievers. In fact, I’ll just come out and say it: neither of these two is a particularly good player. They might even both suck a little.
But let’s split hairs, dude. If you had to choose between the two of them, which would you choose? The guy with the 4.61 ERA or the guy with the 7.31 ERA? The guy who strikes out almost one guy per inning, or the guy who strikes out two every third inning? I mean, in every meaningful way, Pitcher A is better than Pitcher B, and if you absolutely had to have one of them on your team, you’d choose Pitcher A. Right?
Not if you’re the Cleveland Indians. Nope, if you’re the Cleveland Indians, you like Pitcher B. In fact, you like Pitcher B so much that you send Pitcher A to the minor leagues to make room for Kerry Wood, so that you can keep Pitcher B from being claimed by another team.
And this is ridiculous. Patently ridiculous.
In case you haven’t figured out what I’m talking about, Player A is Jensen Lewis and Player B is Rafael Perez. Those are their 2009 numbers, but you can really pick any year you like: so far this year Raffy’s ERA is 7.36. (OK, don’t pick 2007, but Joe Borowoski led the team in saves in 2007, so don’t start telling me that means anything in 2010!)
This decision—to keep the inferior player at the expense of the better player—has caused me some problems. For one, it puts me in the awkward position of defending Jensen Lewis, which is not something that brings me much joy in life. I’ve always believed Lewis was miscast as a late-inning setup guy based on some fluky 2007 appearances; I’ve always preferred him in mop-up duty or early-middle relief appearances.
Second, I like to believe that the front office—while working under certain financial constraints—is not willfully stubborn.
Finally, I understand completely why the team did it. And I still think it’s an indefensible move. Which makes my argument a bit difficult.
But my argument remains: this was the wrong move.
So here’s what happened last week. When Kerry Wood was ready to come off the disabled list, we needed room on the 25-man roster for him. So we had to get someone off the roster, either by optioning him to the minors, or by designating him for assignment (more on that in a second). Additionally, the team wanted that person to be a reliever, to maintain the balance of the roster (12 pitchers, 13 position players). So here were the potential players that could have lost their job:
- Chris Perez (1)
- Rafael Perez (0)
- Tony Sipp (2)
- Hector Ambriz (0)
- Jamey Wright (NA)
- Jensen Lewis (1)
- Aaron Laffey (1)
Pay close attention to those parenthetical numbers; that’s how many “option years” each of these players have left. Basically, a player has three option years after he’s been added to a team’s 40-man roster. A team can send a player up or down in these years as many times as it wants. If a player isn’t optioned to the minors at all in a given year (i.e. he spends the entire year with the Major League club), that doesn’t count as an option year. But once the player accumulates five years of major league service time (Hi, Jamey Wright), he can’t be optioned without his consent, even if he never has been before.
What if a player is out of minor league options, but the team doesn’t want to keep him on their major league roster? Well, to get down to the minors, the team must designate him for assignment, and he has to pass through irrevocable waivers, which basically means before you can send him down, other teams have the right to claim him and put him on their major league team. The Indians put Jeremy Sowers through waivers before the season started (he’s out of options), and not one team thought he was worth a roster spot. He’s now safely working out of the bullpen in Columbus.
So Tony Sipp, Chris Perez, Jensen Lewis, and Aaron Laffey all had options remaining. I think it’s safe to say that Sipp is the best reliever we have right now. Chris Perez is seen as a future closer, for better or worse. Aaron Laffey is a necessary long-man (unless and until they cut bait on Masterson as a starter).
Which brings me to the Raffy-Jensen problem. Raffy doesn’t have any option years left; he was signed to the 40-man roster in 2006, and spent time in the minors in 2006, 2007, and 2009. His three option years are gone. Jensen, on the other hand, has one option year left (his contract was purchased in 2007, and he was sent down in 2008 and 2009). Here’s our fearless leader:
“It was a very tough decision,” manager Manny Acta said. “The guys without options are pitching very good. We expressed that to [Lewis], and he understood that he’ll be in that position someday when he’ll be out of options, and even when he struggles he won’t be able to go back down.”
Let’s parse that quote. First, the “guys” without options are NOT pitching “good” [sic]. In fact, I can think of one guy in particular who’s not pitching good. Raffy Perez is out of options. He’s pitching slow-pitch softball, batting practice. That’s not good; a 7.36 ERA might be the considered “the opposite of good”. But that little bit isn’t even the worst part. Look at that second bolded statement.
Acta suggests that once Lewis is out of options, even when he’s bad he’ll stay on the team! That’s messed up! What happened to bad pitchers getting canned?
So here’s the part where I say that I know why the organization did this. They did this because they believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the Raffy Perez of 2007—the one with the 1.78 ERA and 9.20 K/9—is the real Raffy Perez, and everything that’s happened other than that magical season—that is, all the suck—is just a blip. The front office did this because they want that season to be the truth. Because they need that to be the truth. In short, they did this because they got emotional about a player’s past accomplishments, and refused to evaluate his current abilities.
Or maybe they did it because they were terrified of another team taking him, and having Raffy perform reasonably well. That would make them look stupid, and the LaCoste Nostra hates looking stupid.
So they either did it because they were emotional or afraid or both. And that’s not how a smart organization should be making decisions.
Smart organizations make tough moves, and move on. I know that this is just one decision, and it’s really not that big of a deal. I wouldn’t think that Raffy would’ve had much trouble clearing waivers anyway: what team wants a lefty-specialist who neither touches 90 mph nor the strikezone? Furthermore, I’m guessing that next year at least one of these two guys won’t be on the team. So in the end, it’s not the sort of move that’s going to change the direction of the franchise.
But it sure doesn’t look great to guarantee a bad player a roster spot for emotional reasons. Which is exactly what they just did.
See you next week!
-Jon Steiner
(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America)
9 Comments
Great article Jon.
Your logic is not wanted in the Tribe front office
I don’t see the problem with designating Raffy Perez for assignment. Since the start of ’09, batters have a .934 OPS against him. For a frame of reference, A-Rod hit .933 and Ryan Howard hit .931 last year.
If keeping Lewis over Perez would have made any difference at all, I could understand the indignation. But the difference between Lewis and Perez isn’t even one win, and this team will be glad to win 80 games. This team has to make decisions based on what will make them better in 2011 and 2012. It sucks, I know, but there’s little point in trying to scratch out every win possible in 2010. There’s no point in exposing Perez. The Indians will be best served by guaranteeing themselves both Perez and Lewis as possible bullpen options next year, even though both guys are likely mop-up fodder. The upside to keeping Lewis – maybe a few more decent middle relief innings in a lost season. The downside – a team that desperately needs bullpen help can’t just give away arms, again, in a lost season.
I hear you Charles, and I don’t disagree completely. I know that the difference in wins isn’t that big of deal between the two.
For me, this is about sending a message to the fans about what sort of team they want to be. They sent a bad message regarding their priorities and their ability to evaluate their own talent. That’s mostly what I’m upset about.
But when it first happened, I completely agreed with everything you wrote. It’s just not sitting well…
Jon – if the fans want to be dumb enough to not properly evaluate a decision, then the team shouldn’t be concerned at all about what message they send. This isn’t a bad message regarding their priorities. This is a non-message about their ability to evaluate talent. This is a message saying ‘we aren’t the early 00’s Orioles and just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping everything sticks. We’re going to make moves to make this team better when the games will be more meaningful, which, unfortunately, isn’t right now.” I can understand people being upset about Santana. The Indians still made the right move there, but I can see people thinking he’d make a genuine difference in the win column, and they would be excited enough to go buy a few more tickets. But this is the same thing on an almost insignificant level. You have to make moves based on what helps the 2011 and 2012 teams, because not even Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez put the 2010 team into the playoffs.
@ Charles:
If Raffy makes this team better in 2011 or 2012, I’ll eat my words. I think the smart decision is cutting him loose. Not because of options or contracts or arbitration, but because he can’t pitch at the major league level. And he’s proved that he can’t for four years.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see Raffy as being (even a minor) part of championship team. That’s why you cut bait, in my opinion.
Like you say, it’s minor. But minor decisions can tell you how an organization thinks, and this move tells me they’re still not thinking well.
If I’m correct, Didn’t Raffy struggle last year too? and……Don’t we have some youngsters with live arms waiting for their chance? and…..Would you claim a pitcher that’s struggled for a year plus with no options left?
Absolutely assinine. Typical Shapiro bullstuff! Micro-manage the roster to a fault and then have the manager cover your butt and take the hit. This guy’s gotta go. This is the first season in over two decades that I’ve lost this much interest in the Indians and it’s all due to this Shapiro and Dolan.
Perez hasn’t been able to pitch at the major league level for a year and a month. Not 4 years. How many middle relievers do you see as being part of a championship team? The smart decision is not giving away bullpen arms when you still need some. What’s the upside to exposing Perez? The only reason to do it is emotion, frustration at what happened to Perez. And saying you’ll eat your words if Perez helps down the road doesn’t mean anything. We have to make a decision right now, and we can choose between possibly losing a guy and definitely not losing a guy. That choice is easy, there isn’t any thinking to do.
Perez hasn’t been able to pitch at the major league level for a year and a month. Not 4 years. How many middle relievers in the majors do you see as being part of a championship team? The smart decision is not giving away bullpen arms when you still need some. What’s the upside to exposing Perez? The only reason to do it is emotion, frustration at what happened to Perez. And saying you’ll eat your words if Perez helps down the road doesn’t mean anything. We have to make a decision right now, and we can choose between possibly losing a guy and definitely not losing a guy. That choice is easy, there isn’t any thinking to do.