Jon & Paul Plus Baseball: Filling out the Roster

Every year around this time, I tell myself that I’m not going to waste too much time and energy poring over the last few roster spots for the Indians.  I have a tendency to forget how little these spots end up mattering in the long run, and consequently manage to convince myself that the difference between winning the division and last place is sure to be the defensive acumen of our utility infielder or the baserunning skills of our swing-man out of the bullpen.

So I spend February and March telling myself to be rational: the periphery of the roster means very little compared to a team’s core players.  It’s silly to get worked up over a few minor details.  Right?

But then I read a piece like this by Tony Lastoria, suggesting that the front office is considering keeping Orlando Cabrera, Jayson Nix, Trevor Crowe, and Luis Valbuena on the MLB roster while sending Jason Donald, Cord Phelps, Lou Marson and the rest of the youngsters back to Columbus.  And I go nuts all over again, unable to follow the logic.

And that helpless feeling sends me inexorably to the old electronic mail machine to converse with Paul Cousineau, founder of the DiaTribe.  

JON: Paul, I’m at a loss.  Apparently the front office is making noise about keeping the kids in the minors for the better part of their 20s, and sticking with the likes of Nix, Valbuena, etc. for another year.  Is there some logic here that I’m missing, or is it just more of the same arbitration-clock management?

PAUL: Don’t lump me in with that “noise-making” crowd, as the logic of keeping a 26-year-old Jason Donald in Columbus to play SS to “increase his ability to be a utility guy” when all he’s ever done in MiLB is play SS (390 games on the farm, 356 at SS) is just the starting point of the baffling “plan” that seems to be in place going into Spring Training.  From what the “plan” sounds like, it would have The OC (Orlando Cabrera) at 2B and Nix or Valbuena at 3B (with the other as the Utility IF) for the parent club while Donald and Phelps head to Columbus to…well, wait to come to Cleveland to sit behind Kipnis and The Chiz eventually.

If we’re thinking arbitration-clock management with guys that look like the edges of the roster of a good team like Donald and Phelps (or Marson, who would go to Columbus to “get everyday AB”, leaving Luke Carlin or Paul Phillips to play when Santana goes to 1B), then the Indians are in worse shape than we all think or have become overly obsessed with managing service time in a delusional plan to get all of these guys together on the same roster…well, someday I guess.

JON: Exactly.  You manage arbitration clocks on players who are likely to become too expensive to retain someday.  But the Indians seem to be manipulating the clock on…Lou Marson?!

Last season’s decisions to keep Michael Brantley and Carlos Santana in AAA to wrangle an extra year of club control made good sense to me.  The organization was, I kept telling myself, acting in its best interest to keep their future core players for a bit longer.  Now though?  If we think that we’re in danger of losing Lou Marson or Cord Phelps in 6 years, I have to believe that our priorities are a bit out of whack.

I trust that the front office is full of smart people–smarter than I for sure.  But I honestly can’t believe that these smart people are seriously considering giving Trevor Crowe another 100 MLB at bats or handing a full-time job to Jayson Nix.  At this point, I’m starting to think it has less to do with the best interests of the club and more to do with hoping to save face on a poor first-round draft choice or a low risk FA signing.

What makes me saddest though?  I’m on the verge of losing my faith in Shapinetti.  And after all the trauma they’ve put us through, the fact that the crossroads involves the margins of the roster seems particularly off-putting to me.  After all, how much difference can a backup catcher or fifth outfielder really make anyway?

PAUL: That’s the frustrating thing about these plans (assuming they have some kernel of truth to them) in that most of the decisions that have been made in the past could be justified, with the desired result (e.g. one more year of Santana’s control) outweighing the impatience that dominates the Spring.  But the idea that the Indians will send Donald to AAA to play SS (and to manipulate his service clock a bit) means that they’re making these moves to ensure that a 32-year-old Jason Donald is on the roster 5 years from now as a utility IF?

The Marson thing is particularly baffling as the Indians have stated that Santana is going to play significant games at 1B, meaning that the back-up C could be playing 35 to 40 games this season.  Is the notion that Marson “needs everyday AB” in Columbus really worth enduring Paul Phillips for 20 games in the first half of the season?

Really, what’s the point in all of this?

Maybe we’re arguing over the periphery of the roster for the first two months (and maybe I’m sensitive to Donald and Marson being in AAA a year-and-a-half after being 1/2 of the return for Lee), with most of these guys simply starting the season in AAA, but it speaks to more of an organizational philosophy that never seems to be planning for “today” to put the best team on the field.  I get the development thing as well as the service clock thing for The Chiz and Kipnis and Santana last year, but didn’t we already play this game last year with Grudz and Redmond, with the Indians putting themselves in their obligatory 1st half hole as a result?

At the risk of sounding overly impatient, given the (as you say) “trauma” we’ve been through, what’s the target date?

JON: I wrote something earlier this off-season about the organization being more direct and honest with the fanbase.  Something along the lines of, “We’re going to struggle for X years here, but boy, wait ’til you see us in 201X!  That’s when we’re going to make our run.”