While We’re Waiting… Tribe Trade: Was it Worth it?
August 1, 2011Ubaldo Fallout: Antonetti Dealing Prospects Signals ’11-’13 Window
August 1, 2011Did anything special go on this weekend in Wahooland? Nah, nothing really. Just your basic blowout loss, followed by a walk-off win, a blockbuster trade, and another bad loss to the last-place Kansas City Royals. Other than that, nothing really exciting happened at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
If we learned anything this weekend, its that the much maligned Dolan Family ownership and their trusty GM Chris Antonetti want to win now. There is lots to discuss so lets jump right in.
For all of you Dolan bashers who complain that they are cheap, what can you say now? You’ve begged them to go after big names, spend money, and have their team contending. The $49 million payroll, weak AL Central division, and higher than projected attendance figures have put them in a position to add players and money. Antonetti and his staff did everything they could over the past few weeks leading up to the trade deadline to do so.
Numerous reports had the Indians in on the biggest rental bat of them all, OF Carlos Beltran. They were even willing to pay the remaining $6 million on his deal to get him here. Doesn’t that speak volumes? It seems that only Beltran’s no trade clause and his agent Scott Boras kept him from potentially becoming a member of the Tribe.
Every single bat on the market, from Beltran, to Michael Bourn, to Ryan Ludwick, to Josh Willingham, to Coco Crisp, the Indians were named as possible landing spots. Its obvious ownership signed off on adding payroll because they feel as though the time is right and they are serious about winning.
Which brings us to the Ubaldo Jimenez trade. Yes, the Indians gave up two of their four “untouchables” in this trade in Drew Pomeranz and Alex White, but this wasn’t for a one year guy. Jimenez, who you cannot forget was the best pitcher in baseball the first half of 2010 when he went 15-1 with a 2.20 ERA, is the true #1 pitcher the Indians crave. Its clear that the Antonetti regime is the antithesis of the John Hart big bats/average starters/great bullpen era.
Pitching wins championships. There is no doubt about that. Now the Indians have a rotation set for the next two and a half to three years (if they choose) that will have Jimenez and Justin Masterson at the top, followed by steady Josh Tomlin, Carlos Carrasco, and Fausto Carmona. If the 27-year old Jimenez’s road splits (3.38 ERA) show the truth about him outside of Denver’s Coors Field, the the Tribe could be in business.
In a short series in October, nobody is going to want to have to face Jimenez and Masterson if both are on their game. However, if Jimenez is a flop, this will cost the organization dearly and Antonetti could be looking for work elsewhere.
With that said, you have to get to October first, and I don’t know if that is possible with this offense. Lost in all of the hoopla of the Jimenez trade was the fact that the Indians bats continue their swoon, reaching deeper levels of badness seemingly each game.
On Friday night, against lefty Jeff Francis, they were shut out. Its not as if Jeff Francis is the second coming of Randy Johnson either. After eight innings of four hit ball, Francis “improved” to 4-11 on the season.
Saturday night’s game was heading in a similar direction.
It was an absolutely beautiful night at Progressive Field, yet tours truly was literally pulling his hair out as the Tribe offense continued to be baffled, this time by noted ace Felipe Paulino and his 1-8 record. Not until Michael Brantley’s eighth inning RBI single in which Lonnie Chisenhall slid underneath a weak tag attempt by KC catcher Bryan Pena did the Tribe score. Until then, they had been held without a run for 25 straight innings and had scored just two in their last 35.
In the bottom of the ninth against Royals closer Joakim Soria, they exploded for four, the final three coming on Matt LaPorta’s walk-off blast to left. The Gator deserved it after he was crucified earlier in the week for his ninth inning, bases loaded, nobody out double play in a 2-1 loss to the Angels.
All the offensive struggles seemed to be forgotten for a few minutes as the Indians celebrated on the field and the crowd screamed for more. But the fact remained that they had to play and win another game in this series.
Which brings us to yesterday’s debacle. For the third time in the series, the Wahoo Attack failed to produce. It was the obscure lefty factor at play with Danny Duffy getting the call for KC. While the Indians got eight hits off of him in five innings, they could only muster two runs, both came in the fifth inning with two out. Jason Kipnis hit a solo homer, the first of his career, to put the Tribe on the board. Still trailing 3-1, Asdrubal Cabrera doubled (one of his three hits on the day) and Carlos Santana (5-13 in the series) tripled him home.
It was the only hit the Indians had with runners in scoring position. On the day, they were 1-9 and left 10 men on base.
It is easy to nitpick when things aren’t going well, but the sloppy baseball continues for the Tribe. With the offense going the way it is, the margin for error is so slim. You cannot afford to make the dumb mistakes that they are making. Yesterday was a prime example.
The Indians had two men picked off of first base. When you don’t get a lot of base runners in the first place, getting two of them picked off is not doing you any favors. Moving runners is key, no doubt about it. But even the simple things like getting a guy over from second to third with nobody out seems to be a struggle.
Every move Acta made in April and May was gold. Now, he can’t seem to buy a break. Trailing 3-2 in the sixth, the newly acquired Kosuke Fukudome double to start the inning. With the Tribe so run starved, wouldn’t it have been a good idea to bunt him over to third? Instead Austin Kearns (who is still on this team because the Indians never ended up landing a right-handed bat), weakly grounded to short. Look, if you aren’t going to bunt, you must hit a ground ball to the right side. Acta has way too much faith in a guy who hasn’t produced all year and literally has one big hit.Naturally, Fukudome never scored.
Again, I know I’m nitpicking, but my point is that while the Indians now have a rich rotation and a deep bullpen, it is all going to be for naught unless this offense can score. On this eight game homestand where they went a weak 2-6, they scored a total of 15 runs and they were no-hit by Angels righty Ervin Santana.
Two additional minor moves were made, which will thrill so many of you. Orlando Cabrera, who was loved by fans in April and May, disliked by fans in early to mid June, liked again by fans in late June and early July, then disliked again by mid July, has been shipped to San Francisco for AAA OF Thomas Neal. OC’s time had expired here and with Jason Kipnis, the future at second ready to play every day, coupled with Jason Donald being ready to take over as the utility man, there was no reason to keep him around.
Somewhere in Ohio, our own Jon Steiner was crying tears of joy.
Then Sunday after the 5-3 loss, a 40-man roster move needed to be made to make room for Jimenez. The man who was designated for assignment….wait for it….was none other than Mitch Talbot. “The Itch” was granted a stay of execution with his “strained back” that he was DL’d for when David Huff took his spot in the rotation after the All Star break. He was attempting to be converted into a reliever in Columbus during his “rehab assignment.” With Jimenez in the fold, Huff, Jeanmar Gomez, Zach McAllister, and Scott Barnes all way ahead of him in the pecking order and no minor league options left, it was a no brainer. My guess is he goes unclaimed and continues to pitch out of the pen in Columbus.
Now the Indians enter their make or 11-day stretch. I’ve been saying this for the last two weeks, but the danger time has arrived. The Indians are now 2.5 games back of Detroit, and head to Boston for four, then to Texas for three. You are talking about two of the three best teams in the American League and Texas has owned the Tribe over the past three years. Then the Indians come home for a monster three game set with the Tigers. I’m hoping it still means something after the murderous trip Boston/Texas trip.
According to Acta and Antonetti, the Indians want to give Jimenez time to relax mentally, so he will not get a start until the weekend in Arlington. Tonight the Tribe goes with Josh Tomlin (11-5, 4.01 ERA). He will face Boston’s John Lackey (9-8, 6.20 ERA). If the Indians were to have an advantage in any of these games, it would be this one. Lackey has been a headcase, especially at home where he has become a whipping boy for the Red Sox Nation.
If the Tribe comes out of this trip 3-4, I will be thrilled. I am expecting more like 2-5.
photo via John Kuntz/PD
8 Comments
When Kearns was swinging away, I was looking for Eric Wedge’s mustache in the dugout. What happened to Actaball?!
The Dolan’s are cheap though. They need to realize that this is a very winnable division during the offseason and sign a big bat then, without giving away prospects, not wait until last minute to pick up someone like Fukudome. That is not acceptable. Now we’re left scrambling, who knows if we’ll win the division and we lost the huge cushion we built in the beginning of the year. Oh not to mention we lost our best two pitching prospects…
the White Sox trade away a starter, the Tigers add Betemit/Fister, and the Indians add Ubaldo/Fukudome. One team seems like they want this a tad more than the others
not sure if it’ll be enough as we missed a golden opportunity since the all star break to grab the division but we are at least trying
Man the next 10 games or so are huge. Hopefully the bats wake up soon.
@Bob – i doubt the Tribe is going to sign Beltran/Reyes/Fielder/Pujols in the offseason. those are your “big bats” (nor should they)
but, we ended up with Fukudome because Choo and Sizemore are both on the DL and we desperately needed an OF. If Choo was healthy and hitting at 75% of his career norms, then we wouldn’t have needed a “big bat”
If we can somehow wake up offensively, we can win 2 games in this series. We face Lackey tonight and Wakefield on Wednesday. Of course, pitchers seem to break out of slumps against us, so Lackey might throw a no hitter tonight 😀
Jimenez and Justin would be real hard to handle in the playoffs….. If only we can get there
@2: it’s interesting and highly relevant that the Dolans spend roughly exactly the same percentage of revenue on payroll as nearly every other MLB team does. Their revenue stream is rather small, but as a business owner they -do- have a right to turn a profit. That isn’t to say they couldn’t spend more, but they want to make good baseball sense while making good business sense.
Honestly, the best thing they, and about 22 other MLB cities, can do is lock out the big fat cities who can spend 225+ million on payroll and force them into an even-handed CBA.
In the meantime, they have potentially set up this team to make a massive surge to the playoffs through 2013, and even this year. There were no fantastic hitting acquisitions to be made besides Beltran, and his agent told the Indians to shove it. There were no fantastic pitching acquisitions to be made besides Jiminez, and the Indians made it. They also acquired Kosuke Fukudome for pretty close to nothing. And just because Fukudome is a rental doesn’t mean he won’t be wearing Wahoo next season too, as there are a number of situations in which he could potentially return to the Indians for a reasonable salary.
The number one thing we, as fans, can do, is buy what the Indians are selling. No matter how poor I am (I make about $14,500 per year), I always try to invest at least $100 in the Cleveland Indians every year, because I know approximately $50 of that will go towards the acquisition of world-class baseball players.
I’m not saying the Dolans are the perfect owners. But they are imperfect owners in an imperfect situation in a system that is stacked horribly against them. Believe it when I say they want to win. The more the Indians win, the more money the Dolans make. That’s why they bought this team at their zenith. The Jacobs were selling because they knew the fevered run of 1994-2000 was no longer sustainable, and they were right.
I, for one, am tremendously excited to see a rotation of Masterson, Jiminez, Tomlin, Carmona, and Carrasco, backed up by the Bullpen Mafia. If these Wahoo Warriors can just hang tough for a little while longer, Chisenhall and Kipnis may begin to produce on a daily basis. Choo’s return is approximately one brutal road trip away. And even Sizemore, yes, he of the .237 batting average and the .769 OPS, will be back. It’s even possible his slumping average after his second debut this year was largely due to the hernia he had been playing with, since he had been surging before he went back on the DL for the first time.
Maybe none of this stuff will happen, and we’ll fade into an obscure 3rd-place finish this season. But in that case, there’s always next year, and I’ll be looking to pick up at least $50 of somebody’s contract either way.