Braylon Edwards is still available
June 18, 2012Indians Weekend Wrapup: The Little Offense That Couldn’t and Its Struggling Pitching Staff
June 18, 2012While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
“What’s stunning about this is that Santana still has that low batting average (that is the bane of Sports Talk Radio Hosts everywhere) and the high OBP, meaning that “good eye” is still there, but compared to last year – when Santana looked for “his” pitch and crushed it – he’s not hitting for power…at all. Mike Brantley has a higher SLG than The Axe Man right now as he has only 15 XBH in 53 games and the last couple of XBH that he’s hit (like Friday night’s “double”…which was a grounder down the 3B line that made it into LF) have not exactly been the booming gappers that we saw last year and certainly aren’t the majestic drives that gave us something to dream on for the future.” [Cousineau/The DiaTribe]
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“Now, Carlos Quentin? That’s a tough one. If the Padres do dangle him, they’ll be able to command steep prospect prices in a market starved for power, and for the Indians to fork over anything of substance for a short-term fix like Quentin, a free-agent-to-be, would be a major shift in organizational attitude, unless they truly believed they could negotiate an extension with him at season’s end.
But if the Indians remain in the race, the temptation is to assume they have to aggressively target any right-handed bats that present themselves. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Indians are batting a Major League-worst .219 off left-handed pitching, with a .633 OPS that bests only that of the Cubs. So basically, roughly 35 percent of the time, this is an absolutely horrendous offensive team.” [Castrovince/MLB.com]
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“I’d be excited about the Cavs drafting Fournier. He has great size and a knack for scoring. Apparently owning great confidence, he strives for NBA success with a strong work ethic. In a report on his private Eurocamp work-out, mention was made of him closing out the workout by finding twine on five straight shots from way outside NBA range. Also, he converted 4 of 7 threes in the Eurocamp games. If Fournier added shooting range to his game, I would not be shocked if he ended up with a top-ten career from this draft class. I remember last year reading that Kawhi Leonard spent a lot of time leading up to the draft working on his shot. Reports from workouts raved about the improvements he made. I was skeptical – after all, he made less than one-quarter of his NCAA threes after two seasons. Then he stepped into the NBA and drained 38% his rookie season. Certainly it is not that easy, but for a hard working teenager like Kidd-Gilchrist or Fournier, with great shot-specific coaching, a shot can be reconstructed and amazing strides made. Possibly Fournier is already making those changes, and certainly my evaluation of MKG relies to some extent on the same.” [Hetrick/Cavs the Blog]
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“The Indians run differential to date is obviously not a positive indicator going forward, but it does represent already realized luck, which is something the Indians should take advantage of. If the Indians front office thinks the Indians have actually underperformed relative to their talent (and I am sure they internally track these things), that “banked luck” is a realized opportunity that gives the Tribe reason to be more aggressive as the season moves forward into the trade season (much like last year). So, feel free to be optimistic or pessimistic, but base your optimism or pessimism on the right source.” [APV/Let’s Go Tribe]
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Finally, happy birthday Sandy Alomar Jr. You will always be my favorite Indian.
2 Comments
Cous has a great way of writing about something that is pretty well known, but expanding upon it and hitting tidbits that you wouldn’t have necessarily put together. Outside of relaying all of the power-dropoffs on the Indians (highlighting Santana), the inverse link between Hafners DL stints and Santana’s power surges (he hits for more power when Pronk is in the lineup). denoting the incredibly small sample size of course.
it is also interesting that his conclusion is that the “best” source to improve our offense is from within (just as our best source of improving our pitching is from Masterson/Ubaldo continuing to pitch well – I’ll take Ubaldo’s last start if he keeps the command as I would then expect better moving forward)
Fournier is actually who I am hoping Portland or Houston wants to draft-n-stash at #24 allowing us to trade up to improve our prospect fortunes.
In particular, Houston is sort of chock full of mid-level NBA prospects on their team and will be hard-pressed to find roster spots for all their draft picks. Now, in another year (or two), it should be obvious which of those players are worth keeping/dropping. If they can get a talent like Fournier and just delay him 1 year, then that would be smart of them to do.