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September 19, 2012“He’s Different” – A Buckeye Profile
September 19, 2012
I love Twitter. I can honestly say it has changed my life. Its my one-stop shop for news, sports, and comedy. The beauty of Twitter is also that you can interact with others who are reading about the same subjects as you are if you so shall please. I think back to late May/early June when my Twitter timeline was FLOODED with Tribe fans asking me how the team could not be bringing up first baseman Matt LaPorta. After all, he was “tearing up AAA pitching.”
Sure he was.
He was also 27 years old, on his FOURTH stint in AAA and had home/road splits that proved otherwise. The guy may have had nice numbers in the hitters paradise of Huntington Park in Columbus, but really, did you just forget about the fact that he looked so bad at the Major League level? I haven’t even mentioned his subpar glove, but I am getting there.
In all seriousness, I tried to warn all of you and never wavered from the FACTS: Matt LaPorta is not a Major Leaguer. He is the epitome of 4A. He is 2012 Andy Marte, a failed top prospect who can excel at the AAA level but when the lights get brighter, he just doesn’t have the ability.
You all told me how much you couldn’t stand watching Casey Kotchman because he couldn’t hit the way a real first baseman should. But as I have said over and over, if the rest of the lineup did their jobs and you have real production at third base and in left field, nobody would care about Kotchman’s bat because his defense is golden and worth it.
But no, so many of you wanted Matt Freakin’ LaPorta to get one more shot.
My question is, how have you enjoyed his play thus far? Save me the “he hasn’t gotten enough at-bats” routine. It wouldn’t change anything. He is 10-45 (.222) with a homer and three RBIs; essentially an extension of his previous stints in Cleveland.
And his glove?
Lets move ahead to the 12th inning with the score tied 4-4. With two outs, Minnesota’s Darren Mastroianni singled and stole second against Tribe lefty Scott Maine, the team record 10th pitcher of the evening. Next was Twins second baseman Alexi Casilla who sent a slow roller towards the hole between second and first. It was a relatively easy play for Jason Kipnis moving to his left. He came up with the ball and fired to first, but for some reason, LaPorta, who entered the game as a pinch hitter in the 11th for Kotchman, was way off the bag. By the time he caught the throw he couldn’t step on the bag. To compound his mistake, he slowly turned around to fire home, but the speedy Mastroianni running hard all the way, slid home safely.
“That was a big mental mistake there,” said manager Manny Acta. “You don’t think that the ball is going through. You have to see the ball go through before you decide to become a cutoff man. That’s pretty much a routine ball to second base. If that ball goes through, we don’t need a cutoff man. It was softly hit, and then have one of the fastest guys in the league on second base with two out.”
It was a play that typifies LaPorta’s career in Cleveland – a step slow and a brain cramp. After the play, I sat disgusted and thought the following; I never want to see LaPorta in an Indians uniform again. He’s truly the poster boy for the Tribe post-2007: a ton of potential with little results.
Worst of all, LaPorta didn’t even man up and face the media after the game. He was nowhere to be found. If I am Acta, I wouldn’t give him another at-bat the rest of the season.
The fact of the matter is the Indians should have never been in that position in the first place. After all they did go 1-13 with runners in scoring position on the night and fail to score with the winning run on third with nobody out in the 10th inning and their 4-5-6 batters coming up.
The Tribe aversion to hitting with the bases loaded showed up again as well. In the bottom of the sixth, trailing 3-2, three consecutive singles by Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley, and Russ Canzler had the Tribe in business. However, Twins brought in lefty Brian Duensing. He immediately K’d Lonnie Chisenhall, who had homered earlier but is now 0-18 against left-handed pitching this season. Kotchman sent a double play ball to third baseman Trevor Plouffe, but the ball ate him up and everyone was safe. Ezequiel Carrera followed with a double ball grounder of his own towards second, but managed to use his wheels to beat out the throw. The Tribe would take a 4-3 lead, but they only scored because of an error and Zeke’s speed.
The Twins naturally tied the game up a half inning later thanks to an RBI single from, you guessed it, Josh Willingham.
Our Wahoos are so predictable too. Trailing 6-4 in the bottom of the 12th, Carlos Santana hit his solo homer. Where was that fly ball in the in the 10th when we could have used it?
Ah, forget it. I feel like Harry Doyle. Who is really paying attention or listening anymore?
Oh but my Twitter followers came up strong last night. I looked at the 850 person Progressive Field crowd in the 12th inning and had a thought that I tweeted out:
Finish this sentence: If you are still at the Tribe game in the 12th you are _______
— T.D. Dery (@TD1TribeKU) September 19, 2012
I got a ton of responses and I wanted to share the best of the best with you:
@SKMetzger: Single
@cboyes1987: About to pitch
@Leebyzfbaby: On crack
@TheRealOE: in a deep state of depression
@TheYungTD: medically insane
This is what it has come to. I actually feel sorry for Acta. However, he has been given dog food at a steak restaurant.
(photo via Chuck Crow/The Plain Dealer)
17 Comments
*raises hand in shame*… I was one of the ones calling for LaPorta.. I also played first base for my entire youth/high school/college age rec league career, and even at that level, if there was a ball hit on the ground, no matter where, no matter how hard, I put my head down and got my right foot on first base as fast as possible, then assessed if the ball got through my infielders or not. Basic fundamentals. Sad.
On the bright side, our chances of landing the second overall pick in the MLB draft are increasing!
such a crapshoot though
LaPorta has never seemed to have much of a head for baseball. I can think of other misadventures like this that he’s had a 1B.
So….. You actually watched the game? Why?
AMC needed sarcasm font on that one I guess..
On the attack, TD? Watching all of this Indians “baseball” has made you downright belligerent. (Either that, or too much Twitter.)
I have no shame in admitting to being one of the people calling for LaPorta to get one more shot. I mean, it’s not like we were clamoring for the Tribe to dump Choo for LaPorta. I don’t even think Kotchman was the real target of all of the angst.
Indeed, at the time (we can refer to the record if need be, but there be no need), the argument was simply: “Why not? None of the other stiffs in LF (we were – at least I was – talking about LF) can hit. If LaPorta comes in to play LF but can’t hit either, and flames out as we expect that he will, then we really won’t have missed anything.”
That argument was sound. It turns out that we traded nothing for nothing. No net gain; no net loss. Pound for pound, scrub for scrub, we’re the same bad team now that we were then. It’s not LaPorta’s fault, nor ours. The team just flat-out sucks.
We can all agree that the LaPorta experiment can officially end now; but – especially considering how this year has gone – there is no shame in giving it one last shot.
I stand tall, chin out. Your barbs glance off of me like so many Nerf darts (not the velcro ones – those kinda hurt when they hit skin).
same here. also as a LFer. man, it looks like LaPorta is truly going to be a failed prospect. good thing we stuck with Duncan/Cunningham/Damon/Lillibridge/Canzler/Neal/Lopez/Zeke as they did so much better. basically, we were in a no-win situation.
sigh. all of those players ended up with negative WAR. and good buddy Kotchman ended as the worst WAR of all at -1.1. at least he does something well though.
The only thing worse than Matt Laporta in a tribe uniform is Matt Laporta wearing a glove in a tribe uniform. PS. I feel your disdain about the bad product we’re being asked to swallow. I too waiver from apathy to disgust, back to apathy for a few minutes…wish we could just waive the white flag and forfeit the rest of our games this season and save on electricity.
Next season, when LaPorta finally gets a real chance – a full season in the line up daily, no matter what, with gooey Fred Rogers affirmations from coaches every day, no matter what – I would also like the same thing for Shelley Duncan, who seems to get shafted by every organization he plays for. (Wait, is Love Machine even on the team any more?)
Here’s a better trade than CC for LaPorta: LaPorta for Russell Branyan. Or for Austin Kearns. Or Aaron Boone. I’m talking about those other guys right now. Here’s what embitters: it wasn’t an injury that distorted the Indians’s evaluation of him. It wasn’t just a mistake in thinking he had the mental toughness to adjust to MLB pitchers. They misjudged his bat speed, just like Marte, and that should be more quantifiable by scouts. Branyan may be dumb and stubborn as a rock, but at least he has the bat speed to be effective over short bursts of time. LaPorta’s like Marte. They’ll both be hellacious slo-pitch softball players in a couple of years.
Oh, okay, Poindexter. When you invent a device that can track the “speed” of an object in motion, you be sure to let us know. Kay? The Tribe scouts and FO are doing the best that they can. Sheesh. You and your unattainable standards and expectations!
well, we all like the sundial but it can’t be the only thing we’ll ever have to use, right? RIGHT?
I agree. I’m a fan of most of TD’s articles but this read like a “See! I told you so!” article.
Having said that the twitter responses were quite funny.
Seriously, I love reading blog posts preaching how right the author was and how dumb the readers were. At least he managed to not tell us how “right” he was about Grady Sizemore, a rare feat in his Tribe articles.
Well, in fairness, my responsive criticism of TD was as much tongue-in-cheek as I believe his initial criticism of us was. I’m not the guy to bite the hand that feeds me my Cleveland sports. (Also, I think TD has been honest in his failed assessment of the Sizemore deal.)
I honestly think when the Chinese hit him in the head with that baseball during the 2008 Summer Olympics, that fucked him up. Now he’s afraid of the plate, and afraid of contact.
My guess is that FAILaPorta is done in Cleveland. Canzler appears to fill one of the holes at LF/1B/DH (buyout of injury-prone Hafner).