Barack Obama: J.R. Smith is having a great season
May 28, 2015Indians place Carlos Santana on paternity list, Scott Atchison heads to DL
May 28, 2015Two of the hottest teams in baseball faced off in Cleveland this week and over those three games the Indians outscored the Rangers 23-17 but the Texas Rangers proved to be more effective overall, winning two out of three. The Rangers won 10-8 and 4-3. The Indians won yesterday, 12-3. That puts the Indians at 21-25, seven games behind the Kansas City Royals. The Rangers, having completed their most recent road trip, are now 23-24, 6½ games behind the still-very-surprising Houston Astros. The Rangers, by the way, have one of the best road records in baseball at 17-11.
The Astros, at 30-18, just happen to have the best record in the AL. It seems like just a few months ago they were an embarrassment, the joke of the Major Leagues. How long would it be until someone got the blame, until somebody got fired. Now, someone ought to get the credit, and maybe some of it should go to General Manager Jeff Luhnow. Luhnow was named GM of the Astros on December 8, 2011, after having worked in the front office of the St. Louis Cardinals from 2003 until 2011.
When the Indians won two games out of three against the Astros to open the 2015 season, Indians fans may have been disappointed to lose even one game to Houston, given their hapless, recent past. But two months into the season, that opening series looks quite different in the rearview mirror. The Tribe doesn’t play Houston again until the Astros come to Cleveland for a four-game series July 6-9 and by then we should have a pretty good idea whether the Indians and Astros are contenders or pretenders.
But back to the task at hand: The Indians are in Seattle for four games to close out the month of May. Starting times will be 10:10 ET for the first three games. On Sunday the first pitch is scheduled for 4:10 ET. The Seattle series will be followed by an off-day for the Indians on Monday and then three night games in Kansas City to finish up their seven-game road trip.
Even after losing two of three to the hot Rangers, the Indians are still 7-3 in their last ten games and they’ve won nine of their last 13 games dating back to May 15 against Texas.
The Mariners are also playing well as of late. They’re 7-3 in their last ten games, including a sweep of Tampa Bay in their most recent series. Looking back a bit, to close out the month of April, the Mariners swept the Rangers in Arlington, but were then stunned by getting swept themselves by the Astros in a four-game series in Houston.
Seattle is now at .500, 23-23, and six games behind the first place Astros.
Regarding pitching matchups in Seattle, it might be pointed out first, that Felix Hernandez pitched yesterday and was, again, outstanding, a complete game, four-hit shutout over the Tampa Bay Rays. Hernandez leads the Major Leagues with an 8-1 record. He has an ERA of 1.91 and teams are batting just .195 against him. His WHIP (hits plus walks per nine innings) is only 0.89.
Scheduled starters for the four-game series:
Thursday: LHP James Paxton (3-2, 3.52) vs Corey Kluber (2-5, 3.49)
Friday: RHP Taijuan Walker (1-5, 7.33) vs. Trevor Bauer (4-1, 3.02)
Saturday: LHP Roenis Elias (2-1, 2.56) vs. Shaun Marcum (1-0, 6.28)
Sunday: LHP, J. A. Happ (3-1, 3.71) vs. Danny Salazar (5-1, 3.65)
The Indians will face three left-handed starters in Seattle. Perhaps that’s not the factor it was earlier in the season. They’re batting .250 against lefties now. On the other hand, they’re batting only .256 against righties. The better news is that Seattle, which hits .266 against lefties (5th best in the AL), is hitting only .229 against righties (dead last in the AL).
Overall, Seattle’s starting pitchers have the edge over the Tribe’s but keep in mind that the stats below include those of Felix Hernandez. Here are some figures (Team, Starting Pitchers, Relief Pitchers) from MLB.com:
CLE |
AL RANK |
STAT |
AL RANK |
SEA |
4.16 |
11 |
Team ERA |
7 |
3.79 |
4.57 |
12 |
SP ERA |
4 |
3.79 |
.262 |
9 |
SP Opp BA |
4 |
.249 |
1.29 |
6 |
SP WHIP |
5 |
1.26 |
3.50 |
7 |
RP ERA |
11 |
3.81 |
.245 |
10 |
RP Opp BA |
9 |
.242 |
1.34 |
12 |
RP WHIP |
13 |
1.37 |
The Indians still lead the Major Leagues (and the AL by a wide margin) with 438 strikeouts.
The story for the Indians offensively this year has been their relative ineffectiveness, but they are clearly far from the bottom, especially given their recently improved performance. And so far this season, the Indians are out-performing the Mariners.
CLE |
AL RANK |
STAT |
AL RANK |
SEA |
.254 |
7 |
Avg |
13 |
.238 |
209 |
7 |
Runs |
13 |
175 |
393 |
8 |
Hits |
14 |
369 |
94 |
2 |
2B |
12 |
67 |
44 |
8 |
HR |
3 |
58 |
.332 |
2 |
OBP |
14 |
.297 |
.409 |
7 |
SLG |
9 |
.403 |
.741 |
4 |
OPS |
10 |
.700 |
182 |
1 |
BB |
10 |
124 |
307 |
13 |
SO |
7 |
357 |
Whatever offensive success the Indians have had thus far this year, it would seem that hitting with runners in scoring position is not one of their best suits. So far this season, they’re hitting only .237 with RISP, which ranks 10th in the AL. The Mariners, however, are doing even worse at .225, which ranks 14th in the AL.
The one offensive category where the Mariners have out-performed the Indians is with the long ball. Nelson Cruz leads the American League with 18 round trippers. He also has a batting average of .341, one percentage point behind Jason Kipnis who is at .342. Kipnis and Cruz are 3rd and 4th, respectively, in the AL batting average rankings. Prince Fielder, leads the AL with a .368 BA with Cruz and Fielder sharing the AL lead in RBIs with 38.
Nelson Cruz is having a monster season, but in this era of less-impressive hitting stats, left-handed hitting third-baseman, Kyle Seager, is also having a very solid year. He’s performing above his career average at the moment, at .275, but he’s been heating up, hitting at a .333 clip over the past two weeks. Seager also has nine HRs and 29 RBIs, both of which would be leading the Indians if he played for Cleveland.
Mariners’ left-handed hitting second baseman, Robinson Cano, now 32 years old, signed a huge ten-year, $240 million free agent contract with Seattle in December 2013. That’s a lot of money and a very long contract for a 31-year-old. Cano played for the Yankees from 2005-2013. In his first year with Seattle, 2014, his .314 BA matched his 2013 BA with the Yankees. He has a career average of .308, but this year he’s hitting only .253 and, if anything, he’s trending downward. He’s hitting only .213 in his last 15 games.
So right now, the Mariners aren’t getting much offensive production out of their catcher, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop or from their left fielder or center fielder. Perhaps that’s part of the price teams pay when investing in a contract such as Robinson Cano’s. Nelson Cruz signed a $57 million, four-year deal with the Mariners last off-season. He turns 35 in July.
The Mariners are out-fielding the Indians, but then, so is just about everyone else.
The Tribe and Mariners will be playing, of course, at 47,000-seat Safeco Field. Safeco has a retractable roof, which means that, at least through May 31, the Indians will still have zero rainouts. So there’s at least one category in which they’re tied for first.
Construction of Safeco Field began in March 1997 and the first game played there was July 15, 1999. Discussions regarding the need for a new baseball park in Seattle began in 1994, the year Cleveland’s Jacobs Field opened for business. Initially, a sales tax increase was proposed to fund the project but the measure was defeated by King County voters.
Eventually, a complex set of funding mechanisms was put in place by the King County Council, effectively bypassing direct voter involvement. Later, however, when several Council members asked for a postponement of the project, Mariners’ ownership threatened to sell or move the team, which, in turn, caused the Council to reaffirm their support for the new stadium. Taxpayer organizations’ lawsuits failed in the courts and construction went ahead, with Mariners ownership contributing $145 million to cover cost overruns.
Once again, a corporation, Seattle-based Safeco Insurance, paid a large sum ($40 million) for the ballpark’s naming rights for its first twenty years.
Over the past ten years, the Cleveland and Seattle franchises have been experiencing similar woes regarding attendance. The Mariners have consistently outdrawn the Indians but they’re hardly near the league leaders. In the past decade, Cleveland has generally been in the bottom third in attendance, while Seattle is near the middle.
It was just six months ago that Corey Kluber narrowly edged out Felix Hernandez for the American League Cy Young Award. Kluber gathered 17 first-place votes and 169 points, while Hernandez got 13 first-place votes and 159 points. Kluber’s humorous quote afterward was, “I think I’m definitely surprised.” Apparently he was surprised, because he certainly wasn’t ready with a scripted, proof-read quote.
Kluber’s 2015 season hasn’t gone according to script either, but his work of late has been outstanding. Kluber opens the series for the Indians tonight with some dazzling performances in his recent outings, but a headline-grabbing Hernandez-Kluber matchup won’t happen this week because, this time around, the Indians won’t face Hernandez. Too bad. Shouldn’t you want to compete against your opponent’s best? Shouldn’t you want to … ?
Nah.
32 Comments
Boy you guys who predicted Nelson Cruz wasn’t worth the Indians trying to sign after his PED suspension were right, he’s a bum!
Even if Cruz was just putting up average (for him) numbers so far, he’d still be a godsend for this team. He’d fill both our major offensive needs–power bat in the 4 hole and right handed power–in one fell swoop. Plus, he’s a certified Tiger killer. Tribe missed the boat big time in this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=16&v=PqqygR_Dd9Y
Cruz is 34yo and signed a 4yr/$57mil contract. I get that he is the type of bat that our offense needs, but he is also a huge risk and the team is already against their payroll budget. I’d trade him for Bourn in a heartbeat, but we made the Bourn signing, so we now have to deal with it.
Well, I wasn’t one of the WFNY guys back then but if I can offer a retroactive opinion … Seattle signed Cruz before the 2015 season to a 4-yr, $57 million contract. That averages out to $14.25 million per year. Cruz was born 07/01/80, so he was 34 when signed and will turn 38 in the last year of the contract. $14.25 M per yr is not an extravagant rate of pay given what he’s producing this year. It might even be a bargain. The big question is what will this look like two-three-four years in. Will it still be a godsend or will it be an albatross? If there’s no budget, if you have unlimited resources, if you can just shrug your shoulders and say, “Oh well,” then I guess $57 M for one or two good years is acceptable. But personally, I am loathe to get stuck with such a contract, especially knowing it’s extremely rare for players to play at -or even near- their peak as they near 40. How many times have teams (including the Indians) made a risky bet like that and lost? Now those are painful memories. Ironically, we may be witnessing another such example with Seattle and Robinson Cano.
Great job Richard. Yeah, I am one of the few that actually really wanted another Kluber v. Felix showdown.
I have also been a minor fan of J.A. Happ going back to his Houston days. He is really inconsistent, but he has the toolset if he can ever manage to control them. Hopefully, for the Indians, we get the bad Happ this time around.
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I also don’t see where we’d put yet another all bat, no defense DH/RF. Plus, we’re fifth in the AL in r/g so offense hasn’t been the issue (psst…. it’s defense). I do agree that if we could somehow magically get rid of X,Y, & Z in favor of Cruz, I would in a heart beat. But it doesn’t work that way.
Agreed. This is the same as the contracts for pretty much every big name free agent ever. This franchise can’t afford to suffer through the last few years of a $60M contract to a guy on the wrong side of 35.
You are both wrong. The Indians could have signed Cruz for 1 year like Baltimore did if he flamed out big deal that 1 year contract was low. Most likely he’d have done what he did for the Orioles and commanded a much bigger deal after the season and signed elsewhere.
He was an absolute perfect fit for that one year run. The Indians only make moves that fit into their narrowly defined window. I.E. Signing two free agents after their TV network was sold or my favorite “when we are in contention we’ll spend” from yesteryear. The spending ended up being largely on retaining their own players like Sizemore.
See my answer below.
So Cruz was going to take the Indian’s one year deal instead of the four year guarantee of nearly $60M? It usually doesn’t work like that. Unless we were going to pay him $30M a year.
I see what you mean – we should have signed him in 2014.
Can’t disagree with that. Cruz for $8M over Murphy for $11.5/2yr is a no-brainer in hindsight. You were banging the drum for him and were correct. Would Cruz have made enough of a difference to win four more games and tie the Royals for the wild card? Very possible.
I generally defend the front office, but they clearly are not good at evaluating/signing older vets. If I had my druthers, we wouldn’t be signing players like this at all.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/63834514/
Cruz for $8mil/1year + 1st round pick (Bradley Zimmer, OF, USF : .310/.410/.509 in single-A and by far the best hitter on every team he has been on w/ Indians in small sample sizes obviously)
So, let’s let it play out a bit first before we go ahead and give 1 year of production up for Zimmer.
The reason that his salary was depressed was the PED suspension + that he had the QO hanging over his head.
Oh I have to believe his bat would have easily accounted/contributed to four more wins. And don’t forget Aaron Harang either!
mgbode upticks this response when you reply to it to correct yourself.
Yes last year, 2014 when Cruz played in Baltimore.
Potentially 6-7 years of Bradley Zimmer for 1 year of Nelson Cruz. It’s super-early, bur Zimmer has been great and Cruz would not have meant a WS win last year (I don’t think, but you never know I guess).
Oh yes that hard to part with compensatory pick/whatever pick you are absolutely right that was far more important then making the playoffs with Cruz the power hitting right handed bat in the Indians lineup. Oh and don’t forget about Aaron Harang too. Although he’s not as good as Marcum in your mind.
Lastly the fact that his salary was depressed and interest was low due to his suspension is the only reason why a power hitting OFer such as him would ever be available to the Indians in the first place. Does it even matter? Please stop I feel like I’m arguing with Shapanotteti the Gods of baseball front offices!
I love the smell of speculation in the morning! Zimmer ain’t no Kris Bryant son. But it’s Friday I leave you to your beliefs. I go in peace.
Yeah, the Harang thing just didn’t make any sense. Why was he even there if you weren’t going to give him a chance? Injury insurance? Maybe. But it wasn’t like our possible 5th starters had that much upside.
you don’t get to give the compensatory pick, it would have been our 1st rounder. and, as poorly as we drafted ’00-07, 1st round draft picks are still incredibly important. having cheap, locked in young talent for years is the only way that teams like the Indians can compete.
Cruz had an great 2014 season and is doing much better this year, but that doesn’t change the equation at the time of the decisions nor does it guarantee the Indians make the playoffs last year if they had taken Cruz. but, still, if we made the playoffs but don’t get a WS win, then would it have been worth it? maybe? to me, the hindsight isn’t formed until we know what happens with Zimmer.
on Harang, never said he wasn’t better than Marcum (now); I noted that they are similar style pitchers and Marcum has had the better overall career. I was just curious why you liked Harang but not Marcum.
I think we were both thinking that we were talking about 2015 rather than the spilled milk of 2014. Problem with this kind of thing is there are ALWAYS mistakes by front offices. None of them bat 1.000.
That said, AGAIN, it’s hard to ignore our front office’s consistent whiffs on signing vets. Off the top of my head, if I had to rank FA signings over the last few years, I might put Raburn at top spot.
I’d settle for .300 with these baseball Gods in Cleveland!
but, still, if we made the playoffs but don’t get a WS win, then would it have been worth it? maybe?
listen to yourself man my God! I’d bring up the Cavs but I didn’t forget you really aren’t a fan of theirs. Good luck with the Indians in 6-7 years let me know how it all works out if we are both still around.
If you go back and reexamine the track record you will find plenty of mistakes, lapses in judgment. My whole point is the Indians front office is hugely overrated and for a team that is so cash strapped you’d think the owner would demand better. But hey that’s just me. Enjoy the two story bar and new features at Progressive Field because you helped pay for them!
Grady Sizemore designated for assignment by Phillies how’s that for timing?
no doubt tons of mistakes. horrific drafting (and while more promising than previous, we still have to see on ’08-now), terrible FA deals, some good trades to keep afloat but some bad ones mixed in too. I can’t really blame them for Sizemore/Pronk singings, but those back-fired on them as well.
I don’t know anyone who says it is all roses.
If Zimmer was drafted 2nd overall like Bryant, then it would have been a protected pick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcqWyyHlCDA
∎✈✈✈✈✈It’s very Easy with google and waitingfornextyear < my buddy's step-mother makes $74 hourly on the computer . She has been without a job for 7 months but last month her paycheck was $14216 just working on the computer for a few hours.
official website ===►►►►►► SEE MORE DETAIL