Video: Iman Shumpert raps the open for ESPN’s First Take
June 9, 2015
NBA Officiating Report: Refs made four errors in fourth quarter and OT
June 9, 2015The Cleveland Indians need to be bold if they are going to compete in a sports league with franchises spending twice as much on payroll, while those teams also make more profit1. With their first three selections in the 2015 MLB Amateur Draft, the Cleveland Indians made the daring decision to draft high school pitchers Brady Aiken, Triston McKenzie, and Juan Hillman.
Drafting high school pitchers in general can be a risky proposition. Bill James famously derided the practice in his 2001 book “The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract” and it was summarily shown that between 1980 and 2000 that college pitchers were statistically superior on average in terms of WAR, career length, and percentage that reached MLB. ESPN’s David Schoenfield has suggested that there are several factors that help even out the danger factors to some degree, but the fact remains that projecting seventeen and eighteen year olds is rife with uncertainty.
Organizational Model
The Cleveland Indians are a long ways away from the smash-and-bash, hard-hitting teams of the 1990s. Gone are the power bats of Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, and Jim Thome that led MLB in home runs in 1994 and 1995, while continuing to be near the top in subsequent seasons. In their place are the power arms of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Danny Salazar that led MLB in strikeouts in 2014 and are striking out batters at historic levels thus far in 2015.
The trade to acquire Trevor Bauer may end up being one of the most important trades in the history of the Cleveland Indians. The organizational shift to pitching started before the Indians traded for Trevor Bauer in December of 2012, but the trade brought the team not only a talented pitcher but also his experience and knowledge into some of the more advanced developmental techniques created in the country from the Texas Baseball Ranch and Driveline Baseball.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports recently wrote about the Indians dedication to advanced development:
Cleveland’s devotion to pitching runs deep in the organization, where it has hired and unleashed player-development personnel whose philosophies don’t exactly run parallel to baseball’s deeply ingrained thinking on how to grow pitchers. Assistant director of player development Eric Binder came from the Texas Baseball Ranch, the pitching think tank run by independent coach Ron Wolforth.
Through Trevor Bauer, Eric Binder, and an open-minded front office, the Indians have implemented weighted baseball throwing regimens, shoulder sleeves to strengthen muscles, pitching sleeves that store kinematic data for analyzing, and other techniques throughout their major and minor league systems. Pitching coach Mickey Callaway spent part of his offseason in Seattle, Washington to learn more about these techniques and their potential benefits from Driveline Baseball.
It is possible that these efforts do not hold the long-term impact that the teams desires or that their adoption becomes widespread quickly enough that it does not become a true competitive advantage, but the Indians have at least been willing to explore, invest, and dive in on the possibility that there are better ways to develop pitchers. And, it is quite possible that the selection of more high school pitchers in the early rounds2 is an indication that the team believes in their developmental process enough to desire their future pitchers to be in it for as long as possible in their careers.
Willingness to rehabilitate talented injured pitchers
If an organization is going to devote many of their resources towards pitching, then they also better devote a significant amount of resources towards the rehabilitation of injured pitchers. Tommy John surgeries have been called an epidemic, shoulder injuries, hip injuries, blisters, and other maladies are common among pitchers attempting to throw a baseball as fast as humanly possible over and over.
So, it is a good sign that the other side of the Cleveland Indians pitching renaissance has been their willingness to sign and rehabilitate injured pitchers. Scott Kazmir remains the poster child for the Indians recent success in rehabilitating pitchers. Of course, Scott Kazmir’s career rehabilitation3 started at the Texas Baseball Ranch before the Indians even signed him as a non-roster invitee before the 2013 season just a few months after the trade for Trevor Bauer. Since Kazmir, the Cleveland Indians have also signed and rehabilitated Shaun Marcum, who recently became the fifth starter in the rotation after more than a year coming back from a shoulder injury. The 2015 season reclamation project is Jhoulys Chacin, who has been having some moderate success in Columbus.
Once again, that philosophy was seen in the draft as the Indians took Brady Aiken with the seventeenth overall selection. Aiken was selected by the Houston Astros as the number one overall pick in the 2014 MLB Amateur Draft, but the Astros had concerns about the long-term stability of his elbow and decided to make a late and dramatic drop in their offer that caused Aiken to balk at their offer. However, the Astros diagnosis proved prescient as Aiken was injured pitching for the IMG Academy and underwent Tommy John surgery less than three months ago. The Indians are rolling the dice that Aiken’s talent plus their developmental and rehabilitation processes will be enough for Brady Aiken to achieve the high ceiling that MLB scouts thought possible just a year ago.
Pitching now and into the future
Passan also wrote some glowing words about the Indians current staffs ability:
It’s what makes the next half-decade so exciting for Cleveland: Not only are Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar and Bauer under team control through the end of the 2020 season, they recognize that what Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz were to the 1990s, and Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder were to the 2000s, they can be to the 2010s.
And, if the Cleveland Indians have any say in the matter, many of recently drafted pitchers by the team will then take the torch from the current group to become the 2020s version of the Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, and Bauer.
- For instance, Anaheim Angels are paid $150 million per year for local television rights and had a 2015 Opening Day payroll of $143 million. The Cleveland Indians are paid $40 million per year for local television rights and had a 2015 Opening Day payroll of $85 million. [↩]
- The Indians also selected high school pitcher Justus Sheffield in the first round of the 2014 MLB Amateur Draft. [↩]
- Kazmir’s last truly successful MLB season had been in 2008. [↩]
33 Comments
Good article.
▬▬▬▬★★★★It’s All full enjoy with waitingfornextyear ________ ▬▬▬▬☛Continue Read ing
nice to see, kudos to the front office for making the drafting organization switch. gone are the days of drafting big, slow college first baseman (david miller, brad snyder, michael aubrey) and soft tossing lefties (jeremy sowers, david huff).
How to earn money with waitingfornextyear … kEEP READING
Now if only they could find some power hitters in another five years you might see hitting match the pitching! #2020
Right, we’re now back to drafting prep pitchers like Denham, Horne, Martin, Conroy, Miller, Lofgren, McFarland, Haley, and Howard. We even got the fallen top pick in Guthrie (drafted #22 overall, but received the third highest bonus in that draft). The bones of fallen prospects in the Indians graveyard are made up of all shapes and sizes.
And, of course, Snyder was a CF when drafted.
Great read. The Passan article is excellent as well.
Right now today, I’d take the Tribe’s rotation over Detroit and KC’s, no questions asked. Not saying that will win us the Central, but it should keep us in the race until the end (much like last season).
I also love the Aiken pick. There’s a lot of truth in TINSTAAPP, so why not aim high with a guy like him? Chances are, many pitchers drafted in the first round will get hit with TJ surgery in their careers. Some will hit that bump in the road even before they hit the majors. This guy already has it out of the way. Obviously, it will slow his path to the big leagues, but with Kluber/Bauer/Salazar/Carrasco under control until 2020, the org can afford to wait.
Indeed. Though as a low measuring stick, Grant is currently 3-for-3 on his 1st round picks making MLB with Lindor and Naquin soon to make it 5-for-5.
2000-2007 1st round picks = 8-for-17
Also, outside Guthries 19WAR; Chisenhall alone has a better WAR (4.8) than all of the other draft picks combined (even ignoring negative WAR, puts them at 2.7). Heck, so does Pomeranz (2.9).
We need to see more out of his picks (as Chis was sent down and White/Pom have strugged in their careers), but moderate success thus far is so much better than the absence of success we had previously seen.
Oh, it’s an absolute improvement under Grant. It would be very intriguing to find out what they’ve actually been doing differently, as it still seems to be generally the same scouting and development staff, and they’re taking the same types of players.
▬▬▬▬★★★★It’s All full enjoy with waitingfornextyear ******* ▬▬▬▬▬☛ Continue Reading
3-for-3? Too kind.
Please read the low measuring stick guideline. They all made MLB. No analysis for how they did when they got there.
Baby steps.
Have they been doing anything that differently? Or have the last few years seemed better because of the bonus pool system implemented in 2012? Would we have drafted Lindor under the old system? Would we have been able to afford the bonus he would have demanded?
I can’t find it now, but someone did an article with a breakdown of 1st rounders by WAR. While I may be misremembering, I want to say that Chiz and Pomeranz don’t exactly qualify as 1st round successes (or even as averages). So maybe 3-for-3 as not complete whiffs, but not 3-for-3 in actual hits either.
Which isn’t to say Grant hasn’t been an improvement.
Here you go:
http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/06/draft_picks_and.php
And, again, please do not interpret that I believe Pomeranz or Chisenhall or especially White were actual hits in the draft though Chisenhall looks roughly at about the expected WAR for his draft position according to that study.
good point steve, i guess fair to say the indians were a disaster of epic proportions in terms of their scouting drafting. good to see the architect of those drafts (john mirabeli) not be fired but promoted to head of player development. still hate the shaprio regime – always will.
Love the shift in approach. And great stuff as always, bode. But I would like to remind the FO that even the great pitchers need run support. Watching us waste quality outings from our current crew is already becoming intolerable.
Sadly, the problem hasn’t truly been hitting, but hitting w/ RISP. It’s a weird glitch in that we are getting on base way more than our opponents, but we are doing terrible about doing anything about it.
I want to dig in and find out if it is truly a product of the bottom of our order being so reprehensibly bad (which hopefully upticks at least a bit), but I haven’t had time yet.
Our offense is still in the top half of AL in terms of runs per game. We’re not that bad. (Though being better never hurts.)
http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2010/05/cleveland_indians_draft_strate.html
Antonetti is saying they are, but I can’t see much difference no matter how hard I squint. And even without draft bonus caps, they would still shell out to get some guys. And this is why I’m so reluctant to start criticizing the drafting process. None of us have any freaking clue how hard it is to guess what 18 year old kids will be like in 5-10 years.
I don’t think it’s fair to say much. This conversation has been had many times here before, but I don’t see how we can even pretend to draw any real conclusions about the player acquisition process.
And Mirabelli didn’t produce great results in the draft, but seems to be doing better in his current role. That’s the sign of good management, getting people in the right places.
“This guy already has it out of the way.”
This does not mean that he’s less likely to have other arm injuries later. And in fact, that was a big concern of the Astros – his issue was congenital, not just normal wear and tear you see on a pitcher’s elbow.
I’m sure it is different, in a way. I just wonder how much any perceived improvement is a new, better approach or Grant’s acumen or better scouts, etc. etc. etc. and how much is simply statistical abnormality since drafting is sort of a crap shoot.
All of this. The best of any can do is take a complete shot in the dark.
And if you want to go further down the rabbit hole: how much was drafting vs. how much was development?
Yep, yep, yep.
Speaking of drafting and pitching, Grant’s recent drafts are a little more promising, as well. Grant had some epic busts in guys like Dillon Howard and Jake Sisco early in his tenure. The admittedly early returns of the 2012-14 drafts look a little better. No one in the 2012 Mitch Brown-Dylan Baker-Kieran Lovegrove triumverate have been setting the minors on fire, although Baker has been pretty good on the rare occasions when healthy. 2013 was a huge haul of pitching as they nabbed Frazier in the first round and pitchers in the next nine. Dace Kime and Sean Brady have at least been showing a little in A Ball, and Thomas Pannone is looking okay in Lake County. And 2014’s first round pick, Justus Sheffield, looks like the best pitching prospect this organization has had in awhile.
And Grant has found interesting guys like Cody Anderson and Ryan Merritt in rounds 10-20 as well.
Moral of the story is starting pitching is still the farm system’s weakness but at least there seems to be a lot of bodies (errr, arms) from the last 3 drafts. Seeing as you need anywhere from 5-9 starters to get through a season, at least the Indians have a lot of guys to choose from going forward.
That’s a great point–I can’t recall being this frustrated with the inability to get guys home. Let’s hope the bottom of the order really does finally come around.
Fair point. But it sure feels like we’re pretty anemic. Probably due to the RISP issue Bode mentioned.
Then, development is key for you. Either draft or development or both has kept Cardinals at top.
I would like to see an average vs mean runs per game graph
Some of each, with a heavy helping of luck sprinkled on top.