Joe Haden discusses his disappointing 2015 season (Audio)
December 17, 2015Iman Shumpert delivered own baby, used headphones to tie umbilical cord
December 17, 2015After the Cleveland Indians added two legitimate major league players over the last 24 hours to a full 40-man roster, it was obvious that some house-cleaning would need to occur to clear space. Surprisingly, the first name removed was the most expensive one possible: Chris Johnson.
The Indians announced that Johnson had been designated for assignment at 1:10 p.m. Thursday. Johnson, a 31-year-old third baseman with little defensive value and a rapidly declining bat, was acquired from the Atlanta Braves in the Nick Swisher/Michael Bourn trade in August.
Johnson is owed $7.5 million in 2015 and another $9 million in 2016. Of course, both Swisher and Bourn — albeit more expensive contracts — both become free agents at the end of this season. Even still, the Braves have been looking to trade both players. The Indians sent some unknown amount to the Braves in that trade, reportedly somewhere around $10 million.
The reason for the DFA is simple: Johnson is not the hitter he once was. In the past two MLB seasons, he hit .261/.291/.354 in 236 games. He only played 27 games for the Tribe because of a fluke spider bite that turned into a trip to the disabled list. Just back in 2013, he was a .321 hitter. But those days appear long gone.
According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, when a player is designated for assignment, he is immediately removed from the club’s 40-man roster. The Indians had to do so with the official signing of Rajai Davis today. Now, the Indians have 10 days to trade, release, or, if he clears waivers, assign Johnson to the minor leagues.
Given Johnson’s contract, it would be fairly surprising to see him claimed off waivers. Perhaps some other type of trade could occur. But as of now, it appears the Indians might be eating the rest of his $17.5 million (which includes a $1 million buyout of his 2017 team option), which would be an entirely rare thing to see from the Cleveland baseball team.
Many expected the Indians to first look toward Jerry Sands (Jerry! Jerry!) or newly acquired Joey Butler for a DFA move first. They could be up next to clear space for Mike Napoli. Maybe there is something already in progress with a possible Johnson trade, but again, such a move would be surprising given his negative trade value. We’ll obviously know for sure within the next 10 days.
31 Comments
Awesome… They were going to have to pay him anyway. May as well make sure they’re putting the best team on the field.
One other note: if he clears waivers and the team assigns him to the minors, he can refuse the assignment (since he has X years of MLB service… forget the exact number but I’m sure Johnson has reached it). He’d then become a free agent. The Indians would still owe his salary minus the salary of any new Major League contract he might sign.
Wow, I LOVE this new philosophy.
How new is dumping the player on the roster least likely to help when you bring in a new guy? It just rarely is the case that the worst guy is also the second highest paid. Who are you picking Johnson above on the roster that doesn’t have an option to be sent to AAA? I’d say the only option is Sands, who is almost certainly the candidate to go when Napoli officially is rostered.
How new is dumping the player on the roster least likely to help when you bring in a new guy?
I am not sure I understand the question, the grammar is giving me brain pretzels.
But I will say this in case I am picking up the gist:
*Cough* Travis Hafner *Cough* Nick Swisher.
Those last four years, Hafner put up a 125 OPS+.
The guys released instead of Swisher – Tyler Cloyd, Scott Downs, Anthony Swarzak, Jhoulys Chacin, Atchison. I guess one could chose any of those over Swisher, but I wouldn’t.
Hafner and Swisher were never the worst guys on the roster though. Well, maybe they were… but the Indians were betting on them recovering from injuries and returning to form. Those guys also had places to play, compared to Johnson who, even if he came around, wouldn’t have an every day position on our team.
I guess I see both sides of this. Yes, the Indians have kept bad players because they hoped to get something out of them, but they also have a record of doing things that make baseball sense even if it’s a tough pill to swallow business wise.
Right, there’s a big difference between keeping a guy who is likely to get hurt, and you can place on the DL, but expect him to help when he’s healthy, and keeping a guy who you aren’t going to play even when he’s healthy.
Not my wheelhouse but:
Nick Swisher had a -1.7 WAR. Cutting him and leaving a hole in the roster would have literally been better.
Travis Hafner had a 0.4 which according to most nerds is probably in the margin-of-error level of meaningfulness.
Hindsight with Swisher. Yes, he was terrible, but the team didn’t know how bad he’d be. They hoped he would bounce back and there was some reasons to hope that was possible. Plus, they unfortunately didn’t have better options at 1B/DH. With Johnson, there are better options.
You’ll also notice all those other guys released were pitchers. So it’s not like the team was keeping Hafner and Swisher over guys who could play 1B/DH.
Unfortunately we can’t look back at the end of the season and then decide to cut Swisher out, we have to make the decision beforehand. You could put Swisher on the DL, freeing up that roster spot, and hope he gets healthy. You couldn’t do that with any of those pitchers.
No and to be honest I’d rather have more pitchers in the bullpen than more platoon hitters.
But that is how we get a situation where Mike Aviles racks up 300-400 PAs in a season.
Now you have your wish….
I think we’re losing the forest for the trees here. The point is that Steve and I don’t see this as the team doing anything different than before.
In the situations with Swish and Pronk, the team didn’t feel that cutting bait on them made the on-field team better. If they did, I think they would have done so.
True we’ve gotten off topic. I argue that the Indians FO could not have been dumb/naïve enough to believe Swish/Hafner were going to return to form but carried them on the roster because they were pot-committed via large contracts they couldn’t move. My hypothesis is supported by them moving Swisher as soon as they found someone willing to take on his paycheck, if they believed he’d bounce back to form as you assert then they would have kept him. Same with Hafner, they carried him on the active roster until his contract ran out and then didn’t even tender an offer.
Touche sir! Points awarded lol
It is possible to change your mind as more information comes in. They might have thought Swish might bounce back in ’14 and ’15 only to reach the point that they no longer felt it was possible. I’d also hypothesize that the team would have loved to off-load Swisher’s contract earlier. It just took some time until it reached a reasonable amount and another desperate team had an equally bad contract to exchange.
Lastly, since we traded Swisher to get Johnson and DFA’d Johnson, we kind of did DFA Swish. I bet if we hadn’t been able to trade him, we would do the same to him now.
I also feel like Swish and Hafner are apples and oranges. With Hafner,
it was worth keeping him around because he was a useful player when
healthy. With Swisher, the
problem was he couldn’t stay healthy AND he was terrible when he was
healthy.
In a round about way we did DFA Swisher which is new to me.
Hafner missed what, 1/2 of 2008, 1/4 of 2009, 1/4 of 2011 and 1/2 of 2012? I guess they figured he might get healthy but if you are expecting that from a player who had one complete season in five years seems unlikely.
https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/01-trail-cam-animals-funny-when-humans-arent-around.gif
Insurance reimburses teams a significant portion of a player’s salary when they are on the 60-day DL. So when guys like Hafner and Swisher are “battling injuries”, it often makes more fiscal sense to keep them than DFA them. All it usually costs is a spot on the 40 man roster.
I am getting a salary of more than 3800 dollars each week , that is awesome. Over a year ago I was in a horrible condition , jobless and Bank account with only few bucks . Thank one of my friends showed me a way where I was able to gather my self and making average of 85 d/h. So it can change your life as it has changed mine.
sd…
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this makes no sense. he still has better numbers than both Napoli and Davis. They are quitting on him too soon.
Not sure what point in time you are referring to, but I saw Swisher in Eastlake, and you didn’t need scouting credentials to know he was done. Ripped an easy double down the right field line and was thrown out by about 5 steps at 2nd. Guy could barely walk,
Aguilar, Ramsey, House?
Really? I had never heard that before.
Huh. This was a surprise. Suddenly, the Indians have too many right-handed sticks? It actually looks that way.
Hopefully, this will change the narrative (and reality!) around baseball that the Indians are defeated before they even take the field when the other team starts a lefty against them. As the roster is currently constituted, the only LHH’s we’ll start vs. LHSP’s are Kipnis and Brantley (and for at least the first month of the season, Kipnis only). Everyone else will be presumably be switch hitters or right handed hitters. 7/9 is a damn good ratio. Also, a significant portion of this team’s (admittedly limited) power now comes from the right side–Napoli, Gomes, and hopefully Santana if his splits are halfway decent. So much for other teams using the the shift to nullify our “power” bats. Kip and especially Brantley are complete enough hitters where the shift won’t take stop them from doing what they do offensively.
I still have serious doubts that this lineup has sufficient offensive chops to grab a playoff spot in the American League. But at least games vs. left handed starters will be watchable in 2016!
“and reality”
The Indians hit LHP better than RHP last year.
All three have options remaining for 2016 so they can be sent to AAA.
But why does that matter. They can still outright them. I’d rather outright House and his 13.00 era or Jesus than cut Johnson loose, and still pay him his contract.
None of those guys require us putting them on the major league roster. They don’t take up a spot to help the major league roster like Johnson would have.
And of all three names, House is the one I want to keep around the most. He was pretty good in 2014 but then got hurt. You can at least try to rehab him back to the point where he was a useful part of the major league roster. The other two haven’t shown anything yet that suggests they can cut it in the majors. You still hold on to them because you can send them to AAA and see if it starts to click for them, but I don’t see how they’re even in the same class as House.
I was talking more about the last 3 years overall, where it was a significant weakness. Last year certainly saw some improvement (I think it was mostly due to Kipnis and especially Brantley narrowing the gap in their splits) and the team is certainly more balanced now with Napoli in the middle of the lineup. Given how much the shift kills left handed power (i.e., pull hitters), I’d much rather have Napoli hitting cleanup than Brandon Moss.
Napoli is only here for a year, though. This team desperately needs Clint Frazier to develop into a major league power bat long term. Unfortunately, I have much more confidence in Zimmer (LHH) to make the jump.
Even over the last three years, the Indians have hit LHP better than RHP, though only by a few points of OPS. This despite Progressive playing better for lefties than righties, so much better that it more than makes up for any shifting. We should look to hit righties better – we face them about 70% of the time, we don’t hit them as well as lefties, and our ballpark is tailored to fit LH power.