Thoughts For A Monday Evening - This Could Have Been SOOOOO Much Worse!

MAJORS

 OK, not the best title for a positive post but it was the first thought that crossed my mind after Jose Ramirez walked off the Cardinals on Sunday.   

After the Monday game in Baltimore I remembered that thought and how even the games that we win by a relatively comfortable margin (5-0, for example) really come with scoring in only 1 or 2 innings.  

So we have won 2 in a row, 3 of 4 and stand 5 games under .500, 3 games back of Minnesota who lead Hoston 4-1 in the 7th.  While it is fair to mention we are 1.5 games behind Detroit this is not relevant is only the only team to be concerned about is the one at the top of the standings as only one team is going to the playoffs from the AL Central, no disrespect meant to the Tigers or White Sox.

On Sunday there were lots of heroes to go around.  Besides Ramirez, Xzavon Curry threw 3 scoreless innings to keep us close.  Steven Kwan, Josh Bell and Mike Zunino had two hits and Eli Morgan delivered good relief, again.  If Hunter Gaddis had not had the hiccup in the 5th he was in line to be one of the heroes, too.

On Monday it was Logan Allen.  You can say all you want about, well, it's the first time the Orioles saw him, teams have no book on him yet, etc., etc., etc.  Well, I watched the game.  He had them off-balance the whole time, causing many swings and misses at balls out of strike zone and him pounding the corners and edges of the rectangle superimposed on the centerfield camera view.  De Los Santos was lock down and Stephan had a big enough lead that my hands were only slightly sweaty when he put the first two on (more sweaty when they announced that Clase had begun to warm up).  Francona screwed up in Allen's last start by letting him go out there for the 7th inning after he gave us a 2-1 lead going into that inning. Showing that he was nothing if not stubborn with a higher pitch count than in his last start but Allen didn't buckle, getting out of the 7th today in fine fashion.  Still not the smartest move by Francona but it worked out this time.  Seeing Brennan get 3 hits (2 doubles off a tough starter and a sharp single off a lefty reliever) while playing solid defense again in right and Arias making 3 outstanding plays at 3td that I think Ramirez may have made one or two of them, at the most.  

So, I thought to myself, this could have been a lot worse...but it wasn't.  It was actually positive.

ROTATION

Lots of talk is going on about who will be in the rotation when Civale and McKenzie come back.  Here are my thoughts:

1. I think we are not at the point that we start replacing the current starters with Civale and McKenzie.  If fact, neither has looked sharp in their last outing, actually the last 2 for Civale.  I think Civale needs 1-2 more starts and McKenzie needs a solid outing (2 runs or less in 6 innings) on Tuesday for either to be considered ready for the majors.  Both these guys have been hit hard at AAA which is not a good sign when they are going to be thrown into ML games and expected to perform like they did at the peak of their careers.  

2. When they are READY to come back to the majors, assuming no injuries occur, we obviously have too many starters. So what do we do.  It has been proposed that we send some of these guys to the minors or the bullpen.  Here are some scenarios and my thoughts:

a. Civale off the IL, Gaddis to the minors - On paper, this sounds the most logical.  But looking at the numbers I am not sure it is.  Civale has alternated suck years and good years.  Even this year he has a good outing (April 1st) followed by a suck outing (April 7th) before his IL stint.  In fact, his two ML outings this year look eerily familiar to Gaddis' two most recent outings this year.  Add to this the point that Civale has had two bad outings in a row at AAA and doing this move is just rearranging the deck chairs.

b. McKenzie off the IL, Civale off the IL and have your rotation be Beiber, McKenzie, Allen, Bibee and have one of Quantrill or Civale in the rotation and the other go to the bullpen and Gaddis goes back to the minors as does Battenfield when he comes off the IL.  While on paper  this sounds reasonable, remember that Civale has NEVER pitched in relief professionally and while Quantrill has had a lot of success as a reliever he is, at the moment, a statistically much better option as the 5th starter than Civale is.  Still, all things considered, if you were going with 5 starters you would likely want to move Quantrill to the bullpen as he has had success there AND he has struggled in the rotation recently.   Plus, we have a reliever, Karinchak, who might need to be demoted.  He has spent time in the minors before and could use the break but if we do this we burn his 3rd minor league option.  

c. Go with a 6-man rotation for a while - While this sounds appealing as a decision that avoids a decision, it could only be really effective once Civale (possible Friday start) and McKenzie (possible Sunday start) are back on the roster.  At that point we have an off day on Monday, June 5th, another on June 12th and another on June 19th.  Basically, we will be playing 6 days a week for the next three weeks after this weekend meaning every starter only gets to pitch once a week and totally screws up the typical preparation that have strived to perfect their entire professional careers.  Plus, we will be jamming these guys back in the rotation when their AAA results (i.e., hard contact rate) is not what you would want to be.

d. Leave Civale and McKenzie down on the farm making rehab starts for another time through the rotation.  Yes, you risk having another day like Gaddis had against the Cardinals on Sunday but there is no guarantee that Civale could better that performance just based on veteran guile and deceptive stuff.  

For me, at this point, the best answer is to go with option B with Quantrill going to the bullpen.   As 4 of his last 6 starts were clunkers I think we need to try someone else and, with the off days, maybe we don't even pitch Civale every 5th day.  I still question if we bring Civale up for his Sunday start as I don't believe he will necessarily be better than Gaddis but if the FO and Francona want to do that, well, that's OK.

MINORS

I have been hard on Brito as I expected so much more than he has shown  for us which, BTW, is exactly what his low A numbers last year said that he SHOULD be showing us at High A this year.    I just wanted him to break out ending the season by raking at Akron.   Well, Brito is at Akron and I hope he rakes.  As I said, the math says that he needs to master or almost master AA this year in order to not reach the expiration of his 3 minor league options before he settles into the majors for good.  So, he is 2-7 with a walk and at least one outstanding pick of a hard hit ball at him in his first game on Saturday.  So he is at AA right now and, as such, is right on schedule IF he performs well at Akron the rest of the year or does that and gets a cup of coffee in Columbus like Noel did last year.

Ryan Webb is still trying to find his way.  His body language tells that story clearly.   He has to be feeling the pressure when Bibee, drafted one round after Webb, is already dealing in the majors and Webb is having trouble getting High A batters out.   We can only wait as he has missed so much baseball over the last several years that I think he just needs more experience and by the end of the year we will be looking back and figuring out when in 2024 he will be making his ML debut.  I hope.

Cody Morris - What happens to him after his IL stint is done is up in the air.  As him coming off the IL will not doubt cost us to DFA someone who could have helped the team this year or in future years, I don't think the FO will want to put him back on the 40-man and then immeidately option him to the minors, costing us a player and one of Morris' minor league options.  So I think we stretch out his rehab as long as possible and then he joings the bullpen in Cleveland.  I just don't think we need to rush that process.

Still waiting for the Owen Miller PTBNL

Looking at our minor league depth chart it looks like we have Bo Naylor, Gavin Williams and Brayan Rocchio ready for ML action.  However there isn't a single other prospect I can identify who is having even an average year.  Some, like Cantillo, have had incredible performances or, like Lampe, incredible stretches during the season.  But looking at our minor league system right now I don't see a single prospect who looks like a solid MLer right now.  Not something I really want to say but let's hope as summer rolls around some of these guys take off, sprinting up the steep portion of their learning curve and, by the end of September, we are swimming in prospects the same way we looked to be swimming in true ML prospects this past winter.

So, time to enjoy the rest of the day as the Guardians won a good one today, I don't think anyone got hurt at the ML or MiLB level and we have more baseball tomorrow, and a lot of it! Have a great evening everyone!