Indians score on a "Swish" more often than Cavaliers!

Congrats to the Indians for getting their man, Nick Swisher.  If you are going to go down a path you have to hit it hard and the Indians did.

The only issue is will this be enough and, if it isn't, can the Indians bring in more talent to help justify the Jimenez trade and the Swisher signing.   Time will tell.

Now let's consider the aftermath of his signing.

Is the contract bloated?  Yeah, somewhat, but not so bloated that Swisher couldn't be traded if we ate about $4 million of the contract per year.   I mean, would you rather have Swisher with his contract or the mediocre Edwin Jackson with his or the overpaid (now) Cody Ross with his?  Both contracts are similar to Swisher's, just for a little less money or fewer years.  Still, I would take Swisher and his contract any day.

So, assuming we get good performance out of Swisher, this is a good signing for the present.

What about the future?

Note that in the 2012 draft there were 28 extra picks between the first and second round.  In 2011 it was 26.  In 2013 there are likely to be 1-2 extra picks before the second round.  That means that the 37th pick, where the Indians would have drafted in the second round in 2013 would have been more like an early supplemental 1st round pick in previous years.  A big loss in talent we could have grabbed, to be sure..

However, all is not lost.  Let's look at 2012 more closely.  The Indians signed Tyler Naquin (1st round) to an underslot bonus.  That gave us $500,000 to spend later in the draft but, with Naquin, we likely got another Trevor Crowe-like player.  The 2012 draft will be made by the guys we spent the excess we saved on Naquin's pick, NOT on Naquin but we couldn't have signed those other guys without the money we saved on Naquin.. 

Now, in 2013 we could have had a draft bonus pool of close to $7.5 million IF we kept our second round pick that we have forfeited for signing Swisher.  Still, even losing the 37th pick and its $1.5 million bonuse we will be closer to $6 million (see list below) which is STILL about $1.5 million higher than our budget for 2012!


Likely 2013 Indians bonus slots
5th - $3.5 million
70th - $740,000
100th - $470,000
130th - $340,000
160th - $260,000
190th - $195,000
220th - $160,000
250th - $140,000
280th - $130,000
310th - $125,000

There are two pieces of good news here:

1. The slot for the 5th overall slot gives the Indians some flexibility.  Last year the Royals signed the #5 pick for $3 million, saving $500,000 for later picks and he was the 3rd best prospect in the draft as rated by BA. So our savings could easily match what we saved on our first round pick last year and look what we did with that extra money! 

2. The slots of the Indians' picks in 2013 are very similar to 2012 when they drafted 15th, 79th, 110th, 143rd, 173rd, 203rd, 233rd, 263rd, 293rd, 323rd meaning that if they got value out of the 2012 draft they can, in theory, get the same value out of the 2013 draft IF they save $500,000 or more on the 5th overall pick.  .

So, while people are bemoaning the loss of the second round pick, and it is a big loss, the 2013 draft for the Indians could give us the same relative talent, or even better considering we are drafting 5th in the first round instead of 15th like we did in the 2012 draft.  We won't get the same volume of talent in next year's draft as if we had kept that second round pick but we could still get good talent if we play our cards right!

Plus, it is likely if we have to trade Swisher in the next year or two we can get AT LEAST the equivalent of a 37th overall draft slot talent for him and one that would likely be closer to the majors than the one we would have drafted this year.

I can't believe as a draft/prospect guy I am saying this but I really think, in this case, the Indians outsmarted the market.

Bravo, Indians!

Bauer and other things

Trevor Bauer

Well, now we know why Bauer was available.  Let's revisit these trades:

One year of Choo (plus a draft choice) plus Donald plus some cash brought us Gregorius and Stubbs.  This should be surprising enough for us.  To mean, this supports Gregorious' middling hit tool.  They don't know if he will hit so they will stick with Cozart.   Bottom line to me: Gregorious is not a sure thing to be able to hit enough to start in the big leagues.

Now, we traded Gregorious for Bauer with spare parts thrown in both ways.  If I don't like Gregorious that much, how could he bring Bauer?  Well, Bauer, as it turns out, is quirky and a questionable teammate.    Hey, but this is Clevleand and Albert Belle played here.  Maybe we can hire Belle as a counselor for Bauer, helping him to navigate the intricacies of playing for the Indians and dealing with suburban Cleveland trick-or-treaters?  I hope it turns out for the Indians like it turned out for them with Belle.  Sometimes, as a small market team you have to gamble on a young, cheap guy, especially when it comes at the cost of Choo, Donald, Sipp and Anderson...and you net Stuffs, Albers and Shaw, too boot.

Now to trade Joe Smith in a deal with someone else to get good, young ML-ready players back.

Mark Reynolds

This is a bad signing.  Now, Mark Reynolds at $2.5 million on this team is a good signing.  But $6 million?  Russell Branyan was as good in his prime and Russell Branyan barely earned $6 million in his entire freakin' career!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BTW, compare Branyan's and Reynolds career stats:

G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS  OPS+ TB GDP HBP SH  SF IBB

Reynolds:

853

3443

2973

475

699

148

11

181

501

49

23

408

1122

.235

.332

.475

.807

109

1412

61

35

2

25

18

Branyan:

1059

3398

2934

405

682

143

8

194

467

16

4

403

1118

.232

.329

.485

.814

113

1423

31

30

4

27

30

Eerily similar, no?

So, how can Reynolds be worth that much more than Branyan?  Answer is ONLY because the Orioles were stupid enough to pay him $5.3 million and $7 million over the past two seasons, thus inflating his value beyond belief. 

The Indians were suckers to continue this trend.  In another life, this guy would have gotten Russell Bramyan type deals.

Shame on the Indians for getting caught up in the Orioles overpayments.  Typical Indians' waste of money.  Reynolds

Nick Swisher

I like this guy, to be sure.  But gosh folks, the guy is asking for the moon.  If we sign this guy he instantly becomes the highest paid player on the roster....BY A FACTOR OF TWO!  Yes, we will be paying him more this year than we are paying Asdrubal and Chris Perex, COMBINED.

Hey, I like this guy.  I really do.  But I don't think he is worth that much money for one year let alone 4 years.  Look, we were like 30 games worse than the Tigers last year and the Tigers have already gotten better.  this winter, signing Torii Hunter, maybe even negating the gains we could get by signing Swisher.

Plus Swisher costs us our 2nd round pick next year if we sign him.  That hurts us in two ways:

1. With the lack of compensation free agents any more our second round pick this year is likely to be about the 43rd pick.  Last year it would have been about the 60th pick.   Small market teams that had almost 100 losses last year and who have one of the weakest farm systems in baseball shouldn't be losing draft picks, period.

2. Losing that draft pick gives us less flexibility in signing guys.  Here is how it works, using last year as an example.  If you have high picks you are granted inflated signing bonus caps for that pick.  By that I mean that, if you sign a guy who will accept a lower bonus, like we did with Naquin, you have extra money to throw at later round picks.  However, if you lose that draft pick you lose it's value in your budget.  Thus, you now have LESS money to throw around if you want to go cheap on your early picks AND your second pick is now in the 3rd round and will be in the 80s, where the talent is thinning out IF you have to stay close to slot, as we will,

Basically, signing Swisher gives us an inflated payroll and the loss of a draft pick which will hurt us more deeply in the draft then just the loss of the player we would have picked.

For me, I say no to signing Swisher.  It is probably a moot point, anyway.  If Swisher sees what I see, why would he want to come here?   Little chance of winning and the chance to become part of a rebuild.  Who would want that if they can get close to the same money elsewhere.  No one, as Shane Victorino can attest to. 

The Mark Reynolds signing took us down a bad road.  Let's not compound that by signing Swisher. 

I don't know who to sign (Cody Ross now looks too pricy and may be a fool's bet) but I wouldn't sign Swisher. 

Just my take. .

OK, how does this help, exactly?

So, how does this help?

Let's summarize:

We now have NO right fielder, two centerfielders and no left fielders.  One of Brantley or Stubbs will move out of centerfield for the other.  However, Stubbs has not played RF in the majors (I think he has the arm for it, but not the experience) and Brantley nor any of the other OFers on the roster: Canzler, Carrera, Fedroff or Neal is capable of holding down a RF job in the majors for any longer than 15 seconds.  If Stubbs plays center Brantley HAS to play LF with his rag arm.

We have no true LH relievers - We lost Raffy left, we have now traded Sipp who, as much as some people thought he sucked, he held LH batters to a .663 OPS this year.   This leaves us with Nick Hagadone who has a greivance filed against the Indians and Scott Barnes as potential LH relievers on the 40-man roster.   Thus prompting us to overpay some mediocre loogy or go the bargain basement route. 

We are now back to Brantley as a leadoff hitter.  Not that this a necessarily a bad thing since Brantley's OBP has continued to improve over the past 3 years up to a good .348 this past season.  He may be ready to be our full-time leadoff hitter except that he hit .225 as a leadoff hitter in 2012, prompting Choo to be installed as the leadoff hitter.  So, Brantley is no sure thing to replace Choo leading off in our pathetic offense.

Too many RH relievers - After the trade, on our roster we have: Cody Allen, Frank Herrmann, Chen Lee, Chris Perez, Vinnie Pestano, Joe Smith, Blake Wood and now Bryan Shaw and Matt Albers.  While you can never have too much pitching you can have assets that are not helping the big league club most of the year.  Adding Shaw and Albers pushed two people out of a job.  Unless you are going to trade the extra RH relievers, adding Shaw and Albers really added no value to this club. 

If we trade Cabrera we have no utility infielder depth - Yeah, Donald didn't hit well but he was cheap.  If you keep Cabrera you have upgraded with Aviles as your utility infielder.  Otherwise, you have downgraded at both SS and utility infielder.

You lost Lars Anderson -  OK, stop laughing for a second.  Sure, we had to make roster space.  But we are not set at all at DH and 1B.  Losing this guy lowers the odds of finding someone out of the meh group of guys to fill those slots.  Not that Anderson would have made the team but he certainly can't now. Yeah, Anderson was a throw-in, but....

Remember, Marco Scutaro was a throw-in in a trade.  Luke Scott was a throw-in in a trade.  Get the point?

So, again I ask, how does this help 2013?

I know Bauer helps the future but how does this trade help the present if Bauer isn't ready? 

We've just gone back to the 80s

Signing Mark Reynolds is the kind of futile gesture that the Indians of the 80s would have done.  You have gaping holes on a 68-94 team and your solution to that is to overpay ($6-7.5 million) a marginal free agent whose productivity you could get from your in-house options.

The kind of move that has fall-flat-on-your-face written all over it.

I don't know, if Reynolds were available in a trade, I would have traded Rondon and McFarland for him.  But wait, we don't have Rondon and McFarland BECAUSE WE ALREADY LOST THEM IN THE RULE 5 draft.

But we did draft another first baseman in that draft, Chris McGuiness.   Yeah, that looks like a really smart move now, doesn't it?  McGuiness lasted all of about 4 days before we made him totally expendable. 

This organization is such horsecrap because their moves don't make sense when they are made and, in many cases with this one as an example, contradict earlier moves.

True Indians fans, all 150 of us, are so numb by now that moves like this mostly roll of our backs.

But losing Rondon and McFarland, picking up McGuiness and then making him irrelevant with the bloated signing of Reynolds is just about as comically pathetic as you can get.

I can't wait to see what we get back if we trade Asdrubal Cabrera. 

Memo to Indians' organization: 

(1) Bend over
(2) Put hands on tops of your shoulders
(3) With a quick yet forceful motion, full your head out of your rear end
(4) After (3) is accomplished, do something really smart for a change!

Seems simple, but the simplicity of this seems to allude Antonetti.

The moronic front office strikes again

SIX.  We have six guys on our ML roster (or AAA) who are fringe major league firstbasemen or firstbasemen/utility players.  SIX.

Lars Anderson
Mike McDade
Mike LaPorta
Yan Gomes
Russ Canzler
Chris McGuness (selected today in the Rule 5)

So the one guy we selected in the Rule 5 is a guy who is at a position where he is competing with 5 other guys to make the 25-man roster?  Really?  Do these FO idiots know that they actually have to keep McGuiness on their 25-man roster for most of the season to not lose him?   Here is a news flash, morons.  YOU DON'T SELECT PLAYERS IN THE RULE 5 THAT YOU ARE DEEP IN ON YOUR ML ROSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

At the same time in the Rule 5 draft today we lost TWO pitchers, Hector Rondon and TJ McFarland.

I had predicted that Rondon would be gone with the first pick in the Rule 5 draft.  I was wrong.  He lasted until the second pick.

The Indians also lost TJ McFarland, a guy with #5 starter stuff but who may carve a career for himself as a LOOGY or a long man in the bullpen.  He is the true soft tossing lefty but, nevertheless, he should have been protected.

So, the Indians have dissed an old axiom and today coined a new one.

Dissed axiom: You can never have enough pitching

Indians' axiom:  You can never have enough fringe major league firstbasemen

Perfect, guys.  The FO is now cementing its place as among the dumbest, most ineffective front offices in Cleveland Indians' history.    Maybe there will be a labor stoppage that will wipe out all of the 2013 ML season and give the Dolans time to sell the team and the new owner time to trash this pathetic excuse for a front office.

Winter Meetings and other things - Musings on a Monday

I know my posts have been few and far between recently.  Like the major leagues, I have taken some time to collect myself.  Here are some thoughts:

Winter Meetings - What are we doing?

 Again, I am scratching my head.  We hire Terry Francona whose major assets are having managed Boston to championships and, as a result, having enough credibility to recruit good players (i.e., free agents) to want to come here.  You don't hire championship caliber managers to lead a rebuilding program, right?

So, what the heck are we doing?  I don't think we are flying under the radar with free agents.  We are still picking guys off the waiver wire (McDade and Woods).  We haven't made any moves that would say we are 'going for it'.    So what the heck are we doing?

So now the rumor is we are going to make trades.  We all realize, don't we, that this is simple addition/subtraction.  You start with a 68-94 team and you subtract AstroCab, Choo and CPerez.  Those are huge losses.  You have to assume, at best, you get back equal ML ready talent that is probably cheaper.  So now you are at 68-94 with a smaller payroll and maybe a little longer opening for your 'window'.  Yeah, in a perfect world if Detroit crumbled, everyone else in the division stunk it up, all of our guys had career years and Aviles and Pestano played up and if we could get someone to replace Choo and Pestano's setup role, we could compete.

Or, more likely, we are moving towards a deep rebuild.   But then why Francona?  Wouldn't you have expected that we give that job to Sandy Alomar Jr.?  Do we really think Francona came here to be a nursemaid to a young team?  Hey, against the odds maybe Francona did.  Otherwise, you pick Alomar Jr., right?  Still,  a deep rebuild IS the best way to go.  Actually the Toronto-Marlins trade HELPS the Indians in a rebuild situation.  While the value of the players Toronto got was much more than what the Marlins got, it make it a seller's market for teams dealing with the AL East.  You gotta answer quickly in this division or you are going to be in 4th place before you know it.   So maybe we have partners there who will give us a low A/high A/AA bounty for our three studs and maybe Masterson. 

So, color me confused.  I just hope we aren't trying to do a rebuild and compete at the same time thing again.  Remember how that turned out last time.  I mean, all you have to do is say 'Matt Lawton' and I break out in a cold sweat.    So, let's hope we are not that stupid again but that is one of the few things that make sense at this point.

Rule 5 Predictions - Who will we lose?

Major League Phase

We lose Hector Rondon, probably on the first pick to Houston

50% we lose Austin Adams, Chun Chen

25% we lose Rob Bryson, TJ McFarland, Bryce Stowell, Giovanny Urshela, Matt Langwell, Roberto Perez

AAA/AA Phases

We lose Delvi Cid

50% chance we lose Kyle Bellows, Adam Abraham, Francisco Valera, Francisco Jimenez, Jordan Henry, Bo Greenwell

Do we pick anyone up?  Well, we might.  But I doubt it.  Going to arbitration with Wood and adding McDade to the roster tells me that the Rule 5 is not how we will be bottom feeding this year.  Plus, the few times we have tried we haven't had much luck so I don't think we pick up anyone in the ML phase and probably pick up 1-2 guys no one has ever heard of the minor league phase, especially if we lose Roberto Perez in the ML phase.

That's it for now.