Friday Thoughts - Francona leaving, suspension vs rainout, minor league musings, taking it home (i.e. the rest of the regular season)

Francona Leaving

It looks like we are about to witness the end of an era in Cleveland as the soon-to-be bionic man, Terry Francona, is likely to pack it in as the manager of the Cleveland Guardians in favor of his personal health as he continues to have body parts replaced and surgeries done.  Here are some thoughts:

• It is time.  He is obviously feeling the pressure of having to manage hard every game.  Every managerial decision that turned out bad is exposed as second guessing only becomes important when your team is underperforming.  His predilection for playing veterans over young players, playing young players who suck (for some reason) and holding young players more accountable than he holds his veterans were always there.  It is just in this season they are more obvious as this team tried to walk the razor's edge.
• The game has passed him by.  While 7 years ago he was an innovator, now the game is passing him by.  His lack of grasp of the challenge system is obvious on a daily basis.  His irritation with umpires has boiled over more times than it should have been.  His only lately embdracing the opener paradigm was concerning, meaning he had to have 5 solid starters or he was lost.
• If Antonetti and Co. REALLY loved Francona they would have NOT hung him out to dry this year.  Stupid FA signings and stupid trades this winter really doomed this team, choosing guys to stay and FAs who underperformed with the guys they got rid of having great years that we could have used here.  The cherry on the sundae occurred at the deadline where we traded away assets and, essentially, got nothing bad.  A tenuous season sent down the tubes.  Bringing in Calhoun, Laureano and Hasse were stupid attempts to placate Francona whose stressful job as manager was made even worse by getting rid of his veterans and making him manage rookies while attempting to win, basically Francona's worst nightmare.

Suspension vs Rainout

No one questioned the rainout vs suspension decision.  As this situation does not come up often I have to wonder if this is a new thing or not.  My memory is that when a game isn't official the results are washed away and you have to start over.  Obviously that didn't happen as the Dodgers were gifted a 3-1 lead by the suspension in a game that only went 2 innings when it should have been a 0-0 game if it had been ruled a rainout.  HUGE advantage to the Dodgers by that decision.

Hopefully there is some black and white explanation from the rules rather just MLB's or the umpire's or even the teams' discretion on whether to invoke a rainout or just continue the game.   I still want to fight for every win and if Cleveland just played the good guys and allowed it to be a suspension I will be really pissed.  

Taking it Home (i.e, the rest of the regular season)

• We need to play the rookies.  Sending down Rocchio was just a joke as we SHOULD have sent down Arias a long time ago.  On cue for his Oscar Mercado-like AAAA performance, Arias celebrated his umpteenth reprieve  from a trip to Columbus by going 3-4 (with the HR being his only hard hit ball).  Just like Mercado, Arias always flashes just enough to convince the hope-against-hope Cleveland fan that maybe he is coming out of it, finally, after 2 years.  With Rocchio down Arias certainly will get the opportunties to prove me wrong.  
• I will say this for the 100th time.  What in the freakin' heck are we doing bringing in these AAAA veterans?  This is the biggest joke of 3 years of jokes from our FO.   With the poor drafts of 2022 and 2023, the loss of Jones, Benson and Civale with little return, these 'gifts' will keep on giving for years to come.  
• I don't want to get rid of Antonetti.  I want him to clean up his mess.  But, and this is just my guess, he needs to get rid of his ego, roll up his sleeves and actually HELP this team instead of trying to bask in the glory of his greatness, thinking he is above the game.  And fix his analytics and draft departments that are clearly broken, maybe more than any team in baseball.
• We need to fix our challenge department.  They are slow reacting and not very sharp in their challenges, sometimes challenging things that are laughable and obviously wrong.  Don't know if this is tracked but my guess is that we lead the league in shortest review times for our challenges as they are so bad it doesn't take New York long to overturn them.  In fact, they would probably be shorter but the guys in New York have to stop laughing long enough to convey the result to the umpires at the game.

Minor League Musings

• Chase DeLauter makes a stumbling, sprawling catch that has me grimacing that he might be going back to the DL and people are praising his defense.  Folks, this guy is NOT a centerfielder.  If his arm plays well he can end up in right, if not, in left.  But no matter what he will be another LH hitter...like we don't have too many of those already.  Instead of overvaluing his defense based on one play, we need to worry about him incorporating his lower half in his swing and what that may mean long term to his development.  The guy swings basically with his hands and arms and barrels up more balls than I have ever seen a prospect barrel up.  However, his power is currently warning track power due to him not incorporating his lower half
• Kyle Manzardo is now 0-11 as a Cleveland Guardians' farmhand.   Aaron Civale's new team Tampa Bay is 3-1 in his 4 starts.  
• Ralphy Velasquez mashed for an OPS of 1.132 in the first 6 games of his professional career in the ACL.  He only played one game at catcher, one at 1B and the other 4 as a DH.  Remember, that no one questioned before the draft whether he could hit.  The reason he was only the 37th best prospect in the draft was because he was position limited and it was questioned whether he could stay at catcher AND because not all great HS hitters develop into ML players.
• Parker Messick looked really good in his previous 3 starts at Lake County showing increased fastball velocity.  He looked good in the first 3 innings of his most recent start and then got touched up in the 4th inning.  Don't know what that means but, as I said before, his remaining starts will be interesting.
• I saw Matt Etzel, my 9th round pick in my 2023 mock draft, play against Lynchburg this week.  He wad drafted in the 10th round by Baltimore and, at this point, looks like a steal.  So far he is hitting .300 in his short professional caree with a .906 OPS and has 12 stolen bases in 71 plate appearances.  Admittedly this is all at Rookie and A ball but compared to the $1 million dollar man Alex Mooney (.419 OPS in A ball), CJ Kayfus (.702  OPS in A ball) and Tommy Hawke (.675 OPS as a college player in the ACL), Etzel, who was drafted much lower than any of these guys, looks pretty good to me.  More on this after the minor league season is over when I compare the first-year performances by my 2023 mock draftees compared to the guys the Guardians drafted.  Spoiler alert: bring a barf bag because, as Guardians fans, they are going to make you want to throw up.
• Will Dion - While I know his fastball 'velocity' gives him very little chance of being successful in the majors, he still finds a way to get it done, even in his extended look at AA.  Maybe something marvelous will happen and his FB velocity will go up to 96 mph while maintaining his command.  Then we can change the nickname form Little Kershaw to Kershaw Part Deux, or something like that.
• It will be interesting to see how Jaison Churio does in his late-season cameo at Lynchburg.  It is really interesting to note that A LOT of guys who are playing at A, A+ and AA ball right now are recent callups with fewer than 20 games at their highest level.  So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, looking at guys who have spent the whole season at one minor league level and are now seeing a spike in performance at the end of the season means that at least some of this spike could result from the best players in their league leaving and being replaced by guys who are just getting used to a new level.  If your competition is weaker this could lead to an improvement in performance that is actually just from playing against weaker competition.