In the days of statistical analysis, teams look for an edge anywhere they can find one. One way of gaining an edge is the use of a platoon. Calling someone a “platoon player” is not a term of endearment with fans and certainly not a glowing review of one’s overall skill. Perhaps fans are disenfranchised with the notion of platoons because it means that both guys aren’t good enough to be everyday players. It’s true, but several players that are penciled in the lineup every day have sharp splits depending on what hand the opposing pitcher throws with.

The Indians are going to use variations of platoons this season whether you like it or not. They may not be traditional platoons, in the sense that the right hander who hits lefties will play every day against a lefty and the left hander who hits righties will play every day against a righty, but Terry Francona is going to play the numbers and percentages to do whatever he can to gain an edge.

Platoons have grown increasingly unpopular with Indians fans because of the failed Dellucci-Michaels and Nixon-Gutierrez platoons. Because platoon situations tend to be attached to the corner outfield positions, it’s understandable why fans aren’t big on the use of platoons. Historically, the corner outfield positions are filled by players who can hit for power and put up numbers.

Over the last three seasons, the dynamic in left field has changed. During the steroid era, which I’ll call 1993-2004, left field was a very productive position, posting an on-base plug slugging above .800 on four different occasions. Since 2010, the combined OPS of left fielders has been .743, .729, and .747. These are still above average values, as the league average OPS has also dropped off over the last three seasons and sits in the .720s.

Read more...

What's that, you say?  Rain in Arizona; you cannot be serious.

Well, it was imminent all day, but it didn't come to Phoenix's Northwest Valley in time to save the Indians long journey up Bullard Avenue to Surprise.  In terms of "B" teams, this was as literal as it gets, with no regular players on Friday's travel roster, other than Joe Smith and Drew Stubbs.

Stubbs was worth the price of admission, leading off the game with a home run, then doubling and scoring on a Ben Francisco sacrifice fly in the third inning, right before the game was called.  Stubbs notched his first stolen base of the spring with a great jump on Ned Yost's southpaw starter Noel Arguelles.  Yan Gomes was at the plate with a 1-0 count, and Ryan Raburn, who was walked by Ryan Verdugo, on second base when the tarp came out.  Raburn took second base on the throw, and he'll be back there if they resume and Francona hasn't already put him on a bus back to Goodyear.

"If anything good today happened," Terry Francona stated about Stubbs, "it was coming over to see him take those two swings, because those were beautiful."

Read more...

The Indians were firing on all cylinders on Wednesday in a 4-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Goodyear, Arizona.  Tribe manager Terry Francona was extremely pleased with his team’s performance on the field, on “a good day, all the way around.”

Justin Masterson, making his third appearance of the spring, “set the tone for a really good day,” according to Francona.  He got better as the day went on; after giving up a single to Alfredo Amezaga, the first batter of the day, Masterson got Skip Schumaker to bounce one to Mark Reynolds, who turned the double play, setting up a Yasiel Puig strikeout to end the inning.

Things only got easier for the Tribe’s Opening Day starter after that; he survived two base runners, after hitting Jeremy Moore on a 3-1 pitch and giving up a single to Elian Herrera, by way of inducing his second double play in as many innings.  He got Brian Barden and Jesus Flores on strikes to start the third, then had the sinker working for 3 ground balls, including a single by Puig that was negated by a Juan Uribe 6-4-3 double play to end the his day after four innings.

Read more...

We now live in a country where Gonzaga University has the finest college basketball team in the land.

Imagine your reaction 10 years ago if someone had told you this was going to happen. Perhaps laughter, perhaps tears out of a fear this meant that the United States was destined to crack in half at the Mississippi River, with everything to the east sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Either that or aliens.

Today it’s easy to forget the downright adorable Gonzaga teams of the late 1990s that occasionally picked up pot-shot upset victories in the first round of the NCAA tournament that made us just want to squeeze their cheeks.

While Gonzaga’s rise from novelty to behemoth has been well-documented and dozens of other small-to-mid-major programs are taking notes and inking up their proverbial mimeograph machines, it would be a mistake to think that the ‘Zags’ template applies only to college hoops.

Our own Cleveland Indians, for example, should sit up and take notice. For Gonzaga’s journey is strikingly similar to the path the Tribe must take if it hopes to once again become a perennial contender in the dictatorial third-world landscape of Major League Baseball.

Read more...