2013 Predictions - A little late but still hot and juicy!

Cleveland Indians:

Record: 86-76

MVP: Asdrubal Cabrera

Rookie (or young player) of the year: Lonnie Chisenhall.  He will still be a little short on power but, overall, he will establish himself as the Indians’ third baseman for years to come.

Biggest surprise:  Matt Capps will emerge as a quality setup man who will show his closer form, leading to the Indians wanting to re-sign him.  As far as rookies, this will depend on how the season goes.  For me, the natural is Nick Hagadone.  If the season tanks and we trade Chris Perez, look for Preston Guilmet to get a shot at set-up guy and Matt Langwell to get a cup of coffee at 6^th/7^th inning guy.  For these last two, it will be a surprise that they even make it to the majors and it will be icing on that cake when they are, as they will be, effective.  Cord Phelps will establish himself as a super utility player, as well.

Biggest disappointment: Brett Myers will be in the bullpen by the beginning of May.  For $7 million, this will qualify as the biggest disappointment. Ryan Raburn will be gone by July 1.  Jason Kipnis will struggle mightily early on leading to a demotion.  When he returns to the big leagues in August he will be, from that point on through the rest of his career, the player the Indians thought he could be.  Cody Allen will struggle and spend time in the minors getting more seasoning.

Comments: The Indians will struggle at the 3^rd through 5^th starters and that will be the key reason they don’t make the playoffs.  Rookies and young players will struggle early but, overall, the future will look a lot brighter as the season moves into its later stages and the reason for multi-year signings of Swisher and Bourn and the one-year signing of Myers will be more clear as the 2014 roster starts to take shape in August/September of 2013.

Columbus Clippers:

Record: 68-76

MVP:  This is a tough one.  My guess is that Tim Fedroff wins by default as I don’t know if anyone else either performs or stays at Columbus long enough.  Fedroff, like Jared Goedert and Russ Canzler in the past, will be there long enough to put up numbers.

Rookie (or young player) of the year:  Preston Guilmet. 

Biggest surprise:  Roberto Perez will get his cup of coffee sometime this year.  Cord Phelps, when he returns, will beat up AAA pitching and be in Cleveland by July 1^st.

Biggest disappointment: Giovanni Soto will be back in AA by June as he just can’t get enough innings in.

Comments: The worst team in years in Columbus.  This team has no star power and the veteran presence will quickly evaporate due to call-ups and opt-outs.  

Akron Aeros:

Record: 82-62

MVP: Chun-Hsiu Chen

Rookie (or young player) of the year: Jose Ramirez

Biggest surprise: TJ House being in Columbus before May 15^th.   Danny Salazar in Cleveland by the end of the year, although the latter is not a huge surprise if the Indians tank this season.  

Biggest disappointment: Carlos Moncrief.  I want him to break out but I envision him having another in a long line of tantalizing yet not dominating year like last year.  To me, he becomes Jonathan Van Every very quickly if he doesn’t break out this year.  Fabio Martinez will be released by  June.

Comments:  I am going WAY out on a limb on this one.  I am predicting that all of the kids on this team (and this is a homegrown team with only 5 guys who are not homegrown and an average age (23.8 years, almost a year under the average age of the EL) have very good years and guys who are in their second tour here like House, Jesus Aguilar and Chun-Hsiu Chen dominate before their eventual call-ups to AAA in order, being House before Chen before Aguilar (with this one being a question mark).   My feeling is that, if you don’t count AAAA guys on the AAA roster, this Akron roster will have more eventual major leaguers on it than any other team in our farm system and stands a chance of having more eventual major leaguers than ALL the rest of our farm teams combined, if you exclude all guys who have already been in the majors and are now in our farm system.

Carolina Mudcats:

Record: 82-62

MVP: Tyler Naquin

Rookie (or young player) of the year: Francisco Lindor

Biggest surprise: Bryson Miles – He will finally start to live up to the Kirby Puckett hype.   

Biggest disappointment:  Jordan Smith.  He will not be a huge disappointment.  It’s just that a guy like him whose average is his best tool, will be a huge disappointment when he hits .260.

Comments:  Carolina will get a dominant team this year and will win the Carolina League championship.  Considering how suspect their pitching depth is, this is a HUGE gamble of a prediction.  Still, I think the positions players will dominate and, given the strength I hope the AA guys will show, Lindor, Naquin, et al , should stay in Carolina for a lot, if not all, of the season.

Lake County Captains:

Record: 74-71

MVP: Luigi Rodriguez – Frankly, this guy should be outta Lake County in a month. Practically, however, the system is so backed up that I see him staying in LC until middle of July, giving him plenty of ABs to rack up MVP numbers.

Rookie (or young player) of the year: TBD.  The obvious choice is Paulino if someone from the 2013 draft class doesn't bust out.  .

Biggest surprise: I think this one will come from the 2013 draft.  I think one of our top picks will be a seasoned college guy who will be assigned to Lake County and perform well.  Maybe even our first round pick if it is position player like Colin Moran. 

Biggest disappointment: I see three disappointments: Mitch Brown.   I just think he is a little young and a little green (being from a northern state) to be pushed up to full-season ball this year.  Ditto for Nellie Rodriguez.  I don’t know what the Indians are thinking but these two guys were not ready for full-season ball.  LeVon Washington – Not for performance but for lack of health.  He will be the biggest disappointment out of his disappointing draft class.  If he could just stay healthy he would immediately become the second best OF prospect (after Naquin) in the Indians’ farm system. 

Comments:  A solid team and exactly what a Lake County fan would want: more wins than losses and a chance to see future stars and major leaguers in action.  Unfortunately Paulino is the only solid ML star-type prospect on this team (with Luigi Rodriguez being a distant second) but there are lots of guys who have huge upsides who are far away from reaching those projections (i.e., Washington, Brown, Rodriguez, Sisco, Sterling, DeJesus).

Rondon and other Rule 5 thoughts

 Last fall I predicted before the Rule 5 draft that Hector Rondon would be the first selection in the ML portion of the Rule 5 draft and that he would stick with whatever club drafted him, be a more than just useful bullpen arm for them and not be returned to the Indians.

http://www.ciperspective.blogspot.com/2012/12/winter-meetings-and-other-things.html

Well, I was wrong.  He was the SECOND player drafted!

However, he will stick with the Cubs, as predicted. 

Not that this prediction was a difficult one.  Rondon was trending towards being a good bullpen arm.

Will he have continued major league success?  Who knows.

But my prediction is, if he stays healthy, that by the end of the year he will be closing games for the Cubs.

He was too good of an arm to let go for nothing, especially with the way he was pitching at the time the 40-man rosters were set last fall.

Plus, I don't understand why he was not on the radar of the rule 5 'experts'.  He certainly fit everything teams seem to look for in a pitcher: useful bullpen arm trending towards success right before the Rule 5 draft with some upside as a starter.  Seemed a perfect fit to me but not to the national experts on the subject.

The other player the Indians lost in the ML portion of the Rule 5, TJ McFarland (Orioles) will probably be coming back to the Indians.  I had predicted that there was a 25% chance he would get drafted and close to no chance he would stick with the team that drafted him.  The Orioles took a shot that they might be able to keep him as a loogy given his good left-on-left splits.   However, his spring was uneven and, as could be predicted by his minor league track record, he will need at least two tries at every level before he can have success there.  I hope the Indians can get him back because, if properly groomed, he can be a cheap and effective lefty for years to come.

The player the Indians drafted, Chris McGuinness, was not ready for the big leagues and the Indians may have to return him to Texas or work out a deal.  Typical of most Rule 5 picks, McGuinness doesn't have the experience to be ready for big league pitching yet and, in his case, he may just end up as a AAAA player.  Clearly by what has historically worked in the Rule 5, not a good gamble. 

Don't be surprised if David Huff or Ezequiel Carrera are traded to keep McGuinness.  That type of move would only add to the head scratching over drafting McGuinness in the first place after getting McDade and then bringing in a couple of ML 1B/DH types on top of having Santana playing there to rest his legs from catching. 

No waiting here - Indians top 100...plus 2

OK, fans, 2013 is here, visions of Nick Swisher are dancing in our heads and it is the time hope springs eternal.  Still, we are fans of the Cleveland Indians and we are always looking to the future.  With that in mind I have put together my pre-2013 top 100 prospects...plus two, as two of my top 100 actually don't belong to the Indians right now, having been selected in the ML Rule 5 draft.  So I kept them where I had them and added two at the back end. 

Enjoy these all at once and compare to other lists as they trickle in...one at a time. 

1.             Trevor Bauer RHSP

2.             Francisco Lindor SS

3.             Dorsyss Paulino – SS

4.             Tony Wolters – SS

5.             Mitch Brown – RHSP

6.             Cody Allen - RHRP

7.             Chun Chen – C

8.             Ronny Rodriguez – SS

9.             Jesus Aguilar – 1B

10.          Tyler Naquin - OF

11.          Shawn Armstrong – RHRP

12.          Giovanny Urshela – 3B

13.          Scott Barnes – LHRP

14.          Juan Diaz – SS

15.          Giovanny Soto – RHSP

16.          Dylan Baker – RHSP

17.          LeVon Washington – OF

18.          D’vonne McClure – OF

19.          Luigi Rodriguez OF

20.          Jose Ramirez 2B/SS

21.          Yan Gomes C/OF/3B

22.          Alex Lavisky – C

23.          Hector Rondon – RHSP

24.          Danny Salazar – RHSP

25.          Cord Phelps – Utility

26.          Tim Fedroff – OF

27.          T.J. McFarland – LHSP

28.          T.J. House – LHSP

29.          Rob Bryson – RHRP

30.          Chen Lee – RHRP

31.          Cole Cook – RHRP

32.          Trey Haley - RHRP

33.           Nelson Rodriguez – C/1B

34.          Alexander Perez – LHSP

35.          Elvis Araujo – LHSP

36.          Matt Packer - LHSP

37.          Austin Adams – RHSP

38.          Bryson Myles – OF

39.          Cody Anderson – RHP

40.          Roberto Perez – C

41.          Robbie Aviles – RHSP

42.          Carlos Moncrief – OF

43.          Anthony Santander – OF

44.          Corey Kluber – RHSP

45.          Felix Sterling – RHP

46.          Kieran Lovegrove – LHP

47.          Joseph Colon - RHSP

48.          Luis DeJesus - RHSP

49.          Jake Sisco – RHSP

50.          Caleb Hamrick - RHSP

51.          Dillon Howard – RHSP

52.          Mason Radeke - RHSP

53.          Josh McAdams – OF

54.          Tyler Booth – OF  

55.          Jake Lowery – C

56.          Charlie Valerio – C

57.          Claudio Bautista - SS

58.          Joe Wendle – 2B

59.          Jacob Lee - RHRP

60.          Alex Monsalve – C

61.          Bryce Stowell – RHRP

62.          Tyler Sturdevant – RHRP

63.          Adam Abraham – 1B/3B

64.          Tyler Holt – OF

65.          Clayton Cook – RHSP

66.          Matt Langwell – RHRP

67.          Michael Goodnight – RHSP

68.          Preston Guilmet – RHRP

69.          Enosil Tejada – RHRP

70.          Jordan Smith – 3B/OF

71.          Jorge Martinez – 2B

72.          Bo Greenwell – OF

73.          Alexis Paredes - RHSP

74.          Jordan Henry – OF

75.          Brett Brach – RHSP

76.          Eric Berger – LHRP

77.          Mike Rayl – RHSP

78.          Shawn Morimando – LHSP

79.          Anthony Gallas – OF

80.           Kyle Blair – RHSP

81.          Kyle Bellows – 3B

82.          Eric Haase – C

83.          Joshua Nervis – RHRP

84.          Benny Suarez – LHRP

85.          Louis Head – RHRP

86.          Juan Nivar - RHP

87.          Luis Gomez – RHP

88.          Anthony Vizcaya - RHP

89.          Manny Carmona – RHRP

90.          Hector Caro - OF

91.          Victor Cabral – OF

92.          Michael Depen - OF

93.          Paulo Espino – RHSP

94.          Josh Martin – RHRP

95.          Jerrud Sabourin – 1B

96.          Logan Vick – OF

97.          Juan Romero – 3B

98.          Jose Flores – RHRP

99.        Todd Hankins – 2B

100.        Grant Sides – RHRP

101.        Jairo Kelly – SS

102.        Grofy Cruz - SS

OK, hope you enjoyed this list. I will continue to update it through spring training as different things happen that may change this order.

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. .