On Tuesday, Dan Szymborski utilized his ZIPS projection system and the standings as of Monday night to re-cast the projected standings for the end of the season in a piece for ESPN Insider. In those standings, the Detroit Tigers were still listed as the projected winners of the AL Central, nudging out the Indians by a two game margin with their projected final total of 87 wins.

Since that article was posted, the Indians completed a three game sweep of the Tigers, even beating Detroit with Justin Verlander on the mound this afternoon. The sweep widened the Indians lead to six games (with 118 to go), and made the Indians the new favorites to end the year as the division winners.

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Shin-Soo Choo is a BABIP wizard. Sort for batting average on balls in play since 2008, and sitting there in second place is Choo. After four years of BABIPs in the high .300s, he dropped back to earth in 2011 but still finds himself above the league norm these days. Even with over 2000 plate appearances under his belt, it’s fair to ask: what does Choo’s true-talent BABIP look like?

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With the closest Midwest League stadium five hours away, my providing first hand scouting coverage of that league is difficult to say the least. Fortunately, a contact has been kind enough to provide me the scouting scoop on more than a handful of the league’s top prospects. These aren’t exact quotes, but summaries of conversations had over the course of the first two months of the minor league season. Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland’s 5-3 win over preseason divisional favorite Detroit may have finally garnered their current divisional lead some attention. What is at least somewhat surprising about Cleveland’s lead is that some of their seemingly more significant pieces have performed poorly — one thinks particularly of the supposed top of their starting rotation (Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson). However, the offense has been playing well, relatively speaking. They currently have the best wRC+ out of all the teams in the division.

Cleveland’s good hitting so far this season can be credited to Carlos Santana, the resurgence (at least in walk rate) of Shin-Soo Choo, Jason Kipnis starting the year in the majors, and yet another early-season hot streak by Jack Hannahan, Cleveland’s most valuable hitter to this point in the season has been shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera had a excellent 2011 that led to a nice extension, but most observers (as well as projection systems) expected regression. So far, that has not happened. Cabrera has been even better in the young 2012 season (153 wRC+ compared to 118 in 2011). How is he doing it, and to what extent is it sustainable?

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Episode 183
David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA), curator of FanGraphs’ Q&A Series, talks both to Indians rock-and-roll pitching coach Scott Radinsky and also closer Chris Perez.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 19 min. play time.)

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Casey Blake has retired. While some might think of him as the “veteran presence” the Dodgers acquired for Carlos Santana (Colletti!), Blake had his other moments.

Blake did have some good seasons with both Cleveland and Los Angeles, and went to the playoffs with both teams. He was rarely exceptional, but he generally provided good value for a guy who did not become a major-league regular until he was 29. In memory of his career, let’s look at his three biggest hits according to Win Probability Added.

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Coming off a six-win season in 2010, right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez disappointed on the mound last year, splitting time between the Colorado Rockies and Cleveland Indians. His velocity dropped significantly. The dominating stuff that made him a Cy Young candidate seemingly disappeared. He became rather ordinary and frustrating for two separate fan bases. It all resulted in a below-average 4.68 ERA.

Hope for improvement existed for 2012, however. His 3.67 FIP suggested Jimenez pitched much better than his earned run average indicated — largely due to the fact that his BABIP and LOB% were both worse than his career averages — and his 88 FIP- indicated that he ranked better than league average on the mound.

Fast forward to 2012, and we clearly see that the potential improvement for Ubaldo Jimenez simply has not come to fruition. In fact, the 28-year-old continues to deteriorate on the mound. His stuff is declining precipitously, and his peripheral numbers are trending in the wrong direction.

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It took a while, but Johnny Damon found his third new home in three years. Damon has reportedly accepted a deal with Cleveland that will give him a prorated $1.25 million base salary with another $1.4 million in incentives. The money is not that significant, relatively speaking, particularly given that Cleveland is trying to contend this season. The main issue is whether Damon can really anything to the team.

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Offensively competent catchers are perhaps the rarest commodity in baseball, and clubs tend to go to great lengths to make sure they can keep those guys long-term. The Indians and Carlos Santana agreed to a five-year contract extension yesterday, a deal that guarantees him $21 million and includes a $12 million club option for a sixth year. Jordan Bastian of MLB.com and Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer both deserve credit for breaking the news.

Santana, 26, was already under team control through 2016. The new extension kicks in immediately, so it covers his final two pre-arbitration years and all three years of arbitration-eligibility. The club option covers one year of free agency. The Indians gained cost certainty more than anything, though that club option is obviously very appealing. Santana only signed for $75,000 out of Dominican Republic in 2004, so he gets some serious long-term financial security.

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Justin Masterson and the Indians played what many would consider an ideal Opening Day game through the first eight innings Thursday against Toronto. The offense produced a solid four runs off Ricky Romero, Masterson struck out 10 and got another 11 batters to ground out in an eight-inning, one-run masterpiece start, and the Indians carried a 4-1 lead into the ninth. But then they handed the ball to Chris Perez, and things went downhill in a hurry.

The Blue Jays needed just five batters to tie the game against Perez; he would face seven overall, allowing three runs on three hits and two walks, recording just two outs. Let’s take it hitter-by-hitter:

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