Will Cleveland’s Strategy Work?
The Cleveland Indians love ground balls. After the acquisition of Derek Lowe on Monday, the Indians now have three of the most extreme ground ball pitchers in the majors. With this added focus on ground ball pitchers, the Indians’ infield defense will play a huge factor in the team’s success next season. Problem is, the Indians don’t have particularly strong defenders on the infield. With three-fourths of their infield set entering 2012, will the Indians’ ground ball strategy be their undoing?
As Jason Roberts recently pointed out, the Indians’ infield defense wasn’t particularly good last season. Combined, the Indians infielders managed to post a -34 WAR UZR last season. The biggest offender was Asdrubal Cabrera, who posted a UZR of -11.8 last season. Jason Kipnis wasn’t much better considering how little he played — though he did play through some injuries — and Lonnie Chisenhall was fairly average in his debut. Kipnis and Chisenhall’s UZR come in a really small sample, but it’s important to note that Keith Law said both players had a chance to be at least average at their position. Both Kipnis and Chisenhall have been prospects in the organization for some time, and Cabrera is coming off his best season as a pro, so it would seem all three players should enter the season as starters.
While it’s nice to think about the damage that trio will do with the bat, it’s worrisome to think about how much value they stand to give up in the field. With the acquisition of Lowe, Cleveland now has three of the top eight ground ball pitchers in the league from last season. Unless they are confident in potential turnarounds from each player, their infield defense could lead to a lot of sleepless nights for these pitchers.
Of course, the Indians don’t have to enter the season with those players as starters. The Indians can choose to trade any of the three in order to upgrade their team elsewhere and find a stronger glove to tighten the infield defense. Kipnis and Chisenhall have been penciled in as the Indians’ future for the last couple years, so the Indians may be less likely to part with their prospects.
Cabrera, however, seems like the perfect trade candidate. He’s coming off the best season of his career, and his value will never be higher. On top of that, he’s the worst defender on the infield, and he plays the most crucial position. Trading Cabrera now allows the Indians to maximize their return, while grabbing a defensive upgrade at the most important defensive position on the infield.
The Indians will likely also look for an upgrade at first base, where Matt LaPorta has failed to produce after three seasons. Carlos Pena, Casey Kotchman and Derrek Lee all provide relatively cheap defensive help to a team in need of another strong glove in the infield.
The Indians have half of the equation right at this time. Acquiring extreme ground ball pitchers can be a big advantage to teams well-equipped in the infield. The Indians don’t have all the pieces quite yet, but capitalizing on Cabrera’s value and signing a glove-first player at first base could go a long way to making the Indians a contender in 2012.
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw the deal. Unless Hannahan is going to be playing third, most of their IF defense isn’t anything to write home about. And Hannahan’s offense is bad even though 3B offense is down recently.
Trading Cabrera would be bold, but I like your thinking. They could possibly get a 1B or OF in a deal fro Cabrera.
However; whom would they play at SS? Donald?
I think the Indians will look to upgrade at 1st and OF if they choose to deal Cabrera.
As far as a replacement SS, I think they probably would have to go after one of the players on the market or try and acquire an all-glove guy to play the position. I don’t know if there is an internal option I would want to take over the position right now.
To be fair to Hannahan, he was a league average hitter last year. If he can come anywhere near those numbers next year (a big if), he’d be pretty valuable on this team since the value of infield defense is multiplied.
Pretty insane when Hannhan’s numbers are league average for a 3B. I wonder how well Chisenhall needs to hit next year to make up for the defensive difference.
first off: “Combined, the Indians infielders managed to post a -34 WAR last season.” should be UZR right?
second: I would like them to grab carlos pena. he is a great defender at first and has great patience and power, although overall he is not that great of a hitter. but assuming his power, patience and fielding stay constant, one lucky BABIP fueled year could make him easily the best player in that infield. he should also be pretty cheap.
Yes. Fixed. Thank you.
I’d pay more to watch an infield with -34 WAR than I would to watch one with 0 WAR. That would be like grabbing four guys off the street and asking them to try fielding.
Cabrera at -12 UZR? Does UZR not count Web Gems?
Fortunately he was one of the 3 nominees at SS for a Gold Glove… which makes the Youkilis nomination at 3rd look smart.
Why are you using one season (or a few weeks in some cases) of UZR?
I suppose I could have used three seasons worth of UZR for Cabrera, but the result is the same. He has rated as a poor fielder the last three seasons.
In the cases of Kipnis and Chisenhall, that was the data that was available. I included Keith Law’s assessment that each player could be average at their position so that we could see a scouts take on their defense, which might be a better indicator right now.
Would it not be more responsible to avoid using tiny sample sizes of UZR? This only encourages those who do not understand the stat to follow suit, and only further muddies the conversation on defensive stats. I love this site, but this is my biggest pet peeve when reading recent articles.
Just goes to show the powers that be certainly aren’t on the UZR bandwagon. Asdrubal up for GG tonight with Aybar and Hardy. ACab is good for the highlights because he makes dazzlers but misses a lot of the tough ones that really hit his UZR.
I love sabermetrics as much as the next guy but I can’t get behind a metric that has Cabrera as a poor fielder. I feel that a stat that has large negative drawbacks for not making extreme plays is a bit unrealistic. A lot of balls that Asdrubal gets to but can’t quite make a play are hits that some shortstops don’t even try to make a play on. Also, the claim that all he is is the flash plays on sportscenter yet doesn’t make the tough plays. Wouldn’t you count most of those plays as tough plays? Just because he gets recognized for them doesn’t take away from the degree of difficulty of those plays.
I can say with almost more than 95% certainty that there are no Indians that want to get ride of Asdrubal and there would probably be a small riot if he was traded. No one here views him as a poor defender at all. Some might call it homerism but I think that for every metric there are players that it just does not rate properly. It happens not every rate statistic can be perfect.
As an Indians fan, I’d have no problem seeing him go if it meant a good return.
That said, I agree that the majority our fanbase would not feel the same way. Can’t imagine we’ve got many FG readers in our fanbase. There has been a whole lot of (unfair, imo) ill will towards Dolan, Shapiro, et al pretty much since day one. Last year repaired some of it, but trading ACab would be set that all back and give the rabble a reason to re-light their torches.
UZR is the one SABER stat I could never get behind. The fact that its creator recommends 3 seasons worth of data for it to normalize is almost unacceptable. That, and I just don’t get how it arrives at its numbers. Thus, I cannot figure out where or how it might fail. Asdrubal Cabrera is regularly seen making great, flashy plays. How bad of an infielder can be with that in mind? I get that the best defense make hard plays look easy, but there has to be something to what my eyes tell me.
Other criticisms:
1) The write up doesn’t mention Jack Hannahan, who is undoubtedly an elite defensive infielder. He passes the eye and UZR test, despite a “platoon split” type of player due to his offense.
2) Cabrera was the Indians best hitter for much of 2011, and the Indians are desperate for more offensive production. Trading him to improve defense would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
3) I would like to hear some names of the actual “upgrade” candidates. If the Indians can grab an elite defensive short stop, who is available?
If, and probably when, the Mets lose Reyes, would a Pelfrey (another bad ground baller), Pagan, Tejada for Cabrera package work for either team?
I just don’t think using UZR in this case is the best way to analyze the Indians entire infield defense.
First off, you can completely throw out any numbers contributed defensively by Chisenhall and Kipnis. There’s simply no way we can know how good they’re going to be in 2012 defensively if all we look at is 300-400 innings of defensive work for each player. That goes against every “small sample size” warning known to man. Kipnis and Chisenhall both rate very well according to scouts on their athleticism and many scouts feel that both are good enough to be at least average defenders at their position. Kipnis in particular looks to be good enough to be an above-average defender.
Second, in regards to Cabrera, I think this could be a case where the metrics just have no caught up to him yet. Scouts loved him for his play at short when he was in the minors, and that was the primary reason the Indians acquired him from Seattle in the first place. I just don’t see a guy going from one of the best defensive short stop prospects in baseball to the worst defensive major leaguer. UZR rated him as the worst regular short stop in baseball last year, but DRS rated him in the Jhonny Peralta territory, and while that’s no compliment, I think it’s more realistic.
It would make way more sense to just leave Hannahan in at short when Carmona and Lowe are pitching, for added defense, rather than trade Cabrera. Asdrubal is not a Gold Glover, but he’s not as bad as the metrics make him out to be. Plus, his bat allows them to keep Hannahan’s glove in the lineup. Evens it out.
Get Carlos Pena at first. There’s a ton of “errors” on Asdrubal’s throws which would have been outs with more competent first-base play.
I meant to say leave Hannahan in at third, not short.
I agree with you about Pena. LaPorta was AWFUL in the field (and at the plate). It’s an obvious upgrade position and you can usually find someone serviceable to put there.
I am really into in sabermetrics, but also an Indians fan. But fielding statistics are still a work in progress. After looking at some players UZR’s, I don’t understand how a player could be great one year, poor the next, then poor, then great.
Asdrubal didn’t deserve the gold glove, but there is no way he is a poor defensive player. He made missed some easy plays, but also made some of the best plays you will see all year.
^that’s a different Dan, sorry.
Carlos Silva! He should be cheap