Grover and Elarton Return...Sort Of

Former Tribe manager Mike Hargrove and second baseman Joe Gordon were elected to the Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame on Friday. The former Indians will be presented with their own plaques in Heritage Park at Jacobs Field on August 16 when the Halos are in town. The Hall of Fame's inaugural class was in 1951 and now has 33 members.

Hargrove is among the most distinguished Cleveland managers, helping to guide the team out of the perennial basement and back into contention during the 1990s. Hargrove compiled two AL Pennants and five straight Central Division titles between 1991 and 1999. He also saw several all-time greats emerge during his tenure in Cleveland, including Albert Belle, Sandy Alomar Jr., Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, and Omar Vizquel.

In addition to being one of the winningest and longest tenured managers in team history, Hargrove also played first base for Cleveland from 1979 to 1985.

Notable Cleveland Managers:

Tris Speaker - 8 years (1919-1926), 617-520 record (.543)
Lou Boudreau - 9 years (1942-1950), 728-649 record (.529)
Al Lopez - 6 years (1951-1956), 570-354 record (.617)
Mike Hargrove - 9 years (1991-1999), 721-591 record (.550)

Joe "Flash" Gordon spent the final four years of his career with Cleveland and was a member of the 1948 World Championship team. Gordon was an outstanding second basemen and had two of his best offensive seasons in 1947 (29 HR, .346 OBP, .496 SLG) and 1948 (32 HR, .371 OBP, .507 SLG). He led the team in HR and RBI while batting cleanup in 1948.

Despite a career 120 OPS+, Gordon was better known for his slick defense. Gordon paired with shortstop Lou Boudreau to form one of the best infield defense combos in baseball. For fans who may not be familiar with Gordon and Boudreau, Bob DiBiasio elaborates:

It was held in the highest regard in the history of the franchise. Then Omar [Vizquel] and Robbie [Alomar] brought it back to life [in the '90s] with the debate over which was the better shortstop-second base combo. It took 50 years to bring the conversation full circle in who could match Boudreau and Gordon.

Gordon is being honored posthumously, as he passed away in 1978.

Shapiro Goes Bargain Hunting

Cleveland signed Brendan Donnelly to a minor league contract last week. He is currently recovering from an August Tommy John surgery on his elbow and is not expected to pitch for the first several months of the season.

Donnelly played for Anaheim from 2002 to 2006. He was a member of the Angels' juggernaut bullpen that featured Scot Shields, Francisco Rodriguez, and Troy Percival. Donnelly has only been in the majors for six years, but debuted late at age 30.

Donnelly is a setup man by trade and has a career ERA+ of 154 over 315.7 IP. Donnelly's best years came from '02-'06 when he posted an ERA+ of 203, 278, and 150, respectively. Despite a drop off in performance over the last three years, Donnelly has remained an above average reliever. He started the 2007 season with Boston before suffering a right forearm strain that kept him benched for the rest of the season.

I'm surprised the Tribe was able to acquire Donnelly so easily, as the only question mark is how well he recovers from surgery. Donnelly was effective for Boston with 20.7 IP, 3.0 K/BB ratio, 156 ERA+, and 1.16 WHIP. For comparison, Aaron Fultz had a 158 ERA+ in 37 IP last year. Even if it's all potential at this point, Donnelly appears to have enough left in the tank to add legitimate depth and experience to the Tribe bullpen late in the season. It's a long-shot, but depending on how strong Donnelly looks in Buffalo, he could be available to give Lewis and Perez some much needed rest late in the season.

Elarton Invited to Camp

Former Cleveland pitcher Scott Elarton was given an invitation to Spring Training last week. While Cleveland did sign Elarton to a minor league deal so he could attend camp, they are not interested in keeping him on the roster. The Tribe is doing Elarton a favor by giving him a place to work out for other major league scouts and show off his surgically repaired shoulder.

To be honest, I'm not sure how common a move like this is. I can't think of another example of a team inviting a player to camp with zero intention of signing him, but I bet it's happened at least a few times before. Either way, it's a classy thing for Cleveland to do, especially for a guy trying to get healthy and make a comeback. I always liked Elarton when he was with Cleveland. He never had the best stuff, but something about his work ethic and funky, stutter-arm delivery was appealing to me. So good luck in your comeback, Scott.

Finally...

MLB.com Productions posted a series of short videos called Béisbol Dominicano earlier this month. Episode Five is about the Tribe's Dominican baseball academy and is worth a look. I forgot just how young some of the prospects at the academy are, but the fact that the club makes sure they get a high school education (regardless of how their baseball careers pan out) is pretty awesome. It's the second link in the middle row on this page.

Playoff Pitching Overkill

A few days ago, I got the bright idea of writing about the Tribe’s starting rotation going into the playoffs. Then I realized everyone and Yogi Berra had already discussed/blogged/published their thoughts on the subject. So, after a bad case of writer’s block (among other things) I followed through with the pitching slant anyway. So now I present to you, the esteemed reader, yet another playoff pitching preview.

I don’t know about you, but trying to figure out who would be pitching when in either ALDS series was a bit of a hassle. I sifted through the various combos, as they pertain to the Tribe, to try and remove any lingering confusion on the subject.

ALDS Schedule A

	Game 1	Rest Day	Game 2	Rest Day	Game 3	Game 4	Rest Day	Game 5
Pitcher	Sabathia		Carmona		Westbrook	Sabathia		Carmona
Park	Home		Home		Away	Away		Home

ALDS Schedule B

	Game 1	Game 2	Rest Day	Game 3	Game 4	Rest Day	Game 5
Pitcher	Sabathia	Carmona		Westbrook	Byrd		Sabathia
Park	Away	Away		Home	Home		Away

ALDS Series A gives the teams a third days rest, with the only consecutive games scheduled for games 3 and 4. This allows Wedge to start Sabathia and Carmona twice on regular rest (four days). The third starter, Westbrook, would be scheduled to pitch in Game 3. Schedule A is obviously the ideal situation for a short series, but only the AL team with the best overall record gets to choose which ALDS schedule to play.

The difference between Series A and B is that Series B allows only two days rest, forcing Wedge to go with a four-man rotation. With a four-man staff, Sabathia would be given two starts (in Games 1 and 5), while Carmona, Westbrook, and Byrd would receive one start each. Wedge could start Sabathia in Game 4 on just 3-days rest, allowing Carmona to pitch in a potential Game 5. Starting C.C. on short rest in Game 4 is a bad idea though, especially since he’d be scheduled to pitch the finale on regular rest anyway.

Working off my limited knowledge of sports medicine and pitching mechanics, Sabathia seems like a poor candidate for pitching on short rest because of how hard he pitches. Throwing 110+ pitches with as much zip as C.C. puts on the ball probably necessitates all four days of rest for him to be at 100% for his next start and deter possible injury or fatigue down the line. Sabathia has only started on 3 days rest once in his career and has a slightly better ERA (3.89 vs. 3.66) on extended rest for his career (in 77 less starts).

If C.C. were to start in Game 4 of the ALDS, his next start on regular rest would land on Game 3 of the ALCS, while Carmona wouldn’t pitch until Game 4. In the normal ALDS rotation, Byrd would pitch Game 4, leaving Carmona and Westbrook available (on regular rest) for Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS. So, not only is starting C.C. on short rest in Game 3 completely unnecessary, it also scrambles the rotation for the ALCS. The severity of a situation may override the fact that a starter hasn’t had four days off, but I think the above management ideas apply at least to the early projections going in.

Unless Wedge decides to play the splits, the ALDS rotation should be locked in as Sabathia, Carmona, Westbrook, and (possibly) Byrd, in that order. Surprise!

One possible issue is matching each pitcher’s style and historical stats with the stadium they’ll be pitching in. Initially, I wanted to look at how each of the Tribe’s starters fared in the four AL playoff stadiums, but realized Carmona and Westbrook spent a good part of their careers as relievers and Sabathia and Byrd are having career years. Just looking at the starts from 2007 per stadium is impractical due to a miniscule sample size. Career stadium splits probably wouldn’t be too helpful in this case either (think Fausto at Fenway). Instead, let’s take a look at the home and away splits for each pitcher in 2007:

Park	Player	IP	ERA	Opp. OPS
Home	Sabathia	135.1	3.13	.648
Away		98.2	3.28	.729
Home	Carmona	105.2	3.32	.650
Away		102.1	2.73	.669
Home	Westbrook	82.10	3.94	.752
Away		63.1	4.83	.695
Home	Byrd	95	5.68	.869
Away		91	3.36	.713

There are a few trends that Wedge may try and take advantage of here. The most glaring stat is Byrd’s 2.32 point difference between his home (5.68) and road ERA (3.36). This surprised me, but his career splits are right in line with this season; Byrd has a 4.84 career home ERA and a 3.87 road ERA. Kinda weird.

Carmona also shares the same preference for road games, with a 2.73 road and 3.32 home ERA; a .59 point difference. Westbrook sports a .89 differential, favoring home starts, while Sabathia has been consistent no matter where he plays. If you compare the splits to the ALDS travel schedule, the park each pitcher would pitch in doesn’t favor their season splits (except C.C.). There are many combinations you could use to even-out the home vs. road starts for the four-man rotation, but to be honest I’m not sure how Wedge may approach this. It’s very likely that Wedge will ignore the splits in favor of using his top 3 starters consecutively to open the ALDS.

On Home-field

I’m all for resting the starters now that the division is wrapped up, but I think the Tribe could gain a legitimate edge from finishing with the best record in the league. The owner of the best overall record gets home-field advantage through the playoffs, in addition to choosing their own schedule for the ALDS. I just talked about how the Tribe would benefit from the extra rest day in Schedule A, but Cleveland has also shown a tendency to play better at home. Here are the team’s home and away splits for 2007:

Split	W	L	RS	RA	WP
Home	51	29	425	366	.638
Road	42	34	358	318	.553

Cleveland has a .638 win percentage at home, compared to a .553 mark on the road, as of 10/27. The curious part is that the offense has outperformed the pitching at home. Cleveland has a run differential (runs scored – runs against) of 59 at home, but a differential of 40 on the road. According to Baseball Reference, Jacobs Field has a Park Factor of 97 batting to 98 pitching. Batting and pitching are calculated separately, with a score over 100 for either case showing favor to hitters. The Park Factor stat suggests pitchers have a slight advantage over hitters at the Jake, yet the actual stats suggest the opposite.

The apparent conflict may stem from the fact that the Tribe’s starters divide their preferences between home (Sabathia, Westbrook) and away (Byrd, Carmona). Westbrook may have lopsided splits, but his best and worst split (home-away) versus Byrd’s (away-home) are better overall. Also keep in mind, Carmona and Sabathia may not be as good in one case, but that still translates into great for them; making it almost a moot point to argue their splits. Before this gets any more convoluted, here’s the bottom line: the offense tends to perform much better at home, while the pitching is just short of a draw. Advantage: Home

Random Notes

Victor Martinez suffered a knee contusion from a foul ball late in Tuesday’s game against Seattle. Victor had to leave that game in the 8^th, but was healthy enough to start behind the plate in Game 1 of Wednesday’s double-header. Said Wedge in an Anthony Castrovince interview: "We wanted to take precautions with it just to make sure, but he's all right." Hopefully, Victor can get a few days off when he’s not injured, given the extra wear and tear catchers endure over a season. Not to mention Garko and Shoppach are perfectly capable of taking over for a few games while he rests.

The Plain Dealer ran a cool article on the team’s cadre of Venezuelan’s and the Tribe’s presence in the South American country. I’m especially interested in Latin American baseball, but it’s a good read just the same. Check it out here.