Goodyear Notebook: 3/21

(Photo: Tony Lastoria)

Blair ready to go

The Indians made a big splash with a lot of high profile draft signings at the signing deadline date last August 16^th.  While the position players they signed were able to quickly be assigned to short-season Single-A Mahoning Valley or rookie level Arizona and play right away, pitchers like right-hander Kyle Blair and left-hander Drew Pomeranz had to sit out the rest of the season.

With only three weeks left in the season, by the time either Blair or Pomeranz completed a throwing program to ramp them back up to game speed the season would have been over.  As a result, both worked out and hung around with Mahoning Valley for most of the remainder of the season before going to Instructional League later in September to do some throwing and pitch in a handful of exhibition games.

Blair came out for spring training about a week prior to the start of early camp on March 1^st and is just excited to be back out on the field throwing and participating.  He is also happy that “real” games quickly approaching in about two weeks.

“I actually came about a week early to get settled in,” said Blair.  “I haven’t thrown a pitch since the end of the college season.  To be honest, I [am] ready to go.”

Blair, 22, spent most of the offseason in Tampa, Florida where he along with Indians’ players Chris Perez and Wes Hodges worked out at Saddlebrook Resort for six weeks.  Lots of players from around the game both in the minors and majors went there to get ready for the upcoming season by working out twice a day, doing yoga two times a week, and working on their nutrition.

In addition to keeping himself in shape, Blair spent a lot of time working on improving his fastball command.  He roomed with right-handed pitcher Drew Storen of the Washington Nationals, and  in doing so was introduced to the pitchers power drive which Storen endorses.

“Working on my fastball command has been my thing since my freshman year,” said Blair.  “I worked with the pitchers power drive which is like a plate that helps you keep your balance and centered and get your hips going.  It helps with your balance and you have to click it so your hips go and that is when you know you are doing it right.  I have been using that and it has been huge.  I have been throwing the ball well in my pens which I haven’t done the past three years, so it is just one of those things that has worked out tremendously and I am really excited to get things going.”

In addition to maintaining better balance with his delivery, Blair also wants to become more confident in his ability to throw his fastball for strikes, something that at times was a problem for him in college.

“We took charts in college of percentage of strikes with each pitch and my percentage of strikes with my slider was like 6-7% better than my fastball,” said Blair.  “That should never happen.  That’s one thing I want to do [better] because you can’t get to the big leagues without a fastball.”

Blair’s best pitches are his plus slider and developing changeup.  If his fastball command ever comes around and his changeup develops as hoped, the Indians could have themselves a workhorse for the starting rotation for many years.

“I feel like my changeup has gotten better as I worked on that quite a bit in the offseason too,” said Blair.  “In bullpens it feels great, but it only counts when you go out there [in games].”

Blair understands what kind of pitcher he is and does not try to be what he is not.  This upcoming season will be a learning experience for him as he adjusts to the pro game on and off the field and progresses with his development path.

“I know my game as a pitcher and that I am not a power pitcher,” said Blair.  “I just need to throw good strikes down in the zone with the fastball and not have to go to 3-2 sliders every time.  That’s what I have been working on the whole offseason.”

Weglarz not frustrated by injuries

Indians outfielder Nick Weglarz went down last Thursday with a torn meniscus to his left knee and is still being evaluated as to how long he will be out and if surgery will be required.  It is yet another injury added to his growing list of setbacks in his career, and in the wake of the injuries he has done his best to not let frustration creep in.

“It sometimes is frustrating,” said Weglarz in an interview last week just before being hurt.  “Since July of last year I have had a couple of injuries pop up here and there, but you just [try to] put it behind you.”

Weglarz, 23, had his season last year come to a premature end in early August when he suffered a sprained ligament to his right thumb when diving for a ball in the outfield.  He went out to the Venezuela Winter League to make up some at bats in the offseason, but he got hurt in his fourth game when he threw his back out after a collision with the shortstop.  After the back did not get better after some rehab he was shut down the rest of the offseason and went home to be re-evaluated.

The injuries do not stop there for Weglarz as in 2009 a stress fracture in his left shin area resulted in him having to miss about the last two-plus months of that season.  He had a steel rod inserted into his shin to help stabilize and speed up the recovery.  Also, in 2006 he suffered a broken hamate bone after just one game and missed the rest of that season.

All told Weglarz has missed a lot of time over the last five plus seasons due to injury.  Most of the injuries have been out of his control, but when a player gets hurt as much as he has over his career the phrase “injury prone” starts to get passed around.

“For the most part they definitely have been fluke injuries,” said Weglarz.  “It definitely is a goal of mine to stay healthy and stay on the field and if I do that I can put myself in a good position this year.”

With all the injuries Weglarz has suffered some wonder if he may be better off moving back to first base, which was the position he played up to the time he was drafted by the Indians back in 2005.  At the moment the Indians have no plans to move him from the outfield to first base, and Weglarz himself hopes that the Indians keep him in the outfield.

“I think I am a good defensive outfielder, so there is no need for me to move to first base,” said Weglarz.  “I like it out there and I feel like it is a better opportunity for me out there too.  I’d like to stay there.”

Whenever Weglarz gets back onto the field he hopes to carry over his success he had last year into this season.

“I still have the same approach; it’s just the consistency,” said Weglarz.  “If I can nail down my bat path and be consistent with my pre-game routine, I think that my swing was right where I wanted it last year so if I can continue that this year I will be in a good spot.”

Prior to the injury it was felt that Weglarz could at some point see some time in Cleveland this year, especially if outfielder Grady Sizemore has any issues with his recovery from knee surgery.  All that may be out the window now as he probably will not start playing games until mid-May at the earliest, though a quick recovery and good showing at Triple-A Columbus could still earn him a callup sometime after the All Star break or even in September when rosters expand.

“The big goal is to play in the big leagues,” said Weglarz.  “The smaller goals are to stay healthy and stay consistent with my swing.  Just be ready to play everyday.  I would like to think if I have the same year as I had last year [and stay healthy] that I could see time [up] there.”

Notebook:

Kluber scare: Right-handed pitcher Corey Kluber was struck in the head with a line drive off the bat of second baseman Jason Kipnis on Monday morning.  It was a scary moment for him and all the players and coaches present, and he will no doubt be evaluated further.  Hopefully he is okay, and by the sounds of things that seems to be the case.

Released:  On Monday the Indians announced that the following players from their minor league system have been released: first baseman Ben Carlson, right-handed pitcher Andrew Shive, left-handed pitcher Nick Kirk, right-handed pitcher Matthew Speake, and right-handed pitcher Alexander Morales.

Monday games cancelled: The Indians afternoon minor league games with the Dodgers were cancelled because of the pouring rain, but they were able to get some work in for their pitchers in the morning.  Columbus and Akron squared off for four and a half innings, and Kinston and Lake County played against each other for six innings.

Columbus recap:  Third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall hit a solo homer in two at bats and shortstop Ron Rivas stayed hot going 2-for-2 with a 2B and RBI.  Right-hander Zach Putnam went 1.1 innings (1 H, 1 R/ER, 2 BB, 2 K) and was up to 95 MPH.

Akron recap:  Blazing hot catcher Chun Chen went 2-for-2 with a 2B, and second baseman Justin Toole went 2-for-2.  Right-hander Austin Adams went 3.0 innings (4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K) and was up to 95 MPH.

Kinston recap: Outfielder Marcus Bradley went 2-for-3 with a BB and RBI, and second baseman Kyle Smith went 2-for-2 with an RBI.  Left-hander T.J. House went 2.0 innings (3 H, 1 R/ER, 1 BB, 3 K) and was up to 91 MPH.  Right-hander Trey Haley went 3.0 innings (2 H, 2 R/ER, 4 BB, 1 K) and was up to 96 MPH and threw first pitch strikes to 10 of 15 batters.

Lake County recap: Outfielder Jordan Casas went 2-for-2 with 2 stolen bases, and outfielder Henry Dunn went 1-for-2 with a 2B.  Right-hander Michael Goodnight went 3.0 innings (2 H, 1 R/ER, 2 BB, 2 K) and was up to 93 MPH.

Today: I’ll be spending the better part of the day traveling back to Cleveland.  The spring training coverage will not end here though as I plan to continue the daily updates and will start posting box scores (I will be posting the box scores for the previous games as well).

Coming soon: In addition to that I have a lot of feature articles coming up that I have not yet posted from interviews with players at camp like Alex Lavisky, Nick Bartolone, Cord Phelps, Roberto Perez, Eric Berger, Mark Brown, and Bo Greenwell.  I will also have a pre-draft piece up later this week from a discussion I had on Sunday with Amateur Scouting Director Brad Grant.

And with that….good-bye Goodyear!  See you in October for Instructional League and the Arizona Fall League.

Follow Tony and the Indians Prospect Insider on Twitter @TonyIPI. Also, his latest book the 2011 Cleveland Indians Top 100 Prospects & More is available for purchase for $20.95 to customers in the US (shipping and handling extra).

Read More

2010 Tony Awards: Biggest Disappointment

We are down to the final year end Cleveland Indians minor league player award.  To quickly recap, here are the award winners so far:

Offensive Player of the Year: Jason Kipnis
Pitcher of the Year: Joe Gardner
Reliever of the Year: Cory Burns
Defensive Player of the Year: Roberto Perez
Comeback Player of the Year: Jared Goedert
Rookie of the Year: Felix Sterling
Biggest Breakthrough: Matt Packer

Today we continue the postseason awards with the announcement of the Biggest Disappointment, the one year end award no one wants to win.  This award goes to the player who was a highly rated prospect coming into the season who performed poorly and saw a significant drop in their prospect standing as a result.

Again, these awards are simply for fun to hand out at the end of the year, though this is one award that is not really “fun” to hand out.  Also, the Cleveland Indians in no way whatsoever had any input in these awards.  Tomorrow we put a bow on the year end awards with the All-Tony Team being announced.

Biggest Disappointment Nominees:

Abner Abreu (OF - Kinston)
.252, 44 R, 21 2B, 6 3B, 4 HR, 58 RBI, 20 BB, 130 K, 11 SB, .651 OPS

Rated as a Top 10 prospect by yours truly coming into the season, and as a Top 15-20 guy by many national publications, Abreu did not live up to all that promise this season.  The hopes for some improvement with his high strikeout rate and low walk rate did not happen as his strikeout rate got worse (3.6 AB/K in 2009, 3.1 AB/K in 2010).  He also saw significant dips in on-base percentage (.351 in 2009, .298 in 2010) and slugging percentage (.488 in 2009, .362 in 2010).  The one hope here is since he was coming off a significant shoulder injury in 2009, maybe with another offseason of rehab and some improved confidence he can get back to expected performance levels.

Ben Carlson (1B – Lake County)
.171, 19 R, 8 2B, 2 3B, 2 HR, 20 RBI, 10 BB, 65 K, 3 SB, .468 OPS

Carlson was a 6^th round pick out of college in the 2009 Draft, and one of the things he was supposed to bring with him to the pros was a powerful bat.  In one and a half minor league seasons to date he’s shown no power and may be on the verge of joining the unemployment line this spring.  His numbers have not been very good since turning pro as in addition to the poor numbers this past season, he also hit poorly at short-season Single-A Mahoning Valley last year (.228/.300/.317).  Carlson’s days appear numbered in the organization.

Kelvin De La Cruz (LHP – Kinston/Akron
7-8, 5.01 ERA, 26 GS, 127.2 IP, 120 H, 15 HR, 72 BB, 105 K, 1.50 WHIP, 5.1 BB/9, 7.4 K/9

On the positive side, De La Cruz made it through the season healthy and did not have any injury setbacks.  He was able to make 26 starts and pitch in 127.2 innings this year after missing almost all of the 2009 season with a serious left elbow injury.  That said, while he was able to go out there and pitch, he was not very effective this year, particularly at Double-A Akron (5.77 ERA, .274 BAA, 6.1 BB/9, 1.20 K/BB).  A case can be made that his stuff and command will return next year once he is a full year removed from injury, so that’s the idea we’ll hold onto here.

Trey Haley (RHP – Lake County)
5-11, 5.97 ERA, 27 GS, 116.0 IP, 122 H, 13 HR, 86 BB, 97 K, 1.79 WHIP, 6.7 BB/9, 7.5 K/9

In a return trip to Lake County, things started off well for Haley as he was 1-0 with a 4.68 ERA in five April starts and 3-1 with a 2.84 ERA in six May starts.  Once June rolled around things fell apart for him (0-2, 15.58 ERA, 3 GS) and continued in July (1-3, 5.79 ERA, 5 GS), August (0-4, 7.52 ERA, 6 GS), and September (0-1, 7.94 ERA, 2 GS).  Also, in his first 11 starts over April and May he had an okay walk rate (4.4 BB/9), but in his final 16 starts his walk rate ballooned (8.8 BB/9).  As a 2^nd round pick out of high school in the 2008 Draft the hope was he would be further along right now.  It’s too bad he has struggled so much because he has the best arm in the system.  Thankfully he has age on his side, though next year will be critical for him to show improvements so he can stay relevant as a prospect.

Beau Mills (1B - Akron)
.241, 55 R, 26 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, 72 RBI, 42 BB, 71 K, 2 SB, .689 OPS

Mills had a sub par season at Double-A Akron in 2009 hitting .267/.308/.417, and the hope was that a return trip to Akron this season would see him right the ship offensively.  That did not happen, and his numbers actually slid more in the negative direction.  One area of improvement was his walk rate (16.6 AB/BB in 2009, 10.1 AB/BB in 2010) and strikeout rate (5.4 AB/K in 2009, 6.0 AB/K in 2010), but his power continues to deteriorate every year since his first full season in 2008 (.506 SLG in 2008, .417 SLG in 2009, .377 SLG in 2010).  As a 1^st round pick in the 2007 Draft, much more was expected of him by now, and he has gone from one of the top guys in the system just two years ago to now nothing more than a depth option.

Carlos Rivero (SS - Akron)
.232, 39 R, 16 2B, 2 3B, 6 HR, 43 RBI, 28 BB, 81 K, 0 SB, .603 OPS

The Indians added Rivero to the 40-man roster last offseason, but it will be interesting this offseason if he sticks on the 40-man roster considering how much he struggled this season in a return trip to Double-A Akron.  The thought was that Rivero had often been two to three years younger than the league he has always played in which in turn resulted in lower output levels, but when he returned to Akron this season his numbers actually got significantly worse.  That’s not good, and even though he is still just 22-years old, he still has not put up a noteworthy season in the minors to validate why he continually ranks so high as a prospect.

And the 2010 Tony Award goes to…Beau Mills

I’ll give Abreu a pass for this season as I think a lot of his struggles were the result of a lack of confidence in his shoulder.  The same goes for De La Cruz as it is very hard to come back and pitch a full season after missing the previous season because of a significant injury.  I also passed on Carlson here because while he was a high round pick he wasn’t a highly rated prospect coming into the season.  Finally, Rivero was the most disappointing player last year and really always has been disappointing offensively, so it would be hard to hand the award to him again for a second straight season.

To me, it came down to Mills and Haley.  Both were top two round selections who have not lived up to their draft standing to date and have struggled with their performance the past two years.  The difference to me is that Mills is 24-years old and may have plateaued as a player at the Double-A level.  As a former first round pick, he really needed to come back this season and perform at a high level to remain relevant as a prospect, and it simply did not happen.

Haley on the other hand is still just 20-years old, and we knew coming in that he was extremely raw as a player and that there was a high risk high reward factor in play.  He has time to get things turned around, and the Indians supposedly are taking a deep approach this fall in Instructional League with tearing down his mechanics and rebuilding him from the ground up.  We’ll see if that holds true when the season starts next year and if he can harness the unbelievable talent in his right arm.

Mills is on his way to prospect purgatory.  No longer a high level prospect, he is likely to spend a lot of time at the Triple-A level the next several years.  He stands a great chance to get some big league action with the Indians or some team in the future, but his career path looks to be that of the dreaded “Four-A” player bouncing around between Triple-A and the big leagues  Even with his struggles at Akron the last two years, he is expected to open the 2010 season as the first baseman at Triple-A Columbus.

Up Next: All-Tony Team

Follow Tony and the Indians Prospect Insider on Twitter @TonyIPI.  His latest book the 2010 Cleveland Indians Top 100 Prospects & More is also available for purchase on his site for a special year end closeout sale of $10.00 (including shipping and handling).

Read More

Four Draft Picks Officially Signed

The Indians today officially signed four of their top 14 picks from the 2009 First Year Player Draft, the club’s first official signings from this year’s draft. Today the Indians signed 6th round pick 1B Ben Carlson (Missouri State), 10th round pick RHP Brent Brach (Monmouth), 11th round pick LHP Kirk Wetmore (Bellevue CC) and 14th round pick INF Kyle Smith (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo).

Read More

Draft Day 2 In the Books, One Day to Go!

One day to go and a lot of information to follow

First, we are all looking for more info on the players who the Indians have drafted so far and will draft tomorrow (last 20 rounds start at 11:30 am). Check back on these players as, for the next few days and maybe weeks, their blog postings will be updated with information including, hopefully, interviews and, for those playing on summer league teams, what team and league they are playing on. The Indians have a penchant for drafting guys who they sign after following them the entire summer. Chris Jones, Josh Judy, Bryce Stowell and others fall into that category. Looking at their list so far, I think a lot of guys fall into that category.

Day 2 Analysis

Well, uh, well, uh. Oh, heck with it. The Indians drafted college seniors at 4,5, 8 and 9. While that is not unusual as teams do it all the time, the Indians do not have a history of doing this, usually waiting until later in the single digits to start drafting college seniors. College seniors usually sign for $1-2,000. For those 4 spots in the draft you would usually spend close to $500,000 or more, total, if you drafted college juniors or juco guys or even lower level HS seniors. In picks 4-10 they really only drafted 2 "name" players, Jordan Henry at 7 and Ben Carlson at 6. They were rated as the #131 and 198 prospects in the country by Baseball America. Henry is an all speed guy, probably a better version of Donnie Webb from the 2008 draft and Carlson, more of an all power guy who I liken to Jeremy Tice from the 2008 draft. The rest of the players they drafted were lower level prospects. Heck, the guy we got at 8 has a fastball in the mid-80s that looks like he is throwing a whiffle ball! In addition, on the surface it looks like many, many of these guys are summer draft-and-follows and none of them are likely to approach the talent that yielded $500,000 plus bonuses to guys like Tim Fedroff, TJ House and Bryce Stowell last year as later round picks. A lot of them seem to be of the Josh Judy, Dallas Cawiezell types, sort of late bloomers from smaller schools who won't cost much in bonus money...if they even look good enough this summer to sign.

So, what is all this about? This seems unusually cheap for the Indians in the draft. Are they on a very tight budget? Maybe, but usually not in Cleveland and, even if they are, why would they not take some flyers on expensive guys and just not sign them if they don't have the cash? I don't know. My only guess is that they are working on a total budget of about $7 million. TOTAL! Not cheap by any means. However, if you remember, our top pick, Alex White, is represented by Scott Boras. We may well eat up $5 million...or more, of our budget on this one guy. No one knew that before the draft, no one could have projected that he would drop to us or that our revenues would be shrinking like the Indians' win pct. and my guess is that this type of pick was really not budgeted for, even everything else being equal. So, what do you do to compensate? You skimp on the rest of the draft, taking cheap picks, even in your summer draft-and-follows. I think this draft is really starting to resemble the 2007 draft where we drafted a whole bunch of college relievers, many as summer D&F guys even though we had to have extra money as we didn't have a 2nd or 3rd round pick.

So, to a large extent what we have here is White, two guys who will sign for slot and then, except for Henry, a bunch of guys who will sign for slot, a lot less than slot or, in a couple of cases if guys have a good summer, a little more than the $150,000 or so that is the high end of slot for picks starting around round 7.

This could all change tomorrow but note that, last year, the Indians did most of their gambling BEFORE round 30.

So, not too promising so far and, to me, this puts INCREDIBLE pressure on the Gardner pick to be successful. Yeah, some of the other guys may come out of the woodwork but you really can't hope for that to make up for drafting cheap college seniors...and not very highly rated ones, either, early in the draft.

Hope it turns out for the Indians. However, on paper, it really isn't set up to...at least not so far.

Read More

2009 Indians 6th Round Pick: 1B Ben Carlson

In the 6th round, the Cleveland Indians select: 1B Ben Carlson - Missouri State University
6'3" 230 lbs.

UPDATE (06/11/2009 10:03 AM EST): Dennis Nosco
198th ranked prospect in BA’s top 200

From the Missouri St. Website:
Ben Carlson bio
• 2009 stats: .301, 16 HR, 51 RBIs, .444 on-base %, .645 slugging %• Career stats: .326, 38 HR, 140 RBIs, .437 on-base %, .611 slugging %• 2008 ABCA First-Team All-American• 2008 CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Third Team• 2008 and 2009 first-team all-MVC• Seventh in MSU history with 38 home runs. School record holder with 41 career hit by pitch.

Topeka newspaper article

UPDATE (1:35 PM EST): Jeff Ellis
Ben Carlson is listed as a 1B/ OF from Missouri, but he is strictly a first basemen. His older brother is currently in the Tigers farm system. He led the Missouri Valley conference in home runs the last 2 years. He is a strong left handed bat with a good eye. If there is one pattern in this draft its every bat taken has a good eye at the plate. He had Tommy John surgery following his 2008 season. He is a bit like Hafner who in terms of good athleticism, but still lacks speed. So the Indians get a proven college slugger with a good eye.

Read More