The Indians started their offseason off with a few major moves today, acquiring Derek Lowe from the Braves, picking up Fausto Carmona's option and declining Grady Sizemore's. Here are some more notes about the Indians…
- Indians GM Chris Antonetti told Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he visited Sizemore's Arizona home to tell him that the Indians had decided to decline his option. The decision was "very difficult" for Antonetti, but he determined that there were better ways for the Indians to spend the $8.5MM they saved.
- The Indians will pursue a "quality outfielder" through free agency, Antonetti said. There's still a chance that the Indians will re-sign Sizemore.
- The Indians are expecting better results from Carmona in 2012, since the groundballer has bounced back from difficult seasons in the past.
- Terry Pluto of the Plain Dealer says the Indians should make Michael Brantley their everyday center fielder and shop for a corner outfielder this offseason.
- ESPN.com's Keith Law breaks down the Lowe trade and says it helps the Indians, since they get another groundball pitcher who makes his starts. Lowe isn't much more than a back-of-the-rotation pitcher, Law writes, so Atlanta's willingness to part with him for salary relief and lefty reliever Chris Jones is understandable.
- Jason Roberts of FanGraphs explains that there's reason for the Indians to expect Lowe to rebound from his ugly 5.05 ERA in 2012.
- When I looked ahead to the Indians' offseason last week I explained that adding rotation depth was a significant part of the team's offseason challenge. Now that they've acquired Lowe and declined Sizemore's option, their next job will be to re-establish outfield depth.
Derek’s success depends entirely on whether the Cleveland defense does better than Atlanta’s did for Derek this season.
Obviously any pitcher will be better with better defense (ground ballers especially) but let’s not make it sound like the defense was to blame for his sucking.
It was more than bad defense. When a sinkerball pitcher starts elevating (watch tape of Derek Lowe in the games he got shelled) his pitches are going to get hit hard. Is it luck? Some of it is, but a lot of it is also Derek Lowe not making good pitches. Is it the defense? Some of it is. But when Derek Lowe is on his game, he can throw up a gem every now and then.
He’s still a solid back end of the rotation arm worth taking a chance on.
Derek Lowe’s key to the success, like any sinkerballer is execution of his pitches down and praying his ball’s hit at somebody.
He had a 59% ground ball rate, so it’s absolutely bad defense to blame. His FIP was 3.70. So the balls he left up didn’t hurt him that bad.
“When a sinkerball pitcher starts elevating (watch tape of Derek Lowe in
the games he got shelled) his pitches are going to get hit hard.”
we can check on this now, you know – we have the technology!
lowe’s batted ball profile and 3.75 SIERA confirm that he didn’t get hit especially hard this season overall. in fact, he had the lowest line drive % of any atlanta starter
did he have a good year? i don’t think many people would argue that. but his individual performance really wasn’t so bad, either. only 20 NL starters had a lower SIERA and his FIP was below league average too
he had a horrible contract and he sucked when the team needed him most this year, so i get why braves fans are down on him. but there’s no need to exaggerate. he ended the season badly, but is definitely not a bad pitcher
Suitors for Sizemore?
I’d have to say that if the Red Sox are interested in Beltran they are probably going to be in on Grady as well.
they are probably interested in neither
They tried to get Beltran before the trade deadline this season. With Drew more than likely retiring and his contract being up I expect him to be of interest again. I’m sure they’ll be interested in Grady too. They went after Beltre and that turned out good didn’t it?
what does Beltre have to do with Beltran..
and they tried to acquire Beltran at the deadline for their imposing playoff run thats irrelevant now.
They need pitching, their offense is A-O-K
They do need pitching, but I don’t expect them to not address the hole in right field. It’s not like Lester, Beckett, and Buchholz won’t be there next season. I don’t think Reddick is going to be the full time guy in right. We’ll see though.
they don’t have a hole in right field. in fact, they have an organizational surplus of corner outfielders – at least two of which (reddick and kalish) are ready
not every departing free agent needs to be replaced by another one
despite the epicness of their collapse the red sox are still very much a win now team. They cant afford to rely on the often injury sizemore to fix a maybe hole in RF going in to next year.
Oh I agree, I’d rather them wait and trade if it’s necessary, in house solutions are absolutely possible. I just think that with all the changes being made there will be unnecessary triggers being pulled. I hope I’m just being paranoid. And to not make 2 replies, I never said a free agent needs to be replaced with another free agent. That’s just silly.
I would love to see him go to Milwaukee
jays, braves, brewers, rays, oakland, royals, there’s probably 5-8 more
should be a lot of teams extremely interested in his services.
“he determined that there were better ways for the Indians to spend the $8.5MM they saved.”
Yeah, 5M of those on Lowe! What a genius.
grady seems like an AA kind of player.. I know the outfield looks crowded, but a trade could follow.
I don’t see it happening because 2 of those outfield spots are locked and Snider/Thames will battle it out for the LF spot and it helps they’re cheap, under control with options.
Maybe if we trade EE and free up a DH spot, we can have Sizemore play LF/DH. DHing would certainly help him stay more healthy.
yah, it would have to be part 1 of a trade..
Package Thames and a young arm + for a starting pitcher..
Have an Outfield of Bautista, Rasmus and Sizemore..
You’ll be able to get 500 AB’s for Snider (LF/DH), Sizemore(LF/DH) and EE(1B/DH) through platooning and injuries.
i don’t see him as a player of interest for anthopolous unless they work in a vesting option. with a down year in 2011, even a solid year from sizemore in 2012 won’t make him a type B when free agency comes around and generally you can’t really flip a guy like grady after 3 months
of course if they make a couple of big signings and/or trades and start to push for 2012, that changes everything
he was just SO good before all the injuries started. . he was one of the best players to watch a few years back..
but as usual, you raise a great point about his rankings.. it would have to be a 2 year plan not a 1.
If Sizemore goes to Boston, because of the luck we have in Cleveland, he will hit 35 homeruns, drive in 110 runs and somehow play the entire season.
Time to let him go anyway. Michael Cuddyer to the Indians? Please?