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Mike Clevinger

Chris Antonetti On Mike Clevinger, Zach Plesac

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The Indians banished right-handers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac to their alternate site a week ago after the two broke coronavirus protocols on the road. Clevinger and Plesac have each thrown five-inning sim games over the past couple days as they hope to work their way back, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic.

The Indians will be able to recall either or both of the beleaguered hurlers Monday, though it’s anyone’s guess if that will happen. If it does, there’s a possibility it will cause friction in Cleveland’s locker room. Back when Clevinger and Plesac were caught, some Indians reportedly considered opting out if they immediately rejoined the team, while right-hander Adam Plutko publicly expressed his displeasure with his rotation mates.

Speaking Friday regarding Clevinger and Plesac, president Chris Antonetti said (full statement here, via Meisel), “The team’s readiness to accept them back into the environment is something that we’ll consider.” At the same time, though, Antonetti noted the Indians’ focus is on “how to build the best team and how do we have the best group of guys at the major league level that give us the best chance to win and win a World Series?” He went on to express hope that Clevinger and Plesac have spent the past week “reflecting” on their mistakes and focusing on how to “earn the trust back of the team.”

Looking solely at on-field impact, it’s hard to argue the Indians aren’t a better team with Clevinger and Plesac in the mix. Clevinger has largely offered front-line production since he broke out in 2017, while Plesac – after a decent but unspectacular rookie year – dominated in three starts and 21 innings this season before the Indians demoted him. Among all pitchers who have thrown at least 20 frames, Plesac ranks first in K/BB ratio (12.00), third in BB/9 (0.86) and fourth in ERA (1.29).

Considering Shane Bieber’s status as the best pitcher in the American League and the emergence of Aaron Civale, the contending Indians may be tempted to recall Clevinger and Plesac in hopes of building a super-rotation and making a World Series run. They’re a couple days away from having that option. In the meantime, Triston McKenzie will fill out the Indians’ starting staff after Bieber, Civale, Carlos Carrasco and Plutko, who owns a 6.88 ERA for the season after the Tigers shelled him Friday.

Latest On Zach Plesac, Mike Clevinger

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The Indians made a statement over the weekend when they optioned right-handers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac to their alternate training site in the wake of the pair’s violation of MLB’s Covid-19 protocols.

Buster Olney and Jeff Passan of ESPN shed further light on the details leading up to the decision to option the two right-handers. Olney reports that multiple teammates considered opting out of the season if Clevinger and Plesac immediately rejoined the club. Passan further reports that veteran lefty Oliver Perez was one of those players, and he adds that Francisco Lindor “was outspoken as well” (though there’s no indication Lindor threatened an opt-out). Plesac took to Instagram last week to lament that the media had overstated his violation of the league’s protocols, but his six-minute rant only further angered teammates, according to both Olney and Passan.

Right-hander Adam Plutko was candid when addressing reporters on the issue last week. That was before Plesac’s video, wherein he stated, “I know how important it is that we must follow these certain procedures,” despite having violated those procedures just 96 hours prior. Asked if he’d seen the video, Indians skipper Terry Francona said that he had and plainly told reporters that he “was disappointed” (Twitter link via Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon-Journal). Plesac has since deleted the video from his Instagram.

Beyond the immediate competitive aspects of the move to option both players, there are also some potentially major service time implications. Passan points out that Clevinger, if he spends 20 or more days at the alternate site, would have his eligibility for free agency pushed back by a year. Because service time is prorated in 2020, each day of the schedule is akin to 2.77 days of big league service time. Clevinger needs to spend at least 48 days of this 67-day season in the Majors to cross into the next service class. That had been considered a given prior to the season but is now a scenario very much worth monitoring. Plesac will graduate to the next service class regardless, but he may no longer be on pace for Super Two status, as he previously was.

The Indians, of course, have a noted high-risk player in Carlos Carrasco, who missed much of the 2019 season following a leukemia diagnosis. Carrasco stunningly was able to return to the mound in September, earning American League Comeback Player of the Year honors in the process. Even looking past any health risks in the locker room, though, both the Marlins and Cardinals have had their schedules blown up by Covid-19 outbreaks within their clubhouses. Violation of the league’s health-and-safety protocols comes with the risk of creating a third such situation. Given that the rest of the team — and the overwhelming majority of big leaguers in general — appear to be following those protocols and remaining at the team hotel when on the road, it’s understandable that teammates were outspoken in their disapproval.

The manner in which the club handles the situation moving forward remains to be seen. Optional assignment rules dictate that both Clevinger and Plesac will need to spend 10 days at the alternate training site unless either is recalled as a replacement for a player who is being placed on the injured list. There will surely be trade speculation leading up to this year’s Aug. 31 deadline, although there’s no indication yet that the organization would take such a drastic action.

For now, the Indians can carry on with a still-strong rotation of Shane Bieber, Carrasco, Aaron Civale and Plutko. Lefty Logan Allen, already on the big league roster, is one option to make a start if needed. Right-hander Jefry Rodriguez, who made eight starts for Cleveland in 2019, is another option down at the team’s alternate site.

Indians Option Mike Clevinger, Zach Plesac

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The Indians have reinstated starters Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac from the restricted list. In a surprising twist, both rotation members have been optioned to the alternate training site.

This news comes in the aftermath of a forehead-smacking decision by this talented pair of right-handed hurlers. They each violated collectively bargained MLB coronavirus protocols and then — as rotation mate Adam Plutko explained — lied to the team about their poor decisions.

The decision to option both pitchers came on the heels of a team meeting involving them both, as Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal covers (Twitter links). It’s clear the organization decided it had to send a message.

It’s unlikely but not impossible that the optional assignment will have a significant impact on either player’s contractual situation. Clevinger entered the year with 3.041 years of MLB service while Plesac had 125 days. Unless the Indians leave them down for an extended stretch, they’ll still be able to move into the next service class. But the move could ruin Plesac’s hopes for potential early arbitration qualification as a Super Two.

Indians Place Mike Clevinger, Zach Plesac On Restricted List

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The Indians announced today that right-handers Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger have been placed on the restricted list. Both pitchers violated the league’s health and safety protocols over the weekend when they went out after Saturday night’s game. In a pair of corresponding moves, Cleveland reinstated outfielder Tyler Naquin from the injured list and recalled lefty Logan Allen from the team’s alternate training site.

Today’s move subtracts both Plesac and Clevinger from the active roster, though they’ll continue to receive both service time and salary while absent, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets. That differs from the restricted-list assignments that follow a PED suspension. In all likelihood, the decision was made in order to add a pair of fresh bodies to the roster while Plesac and Clevinger are tested daily for Covid-19 — rather than as a punitive measure. The organization can reinstate the pair whenever it sees fit, so long as both have tested negative at least twice (separated by a span of 24 hours).

It’s not yet clear to what extent (if any) the club will discipline the pair, although the team’s higher-ups can’t be pleased with them. That’s particularly true of Clevinger, who didn’t speak up even after Plesac was disciplined and reportedly took a flight with teammates after having been out. The Athletic’s Zack Meisel tweets that president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti declined to reveal whether Plesac and Clevinger would be subject to some form of discipline. For now, they’ll both be isolated away from the team for at least 72 hours while undergoing continued testing.

Mike Clevinger Violates Coronavirus Protocols

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Indians right-hander Mike Clevinger has violated their coronavirus protocols, the team announced (via Ryan Lewis of Ohio.com). Clevinger was scheduled to start for the Indians against the Cubs on Tuesday, but they’ll go with fellow righty Adam Plutko instead.

Clevinger’s violations came on the road against the White Sox over the weekend, as did fellow starter Zach Plesac’s. It turns out that the two were out on the town in Chicago together, and then Clevinger took a flight with the Indians, Jeff Passan of ESPN tweets. The Indians ended up dismissing Plesac from the team on a temporary basis. Clevinger, for his part, must quarantine for 72 hours and test negative for the coronavirus before he’s eligible to rejoin the club.

The main hope is that neither of these players’ decisions will negatively affect others, including their teammates. On the field, the two have been rather effective parts of the Indians’ rotation. Clevinger has generally offered the Indians front-line results since 2017.

Mike Clevinger At Full Intensity In Return From Knee Surgery

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Indians righty Mike Clevinger seems to be recovering quite nicely from offseason knee surgery. He tells MLB.com’s Mandy Bell that he’s working at “100 percent intensity now.”

Skipper Terry Francona said yesterday that Clevinger was among the rehabbing Cleveland players making progress. But it seems the ace righty is even further along.

The real challenge faced by Clevinger is more or less the one confronting every other ballplayer. He says he’s “monitoring the progression in the weight room” but otherwise running a mostly normal schedule — within the confines of a pandemic shutdown.

Clevinger says he was “doing beach workouts” before that became untenable. He’s now throwing to a catcher in a “facility that’s clean, sanitized, no one’s going in there.” Clevinger says he’d “like to have more of a set plan,” adding that he understands it just isn’t possible at the moment.

[RELATED: Mike Clevinger: The One That Got Away From The Halos]

The Indians are no doubt keeping a keen interest in Clevinger’s activities. He’s a critical part of the team’s plans, now and in the future. His knee surgery wasn’t serious, but the last thing anyone wants is for some other issue to crop up while he’s finishing off his rehab work and building back up on the mound.

Indians Provide Updates On 5 Injured Players

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Prior to the leaguewide shutdown, the Indians faced questions about a number of key players, including Mike Clevinger (knee surgery), Carlos Carrasco (elbow inflammation), Emmanuel Clase (teres major strain), Oscar Mercado (wrist sprain) and Tyler Naquin (2018 ACL repair surgery). At this point, nearly all of them are up to speed, manager Terry Francona told reporters Thursday (link via Mandy Bell of MLB.com).

Clase, Francona explained, is a bit harder to track than the others because he lives in a fairly remote area of the Dominican Republic. The club is likely to send someone from its Dominican academy down to get a first-hand look in the near future. Clase has been throwing off flat ground — Indians Prospective tweeted some video footage — as he works back from an injury that was initially projected to sideline him for eight to 12 weeks. It’s been exactly seven weeks since that diagnosis, so it seems there’s a good chance that whenever play is able to resume, Clase will either be recovered or close to it.

Updates on the others were more generic but widely positive. Carrasco has been throwing regular bullpen sessions, recording them and sending video footage to Indians officials. Clevinger, Naquin and Mercado are all doing “great” or “fine.” That’s particularly encouraging with regard to Naquin, whose September surgery was projected to keep him out seven to nine months (into mid-April or mid-June). It seems that his recovery is on track for the shorter end of that timeline.

Carrasco, Clevinger and Mercado, in particular, will be vital pieces for Cleveland as they look to rise back to the top of the ranks in the AL Central. With Corey Kluber traded to Texas (in the deal that netted Clase), Carrasco and Clevinger will team with Shane Bieber atop a rotation that will otherwise rely on some intriguing but generally inexperienced young arms in the final two spots (e.g. Aaron Civale, Zach Plesac, Logan Allen, Scott Moss, Jefry Rodriguez).

Mercado, meanwhile, is perhaps the one constant in an Indians outfield mix that looks decidedly unsettled. He should play center on a regular basis, with some combination of Domingo Santana, Jordan Luplow, Franmil Reyes, Greg Allen, Delino DeShields Jr. (also acquired in the Kluber swap), Jake Bauers, Bradley Zimmer and Naquin filling in at the corners. Luplow’s dominance of left-handed pitchers should assure him at least the short side of a platoon, and Reyes might factor in more as a DH than a prominent piece of the outfield rotation. But it’s clear that opportunities for playing time in the corners will be relatively wide open.

Clase, presumably, is being treated as a potential high-end setup piece for Brad Hand. The right-hander made his MLB debut with Texas in 2019 and compiled a 2.31 ERA with a 21-to-6 K/BB ratio and a superlative 60.6 percent ground-ball rate in 23 1/3 innings while averaging 99.3 mph on his heater. Clase skipped Triple-A entirely, but the success he found in last year’s 21 MLB games provides little to no reason to send him back down.

Mike Clevinger: The One That Got Away From The Halos

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The post-trade-deadline trades of yore can’t happen anymore under baseball’s current rules. That’s a shame in some respects, because the August revocable waiver trade period delivered some doozies over the years. Here’s a story about one of them …

Back in 2014, the Angels were sprinting towards an AL West title and looking to bolster their bullpen. GM Jerry Dipoto had already swung a series of deals: he acquired closer Huston Street, nabbed lefty setup man Joe Thatcher, made a memorable change of scenery deal to get Jason Grilli for Ernesto Frieri, and even took a flier on Rich Hill (who never contributed in Anaheim).

The Street swap — the biggest of these moves — took place two weeks before the trade deadline. Dipoto was understandably still itching to improve a talented roster and ensure that the team was fully loaded for the postseason when an interesting opportunity arose in early August …

Vinnie Pestano

Vinnie Pestano was on the outs with the Indians. He was excellent in 2011 and 2012 but had stumbled in the ensuing two seasons. Still, a glance at his 2014 numbers shows why the Halos perked up when they saw his name scroll across the waiver wire.

Pestano, then 29, had a 13:1 K/BB ratio in nine MLB innings that year — even if he also allowed five earned runs. And in his 30 1/3 Triple-A frames, he owned a 1.78 ERA with 37 strikeouts against a dozen walks. It didn’t hurt that Pestano was earning just $975K and could be controlled through 2017.

The Indians hadn’t put Pestano on revocable waivers with intentions of letting him go for nothing. When the Angels were awarded the claim, they had to work out a deal to bring Pestano over from Cleveland.

It turned out that Dipoto had managed to make the above-noted additions without sacrificing any prospects who ended up turning out to be big losses over the long haul. That wasn’t so with the Pestano move, which cost a little-known prospect by the name of Mike Clevinger.

Mike Clevinger | Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

At the time, the 2011 fourth-rounder was on the radar but hardly an elite prospect. He was still in the middle of his first full professional season, having been sidelined for much of 2012-13 owing to Tommy John surgery. And though he had shown quite well at the Class A level to open the 2014 campaign, Clevinger had only managed a 5.37 ERA over his 55 1/3 High-A frames.

Clevinger didn’t exactly hit the ground running with the Cleveland organization, as he struggled through just five more High-A appearances after arriving. He really popped in 2015, when he punished Double-A hitters to the tune of a 2.73 ERA in 158 innings. Still, as the 2016 season approached, the idea of a Jacob deGrom career path was mostly floated because the two hurlers both feature flowing locks.

While he wasn’t then and never would be a top-100 sort of prospect, that was also true of deGrom. And as it turned out, Clevinger has tracked a lot more closely to the Mets star than anyone could’ve seriously predicted.

Clevinger went through some rookie struggles but produced very good results in 2017 and 2018. Last year, he took an ace turn. Though he missed a significant stretch owing to a teres major muscle strain, Clevinger produced monster numbers when healthy. Over 126 innings, he worked to a 2.71 ERA with 12.1 K/9 against 2.6 BB/9.

While he suffered some more poor fortune with a meniscus tear this spring, that’s likely not to impact the future (particularly since he’s rehabbing while the season is on hold). Suffice to say that Clevinger is one of the game’s more valuable pitching commodities, as he’s just entering his first of three arbitration-eligible seasons. (He’ll earn $4.1MM.)

Ironically enough, the Angels showed trade interest in Clevinger this spring … with the Indians reportedly responding by asking about elite prospect Jo Adell. The Halos would surely rather not have traded him away in the first place. Pestano did make a dozen strong appearances down the stretch in 2014, with two more in the team’s unsuccessful ALDS appearance, but he washed out in 2015 and hasn’t been seen in the majors since. It’s yet another reminder that sometimes those under-the-radar deals end up being quite important over the long haul.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Mike Clevinger To Undergo Knee Surgery

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7:03pm: Clevinger is expected to be able to return to action in six to eight weeks, the team tells reporters including MLB.com’s Mandy Bell (Twitter link).

8:58am: Indians ace Mike Clevinger is slated to undergo surgery to repair a partial tear of the medial meniscus in his left knee, reports Zack Meisel of The Athletic (Twitter link). Clevinger has been on crutches after sustaining the injury while training earlier this week. A timetable for his return is not yet known.

While a meniscus tear typically isn’t a season-ender, it also seems highly unlikely that Clevinger would be ready to open the season in the Cleveland rotation. The extent of his rehab will be determined following the operation, but even a return on the short end of typical meniscus timelines would leave Clevinger with little (if any) time to ramp up for the season.

The Indians, for the first time in several years, will head into the season as underdogs in the American League Central — and the loss of Clevinger for any portion of the season will only dampen their hopes. The team is deep in pitching options, but Clevinger and fellow righty Shane Bieber were the two best options at manager Terry Francona’s disposal. (Carlos Carrasco, of course, is immensely talented but more of a wild card following last year’s battle with leukemia.)

Bieber and Carrasco figure to front the rotation now, and the Indians will likely choose among Zach Plesac, Aaron Civale, Adam Plutko, Jefry Rodriguez, Logan Allen and Scott Moss to round out the final three spots in the rotation. Both Plesac (3.81 ERA in 115 2/3 innings) and Civale (2.34 ERA in 57 2/3 innings) looked sharp in their respective MLB debuts in 2019, although fielding-independent pitching metrics considered both to be more than a full run worse than his eared run average. Plutko has been up and down with the Indians over the past three seasons, posting a combined 5.08 ERA/5.61 FIP in 189 2/3 frames. Rodriguez posted similar results to the rest of that group (4.63 ERA/4.54 FIP in 46 2/3 innings).

The 22-year-old Allen, meanwhile, is a well-regarded southpaw who came over in last summer’s three-team Trevor Bauer/Franmil Reyes/Yasiel Puig blockbuster. He’s light on big league experience but considered one of the organization’s more promising arms. Moss, too, was acquired in that swap. Unlike Allen, he’s yet to make his big league debut. He did post strong numbers in the upper minors in 2019, however, including a hearty 159 strikeouts in just 130 2/3 frames. Control is an issue for the 6’6″ lefty, but he’ll get a look as a potential option in the coming weeks.

Indians Avoid Arbitration With Francisco Lindor, Mike Clevinger

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4:23pm: Mike Clevinger also has a deal with the Cleveland org, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic (via Twitter). It’s a $4.1MM deal, per Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal (Twitter link).

Clevinger had projected for $400K more than the settlement point. As MLBTR’s Matt Swartz explained, there was a good argument for him to reach his $4.5MM projection. But the Indians were able to hold Clevinger to just under the amount secured by Kyle Hendricks in 2018.

1:48pm: The Indians have avoided arbitration with shortstop Francisco Lindor, per Jon Heyman of MLB Network (via Twitter). He’ll reportedly earn $17.5MM in a deal that also includes some award incentives.

The arbitration model of MLBTR and Matt Swartz projected a $16.7MM salary for the still-youthful star. But it was an especially difficult number to gauge, as Matt explained in his recent look at Lindor’s arb case.

Interestingly, Matt had anticipated that his projection was a bit high. It turned out to be low. As he noted in that post, the difficulty was in sorting out how to handle the positional adjustment for Lindor. While recent raises for lumbering sluggers might have operated as caps for Lindor’s earnings, he obviously could and would have argued that his defensive proficiency should be weighed on the scale. The team obviously agreed — or, at least, felt there was a legitimate chance that an arbitrator would be swayed by such evidence.

This now makes for an important market marker to bear in mind in the future. Of course, it’s likelier to act as a ceiling unless a truly exceptional player comes along. Lindor, who just turned 26, swatted 32 home runs and slashed .284/.335/.518 in 654 plate appearances in 2019.

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