About a month ago I started writing a piece about how health was a critical aspect of the success of the 2012 Tribe. I didn’t finish it because (I’m lazy) it seemed far too obvious. After two weeks of Spring Training, the injury bug has made its way from Cleveland all the way to Goodyear. Chris Perez, Grady Sizemore and Raffy Perez have all suffered ‘setbacks’. Interestingly, these injuries might turn out to be a good thing. If Chris Perez isn’t ready for the regular season (I know he thinks he’ll be throwing next week but we’ll see), Vinnie Pestano will be closing ballgames for the Indians. He has the arm to be a closer in the Bigs; however, the mental aspect of closing can be unnerving for some and is not a role for everyone. If Vinnie proves he can close out ballgames, Chris Perez becomes a much more tradable commodity. It’s very conceivable the front office didn’t trade Perez in the offseason because they were unwilling to gamble on Pestano’s ability to be as good a closer as Perez has been the last two years (59/67 or a very respectable 88%).
As for Grady, this one was pretty much inevitable and I’m just glad it came before the trade deadline. I don’t view this as a huge loss as he probably won’t be anything more than frustrating to watch this year. He certainly isn’t the most vital offensive player for this team anymore and I would say he isn’t the most important outfielder for the Tribe (and I don’t think it’s close). Think about how miserable Shin Soo Choo played last year. Even in the most down year of his career, his OBP was a mere seven thousandths of a point worse than Santana’s team best .351. I would take Choo in a footrace nowadays over Grady and in the field it’s no longer a contest. Grady can no longer make up for his weak arm with his formerly outstanding range that was undoubtedly taken with his multiple surgeries. And while Choo takes as many precarious routes to the baseball as anyone, there is no one better in the league when the ball gets into his throwing hand.
In my perfect scenario, Perez’s oblique will hinder him for the first month of the season and Pestano proves he can handle the closer’s role. Further, the Indians finish April 5 games over .500 and trade Perez for Carlos Lee. While this is my pipe dream, I truly believe the Indians’ would love to see Matt LaPorta light it up in Spring Training and having him play left field and turn into a productive starter. The front office would love to save face with the Sabathia deal and get two productive starters (Brantley being the other).
It doesn’t appear Raffy Left’s injury (this was my favorite Raffy, when Betancourt was still on the team and those two were one of the best lefty, righty setup combo’s in the game) is anything serious. However, if it continues to hinder it opens up the door for Nick Hagadone who has a more overpowering arm that needs to gain experience against big league hitters. He struggled last year but showed the cannon to be another great option late in games. If Hagadone can show enough to break camp with the big league club, the Tribe will have three lefty options out of the ‘pen. This would only be fitting for this team to have a plethora of lefty options.
The Indians have already shown their susceptibility to be hindered by injury and if it remains to be the case throughout the rest of the season, it’ll be a long six months staring up at the Tigers in the standings.
To finish on a positive note, Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) tweeted “Scout tells me Ubaldo was sitting between 93-96 mph in first outing. Solid for first spring outing”, combined with 25 of 37 (68%) pitches for strikes. If he can add a mere two MPHs to this by the time the regular season starts and maintain that strike percentage, we could be looking at the old (really good) Ubaldo.
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