Those of you who aren’t totally bored by Indians coverage at this point in the season / summer know that I’ve written about how the team’s pitchers don’t strike anybody out. In fact, they are currently (prior to Monday’s game against the White Sox) last in the American League in strikeouts with 731. In comparison, Tampa Bay leads the AL with 966 K’s, which is a pretty remarkable difference.
I’ve consistently viewed the Indians’ inability to strikeout opposing batters as a severe weakness for the team moving forward. Strikeouts are important if you don’t want to give up runs. So is avoiding the long ball - which the Indians’ pitchers are actually pretty good at (currently tied for 2nd in the AL with 116) - and preventing base on balls (which the Indians suck at, as they’re worst in the AL with 482 BB). However, listening to incoming GM Chris Antonetti the other day, I started to wonder if maybe the Indians are thinking about strikeouts a little differently.
In his small press conference with reporters, which was posted on the Cleveland.com website, Antonetti spoke about the team’s defense and its need to successfully field ground balls. This, of course, should be obvious to all of us, but what Antonetti added - and what manager Manny Acta confirmed implied in recent comments about Jeanmar Gomez “pitching to contact” - is that the Indians are aware of the fact that their pitchers can’t strike anybody out, and that they’re actually okay with that.
This truck me as particularly interesting because it suggested that Shapiro and Antonetti’s strategy on pitchers has been somewhat unique.
What I suspect the Indians are thinking is this: since strikeout pitchers are now universally deemed the most valuable, they also cost the most money. The always cost conscious Indians then have chosen to look in a different direction, somewhere they hope they can find undervalued assets and try to exploit market inefficiencies. Instead of concentrating on strikeout pitchers, they’ve focused on ground ball pitchers. You saw this all over the opening day starting rotation, with Fausto Carmona, Jake Westbrook, and Justin Masterson. Theoretically, these pitchers won’t strikeout as many hitters, but they will keep the ball in the ballpark, where - again theoretically - a skilled infield will be able to convert all of those batted balls into outs.
Now I’d be shocked if Antonetti, Shapiro, or Acta would disagree with me that pitchers with high strikeout ratios are unattractive. They’ve gone after these types of pitchers in the draft with Alex White and Drew Pomeranz after all - and spent a lot of money, relatively speaking, on them (Pomeranz was paid a bigger bonus than any other player selected this year).
What this tells me is that the Indians would tell me that they’d love to sign more strikeout-heavy pitchers, but that they’re too expensive, except when there’s considerable risk involved (e.g. the draft). Even then that risk is lower than it would be if the Indians were to commit a truckload of money to Cliff Lee this offseason. At the same time, in other avenues - i.e. trades and free agent signings - the Indians are looking to exploit the system by acquiring ground ball pitchers, who are less costly and can hypothetically be quite effective so long as they throw strikes, don’t give up home runs, and have a good infield behind them (let’s also not forget the value of the double play ball).
I think this strategy is actually pretty intelligent given the resources the GM’s have been supplied with and is at least one reason to try to think positively about the team’s future.
Of course, it all goes to shit if the infield doesn’t get better (third base I see you) and the pitchers can’t throw the ball over the plate.
