Point Blank – August 11
What do the Cubs think they got in Dan Haren…Do the Browns have a lead RB (Camp Questions #7)…The old Sky Dome may be a grave for Graveman…
Amidst all of the frenzy of the action leading up to the trading deadline, it would have been easy to pay little attention to the Cubs picking up veteran right-hander Dan Haren, basically a two-month rental for about $3 million, in exchange for a couple of prospects. Ah, you ask, what about October and the post-season, have they made a score on that front? Actually there should not be a place there for Haren; a rotation with Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, Jason Hammel and Kyle Hendricks has no such need. The question is whether they even have that need now.
Haren was a model of consistency the past three seasons, consistently being a past-prime veteran that had lost the best of his stuff, and was only hanging on with the savvy that comes as 2,000 innings accumulate -
ERA FIP
2012 4.33 4.24
2013 4.67 4.09
2014 4.02 4.09
That was steady stuff. It also wasn’t very good. So do you want to believe that 3.49 ERA so far this season is an improvement? It isn’t. Counting from the first season when he threw at least 100 innings, back with Oakland in 2005, Haren is at a career-low in K/9, GB% and SwS%, and the problem is that he is not even close to those past levels –
Career 2015
K/9 7.5 6.1
GB% 41.9 31.2
SwS% 9.3 5.9
It adds up to a 4.74 FIP, by far a career worst, and nearly a full run higher than the MLB average of 3.87 so far this season. There are 77 pitchers that have worked at least 120 IP, and the Haren FIP rates #74. A contender would actually trade for that? And that was the kind of stuff Haren brought to his Cub debut last week, a team loss at Pittsburgh that he was not charged for, but after posting a single game 5.40 ERA, and 8.30 FIP, he easily could have been, with Gregory Polanco and Andrew McCutchen hitting HRs.
Yet Haren is penciled in the rotation again tonight. Chicago may have given up a couple of prospects, and be on the hook for that $3 million, for a guy that has been below average for four consecutive seasons, and shows signs of getting worse instead of better. The question will be whether the markets will inflate his worth, believing that he is a cagey veteran fighting for one last chance at the playoffs, or go instead look beyond the base numbers to see that at the age of 34, and on his way to the 11th straight season of over 165 innings, there just is not much left in the tank.
Camp Questions #7 – Do the Browns have a lead RB?
I thought that Kyle Shanahan, now the OC with Atlanta, had one of the best seasons of any assistant coach last year with the Browns. You could not prove it with the Cleveland numbers, which were nothing special at all, but you could by looking at the players that put them together. Outside of a few moments from Josh Gordon the skill positions were largely filled with reserves, and Gordon played like one for most of his stint anyway.
Yet until the league caught on to just how limited the talent was behind the schemes, Shanahan found a way with his playbook. But then players not ready to be NFL full timers did what they were supposed to do and wore down, particularly at RB, where the load was put on rookies Terrance West (third round) and Isaiah Crowell (free agent), neither regarded as a special prospect.
Now there is only the addition of rookie Duke Johnson (Miami), another third-rounder to add to the RB mix, and while Johnson has some upside, he is not ready to be a full-time NFL back. In fact, he is not ready for much of anything at all, injuring his hamstring back on August 1, and slated to miss the opener this week vs. Washington because of a hamstring injury. And it may not be that West and Crowell were not ready last year; they simply may not be good enough for the role. Which means close scrutiny to see if anyone is capable of stepping up; otherwise it will be a long season for new OC John DeFilippo, who has never held that position with any team before.
As such, the following comments from RB coach Wilbert Montgomery, taken from a piece my Mary Kay Cabot at Cleveland.com, is absolutely worth filing away - "How can you play and not want to be a starter? It just bothers me that guys don't want to be the lead bell-cow guy. … The guys that were here last year, you look for somebody to take that next step. Is it going to happen? I don't know, and that's why I let them know every day, the competition is still the same. It hasn't changed. Nobody wants the role. … You need multiple backs, but I want one guy to be able to say, 'Hey, we know who the starter is, like the other 31 teams in the National Football League. …It's just that you're looking for the guy you can strap the saddle on and they just say, 'hey, I want the job.'''
For all of the focus the sports mediaverse will put on the QB rotation, and whether or not Johnny Manzeil can even make the cut, the sad truth is that the Browns are extremely undermanned at RB, not only lacking explosiveness, but also the kind of leadership that can take pressure off of the QB position. Yet it is still better to have one player capable of carrying 250+ times to help the rest of the offense to at least build some consistency. Will anyone show that they can do that in the pre-season?
In the Sights…
In last Friday’s prelude to the Blue Jays/Yankees series in the Bronx (full archive link at the bottom of the page), there was a focus not on the Toronto offensive bashing, but instead the fact that the pitching and defense have been superb since the All Star break, and taken to an even higher level when Troy Tulowitzki, David Price, LaTroy Hawkins and Mark Lowe came on board. In particular there was a focus on Tulowitzki’s glove, replacing the fading defensive presence of Jose Reyes, with the Jays traveling to New York having already risen to #4 in PADE. Now they are #2, and closing in on the Mets at the top. This team is doing a lot of things right, and with all of that momentum in play, #964 Toronto Run Line is a fit at the going rate, with a small underdog return available, and no worse than even money anywhere on the current board.
For the Blue Jays to be 61-52 in the standings is one of the unique baseball stories of recent seasons, a +129 run differential easily calling for something much better. Where the payoffs can come are on the Run Line, with generic adjustments continuing to be made from Side/Total charts, despite the enhanced ability of this team to break games open – Toronto already has 49 wins by multiple runs, and there are five teams that have not topped 49 yet in total wins. Tonight sets up as another, the confidence of Drew Hutchison from this mound (8-1/2.69), against the vulnerabilities of Kendall Graveman.
Graveman is a thinker, a guy that gets reasonable production out of limited stuff. But at 5.8 K/9 he has to rely on a lot of contact outs, and that is so dangerous against this lineup. In an earlier meeting he had what should have been a favorable setting, a cool night in the Bay area (first pitch was 60 degrees), and a ballpark that has consistently been near the MLB bottom for home run rate. Yet in an ugly 7-1 defeat, he was taken deep by Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Russell Martin. It is an even tougher challenge for him in this ball park, and with the A’s having to make a genuine trip for the first time in a full month (since the All Star break the only road games were across the bridge to face the Giants, and a pair against the Dodgers in Chavez Ravine), this one has the prospects of breaking open.
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