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Struggling Sabathia, offense, might make Indians break rule
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Sunday, Apr 20, 2008
MINNEAPOLIS: How long should Mark Shapiro wait before he begins altering the structure of the Indians' roster?
Like most general managers, Shapiro believes in the 40-game test. Until a team has played one-fourth of its schedule, it's difficult to know for certain (actually, nobody knows much about baseball with 100 percent certainty) if what he sees is real.
Baseball is a terrible game for conclusion-jumping. Any club official or fan who watches his team lose eight out of 10 or 12 out of 15 is prone to scream about sending players to the minors, making trades and blowing up the roster.
Living through a losing streak day by day plays with Shapiro's emotions the same way it does to a 20-year season-ticket holder in Fairlawn. The difference is that there are no consequences for the fan who responds with his heart and proposes premature solutions. Shapiro can't afford to make many mistakes.
Reacting to emotions gone wild is not the way to run a baseball team. The same players who seem to be tanking every game can turn around and win 15 of the next 20. The same guy who has been swinging at pitches that nobody could hit with a utility pole might bat .400 the next month.
So the 40-game rule makes sense. But it doesn't always make sense. The Indians seem to have fallen off the edge of the Earth. The offense has been impotent, the workmanship of the bullpen has been inconsistent, and closer Joe Borowski is on the disabled list for an unknown number of weeks.
Cliff Lee, Jake Westbrook and now Paul Byrd are performing well, but they can't win without runs and late-inning help from the bullpen. Fausto Carmona has had trouble finding the plate.
Then there's that irritating constant of every baseball season: Something happens (usually more than one thing) that nobody could have anticipated or imagined. So we are astonished to see that C.C. Sabathia, the ace of the staff and 2007 Cy Young Award winner, has forgotten how to pitch.
Is there anything Shapiro should address immediately, or should short-term corrective measures be totally in the hands of manager Eric Wedge and his coaches? For now, Shapiro must be content to allow his manager to deal with an erratic bullpen without Borowski.
Rule doesn't apply
Repairing the broken offense is a different story. The 40-game rule doesn't apply to the Tribe's hitters. Why? Because the attack has been unreliable for more than a year. Enduring stretches of lifelessness is nothing new for these hitters. It happened several times in 2007, sometimes for weeks at a time.
It's time to realize that there are four potentially very good hitters on this club — Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore, Ryan Garko and Travis Hafner — and that everyone else is, well, just OK. And we can't really be sure that Franklin Gutierrez, Asdrubal Cabrera, David Dellucci and Jason Michaels fall into that middling category.
Moreover, whereas Jhonny Peralta and Casey Blake have dependable track records, they also have a history of ups and downs, like most non-elite major-league hitters.
Should Shapiro be prepared to acquire a hitter now? Yes. Is it a reasonable possibility? I don't know. It won't be easy when virtually every other general manager is waiting out the 40-game period.
Shapiro could reach down to Triple-A Buffalo for Ben Francisco. More than likely, when Shin-Soo Choo is fully prepared to return to the field, he will be on the roster, possibly by mid-May.
Can one or both of these hitters make a substantial difference? I wouldn't wait past the end of April to find out or to try and make a trade for a hitter.
Sabathia's past two starts have been so embarrassingly off the charts it's difficult to know where to begin resurrecting his career. If you're thinking Buffalo, forget it. Sabathia cannot be sent to Triple-A without his permission. Nor are Shapiro and Wedge likely to ask him to accept a demotion.
Moreover, he is not about to be replaced by one of Buffalo's starters: Jeremy Sowers or Aaron Laffey. That would require moving someone off the roster. And besides, where would Shapiro stash Sabathia, in the bullpen? No way.
What will happen is a step-by-step process to break down Sabathia's delivery, checking everything twice, then practicing — as much as is reasonably possible — by throwing in the bullpen until his next start.
There is nothing wrong with Sabathia's arm. He is not throwing 97 mph, but that's because he doesn't want to. In the start Wednesday night against the Detroit Tigers, he threw several pitches 95, most of them down the middle of the plate, waist high.
''This is one of those things where I'm not able to command the baseball,'' Sabathia said.
But why not? Sabathia said it is not because of flawed mechanics. Yes, his delivery is basically the same as always. Yet, he must be doing something different or his pitches would be hitting their target.
What went wrong?
The most popular Sabathia-gone-wrong theory: His ineptness is a result of self-inflicted pressure created by impending free agency in October. I thought so, too, but not anymore. For one thing, he has become so dysfunctional, living up to a potential $100 million contract probably is the last thing on his mind.
There also is the hypothesis that because he threw 256 innings last year, his arm is tired. That might be a factor if it were August, but it's unlikely he's suffering from fatigue in April.
There is one other likely possibility. When he struggled last postseason, he conceded that he succumbed to pressure — not caused by the significance of the games — because of his tendency to take his label of ace too seriously. That it was his duty to carry the team on his shoulders, that Northeast Ohio was depending on him not just to lead the way but to win all by himself.
He began overthrowing, resulting in 97 mph fastballs that too often missed their mark. He regressed to his former incarnation as a pitcher who tried to strike everyone out; he threw too many pitches and far too many fastballs.
He was not the C.C. Sabathia who abruptly altered his pitching style 21/2 seasons ago, when he became determined to be a pitcher's pitcher, to stay in games longer by pitching to contact, a strategy that enabled him to compile a 40-19 record and 3.07 ERA from August 2005 to the end of last regular season.
Sabathia knows exactly why he failed in the playoffs, but maybe he is at a loss to rediscover the precise level of effort and release point for throwing 91-93 mph fastballs and breaking pitches with precise command.
As dark as the near future looks for Sabathia, whatever he is doing wrong for whatever reason probably will be only a faded memory in a few weeks.
Sheldon Ocker can be reached at socker@thebeaconjournal.com.
MINNEAPOLIS: How long should Mark Shapiro wait before he begins altering the structure of the Indians' roster?
Get the full article here.
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