As Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia tangled in Game 1 of the World Series last fall, a young man sat home 3,000 miles away and a world apart in Bonney Lake, Wash.
He listened to the Cleveland backstory that dominated the game. He marveled at the two former Indians Cy Young winners. And as the night deepened, so did his dreams.
“I knew those guys both came up in the Indians system,” says Nick Hagadone, 24, a 6-5 lefty from the University of Washington. “It’s cool to think that maybe that could happen one day to me.”
Hard times have returned to Cleveland, which means it’s open season for dreamers like Hagadone and an entire fleet of prospects imported over the past two seasons by general manager Mark Shapiro.
Hagadone came to the Indians from Boston in the Victor Martinez deal last July during a period in which Shapiro acquired 11 players age 24 or younger during a flurry of deals that sent Martinez, Lee, Mark DeRosa, Rafael Betancourt and Ryan Garko packing. Of the 11 players acquired, five were ranked at the time among the top 100 prospects in the game by
Summer before that, outfielders Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley came over from Milwaukee in the Sabathia deal.
For a team that was just one win from playing in the World Series in 2007, the restructuring over the past 24 months has been dizzying and rapid-fire.
“We’re trying to aggressively manage the cycles,” Shapiro was saying the other day as Cleveland’s newest melting-pot team took shape on the practice fields around him. “Rather than let the cycles be dictated to us, when we face tough junctures and our team is not playing the way we want. …”
“Foot on the accelerator,” Shapiro says. “How can we get back as quickly as possible?”
Over the past two decades, this organization has been one of the game’s masters of stockpiling young talent and then cashing it in to great success.
That great run of five consecutive AL Central titles in the mid-to-late 1990s (and six in seven years) started in the early ’90s when then-GM John Hart brought in players like Albert Belle, Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton and Sandy Alomar Jr.
The near-miss at the ’07 World Series was partly a result of Shapiro’s first swing at aggressively managing a cycle when he shipped Bartolo Colon to Montreal for two key pieces, Lee and center fielder Grady Sizemore, in ’02.
Now, the young names include, among many others, Hagadone, LaPorta, Brantley, Justin Masterson, Lou Marson and Carlos Santana.
Unless yo heard of them.
But if the Indians’ scouting reads are as on target as they’ve been in the past, though, you’ll be getting to know most of them. Soon.
“I thought the Red Sox system was good, and it really was,” says Hagadone, who, despite undergoing reconstructive elbow surgery that caused him to miss nearly all of 2008, still was named as Boston’s third-best prospect last year and as Cleveland’s third-best prospect this year by . “I never heard much about the Indians’ minor-league system.
“I was amazed when I got here how good it is. is good.”
How good?
Well, let’s understand this first: None of it means a thing until all this young talent actually does it on a major league diamond. As Shapiro says, “The key is to line that talent up with the right pitching and turn that talent into championship-caliber talent.”
That said, there appears to be lots of reasons why Indians fans who stopped coming to the ballpark last summer (the team ranked 26th in the majors in attendance) again will be jockeying for tickets in the not-too-distant future.
“I think the amount of talent we have here now is a little more we had back then,” Alomar, now the team’s first-base coach, says of those early-’90s Indians. “We had some talent then, but there was no mix of veteran players. Now there’s Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook. There are a few front-line players.
“Back in ’90, ’91 and ’92, it took a little while until Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez and Orel Hershiser came. That’s when everything got put together and we were really good.
“When John Hart felt guys were ready to compete, that’s when he brought in Murray, Martinez, Hershiser, Tony Pena.”
Alomar scans the horizon and sees Santana, who came over from the Dodgers in the Casey Blake deal in July, 2008, and who was converted to a catcher just four years ago after playing the outfield and third base during his first two professional seasons.
He sees LaPorta, whose main weapon is his bat and who will play first base for Cleveland this year. He sees draft picks Nick Weglarz (outfielder, third round, 2005), Lonnie Chisenhall (third baseman, first round, ’08) and others.
“You look around, man, and there’s a lot more talent on one minor league team here than a lot of teams have in their whole organizations,” Alomar says.
“Lonnie’s made a big impression,” Shapiro says. “Nick Weglarz has been putting up some of the best at-bats in camp. Michael Brantley has had a very, very good camp as well.”
While Masterson should open in the rotation and LaPorta at first, Chisenhall likely is ticketed for Double-A Akron to start the season. Weglarz, probably Triple-A Columbus to start. Brantley, you never know. He could make it.
No question, expectations outside the organization are low, and rightfully so. Manager Manny Acta has replaced fired Eric Wedge, Sabathia and Lee are but memories, and this team realistically is in the get-to-know-you phase.
Sleeper … Travis Hafner: He might not have another 30-homer season in him, not with the abuse his shoulder has taken over the last couple years, but at least now the Indians consider him healthy enough to play him every day. His high walk rate can still make him plenty valuable as a 25-homer guy, especially in Head-to-Head leagues. Don’t overlook him as a sneaky late-round pick. He really isn’t much of a gamble at that point. Bust … Jhonny Peralta: With such a low contact rate, he pretty much has to hit 20 homers to give you anything worthwhile in Fantasy. More well-rounded types like Yunel Escobar and even Asdrubal Cabrera are far safer and have arguably as much upside. Breakout … Matt LaPorta: If you draft him, you do so on the blind faith he’s ready to explode and without the assurance of any steady or measurable progress. But for prospects on his level, it usually happens that first way anyway. For the cost of a late-round pick, why not take the chance o Top Indians Prospects (2010 destination) 1. Carlos Santana, C, Triple-A 2. Lonnie Chisenhall, 3B, Double-A 3. Michael Brantley, OF, Majors 4. Nick Weglarz, OF, Double-A 5. Carlos Carrasco, SP, Triple-A Indians outlook | 2010 Draft Prep Guide
But this is not a rebuilding job from the ground up. This is not “sell every piece of furniture and start over.”
“That’s what gets missed,” Shapiro says. “When we rebuilt in 2002, we turned over the entire roster. I mean, the roster. Now, we have a lot of young talent, probably more than we had in 2002. And we have Asdrubal Cabrera hitting his prime, Shin-Soo Choo hitting his prime. Grady in his prime. Travis Hafner.
“There are guys here. It is not a complete rebuild. There’s no question it’s a reconstruction, but it’s not a complete rebuild.”
One veteran the Indians brought in this year as a bridge between the foundation pieces already in place and the blue chippers acquired to solidify the future is 38-year-old catcher Mike Redmond, a 12-year veteran who broke in with the post-fire-sale 1998 Florida Marlins and was on the team when they beat the Yankees in the ’03 World Series.
Redmond, who saw plenty of young talent in Florida and over the past five years while with the Twins, has been impressed with several young arms. David Huff and Aaron Laffey, who are in competition for a rotation spot. Hector Rondon, 22, signed by the Indians as a non-drafted free agent and who is opening eyes in camp.
And, yes, Hagadone, who touched 98 mph on the radar gun last summer but who pitches mostly in the 94-95 range (and who likely will begin the season at Double-A Akron).
Redmond says he’s here to shorten the learning curve, do what he can to help hasten the delivery of some of these guys. Once, he was in those cleats.
“It goes so fast,” he says. “I have a pretty simple message: Appreciate your time. As a younger player, learn as fast as you can because, in the blink of an eye, you’re sitting there a and you’re saying, ‘Man, how am I one of the oldest guys on this team?’
“It’s an amazing journey. That’s what I’m trying to get across. You can break in with a young team and then have three or four of your buddies playing alongside of you in the majors when you start to win. I saw that in Florida. And that’s when it’s fun.”
