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| They Each Saw Something Different |
It's Pronounced Lajaway was kind enough to provide us with three different perspectives of Ubaldo Jimenez. A Rashomon style, if you will.
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Stephanie Liscio, co-owner, It’s Pronounced Lajaway
I always liked Ubaldo Jimenez, dating back to his days with the Colorado Rockies. I feel like a lot of fans in Cleveland never fully warmed to Jimenez, or always waited for the other shoe to drop when he was scheduled to pitch. From the moment he was traded to the Indians, there was this perception that he must be damaged goods. That the Rockies would never surrender Jimenez after his 2010 season unless there was some flaw that the Indians couldn’t see. (There’s not exactly an overabundance of faith when it comes to the front office, particularly after the Cliff Lee trade).
At the
trade deadline in 2011, I was cautiously optimistic on the Jimenez deal. The Indians had a poor track record on drafts
through the early 2000s, so I wasn’t ready to declare the trade’s centerpieces,
Drew Pomeranz and Alex White, sure things.
I was haunted by Adam Miller, a highly touted prospect who dealt with
major hand issues and never pitched a day in the majors. To have a player with a proven track record
in the majors, even if he’d fallen on hard times, seemed like a much more sure
bet.
Once
Jimenez arrived in 2011 though, the Indians soon fell out of contention. By 2012, he was so inconsistent and erratic
that you never knew what to expect when he was scheduled to take the
mound. I used to jokingly flip a coin
before his starts – heads it would be a good day for Jimenez, tails it would be
a bad day. Even though I’d think to
myself “Oh boy, here we go again” during his starts, I still defended him. Part because I was convinced there was
something wrong with him and part because I felt he could somehow be
“fixed.” My husband and father went to a
fan event that summer and all of the players had at least a small autograph
line, except for Jimenez. They actually
went back to get a second autograph because, according to my dad, “He was so
nice, and he was just sitting there all by himself.” It’s like Jimenez somehow took the brunt of
the fan anger, even though there was plenty of blame to go around during the
summer of 2012.
By the
time 2013 rolled around, I actually saw a lot of Indians fans angrily
exclaiming that he should be released; that they should just eat his salary and
let him go. That seemed like a pretty
ridiculous option to me, but I understood the frustration behind the
sentiment. As Jimenez continued to
improve as the season progressed, my faith in him continued to grow. However, I encountered so many fans that were
still furious with the trade, and that still thought the Indians should release
Jimenez. “Have you watched him pitch
lately?” I’d ask, or I’d share recent
statistics with them. Once they finally
stopped complaining (because he was pitching too well for valid complaints) they
still didn’t really seem to love him – they just grudgingly accepted him. I don’t think too many people were sad to see
him go, because they never grew that attached to him. It was just the standard bitterness you often
see from Cleveland fans, because of the idea that someone leaves once they
finally seem to hit their stride.
Ultimately, I am glad that the Indians trade for Jimenez in 2011. Hindsight is obviously 20/20 where White and Pomeranz are concerned, but the whole objective for the trade was to make the playoffs. While they didn't do it that season, the Indians don't make the 2013 Wild Card game without Jimenez as the ace down the stretch. I went from dread at seeing him take the mound to wishing that he could pitch every day. While I am sad to see him gone, there is still a small part of my brain that cannot help thinking "at least that ticking time bomb won't go off for the Indians in 2014". It is hard to fully leave the 2012 paranoia behind.
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IPL Staff Writer Adam Hintz
Here at IPL, I was
probably the most vocal supporter of the Indians re-signing Ubaldo. For the
record, I think 4 years/$48 million is probably a great deal (if not a year
longer than my dream contract), and I absolutely wish that the Indians had signed
him at that price.
I think it was about mid-September of last season when I
realized that the Ubaldo Jimenez who was trotting out to that mound every 5th
day was the best pitcher we had at that time. To say that this revelation was
shocking would be something of an understatement; Ubaldo was bad in 2011,
downright atrocious in 2012, and depressingly ineffective through the first
three months of last season. At one point last June I started referring to
Jimenez as “the best bad pitcher in the league” given his propensity to give up
2 runs over five innings and somehow need 110 pitches to get through it. It was
painful to watch.
But then something happened, and Ubaldo morphed back into an
ace. Here in Cleveland a lot of the credit has gone to pitching coach Mickey
Callaway, but there’s something to be said for the schedule Ubaldo faced in the
second half as well as some inevitable positive regression to the mean. For my
part, I’m not completely sure what happened, but the change was dramatic.
On July 14th, Ubaldo gave up 4 earned runs over
4.0 IP against the Royals. Through the end of the season, he did not allow more
than 3 earned runs in any start (and he only did that once). He gave up five
earned runs in all of September… it doesn’t even matter that half of his
innings that month came against the White Sox and Astros, that’s impressive. If
the Indians had made the Divisional Series, I have a hard time imagining that
any pitcher except Ubaldo would have been on the mound to start Game 1.
But of course, the reason that teams weren’t lining up
around the block to give Ubaldo ace money is because he is only a year removed
from that god-awful 5.40 ERA in 2012, and he barely looked better than that for
half of 2013. Teams didn’t know (and really still don’t know) which pitcher
they’re going to get in 2014 and beyond.
I want to believe in Jimenez, but history has taught me
otherwise. I think he’s well worth the risk that the Orioles took on him, but
there is a very real possibility that he regresses back to 2012 mode and that
$48 million becomes a pretty big sunk cost. I guess it all comes down to
expectations: if your team just signed Ubaldo to be the centerpiece of their
rotation, I fear it’s not going to end very well; but if your team just signed
him to be a quality #2 guy in a deep rotation, that is a role he can certainly
thrive in relative to expectations.
Overall, I’m okay with Jimenez leaving, but I reserve the
right to change my mind if Trevor Bauer proves incapable of walking fewer than
8.5 hitters per nine innings (like he did in the Majors last year). I still
feel like the Indians needed Ubaldo more than they realize, but our loss is
your gain.
I really hope we don’t regret it.
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IPL Staff Writer Chris Burnham
His time in Cleveland was mostly a disappointment. Even on the day in which the deal was consummated, the Rockies got the whole thing off on the wrong foot by allowing Jimenez to start that evening in San Diego. This, of course, set Cleveland (a scarred bunch, as you undoubtedly know) into a tizzy about "protecting the investment," and all this jazz because he was Chris Antonetti's own "Lee/Sizemore trade." The Indians were banking on the change of scenery thing actually working out and he would be the horse behind Justin Masterson. Or, even the guy who could potentially overtake Masterson as the true ace of a middling rotation, complete with his Cy Young pedigree and intoxicating stuff. The Indians gave up two of their top pitching prospects of the time, so they were expecting big things that, for the most part, never materialized.
(Those two pitchers were Drew Pomeranz and Alex White. Pomeranz still hasn't established himself in the Rockies organization. White was traded to Houston. I guess you could say the Indians won the trade due to Jimenez making a late push towards better than average and having quite a bit to do with getting the Tribe into October for a fleeting nine innings.)
Unfortunately, Jimenez' tenure in Cleveland was mostly a disappointment with a horrific 9-17 2012 campaign in which he carried 5.40 ERA; this unsightly number feeling light considering the constant traffic he was allowing. We saw occasional flashes of what we were hoping we'd see, some of those starts were even dominant, but nothing really consistent until May of last year. New pitching coach Mickey Callaway seemed to find the right buttons to push to keep his wonky mechanics in check. He also told Jimenez to pare down his pitch-mix by relying more on his mid-90s fastball. Who knows what sort of voodoo Callaway tapped into to make it work, but he deserves a significant portion of the $50 million deal. Considering the number of pure hitters parks Jimenez will now face regularly within the AL East, Orioles fans had better hope that Callaway's tutelage have taken deep roots.
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Links:
Great post from 2012 by IPL writer Ryan McCrystal that looked at what was going wrong with Ubaldo in 2012.A few recent posts:
IPL writer Mike Schreiner, Letting Go of Ubaldo
Stephanie Liscio, hoping the Orioles may match as a trade partner for pitching
Adam Hintz talks a bit more about his disappointment
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