Another early weekend
1. Bullpens are complicated things
Below is a list of the Indians relievers sorted by gmLI, which is the leverage at the moment they get brought into the game. Sipp is new enough that I think we can throw him out, but with the exception of Rafael Perez, it is not too surprising a list given preseason expectations. Furthermore, and maybe an encourage note, that with the exception of Jensen Lewis, the pitchers underlying peripherals (as indicated by FIP) suggest they are better than their performance (measured by ERA) at this point, and that Wedge has been using them correctly. Stomp is a bit scary, though. (pLI gives average leverage usage)
| Name | FIP | ERA | gmLI | pLI |
| J. Lewis | 8.30 | 5.93 | 2.57 | 1.83 |
| T. Sipp | 6.38 | 3.60 | 1.88 | 1.53 |
| K. Wood | 4.08 | 7.20 | 1.57 | 1.90 |
| R. Betancourt | 4.40 | 5.14 | 1.07 | 1.06 |
| J. Smith | 3.66 | 7.11 | 1.06 | 0.74 |
| R. Perez | 6.28 | 15.19 | 0.86 | 1.00 |
| V. Chulk | 6.10 | 3.75 | 0.85 | 0.93 |
| M. Kobayashi | 6.60 | 3.72 | 0.29 | 0.18 |
2. I think Cleveland could start giving away Masa's innings as a promotional giveaway at the ticket gates as a way of getting people into Jacobs Progressive Field.
Pitch to a real live major league player! (see above)
3. Asdrubal Cabrera is good, and might be really good
Noted without comment:
Asdrubal Cabrera (age 23): .333/.416/.434
R. Alomar (age 23): .296/.354/.436
B. Larkin (age 24):.296/.347/.429
H. Ramirez (age 23): .332/.386/.562
A. Trammell (age 25): .319/.385/.471
E. Renteria (age 24): .278/.346/.423
4. Looking for minor league bullpen names?
Here's another one to keep an eye on: David Roberts
5. Fausto's power sinker seems to be a little inconsistent
Fangraphs now has all of the pitchFX data in graphical form, viewable by individual game. Here is Fausto's movement chart from his outing against the Yankees (below). It looks to me like he's not consistently getting sharp horizontal and vertical movement. His average power sinkers till looks good, but there appears to be a lot of spread in the data. Hard to know exactly how this quantitatively compares to other pitchers, but something to keep an eye on.
6. I'm taking the 6th thought with me out the door (on my way to watch the Tribe in person tonight).
