Continuing from this morning's season preview of the Cleveland Indians…
What are the Indians going to get out of Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson in 2013?
In theory, the Indians could have a very nice front to their rotation in the form of former All-Star Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson. When pitching at the top their ability, both players have shown that they can be excellent pitchers. Unfortunately for Cleveland, they have seldom seen either pitch to their best level and maintain it, especially Jimenez. This was never more true than last season when Jimenez and Masterson were downright awful with ERAs of 5.40 and 4.93 respectively. It turns out it is hard to win when your nominal #1 and #2 starter pitch like they don't even belong in the rotation at all. Who knew, right?
No as Cleveland enters the 2013 season with visions of contention dancing in their head, they once again find themselves in the precarious position of needing those same two enigmatic starters front their pitching staff, for better or worse. And they really need both of them to be better, which shouldn't be too hard since they couldn't be much worse than they were in 2012.
Cleveland spent a lot of money this off-season, but no amount of money can seem to fix what is wrong with Ubaldo Jimenez. Other than in name and appearance, Ubaldo bore no resemblance to the 2010 Cy Young contender for the Rockies. His velocity was down almost four miles per hour from those days. His ERA, FIP, K/9 and BB/9 were all the worst of his career. He has even transformed from a groundball pitcher to a flyball pitcher, resulting in him allowing the most homers over his career, which is really saying something seeing how he used to call Coors Field home.
Literally every indicator for Jimenez is going the wrong direction right now. He can't even hang his hat on the idea that he improved as the season wnet on since his second half ERA was 6.63 which was over two runs more than his first half ERA. Amazingly, Jimenez is still the nominal ace of the staff even though it is looking very much like he doesn't even belong in the majors anymore.
And therein lies the rub, the Tribe needs Ubaldo to not just be better than he was in 2012 but A LOT better. Part of that is because the nominal #2 starter, Justin Masterson is coming off almost as bad a year as Jimenez.
Two years ago, Masterson looked like he finally had everything figured out. He posted a 3.21 ERA with a 3.28 FIP to match. He wasn't flashy, but he gave the Indians 200+ very good innings, something they were hoping he would continue to do going forward, but it wasn't meant to be. In 2012, Masterson's trouble with left-handed batters cropped back up to the tune of a .825 OPS allowed (versus just .613 against righties). Problems with walks only exacerbated that problem as he saw his BB/9 rate spike from 2.71 to 3.84.
Like Jimenez, Masterson has to be much, much better for the Indians to have even a mediocre rotation because all they have behind these two is the similarly inconsistent Brett Myers, a collection of talented but unproven pitchers like Zach McAllister, Trevor Bauer and Carlos Carrasco and a few reclamation prospects like Daisuke Matsuzaka and Scott Kazmir. This is a pitching staff that needs at least one guy to step up and lead the charge. Jimenez and Masterson have both been that guy before and if they can get back to that level or something resembling it, the Indians might just make good on their dark horse contender status. If not, then Indian fans better hope the ownership comes up with another truckload of cash to spend on some pitching next off-season.
Indians on TOC
End of Season Postmortem
Hope for the Hopeless
2013 Season Preview
You May Say I'm a Dreamer
2013 Burning Question
This Is My Nightmare (3:00 PM)
2013 X-Factor (4:30 PM)
