FanHouse Q&A With Chris Antonetti, Pt. 2

One day after Indians general manager-in-waiting Chris Antonetti sat down with FanHouse's Pat McManamon to talk about Cleveland's future, the Indians announced that minor league pitcher Hector Rondon had undergone Tommy John ligament replacement surgery in his right elbow.

This was no mere disappointment. Rondon, 22, was the Indians' minor league pitcher of the year in 2009. He had the kind of ability to make the rotation this season, but was shut down due to elbow soreness in May. Now he will sit out a year.

It's been that kind of three seasons for the Indians, who have seen their fortunes and on-field record plummet since they came within one game of reaching the 2007 World Series. They have traded Cy Young winners and other veterans, and are trying to rebuild on the fly.

In the first part an interview with FanHouse, Antonetti detailed how the team hoped to rebuild quickly by trading players in their free-agent year for players with minor league experience. Those players -- like Carlos Santana, Carlos Carrasco and Matt LaPorta -- were further in their development than draft picks, which theoretically would shrink the rebuilding window. Antonetti also talked about complementing those players with enough starting pitching and bullpen depth to offset losses like the one to Rondon.

In Part II of the interview, Antonetti talks about players he sees as central to the team's future, including Grady Sizemore, sidelined since May after undergoing microfracture surgery on his knee. Antonetti discussed others with McManamon as he looks to the Indians future:

FanHouse: Where are things starting to come together as you rebuild?

Chris Antonetti: The plan is to get back to a championship-caliber team. What we need to do is be able to balance and make sure we have a good group of position players and balance that off with a very strong group of pitchers. I think when you look around the diamond, once you get past some of the injuries to some key guys, you can begin to see some talented players position by position across the diamond for most of the positions on the field.

Grady and Santana have the potential to be two elite-caliber players, and you balance that off by some of the development of the other guys that are getting opportunities this year and you begin to see that nucleus of position players starting to come together. I think we're starting to see some guys solidify their roles in the bullpen. With Chris Perez closing games and some of the other guys in front of him starting to pitch more meaningful innings and have some success there.

The challenge then is to be able we make sure we align enough starting pitching around that team. That's really what our focus has been as we've looked to acquire players in deals over the last year and a half, as we've looked to draft and sign guys as well. That will be something that will continue to be a focus for us as we go into the offseason.

FH: When you focus on starting pitching, have you done it from the standpoint that you have seven or eight or nine guys and you just need four of them to come through?

CA: I think that's one of the things you have to build for anytime you talk about pitching. And even to some extent position players. There's going to be a natural level of attrition. What you need to make sure, whether it's attrition through injury or performance, you need to make sure you have enough alternatives to be able to sustain that.

When we plan and look at building pitching staffs, you can't build a starting rotation five deep and you can't build a bullpen six or seven deep. You really have to have at least seven or eight quality starting alternatives and at least 10 to 12 quality relief alternatives. I think once as an organization you get to that point it allows you to be able to weather the storm a little bit.

FH: Where are you, the Indians, in terms of being in those numbers?

CA: I think we're in a far better position now than we were a year or a year and a half ago in terms of having those alternatives. But we still have some work to do. We started to work through things this year by giving guys some opportunities. Some of them have stepped forward and really grasped those. And others still have some work to do. But it's still an area where you need to improve.

FH: Is it frustrating when they don't get it right away?

CA: It's hard. I think if you look at the transition of major league pitchers it's probably the most difficult thing to do is transition starting pitchers to the major leagues from Triple-A. I think when you look a the difference and the caliber of competitiveness and the lineups that you're facing, especially in the American League, there are a lot of good deep lineups from top to bottom. There are very few guys that transition seamlessly from a starting role in Triple-A to a starting role and be immediately successful in the major leagues. That's why it's important to have some patience with starting pitching.

"There are very few guys that transition seamlessly from a starting role in Triple-A to a starting role and be immediately successful in the major leagues. That's why it's important to have some patience with starting pitching."
FH: Is there a reason it is so difficult?

CA: If you look at a Triple-A lineup, there are probably maybe one or two hitters within that lineup that would be at some point legitimate major league hitters. There are probably a sprinkle of other guys that have had some major league experience. And some other guys who aren't very good hitters. Then when you transition up to the major leagues, all of a sudden the worst hitter in the major leagues is equivalent to the best hitter probably in Triple-A.

Then you factor in that you get lineups like the Yankees and Red Sox and Rays and Blue Jays ... there are a lot of very good, deep (lineups). In our division, the Twins and Tigers certainly have the ability to score runs. Kansas City certainly has put together some teams capable of scoring runs. When you look at that just from a macro perspective ... again I think it's probably easiest to look at it that the best guys in Triple-A if they were really that good and really ready to prepare and succeed, they'd be in the major leagues. So the worst hitters in the major leagues are typically the best hitters in Triple-A.

FH: Is there an age where you say a guy either is there or he's not?

CA: I think it's more that you have more patience with younger pitchers. But I don't think there's a key age. Guys figure it out at different times. It's really up to the individual.

FH: So by 24, they're not too old?

CA: Certainly not at that point, no.

FH: When you trade a Cy Young winner, that's major news. And people focus on the names you acquired. Where is Carlos Carrasco (acquired for Cliff Lee) right now?

CA: He's developing. He's made a lot of strides over the last year in terms of becoming a major league pitcher and we're hopeful that he'll get another opportunity up here at some point this year and then be in position going into spring training to really compete for the starting rotation and hopefully get a significant number of major league innings next year. It's still important to remember that he's only 23. There's a lot of 23-year-olds that are pitching in Double-A. He's now had the better part of two years pitching in Triple-A.

FH: So he's not a guy we should look at and say he should be up winning 10 or 15 games. That wouldn't be fair to him?

CA: No. I think he's still developing. He's made strides with that. He's not quite a finished product yet. And he will have to continue his development at the major league level when he gets that opportunity.

FH: How about Matt LaPorta (acquired for CC Sabathia)?

CA: He's working through a year. It's probably a year where he's probably learned a lot about himself. He's had to deal with extended adversity for the first time in his professional career and I think we've seen signs of him battling through it. Obviously he got off to a very difficult start at the major league level. Got into some bad habits fundamentally. Went back down to Triple-A and really solidified those things. Came back, had some immediate success after he returned from Triple-A and now is going through those stretches of trying to find the consistency that's necessary to be a major league hitter. Certainly we've seen the ability that's in there and the attributes to be a successful major league hitter. Now Matt needs to be more consistent, demonstrate that consistency.

FH: I think most people expected you to compete in 2008 and '09. When you signed Kerry Wood, the thinking was it made sense, this could be the difference.

CA: We did, too. Those were our expectations for those years, too. Unfortunately for those years, in 2008 largely because of some significant injuries. ... Coming out of 2007 our expectations were that those were going to be within the window of opportunity for us. We had a lot of that team under contract for the foreseeable future. Those guys, if they could stay healthy and they could perform as they had in the past, we could be a contending and competitive team. For a number of reasons, it didn't play out that way.

FH: When you say to minimize the time to get to that point, do you almost have to hit on every move you make to get there?

CA: We need to make sure we are infusing as much talent as possible, because the nature of it is you can't pin too much on any one player, or a very small group of players. Because inevitably things don't play out the way you'd expect. So we as an organization need to make sure we have enough depth to hopefully weather the natural attrition that takes place from young players transitioning from prospects to major league players.

FH: Did you hold your breath as you watched the home plate collision with Santana?

CA: Watching it, we thought it had the potential to have long-term career impact. I think again it's not ideal that we lost him for the rest of the year, but we're all very encouraged. The long-term prognosis is very good and coming into spring training there shouldn't be any restrictions on him catching and playing full seasons going forward.

FH: Same with Grady? Microfracture surgery can be tough.

CA: Those are our expectations. I think he's done well with his rehab so far. There haven't been any setbacks. We understand It's a complicated procedure, but based on the medical opinions we have we feel like he'll be at full strength and ready to be the Grady that he's been in the past.

FH: There's been a lot made of the Indians' drafting lately. As you look back is that something that should have been done better?

CA: There have been a few things. Unlike some teams that let players go to free agency and accumulated a lot of draft picks, we've determined that we'd rather have Carlos Santana or Matt LaPorta or Michael Brantley or going back to some of the other trades that we made, we'd rather have those players that are further along in the system than have the extra draft picks.

So we haven't had a lot of extra draft picks. We've had actually relatively few in the scheme of things. That said, there have been opportunities where we could have done better than we've done in the draft. We've continued to look at that each and every year and try to find ways to improve.

We feel that our recent history, the last three or four years, the players that are starting to come through our system are showing promise. We're in a better position and done a better job maximizing that opportunity to acquire talent than we've done in the past.

FH: Do you feel good that you know who your core guys are going to be two years from now?

CA: That's always an evolving process. I think we have more information about that now than we had a year and a half ago. It's a process that hopefully we get more clarity about as we go into next year and next spring training and then the regular season next year.

FH: Who are they?

CA: There are some guys at the major league level that have solidified their place on our team. Obviously (Shin-Soo) Choo. That's one of the things at the major league level is having some degree of reliability, not just having one good year and falling back. I think Choo has demonstrated that he's a really good major league player. I think Grady has demonstrated that in the past when he's healthy he can do that. Asdrubal (Cabrera) when he's been healthy he's been a good player. Santana has demonstrated that. (Fausto) Carmona, the bounce-back year that he's had certainly has been good to see. I think he's now on a path to be that guy who can be a middle-of-the-rotation or upper-rotation anchor for us.

FH: As you look forward, can you predict your starting rotation?

CA: We have ideas of it.

FH: Do you say, it's going to come from this seven or eight guys?

CA: Ultimately the players are the ones. We have to provide opportunities. We try to provide the environment for them to try to be successful. We provide them the resources to help them with their development. But ultimately in the end it's up to each player to determine what role they'll play going forward. And I think that's something we're always in the process of evaluating.

But you have ideas, if this guy goes like we think he is, then he's in this slot.

But that's based on what those guys have done and how they've developed and how they competed when given those opportunities. But again all of that is going to come back to the players. If some of the same players don't do their work or don't condition in the offseason and report to spring training out of shape or put themselves in jeopardy of getting hurt or don't perform then all of that is subject to change.

FH: Do you expect significant improvement next season?

CA: Our expectations are that we'll be a better team next year. And hopefully appreciably better.