Monday, March 14, 2011

Another reason to send Chisenhall to AAA

Let us assume that Chisenhall is ready to hit major league pitching right now.

Are we a better team with him at 3rd instead of Donald?

Not necessarily, we have a very young pitching staff. Most of our staff are sinkerballers. That means that they get their outs on groundballs. These are pitchers that need their infield to get them out of jams, not get them into jams. Plus, young pitchers are particularly vulnerable to the big inning. Big innings are often started by bad defense.

It is not hard to imagine Chisenhall's defensive struggles causing pitchers to struggle. Imagine Carrasco gets a couple of baserunners on in the second. There is a smash to third. Chisenhall rushes a throw trying for a double play and airmails a ball to Choo in rightfield. A run scores and there are runners on the corners with no outs. Carrasco gets rattled and falls apart. This shakes the confidence of both Chisenhall and Carrasco. Next thing you know Cleveland has to send both Chisenhall and Carrasco down to rebuild their confidence.

Sending Chisenhall to Columbus is all about putting players in a position to succeed. Chisenhall has a better chance at a long MLB career, if he is not rushed to majors. If he comes up and struggles defensively, that not only hurts his development, but it also hurts the development of Masterson, Carrasco, Talbot, Tomlin, and Huff.

Let's have our infielders pick up our young pitchers with good defense. Let our young pitchers gain confidence and experience. So, that they can, in turn, pick up our future young infielders (Chisenhall and Kipnis).

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