Cleveland Indians: Time To Turn off the Ubaldo Jimenez Panic

As it turns out, rumors of Ubaldo Jimenez’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Coming off one of the worst starts of his young Indians career, Jimenez absolutely destroyed the Kansas City Royals Friday night, going seven innings of one-run ball, striking out 10 while only allowing seven hits and one walk.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the ace we were trying to acquire.

Truth is, there’s nothing wrong with Jimenez. Everyone’s been far too quick to write off this trade and assume that Cleveland has found a way to screw it all up again. While Tribe fans can be forgiven for jumping to that conclusion (that has happened way more often than it should), it’s time to put it to rest.

Jimenez’s 2011 stats are a far cry from his stellar 2010 campaign. A simple comparison shows that:

2010: 19-8, 2.88 ERA (162 ERA+), 1.15 WHIP, 6.3 WAR

2011: 8-10, 4.71 ERA (94 ERA+), 1.42 WHIP, 2.8 WAR

That’s pretty ugly, right? That’s why the sabermetric community (love them or hate them) have found more methods of judging pitchers. Take a look at what happens when we dig a little deeper into Jimenez’s stats:

2010: 8.69 SO/9, 3.74 BB/9, 2.33 SO:BB, 3.10 FIP, 3.60 xFIP, .271 BABIP, 76.5% LOB%

2011: 8.94 SO/9, 3.58 BB/9, 2.50 SO:BB, 3.65 FIP, 3.52 xFIP, .325 BABIP, 65.7% LOB%

Based off of those stats, it can be easily argued that the 2011 version of Jimenez is even stronger than the 2010 version. That’s a far cry from the chorus of detractors out there.

There’s no denying that 2011 has been rough of Jimenez. Some of the tremendous jump in his ERA and WHIP can be accounted for by looking at his line drive rate (jumped from 16.2 percent to 20.0 percent), but not all of it.

What more can one ask for from their pitcher than to have him record more strikeouts and less walks? Looking at his xFIP, BABIP and LOB% specifically, we can draw one major conclusion from Jimenez’s 2011:

Simply put, he’s been very, very unlucky this year.

In baseball, luck is one thing that can be trusted to change. Sample sizes eventually even out and talent shines through. The Indians acquired a real ace when they traded for Jimenez and we’ll see it more consistently soon enough.

I know that this trade put Indians fans in a “win-now” mode, but that might not be our fate in 2011. While this isn’t necessarily fair (the Tigers are 13 games over .500 but only have a plus-13 run differential. What’s up with that?), it’s reality. Barring a major late-season surge, the Indians are going to be sitting at home in October. That’s no reason to be upset, though.

The thing to remember about this at-times magical 2011 season is that it’s all ahead of schedule. This team wasn’t supposed to compete for anything but fourth place this year, let alone the division title. Even if they fall well short this year, just getting a taste of a playoff race will give this young team experience to build off of in 2012 and 2013 when they are supposed to be competing.

Just look at what the Indians can run out in 2012 before they make any moves. It’s a very young, deep, talented team that’s only going to be better with the extra year’s worth of maturity (2012 age in parenthesis):

LF Michael Brantley (25)

2B Jason Kipnis (25)

SS Asdrubal Cabrera (26)

C Carlos Santana (26)

DH Travis Hafner (35)

RF Shin-Soo Choo (29)

CF Grady Sizemore (29)

3B Lonnie Chisenhall (23)

1B Matt LaPorta (27)

SP Ubaldo Jimenez (28)

SP Justin Masterson (27)

SP Fausto Carmona (28)

SP Josh Tomlin (27)

SP Carlos Carrasco (25)

RP Chris Perez (26)

RP Vinnie Pestano (27)

RP Tony Sipp (28)

RP Rafael Perez (30)

RP Joe Smith (28)

RP Chen-Chang Lee (25)

RP Nick Hagadone (26)

All of this is before any offseason moves (other than picking up Carmona’s team option, which the Tribe may or may not do). Personally, I’d like to look into getting one more starter, possibly doing some bullpen maintenance and debate whether LaPorta is going to succeed long term, but the core of this team is strong.

Just think, the Indians could potentially go into 2012 with Sizemore batting seventh and Chisenhall eighth. There’s little expectation out of those two spots; if they even live up to half of their potential, we’d be in great shape.

So there’s no need to panic now. Jimenez gives us an ace at the top of the rotation and should continue to be the guy we saw Friday night, not the one that pitched before that.

The time for melodrama is over; the Indians made a good (and potentially great) deal getting Jimenez and (hopefully) will reap the benefits of it soon.