Seven Little Piggies: The Indians AFL Results

The short season of the Arizona Fall League has come to a close as it gets cold everywhere, even in the desert. This season, the Cleveland Indians changed affiliate clubs from the Surprise Saguaros to the Peoria Javelinas, although they kept the same home field in Surprise (the Spring Training home of the Rangers and Royals). Along with the Indians, the Javelinas were made of players from the Braves, Royals, Rays and Cardinals. The Tribe had seven players represent Cleveland in the desert in addition to the Akron Rubberducks manager, Dave Wallace, who was a coach. These included Advanced A pitcher Dylan Baker, AA players Jordan Smith, Louis Head, Grant Sides and Tony Wolters along with AAA players Francisco Lindor and Nick Maronde.

Pitchers

Nick Maronde

Maronde was a late season pick up from the Angels in 2014 and after a disappointing minor league campaign across four levels and two teams, played for the Javelinas despite having Major League experience. Across all levels in 2014, Maronde pitched in 41 innings with an ERA of 7.24, although he did strike out 49 batters. Pitching against batters from Rookie ball to AAA should have prepared Maronde well for Fall Ball, but he was even worse. Still entirely in relief, he gave up an ERA of 8.36 with 20 hits allowed in 14 innings. At the age of 24, Maronde will have a hard time breaking into the dominant Indians bullpen with numbers like these. The Indians didn’t pay much to acquire Maronde, so there is little reason to force anything, but at the moment it is easy to see why Los Angeles gave up on him.

Dylan Baker

Baker was the only Indians starting pitcher on the Javelina roster, coming out of a decent season in Advanced A Carolina. In nine starts there, he posted an ERA of 4.05 and like many pitchers in the AFL, he missed time due to injury. He was one of the top starters for Peoria this fall and should now see little issue with a promotion to AA Akron to start 2015.

Louis Head

Head has only been with the Indians for three seasons, but has already distinguished himself as a top relief prospect. In the past season with Akron and Carolina he threw 56.2 innings, striking out 73 with an ERA of 2.70. Over all levels, he has an impressive 9.5 K/9 through his first 172.1 career innings and appears to be on the fast track to the Major Leagues. At 24, Head is likely using the AFL season to prepare himself for the jump to AAA in 2015 and he has impressed, although he has been very limited in action. With 14 relievers in the Peoria bullpen, it is very difficult to get them all significant innings and Head pitched in just ten games.

Grant Sides

Sides was a solid reliever for the Mudcats in 2014 with a late promotion to Akron, where he appeared in just a single game. He will likely return to the Rubberducks in 2015 as he did nothing wrong this fall to deserve demotion. In fact, he was the third best reliever on the Javelinas, posting a 1.59 ERA in 11.1 innings while striking out 13. As always, it is important not to make too much out of AFL numbers as they are very small sample size and against varied opponents, but Sides production was still positive.

Batters

Tony Wolters

Wolters was the only Indian to play in the AFL in both 2013 and 2014 and, while better than last season, was still a bit disappointing. One problem was that, yet again, he was the team’s third catcher. The entire purpose of his playing an extended season is to acclimate him to a new position (he is now a catcher after being a middle infielder initially) and he was only able to get into 15 games. After batting just .249/.319/.314 in AA this past season, his .255/.333/.309 line in Arizona doesn’t seem very far from what should be expected. Most likely, he will get another year in Akron in 2015, where he can get the playing time he has been unable to in Surprise.

Jordan Smith

Smith just finished his fourth season in the Indians organization and after putting together a solid season in Carolina in 2013, had trouble adjusting to AA this year. In 126 games he batted just .248 with two home runs and nine steals after taking 18 bases the year before. In addition to being stuck behind many outfielders in the Indians farm system (like Tyler Naquin, Carlos Moncrief and James Ramsey), Smith was competing with five other outfielders for starts with Peoria, managing to play in just 17 games. While he did finish with the third highest average on the team, he showed little else of merit and was caught stealing twice to just one successful attempt. Unless trades thin out the outfield situation, expect a return to Akron in 2015 for Smith.

Francisco Lindor

For most Indians fans, Lindor was the only reason to care about the Arizona Fall League at all this year. The former first round draft pick made his AAA debut in 2014 and will most likely become the Indians starting short stop at some point in the 2015 season. Considered by many to be the number one short stop prospect in all of baseball, Lindor needed only to work on his hitting skills and because of this, he was often used as the DH for the Javelinas with the number two short stop prospect, Raul Mondesi, Jr. getting the majority of starts on the field. As the regular lead-off hitter, Lindor lead the team in runs scored, but still showed there was plenty of work as far as getting on base is concerned. He was solid enough to be the Indians sole representative in the AFL All-Star game and as said before, there shouldn’t be too much made of his Fall numbers. He is still on schedule to get an invite to Spring Training in 2015 and if he plays well there, it will be very hard to keep him off the Major League roster to start the season.

It would be a disservice to discuss the Javelinas and not mention a few of the other stars on the team of which the Indians are just one fifth. Already mentioned, Raul Mondesi (the son of the former MLB outfielder of the same name) is also a slick defender at short and the Indians will likely see a lot of him in the future as he just finished a season in Advanced A with the Royals. At just 18 years old, he has shown a lot of flash in Arizona against players much older than himself. Another high A Royal, Miguel Almonte, was the Javelinas second best pitcher, striking out 16 in 19 innings with a 2.84 ERA across four starts and three relief appearances. The top player overall for the Javelinas was another Advanced A player from Missouri, although the East side instead of the West. Tyrell Jenkins of the Cardinals organization lead the team with 24.1 innings and a 2.22 ERA in six starts.

With all this impressive talent, the Peoria Javelinas managed a 15-14-3 finish just squeaking by the Suprise Saguaros by a tenth of a percent, despite the fact that Surprise won one more game. The Javelinas will compete in the AFL championship game (the Saguaros, who the Indians were with in 2014 won in 2013) against the 17-11-4 Salt River Rafters at Scottsdale Stadium tonight at 1:08 PM Mountain time (11:08 AM Eastern).