Is It Time To Give Up On Lonnie?

Sunday night, the Indians finally were so fed up with the lack of production from the left side of the infield that they sent the whole thing down to AAA, promoting Giovanny Urshela and Zach Walters in their stead. Even more than Francisco Lindor, proponents of the advancement of Urshela have a primary motivation of making an improvement at the Major League level rather than seeing a super star of the future. Just because Lonnie Chisenhall is gone from the roster for the moment doesn’t mean he is gone forever and it is important to look now at what we could possibly expect in the future from the former first round pick.

The 2014 campaign was a breakthrough for Chisenhall as he started the year as a reserve third baseman, a similar situation to how he began the 2013 season, but this time, he was able to earn a starting job. Combined with the struggles of Carlos Santana both offensively and defensively at the hot corner, Chisenhall earned that starting job by batting .393 from April 2nd through June 11th including three hitting streaks of at least eight games, seven home runs, 17 doubles, 32 RBI and even a couple steals.

He never lost his position after that, including to the present time after starting 2015 as the primary third baseman for the first time in his career. Unfortunately, after playing so well as a part timer the first two months of 2014, he hasn’t played anywhere near that level ever since.

The chart above shows something of interest when trying to figure out what exactly to expect from Chisenhall in the future. Broken down, the top row is his line from a single game against the Rangers on June 9th last season, the second line contains his cumulative totals from April 2nd through June 11th that year, the third the rest of his 2014 season and the fourth his total career numbers including 2015. What should be most interesting is the final row. This takes his career numbers and removes that span from early 2014.

In his career, Chisenhall has been a 4.8 WAR player, but 1.4 of that came in 2014 and most came early in the season. His career numbers aren’t great down the line, but they have to be considered acceptable, particularly with his increase in defensive prowess during the 2015 season so far. Removing April and May of 2014, his career numbers look downright dreadful. Chisenhall was aided by an unsustainable .428 BABIP during that stretch and those two months alone have raised his average, OBP and slugging percent by more than 20 points each. Brooks Robinson couldn’t have played defense well enough to support a .233/.281/.374 slash line as a third baseman.

Runs batted in are a terrible representation of actual run production as they have more to do with opportunity than ability and they are included for that reason. Chisenhall’s RBI numbers aren’t that bad considering he has been a late in the order hitter most of his career, but the reason the numbers are included in the chart is to displace any thoughts of the elusive “clutch” gene from Chisenhall. He did knock in 32 runs in 53 games during April and June of 2014, but even then, nine of those came in a single game. He was lucky enough to have seven runners on when he came up during the game of his life and cleared the bases three times with a three run home run and a pair of two pointers. Three more RBI came in the first game of that series with Texas with another three run home run. Very little of these 12 RBI had anything to do with Chisenhall himself, just that he got lucky to have so many runners on when he got hot.

Beyond a short period in 2014, there is the further question of what we should have expected from Chisenhall in the first place. He was drafted in the first round in 2008 (29th overall) out of Pitt Community College and, other than T.J. House, has been the only player from that draft to do anything of note. In the minors the year before he was promoted, Chisenhall was a .278/.351/.450 hitter for the Akron Aeros in AA. That doesn’t seem much to get excited about for a top prospect at that level, but Chisenhall’s name came from his first round selection and he was promoted to AAA. At no level above Mahoning Valley had he ever batted above .280 until 2012, when he was essentially a Major Leaguer playing in AAA.

Looking back, he was a high strike out, mid-power hitting, poor defensive third baseman. He was highly rated more because of the prestige of being a first round pick than anything he did particularly in the minors. With that in mind, being a near .230 career hitter at the Major League level isn’t all that surprising. If there are truly no other options available, as has been the case for the past two seasons, then Chisenhall is a suitable, near replacement level starting option, but as soon as something better is around, the Indians wouldn’t be giving up too much to move him out of the spotlight.

Placing that spotlight on Urshela, he not only has better minor league numbers at every level than Chisenhall did, but he has already played more at AAA than Chisenhall did before his promotion. If Chisenhall was considered a power prospect for his 22 home runs in 2009 and 17 in 2010, then Urshela should be considered the same after 14 in 2012 (mostly in Carolina) and 18 last season, most of which came after his promotion to AAA. At the same time, Urshela has been a solid defender the whole time and hits for a better average as well.

There is still time for Chisenhall to make some adjustments and improve his hitting as he improved his defense this year, but now that there is another option, the clock has started. It wouldn’t be difficult for Urshela to be a better hitter than Chisenhall even this year and he should definitely be a more valuable player in years to come. Chisenhall could still be a serviceable pinch hitter/corner utility man, replacing David Murphy in the future, but as a starter, there is little proof that he will ever be much more than he is right now.