Full disclosure: I am the absolute last person to advocate calling up a prospect before they’re absolutely ready. For a team like the Indians, I am 100% on board with getting the best years out of prospects and that means making sure they are ready to contribute when they come up. But, while waiting for Brantley to come back, why not take a shot to play for this year and next.
So far, the Indians right field platoon of Marlon Byrd and Lonnie Chisenhall and patchwork outfield isn’t dragging them down. Jose Ramirez has to play everyday somewhere and Rajai Davis has had enough good streaks to cancel out some of the bad. Michael Martinez made a Yasiel Puig throw the other day. Clearly they have more pressing needs (like a bullpen arm, but that’s another story for another day) and just need Michael Brantley back. While many clamor for Tyler Naquin’s .317 average and .472 BABIP (32.3 K% as well) and the Indians to use Chisenhall to spell Davis in center field, there are better options.
It would mean doing something the Indians haven’t done with a high profile draft pick since CC Sabathia and Jaret Wright. Jumping a top prospect from AA directly to the majors, that prospect being Clint Frazier.
It would be a highly, highly aggressive move for the Indians. Yes, they put a rush on guys like Cody Allen, Kyle Crockett and Cody Anderson to a point, but they weren’t high profile, high ceiling risks. Allen was someone they weren’t grooming to be a starter and already had a skill set to play a bullpen role. Crockett has been a marginal middle reliever so far and Anderson was a flyer they hoped to develop.
Frazier on the other hand has quick wrists, bat speed you cannot teach and an intensity to his game that the Indians haven’t had in quite some time.
I argued over and over with people who wanted Francisco Lindor up ahead of Jose Ramirez (and now both are huge contributors) that Lindor wasn’t ready. People want to think would have posted 7.0 win season had he played more than 99 games, discounting the 400 PAs he got in Triple-A between 2014 and 2015. I will truly always believe that is not the case.
Before the season started, most thought fellow first round draft pick and Akron RubberDuck Bradley Zimmer would be the prospect the Indians were more likely to call up in 2016. While Zimmer continues to be a productive player, Frazier has gotten off to a fast start in his first go-around in Double-A and hasn’t slowed, looking like he’s maybe gotten ahead of Zimmer in terms of prospect status. The common theory has always been that Frazier has a higher ceiling, but less likely to get to the peak, while Zimmer has the higher floor, but less upside. Both can be long-term first division starters in the outfield, something the Indians haven’t had since the 1990’s.
Frazier’s adjustments and sustained numbers have started to raise the questions of a promotion to Triple-A and possibly head up I-77 some time this year
The Case For Frazier
First and foremost, Frazier abandoned the leg kick that he used to start 2014 and 2015 that got him off to slow starts. He’s now using a toe-tap full time as a timing mechanism and it’s hard to argue that it hasn’t worked. In the process, it’s allowed him to cut his strikeout rate from a crippling 29.7% in 2014 to a sustainable 19.1% in 188 plate appearances. Before you can talk about sample size, cutting your strikeout rate in under two years by 10% and being able to do it once you get to Double-A level, where players begin to either get weeded out or show their ability to adjust, shows Frazier has not only changed his timing mechanism, but also his approach. His 12.2% BB rate is also a career high. Being able to make that change in his approach and translate it to success at the Double-A level is one key marker that suggests the light has kind of come on for Frazier.
While there were discussions in April about his hot start and ascent as the Indians top prospect over Zimmer, who was universally thought to be at that time because of the aforementioned high floor. I was skeptical about waiting to see how the league adjusted to Frazier, figuring the reports on him would begin to circulate, they’d find weak spots and he’d have to adjust yet again. It’s also important to note that at 21 years of age, Frazier is four years younger than the average age of players in the Eastern League. A huge difference and the biggest age difference he’s seen in his pro career.
However, here are some interesting things about Frazier facing teams the second and third times thus far.
- He was 5-13 against Bowie to open the season. He was 6-16 the second time around.
- He was 2-12 in the first series against Binghamton, 3-8 second time, and 4-12 the third time. Frazier has sustained and been better against teams the second and third time seeing them.
- He’s also had a streak this year where he walked in five straight games and 10 of 11.
Minor league BABIPs are weird, but he’s been .372, .348 and now .373 in his full seasons. Also of weird note on his success, his ground ball rate is up to 47.7% from 35.1 last year. His fly ball and line drive rates are also not as high as they had been. Does that says there’s a little smoke and mirrors going on with his numbers or is this just an indicator in change in approach. He also has made just one error this season while playing all over the outfield.
There is precedent too. Frazier’s makeup isn’t the typical “off the charts” you’d hear about. It is extremely good, but he’s a fiery player that works hard because he hates being beaten. By his own admission, he needed to go through the struggles he did to make his adjustments. In the last few years, players such as Kyle Schwarber, Michael Conforto and Carlos Correa were either fast tracked or skipped Triple-A completely. Those are All-Star and possible MVP candidates, but that was also the kind of things scouts talked about for Frazier should he graze his ceiling. He’s standing quite tall now.
The Case Against Frazier
Does calling up Frazier to play center field today, tomorrow or next week make the Indians a better team at any point in 2016? That’s tough to say. There’s a huge difference between facing top pitching prospects in Double-A and facing the Chris Sale’s of the MLB (although if you’re the Indians, that’s apparently not hard).
While it’s tough to say how he’d fare against established major league pitching, what’s not tough to say is the clock control game. There’s no way to dance around it. While Frazier is far from a finished product, the Indians smartly still want to get his best baseball out of him. If he reaches his full potential, it’s possible one day Frazier prices himself out of Cleveland’s budget. Maybe by then the MLB reaches some sort of fairer TV contract/revenue model where teams like Cleveland can compete for large contracts, but they aren’t likely to plan for that.
Maybe Frazier’s linebacker intensity and loud tools bring so many fans through the turnstiles, they can finally afford to pay a player that kind of money, but if Frazier is going to play well enough to put butts in seats, the Indians need his best baseball. That means five years of his best being ages 23-28 and not 22-27 and letting him hit free agency early. He’s likely to have more peak performance years by waiting than rushing and the Indians need that kind of production to succeed in their model.
Is It Time For Big Red?
Based on Frazier’s struggles for the first time in his baseball career in Lake County and Lynchburg and how it helped him grow as a player, given his work ethic, maturity and ability to make quick adjustments thus far, struggling at the Major League level doesn’t seem likely to hurt his chances at succeeding in the future like it could for some. His psyche is far from fragile and his ability to overcome those first time struggles prove lack of confidence is not an issue.
It’s also not as if the outfield of Ramirez, Brantley at some point hopefully, Davis and Byrd are dragging the Indians down. After all, they did just hand Sale his first loss of the season and knocked him out after 3 ⅓ innings. Byrd and Davis have had big moments and Ramirez is now an established big leaguer. If Brantley doesn’t make it back this year however, that’s a large void that could be hard to overcome long term. A bat like Frazier, if he’s able to adjust at the major league level, could be a huge difference maker. Frazier was out of the lineup on Tuesday after a leg cramp caused him to exit the game after a double on Monday. If he gets back in the lineup soon, continues to show these mature adjustments through the month of June, a trip down to Columbus is warranted and possibly Cleveland at some point this season. If he continues to force the issue, for once, the Indians should take the risk if the opportunity is there to see if a rookie can blossom in the majors. It worked pretty well for Wright (briefly) and Sabathia, although they had big offenses backing them. This time, however, Frazier would have a veteran team and a pretty good pitching staff around him to fall back on.
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