Should the Indians Exercise Aviles’ Option?

The Cleveland Indians will have a few hard decisions to make, regarding personnel and one of the first of these should involve Mike Aviles. Unlike all but one other member of the final 40 man roster for the Indians, Aviles is not officially under contract for the 2015 season. Rather, the super utility man has a single option year left from his contract that he signed shortly after joining the Indians. Aviles initially came to Cleveland in an odd set of trades, beginning the 2012 off-season with the Red Sox, but being sent to Toronto in exchange for their new manager, John Farrell. After just a couple weeks with the Blue Jays, he was sent to Cleveland along with Yan Gomes for relief pitcher Esmil Rodgers.

Aviles signed a two year deal in February of 2013 to avoid his final two years of arbitration, keeping him around for $1.75M in 2013 and $3M in 2014. In addition, he has an option going into 2015 of $3.5M with a $250K buy out if they don’t use the option. It may seem obvious at first glance for the Indians to quickly bring Aviles back into the fold for 2014, but two things the Indians are short on, roster space and offense, will not be aided by Aviles.

Officially, Aviles is a utility man, but he has been much more for the Indians during the past two seasons. When Asdrubal Cabrera went down with injury, it was Aviles who became the starting short stop. When Carlos Santana proved unable to play third base, Aviles was the first one out of the dugout to replace him, where he formed a platoon with Lonnie Chisenhall, batting against left handed pitchers. Even when the Indians dealt with multiple injuries to outfielders, including Michael Bourn in center field, Aviles was available to become the starting center fielder. In all, he has played games at each infield position except first and catcher, all three outfield positions and DH (the complete breakdown is listed at right).

There is no question that Aviles is the type of dedicated, versatile player that every manager wants, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t without faults. To start, like a reserve catcher, the utility infielder’s primary job is to play solid defense first and provide an offensive spark second. While he was solid in 2013, more time in the outfield (-6.4 UZR) and third base (-1.6 UZR) made him less enjoyable to watch on defense. While Aviles remains above average at short stop (1.5 UZR), the Indians have two incredibly gifted athletes that are essentially Major League ready at short stop set for 2015. Jose Ramirez has already proven himself during the past two seasons as a slick defender and while he may not bring the bat that the Indians would prefer, Francisco Lindor has both and is almost ready in AAA.

Assuming he will not be needed as a regular at second, short or third base barring injury, Aviles will be a true reserve in 2015. In each of the past three seasons, Aviles has played more than 110 games, making him more starter than reserve and he has responded with a .250/.279/.366 line with 27 home runs and 145 RBI in 373 games. In addition, as he has continued into his 30’s, those production numbers have fallen off each season, dropping from 13 to nine to five home runs in the past three years and from 60 to 46 to 39 RBI.

With his back story in place, it is time to see if the dollars make sense. As he allowed more runs than the average defender at almost every position, Aviles had a negative defensive WAR in 2014 and as could be expected, he also had a negative oRAR of -10.8 according to fangraphs.com. In fact, the only positive part of his game was his base running which was worth 2.3 more runs than a replacement player. Combined, he was rated slightly below the average AAA replacement, meaning his actual paycheck should be in a similar range, somewhere between $550K and $600K. Instead, he is slated to make ten times this amount if the Indians use his option for 2015.

One failure in comparing actual Major League players to average replacement players is that not every team’s replacement players are average. In the Indians case, they are vastly superior. Ramirez, for example, finished 2014 with a UZR of 8, make him considerably more effective than Aviles at keeping runs from scoring. Lindor is expected to be even better with the glove and will likely be the starting short stop by the end of 2015. If this is the case, Ramirez and Aviles will be competing for the same job as Ramirez can play all of the positions Aviles can, but at a superior level. In addition, Ramirez is better offensively (-4.4 oWAR compared to -10.8 from Aviles) and equal on the bases. Possibly most importantly, Aviles is set to be paid $3.5M for his age 34 season (and his final under team control) while Ramirez isn’t even arbitration eligible until 2017 and will be 22 years old in 2015.

When considering using that option, roster space has to be a pivotal argument. In addition to Ramirez and Lindor, there were a couple other stand outs that were able to stick around late into the season due to the expanded roster. Tyler Holt and Zach Walters both deserve a chance to make the team during Spring Training, but there will only be room for a couple bench players. Assuming an eight man bullpen (which the Indians carried for most of 2014) and Roberto Perez as reserve catcher, there will be space for just two more bench players. With the starting positions locked up as well, these two spots will need to be decided between Ryan Raburn, Tyler Holt, Zach Walters, Lindor and Aviles. There is no question that the most talented players in that group are Holt and Lindor, coincidentally, the two with the most potential as well. While Lindor will likely begin 2015 in AAA, he will almost certainly make his debut during the season. The question then is, “is it worth paying Mike Aviles $3.5 million for a month as a bench player?”

The answer to this is almost certainly, no. Bringing Aviles back may seem obvious, but it would be another mistake that would only keep much more talented players out of games and off the team. One possibility would be to sign and trade Aviles as there could be other teams willing to pay that $3.5M to retain his services, but wouldn’t want to bid on him as a free agent. If this was the case, the Indians could benefit by grabbing another prospect, but there is little chance of Aviles providing anything positive to the Indians in 2015 in any other way.