Of the many roster decisions the Indians will have to make this off-season, perhaps the player with the biggest range of possibilities is Lonnie Chisenhall. Going into 2014, Chisenhall was entering his fourth Major League season with a career line of .244/.284/.411 and just 23 home runs and 74 RBI, but he added another 13 homers and 59 RBI with a line of .280/.343/.427. This was perfect timing for Chisenhall as he looks ahead to his first season of arbitration in 2015. The corollary is, of course, that the Indians will almost certainly have to pay him more for the 2014 as he has changed from a part time, low level producer (between $700K and $2M) into a starting Major League third baseman worth closer to $6 million.
No matter what the Indians decide to do with Chisenhall this year, there is some risk involved. The options are essentially to wait it out until his arbitration hearing, to sign him for a single season prior to February, to sign him long term (would likely be through arbitration plus one or two years of free agency, so about 2019) or to trade him. The risk here is that if the Indians are too conservative, by allowing him to go to arbitration or trading him, it could wind up that this season was just the starting point to an All-Star career. Of course, if they put millions of dollars on the table, it could turn out that Chisenhall just had a couple of lucky months and will return to his pre-2014 ability level in the future. Since it is impossible to predict which of these will be the case, the Indians will have to use top level risk assessment when decided which route to choose.
There is no question that Chisenhall has talent and a high ceiling as he was the Indians top prospect from the time he was drafted in 2008 until his debut in 2011. Just being a top prospect, however, means very little towards ultimate results from that player. Going back to the early 2000’s, there are two perfect examples of this. One hitter batted .279/.336/.494 in his rookie season, blasting 22 home runs with 75 RBI. A second batter hit just .228/.297/.322 with four home runs and 23 RBI in his first two seasons. The first batter would go on to hit .255/.321/.412 in five seasons over the next seven years with just 37 more home runs and 151 more RBI. The second would become a two time All-Star who hit 177 home runs in his still productive 12 year MLB career. The first was the oft-injured Jody Gerut, the second, the much hated Jhonny Peralta. In 2003, when both were rookies, if the Indians had picked one to sign long term and one to release, they would have almost certainly made the wrong choice.
Avoiding making that wrong choice with Chisenhall needs to be a top priority. The most lucrative option with him could be to attempt to move him during the off-season. He is one of very few trade-able pieces on the team as most are under too team friendly contracts to consider moving while a few others (like Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn and Ryan Raburn) are wanted by no one. What the Indians need, like a power hitter or front end starting pitcher, will likely be priced far above Chisenhall, meaning it would cost someone like Clint Frazier with Chisenhall as a throw in. If this is the case, the Indians would be better keeping him around as he has at least a small percentage of a chance to become that power hitter they need.
Another option could be even more costly. If the Indians decide to buy out his arbitration years as they have recently done with Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis and Yan Gomes it would likely cost them at least $17M over the next five years. While this is still less than a single great hitter could get per season, those types of hitters are completely out of the Indians price range anyway. If the Indians were a team that could afford to make a $17M mistake, then retaining Chisenhall like this would simplify things and guarantee his talents would stay in Cleveland, but they simply are not. The risk is far too high at this point for the limited savings they could gain by not waiting until 2016 to make a decision.
This leaves the best option for the Indians, at this point at least, to simply wait things out and sign him for a single season at a time. There is enough of a chance for him to be a breakout star in 2015 to retain his services rather than trade him, but not enough to guarantee his millionaire status quite yet. Confirming this status is the fact that the Indians don’t have any other Major League ready third basemen at the moment, but could by the end of the season. With Francisco Lindor and Giovanny Urshela waiting in AAA and Jose Ramirez already a proven defensive asset, the Indians could have completely different left side of the infield by the end of next year. If this is the case, they don’t want to owe Chisenhall a pile of money to be a part time DH, since they already did that once recently.
Looking deeper into saving money, the Indians could use the fact that Chisenhall is under team control for cheap in 2015 as a way to legitimize letting Mike Aviles go, rather than using his $3.5M team option. An infield of Carlos Santana, Jason Kipnis, Francisco Lindor and Lonnie Chisenhall with Ramirez as a utility man and Urshela waiting in Columbus would be a strong combination of offense and defense, especially with the option of Chisenhall as a DH. It is definitely good enough of a reason to keep him around for now, just not for the next decade.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
