Cleveland Indians: Shopping the Non-Tender Free Agents

The free agent market will fill up with non-tendered free agents, and it’s the time for many teams to try and grab a bargain. Is there one out there for the Cleveland Indians?

Non-tendered free agents are baseball’s equivalent of the clearance rack at the department store. You don’t want to shop there for a job interview, but the sweater that costs eighty bucks now might be on that rack for twenty in a month if you can be patient. So it is with free agents. If Ben Zobrist is too expensive for you, maybe Pedro Alvarez will give you sixty per cent of what Zobrist can for twenty per cent of the price.

This week was the deadline for teams to tender contract offers to their arbitration eligible players, and some prominent names were on the list of those not tendered. For a team like the Indians, this presents an opportunity to acquire a talented player at a bargain price. Because of the dire need for power, the two that immediately sparked some interest were Alvarez, late of the Pirates, and Chris Carter, formerly of the Astros.

These are two very large men with the ability to hit lots of home runs and endure soul-crushing slumps. Both are major defensive liabilities; Carter could play first for a week if needed and leftfield if absolutely necessary while Alvarez’ glove should go on E-Bay. Carter has 619 at bats as a DH and generally hits better when not playing the field while Alvarez has been in the National League and may or may not adjust well to not playing a defensive position.

Carter bats right and has roughly similar numbers against both right handed and left handed pitchers. Alvarez bats left and would fare much better with a platoon partner. Alvarez can be a free agent in one year while Carter would be under team control for three – that isn’t really important; neither is likely to sign a multiyear deal while their bargaining power is low, and if either plays well he will price himself out Cleveland’s range after one season. Carter is two months older than Alvarez.

All of that appears to point to Carter being the better option, but one thing that stands out to me is that in 2015 Carter’s OPS was more than two hundred points higher at home. This is in stark contrast to his first year in Houston, 2013, when his road OPS was more than three hundred points higher than at home.

What does this tell us? Possibly nothing, but my guess would be that Carter went through a year of watching his best swings turn into outs because of Minute Maid Park’s massive center field and adjusted his swing to pull the ball toward the inviting leftfield wall. Would the same approach work in Progressive Field? Hard to say, but when in doubt my inclination would be to say that a player who changes teams would be more likely to replicate his road stats than his home stats, which would be a red flag when considering Carter. Alvarez, by way of contrast, has a road OPS that is seventy points higher than his home figure since 2013.

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Like all things involving the Indians, this will come down to money. If these guys were coming off their best years, though, they wouldn’t be available, so to some extent this should be about upside. Carter has never posted a WAR above two; Alvarez posted a WAR of 2.6 in 2012 and 3.4 in 2013. If Alvarez’ exposure to left-handed pitching can be limited he is a good bet to post an OPS above .800, so a straight platoon at DH with Chris Johnson (OPS of .904 against lefthanders since 2013) would yield good results.

Next: Cowgill is far from an answer

With the expected exodus of Ryan Raburn and Mike Aviles and Lonnie Chisenhall slated for significant playing time unless multiple outfielders are acquired (no, Collin Cowgill doesn’t fix anything), Alvarez would make the Indians even more left-leaning. That’s a concern, but it shouldn’t be a reason to take a lesser player.

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