Cleveland Indians Sign Robbie Grossman, Felipe Paulino to Minor League Deals

The Cleveland Indians Continue to Underwhelm with Their Off-Season Moves

Yesterday saw the Cleveland Indians made a few minor additions today by adding Robbie Grossman and Felipe Paulino on minor league contracts, as written by Zack Meisel of Cleveland.com (Link 1, Link 2). This continues the trail of minor moves made by the front office. So far the Tribe have yet to make a big splash in a talent-rich off-season.

Grossman, 26, has played 190 games for the Houston Astros over the past three seasons. The outfielder has never really made a big impact, and he is pretty much a replacement level player. Over the course of his career, he has hit for neither power nor average, and his defense and baserunning are quite average. These suggest that this addition is quite lackluster.

This said Grossman has the potential to yield a positive return on this minimal investment. His underlying statistics have trended in the right direction, and his contact rate suggests that he should strikeout around 18% of the time – a far cry from last year’s 31.5% mark.   Even further, he only hit 6.5% of his batted balls as line drives last year, suggesting an improvement in the offensive department.

As for the other addition, Felipe Paulino is a 32-year-old starting pitcher who has not pitched in the major leagues since 2014. Since first appearing in the majors in 2007, the right-hander has logged just over 400 innings with a career earned run average of 5.22. Advanced metrics like FIP, fielder independent pitching, and xFIP paint more positive views on his work and suggest ERAs in the low fours.

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Paulino once threw hard, but he has seen his average fastball velocity drop to 93 miles per hour in 2014. He relies on his fastball and slider for the majority of his work, but he also mixes in a curveball and changeup. None of his pitches are above average, which leads me to the conclusion that Paulino will be little more than depth in the case of an emergency.