Indians will feel loss of underappreciated Garko

By SHELDON OCKER

CHICAGO — Looking forward with one eye on the rearview mirror.

Of all the players the Cleveland Indians traded the past six weeks, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez obviously will be the toughest to replace. But the player whose value has been most overlooked is Ryan Garko.

For whatever reasons, neither General Manager Mark Shapiro nor manager Eric Wedge has been a big fan of Garko’s over the past four years, since he began his transformation from catcher to first baseman.

I’m not sure if their unhappiness with Garko stemmed from the quality of his workmanship around the bag or something else (I don’t think it was based on the overblown incident of him failing to run out a ball he thought was foul last year). Regardless of their rationale, Garko was the guy who would instantly fall out of favor if he went into a slump, made a couple of errors or had a dirt smudge on his hat.

Managers and front office executives will swear up and down their computer keyboards that personnel decisions are never personal. Don’t believe it.

So let’s get down to why Garko was traded.

One explanation: He was eligible for arbitration that might raise his salary from $446,000 to as much as $2 million.

But the way Wedge used him — as an irregular who seldom was in the lineup three days in a row until a few weeks before he was traded — worked against Garko’s ability to amass numbers that would impress an arbitrator.

Undoubtedly, Shapiro thinks that Garko’s bat, and certainly his glove, can easily be replaced by one of the Tribe’s prospects: Matt LaPorta or even Chris Gimenez.

But at 28, Garko also is young, four years older than LaPorta and only two years older than Gimenez. More important, regardless of the potential of those two players, it is impossible to know whether they will turn into productive big-leaguers.

I’m sure the Indians’ deep thinkers would disagree, but Garko already has proven he can be a valuable hitter if he is allowed to be in the lineup every day, which he probably will be with his new employer, the San Francisco Giants.

Garko has a flair for driving in runs. He put that attribute on display almost from Day 1 of his career with the Indians. Since his big-league debut, Garko has driven in runs at the rate of one of every six at-bats. In a 550-at-bat season, that’s 92 RBI.

His problem: Garko didn’t always receive regular playing time. If he had, his ratio of RBI to at-bats might be even better.

So will Garko’s loss come back to bite the Indians where it hurts? Nobody knows for sure, but why would Shapiro put himself in a position where he has to find out?

Lineup stability

Now that the practice has stopped, it’s no longer a mystery why Wedge continually moved players from position to position.

Much of the rationale for the strategy was based on the manager’s desire to do two things: find a way to get Kelly Shoppach more time behind the plate, and make sure that Mark DeRosa was in the lineup almost every game.

Once DeRosa was traded and Shoppach was reassigned to bench sitting, players could go back to mostly playing one position.

But when Shoppach was catching, Martinez was shifted to first base and Garko was moved to left field or the bench. To get DeRosa in the lineup, Wedge used him at third, first, left and right. Of course, that affected the way Ben Francisco and Shin-Soo Choo were used, as well as Garko.

Things are more serene these days. Jhonny Peralta always plays third, Asdrubal Cabrera always plays short, and Luis Valbuena and Jamey Carroll platoon at second. Andy Marte is auditioning at first.

With Francisco having been traded, Gimenez and Trevor Crowe, who also is getting a tryout, share left, Grady Sizemore always plays center and Choo is in right virtually every game.

The only position without a regular is catcher, where Shoppach must share time equally with Wyatt Toregas and Gimenez.

How ironic is it that the man who was Cliff Lee’s personal catcher and at one point this season had caught more games than Martinez is stuck behind two rookies, one of whom (Gimenez) is considered a super utility player whose third position is catcher?

Maybe Wedge has no alternative, but isn’t he making it more difficult for Marte to show he has become a big-league hitter by forcing him to play an unfamiliar position?

Marte is a third baseman by trade. During his tenure at Triple-A Columbus this year, he played first base only six times, yet that is where he is being asked to play in his final chance to remain Indians property.

If Marte does not demonstrate that he has turned the corner as a hitter, he will not be added to the winter 40-man roster. If he is not on the roster, he can become a minor-league free agent and make a deal with any team he wishes.

That certainly doesn’t spell doom for the Tribe. Marte already had a two-month trial last year and failed to impress anyone. But he tore up International League pitching this season, necessitating that he be brought up to see if he has learned something new or has merely mastered the inferior pitching he faced in Triple-A.

But as a novice first baseman, Marte might be worrying about his defense, which could rob him of his concentration at the plate. That is not to say he is trying to do the impossible, but it stands to reason that he would have a better chance to prove himself if he were playing a more familiar position.

That said, Wedge was not about to bench Peralta for the rest of the season so Marte can play third. At least Marte is getting a chance to play every day.