Manny Acta: Five Scouting Reports

The Indians lack depth, but there’s no disputing that Cleveland has a promising core group of young position players. The foursome of Asdrubal Cabrera, Lonnie Chisenhall, Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana range in age from 23 to 26, and each has the potential to become a perennial All-Star. Indians skipper Manny Acta shared his thoughts on each of them, as well as on 29-year-old Shin-Soo Choo.

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Acta on second baseman Jason Kipnis: “This guy is just a full package of energy. He’s a really competitive kid that can swing the bat and is not intimidated at all. Everybody knew that whenever he got up to the big leagues he was going to be able to compete offensively, and he showed that.

“He sees pitches and knows the strike zone very well. Left-handed pitchers don’t bother him; he hangs in there very well against them. He’s not afraid to bunt or to run. He’s aggressive on the bases.

“I actually labeled him last year as being between Dustin Pedroia and Chase Utley. I don’t want this to get misinterpreted — he reminds me of those guys. On the offensive side, as a left-handed hitter, I look at what Utley has done. The defense that Pedroia brings — he’s still not there, because he hasn’t had the time and the experience to be at that level. But I think he’s between those guys with what he’s probably going to be able to accomplish. He’s going to be in double digits for home runs and he’s going able to hit a ton of doubles and score a ton of runs. He’s just gritty and gutsy, playing the game all around like those two guys are.”

“We know that he’s a work-in-progress, defensively. He does show tremendous range. He’s a very good athlete. I can see this guy being an above-average second baseman someday.

“[Making him a better defensive player] is part of our challenge. He’s such an important part of our team. He’s in the same boat as Lonnie [Chisenhall] in that he has to come to spring training and earn that job. But this is a guy who just gets it done. He won’t take no for an answer. He works his butt off and in spring training, and he’s going to work as hard as he can to put the “work-in-progress” label behind him when it comes to his [defense] at second base.

“If you’ve worked with infielders, you can probably see that he’s rough around the edges doing some things, but he also made some plays for us that we felt that a lot of everyday second basemen in the big leagues don’t make. We’ve seen him make a lot of progress.”

On shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera: “I think Asdrubal is going to be huge for [Kipnis] as a calming influence. He’s been around and everybody looks up to him now because of the maturity level he has shown. He also played a lot of second base before going to shortstop. I think they developed a good rapport last year when they were together the last couple of months. I feel that he’s going to be able to help [Kipnis] a lot.

“It’s tough to point out exactly why, but [the reason for Cabrera’s breakout season] started in spring training. He does have some raw power and Orlando [Cabrera] was a big influence on him — in spring training — about not being so conscious about the batting average. He got him to try to be more of a run producer. Orlando sold him on that. He kind of told him, ‘Hey, you don’t have to sacrifice that much batting average. You’re talented enough to do both.’ It’s about the approach and the situation, and Asdrubal kind of started that in spring training. You could see him picking his spots — like when he was ahead in the count, or sometimes on the first pitch in certain situations. He would take those swings when he was looking for [a pitch].

“At the end of the day, he might feel like he is a .300 hitter — he’s done that in the big leagues already — but I think he was satisfied with trading some of those singles in front of the left fielder for the amount of doubles, home runs and RBIs that he had.

“I still think — and he knows, because we’ve talked about it — that he should walk more. He’s a guy who is still maturing as a hitter and I think he should walk at least 30 more times than last year. That would improve not only his on-base percentage, but everything else about his game.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that he’s going to pop 25 and drive in 90 every year. Not since Lou Boudreau has any shortstop playing for the Indians been capable of doing that. But I see this guy being a pretty good, consistent hitter at the major-league level with the ability to stay in double digits in home runs for years.

“Defensively, I know that a lot of the metrics — he never ranks really high with you guys — but you have to see him on an everyday basis to really appreciate him as a shortstop. I really love guys who can make the routine plays and this guy is very consistent making the routine plays. He’s got a lot of street savvy that doesn’t show in the stat sheet, or in the metrics.

“I have no complaints with [Cabrera‘s defense]. I think that everyone in baseball kind of knows which guys can really impress you with their range, left and right. But he’s a guy I have no complaints with, regardless of how high, or how low, he grades in the metrics.”

On third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall: “Lonnie is going to probably be the most important piece of the puzzle in our infield. With the amount of sinkerballers that we have on our staff, the left side of our infield is very, very important. He needs to be proficient. At third base, he doesn’t have the benefit of being able to boot the ball and still throw the guy out like a guy like Kipnis, who is closer to first base.

“He worked very hard and made a lot of progress last year, and I just hope that he can come into spring training and continue to work on his defense. I want him to concentrate on winning the job. A lot of times, that’s tough to ask of some of these guys, but we just don’t feel, at this point, that the job should be handed to him. We know that down the road he’s a fixture in our franchise, but we can’t just hand him the job right now based on potential. He needs to earn it.

“We feel that this guy is going to be a good third baseman. He’s a former shortstop and he showed some flashes last year. Once he played more and started to feel comfortable at the big-league level, he did some good things.

“Some of the doubts that people had with him facing left-handed pitching — if you look at the numbers, he did better against lefthanders at the big-league level. He hit seven home runs, and five of them came off lefties. He hit over .260 against lefthanders.

“I see him as a guy who can pop 20 to 25. It’s a maturity issue. He’s going to learn, with time, that on the first pitch of the at bat, if the guy is going low and away, flaring the ball to left field might not be the best idea. And that comes with time. It didn’t happen overnight with Asdrubal. He’s going to be able to pick counts and situations. I’m telling you, it’s in there. He’s a line-drive hitter, but he’s got enough power — especially in our ballpark — to be a 20 to 25 guy down the road.”

On catcher Carlos Santana: “I think that [Shin-Soo] Choo probably has the most raw power on our team, but Carlos is right up there. And he had a very good season. If you take away that batting average that so many people pay attention to — if you walk the way he walks, then the batting average isn’t such a concern to me.

“He was one of only four guys in the game to drive in over 75 runs, walk 97 times, hit over 25 home runs and hit over 35 doubles. And it was in his first full season in the big leagues. That puts him in the company of Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder and Joey Votto. A lot of people just see the .239 he hit, but what he did was remarkable. This kid is going to get better. He’s a force in the making.

“There is also the fact that he was able to play so many games after a knee injury. That tells you how good this kid was, how hard he worked and how mentally tough he was. If you take a look at his splits, the second half of his season was even better than his first.

“On the defensive end, we asked a lot out of him. Bouncing [between] first base and behind the plate obviously didn’t help him. He ended up playing a lot of first base in the second half of the season — and not getting as much catching time — but we had to do what we had to do. We had to put the best team on the field.

“We feel that he’s on the right track. He caught for the two pitchers who had the best seasons for us: Justin Masterson and Josh Tomlin. He was obviously doing some good things back there. I also feel that if he spends enough time at first base, he’s going to be a good one over there. He has soft hands and he’s very athletic.

“He had a lot on his plate last year. For most of the season, we were depending on Asdrubal and this kid, Carlos, because of all the injuries around them. I think he’s going to be fine defensively. The offensive side of him — and being able to catch and handle the whole pitching staff, as well as play first base — was a lot. I think he handled it very well.”

On right fielder Shin-Soo Choo: “A lot has been said about it and I just think that, more than anything, the injuries are what stopped this guy from having his normal year. If you look at his numbers in the second half of his season, once he came back, he was playing [well]. If you gave him 250 more at bats, the numbers were going to be there. He’s a big part of our lineup and if he stays healthy, watch out. He’s going to be the player that really got our lineup going the last two years.

“He’s an above-average defender, obviously. He’s a guy that, over the course of the season, cuts down the base running of the other clubs. The third base coaches around the league are aware of him. There are a bunch of times where they’ll hold a guy at third base and we end up making a good pitch on the next guy and get out of the inning. Everybody respects him for the assist factor, along with his ability to stop guys from turning a single into a double.

“He’s an all-around player. It’s easy to throw around that five-tool-player label, but he is a legit five-tool player.”

On the 2012 Cleveland Indians: “We understand that injuries are a part of the game, but I think we have a very exciting group. If you look at what they were able to do last year for four-and-a-half months, despite not having [Travis] Hafner, Grady [Sizemore] and Choo, and some of the guys not having the years they were supposed to have — if you get all of those guys together, we could have a pretty exciting lineup. They’re young, they’re energetic and we have a lot of good athletes that can do things not only offensively, but defensively. I think we have a chance to be pretty good.”