Cleveland Indians’ SP Ubaldo Jimenez Is Damaged Goods

Published: 1^st May 12 9:50 pm

by Bryan Lutz
Featured Writer @Lutzifer35

1 Rant »

Cleveland Indians’ SP Ubaldo Jimenez Is Damaged Goods

Jerry Lai-US PRESSWIRE

During the off-season, I heard from multiple sources – whether it was friends or actual media personalities – that Cleveland Indians’ starting pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez was going to rebound this season. I quietly laughed to myself, knowing that these people were probably wrong. And after watching his start tonight against the Chicago White Sox where he allowed a home run to Gordon Beckham, I can safely declare Ubaldo Jimenez damaged goods.

Starting in 2010, Ubaldo Jimenez’s career patch started to take a similar road to the hiker in The Price Is Right mountain climbing game. During the game, the climber reaches his highest point possible before falling off the edge of the cliff. Ubaldo Jimenez’s 2010 til 2012 symbolizes the climber to a tee. After his amazing first half in 2010 that included a no-hitter, people were quick to throw Ubaldo Jimenez’s name into the hat of elite starting pitchers. But ever since the second half of that season, Jimenez has seemingly forgotten what made him successful, or he isn’t physically capable of doing what he was doing before Colorado Rockies‘ manager Jim Tracy ran his arm into the ground. I am going to go with the latter, and here’s why…

Ubaldo Jimenez has essentially turned into ~~Fausto Carmona~~ Roberto Hernandez over night, meaning he’s a low control/low strikeout pitcher. In 2010, the average velocity on his fastball was over 96MPH, and today it’s at 92-flat. He could blow people away when he threw 96+ – but now – he’s a one-pitch pitcher who has no control. Coming into today, Ubaldo Jimenez’s K:BB ratio was .93, which I’m going to assume is dead last in baseball. He’s only striking out 4.88 per 9 innings while walking 5.25. Yabba habba it’s fright night.

So the Indians got hosed, so what? The Rockies haven’t seen much from Drew Pomeranz or Alex White – who were the two main prospect in the deal that sent Jimenez to Cleveland – but they certainly can’t do worse than what Jimenez is doing right now. Thus far, this trade is similar to the trade that happened in Seinfeld when Kramer traded his broken radar detector to Newman for a motorcycle helmet. Kramer knew the detector (Jimenez) didn’t work and wanted to get some value out of it, in which Newman offers a motorcycle helmet in return (Pomeranz, White). Then, Newman gets a speeding ticket due to a broken radar detector, while the helmet saves Kramer’s life from crazy Joe Davola.

Sorry, Cleveland. You were dealt a broken radar detector, luckily there won’t be any long-term financial ramifications from it.

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