Cleveland Indians Left-Hander T.J. House: Minor League Depth or Big League Starter?

Will T.J. House rejoin the Tribe’s rotation in 2016?

The Cleveland Indians have a rotation full of top right-handed pitchers, but they also have a promising left-hander lurking in the shadows. Lefty T.J. House was terrific in the second half of 2014, but spent nearly all of 2015 dealing with a shoulder injury.

The off-season may have already begun for most of the Tribe’s players, but House recently headed to Arizona for a rehab assignment with the Scottsdale Scorpions. So far, he’s pitched in two games, allowing just one hit with a pair of strikeouts in three innings of work.

In 2015, the lefty barely made an impact on the club. He pitched a total of five starts in the minor leagues, and four starts with the big league club, totalling just 37 innings. With the Indians, he pitched just 13 innings, allowing 21 hits and 12 walks in route to 19 runs. He also struck out only seven batters, and gave up a home run.

It was a tough year for House, and far from his excellent finish to the 2014 season. In 102 innings for the Tribe last year, House went 5-3 over 18 starts, posting a 3.35 ERA. He struck out 80 batters and walked just 22, despite giving up 10 home runs. It was more than the Indians could have hoped for from the soft-tossing lefty, who was frequently pitted against lineups like the Tigers, whom he had no reasonable expectation of winning against.

House has always been successful for much of the same reason Josh Tomlin is. He throws strikes, works quickly, and keeps his defenders in the game. By relying on weak contact rather than strikeouts, he can be more efficient with his pitches, and he also has very good control. In 2015, however, those characteristics that made him successful seemed to disappear. His walk rate ballooned from 5.1 percent to 16.4 percent, and he “nibbled” around the strike zone far more than he ever had in the past.

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Another change was his velocity, which fell nearly two miles per hour on his fastball, but hardly decreased on his other pitches. This sounds like a minimal drop, but it was enough to make him easy to hit. Batters, who hit only .283 against him last season, batted .356 against him in 2015. And he wasn’t exactly due for regression – his 3.35 ERA last season translated into a 3.69 FIP, which typically signals that repeating those numbers is probable. All of the factors in his decline in performance can be attributed to shoulder inflammation and soreness, and it’s also important to keep in mind that this compares a sample of 102 innings to a sample of just 13 innings, where statistics have less opportunity to normalize.

The two seasons have been in stark contrast to each other, but based on the periphial numbers, the injury undoubtedly played a role in it. So will the Indians be willing to give House another lengthy shot this season?

A lot depends on what the Indians do with their other starters. For instance, if they do decide to trade Carlos Carrasco or Danny Salazar for a power bat, House would almost certainly have the chance to make an impact at the major league level. Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer are locks for the rotation, and whichever remains of Carrasco and Salazar would be a lock as well. If Tomlin doesn’t make the rotation out of Spring Training, they’re making a mistake given what he did after his return last season. Zach McAllister is finally out of the picture, so that leaves Cody Anderson and House as the primary competitors for the fifth starter role.

Keeping House in the rotation is a good idea if he pitches the way he did in 2014. Having a lefty to break up the slew of right-handed pitchers is always a good thing, and can present challenges to a lot of lineups. However, if there are five superior right-handed arms, it makes no sense to leave one of them out in favor of diversifying the rotation. If House returns to the rotation next year, the Tribe should keep him on a short leash and be ready to send him back to Columbus if he falters for too long.

Next: What to Make of Corey Kluber's Season