UPDATE (which will only make sense if you’ve read the below): It took more than another week, but the Indians may have come to their senses. Before the game on 8/25, they dropped Lofton from the leadoff spot to 7th in the order and dumped Casey Blake to the very bottom. (And about damn time: Lofton’s total OPS with the Indians was still hovering at a supremely benchable .631, while Blake’s OPS since Lofton’s arrival had settled in at a get-out-of-baseball .597. At the time of the change, Lofton still had as many strikeouts as runs, RBIs, extra-base hits, and stolen bases combined. And don’t forget that Lofton’s numbers are distorted to the high side by being benched against challenging pitchers.)

This unexpected burst of common sense makes me think maybe they’ll still hit about 88 wins, as long projected. Let’s see how long the sanity lasts.

I suspect it might. Baseball isn’t like the White House; if the Indians only pretend to be changing strategy, sportswriters won’t dutifully pretend that it’s true.

Tragic, that baseball managers are so much more accountable than the lunatics in Washington.

Gonna complain about the Indians again. I predicted two months before the season started that they’d win about 88 games, just from looking at the roster. But now I have to add: if they don’t figure out just how lousy a move acquiring Kenny Lofton was, they might not have a chance.

Lofton, of course, was one of the best leadoff hitters in the game… for a few seasons. About a decade ago. Now he’s 40 years old, and he hasn’t put up numbers remotely like his 1994 season in years. But the Indians front office, led by Mark Shapiro, and manager Eric Wedge seem to have convinced themselves that it’s still 1994. The fans agreed, greeting Lofton with nostalgic standing ovations. But no.

I should explain a simple hitting stat widely known in baseball circles but not discussed enough by casual fans: On-base Plus Slugging, or OPS. Scoring runs in baseball involves two basic abilities: (a) the ability to get on base, and (b) the ability to drive runners home. On Base Percentage (OBP), which is basically Batting Average supplemented by walks and hit-by-pitches, measures the former, and Slugging Percentage (SLG), which is basically a Batting Average that treats extra-base hits (which drive in the vast majority of runners) proportionally, measures the latter. A player with both skills is obviously of greater value than a pure speed guy or a slow-footed thumper, so there’s great value in simply adding the two measures into one number, the OPS. It’s a little crude, since it leaves aside defensive contributions, park effects, etc., but a team’s OPS is extremely well-correlated with winning.

As a general rule, you can think of OPS as similar to a number grade in high school, with 1.000 and up an A+ (A-Rod is currently at 1.049), .900 and up an A (Albert Pujols is at .976), .800 and up a B, .700 and up a struggling C, and anything below .600 as being far enough down the widening bell curve that there are probably 100 guys in the minors who could do just as well.

Cleveland’s current management has a puzzling affection for guys past the age of 30 with mediocre OPS numbers and no chance of improving the team. (The vast majority of players peak in their offensive skills at about 27.) Last year, as I pointed out on opening night, these were Jason Michaels, Eduardo Perez, Ronnie Belliard, Aaron Boone, and Casey Blake. Sure enough, the team stank. Which surprised more people than it should have.

This year, 31-year-old Michaels and 33-year-old Blake are still showing off their identically middling skills (.777 and .778 career OPS, respectively), supplemented by new acquisitions 33-year-old Trot Nixon (whose last good year was 2003; current OPS of .699), 33-year-old David Dellucci (current OPS of .690), and 36-year-old Chris Gomez (career OPS of .688).

Re this Gomez: the Indians already have three excellent hitters (Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, and Ryan Garko) who are subpar first basemen, and one guy capable of a good defensive first base (Casey Blake) who really can’t hit enough to hold the position. So what do the Indians do? Add a guy who can’t hit and plays a slightly below-average first base (career fielding percentage of .992, which would place him 17th among current full-time first basemen, if he were good enough to play full-time). Genius.

Maybe now that Lofton kinda sucks, we shouldn’t be surprised the Indians grabbed him right up.

If you’re surprised at the words “Lofton kinda sucks,” let’s look at the numbers: after a few very good early years – but with only one season above .900, at the age of 27 – Lofton settled into being just moderately above the major-league average for about a decade, netting him a career OPS of only .794. Fine, but far below what we might have expected, given his rep. And of late, his skills seem to be in decline.

How steep?

In 16 games with the Indians – 10 percent of a season already, mind you — Kenny Lofton has batted .222, with exactly zero stolen bases, and more strikeouts than runs, RBI, and extra base hits — all combined. He’s averaging less than one total base per game. Lofton’s OPS is all of… .504.

More disappointing are his struggles in left field, where his Range Factor and Zone Ratings (measures of a player’s ability to run down balls) are comparable not to his Gold Glove past but to figures mustered by people like stiff-kneed Barry Bonds or lumbering Adam Dunn. (How is this possible, given that Lofton’s footspeed is still excellent? Watch: Lofton’s first step has become tentative or even completely wrong, negating his speed.)

Bad enough? Wedge’s management has made the situation worse.

At the time Lofton was acquired, Casey Blake was batting second, nestled nicely between all-stars Grady Sizemore (OPS .847) and Victor Martinez (OPS .879), the two most reliable hitters on the team. Given Sizemore’s base-stealing abilities and opposing pitchers’ reluctance to walk batters in front of Martinez, Blake got lots of fastballs. And Casey Blake, like most guys in the majors, can hit fastballs. As a result, Blake’s OPS was .809, more than 30 points above his career average, and the Indians had a solid top half of the lineup.

But when Lofton arrived, he was inserted into Blake’s #2 spot, with Blake dropping down to sixth or seventh, where he is no longer batting behind a base-stealer on first or in front of quality hitters. As a result, Blake gets more curve balls. And like most guys in the majors, Casey Blake can’t hit curve balls so well. His OPS has therefore been 169 points (!) lower since Lofton’s arrival, a difference not unlike the one between an All-Star at .850 and a benchwarmer at .680. If the Indians had batted Lofton low in the order, they would have only damaged one lineup spot. Instead, they’ve wreaked havoc on two, with predictable effects echoing through the adjacent spots.

Incidentally, the player Lofton is taking the most playing time from is up-and-coming 24-year-old Franklin Gutierrez, whose current OPS of .820 will almost certainly improve with experience. Gutierrez is a potential All-Star. But now he’s on the bench most nights. So that’s three ways this Lofton deal is hurting the team.

Not surprisingly, since acquiring Lofton, the playoff-contending Indians are suddenly in a tailspin, winning just 7 of 18 games and scoring just 3.1 runs per game after steadily averaging over 5 runs prior. That’s a massive difference. It surely can’t all be attributed solely to Lofton; the recent minor injury to Travis Hafner and some other unrelated slumping must have contributed. In any case, given offensive production like this, and given that the team has exactly two starting pitchers with an ERA under 4 and a closer with an ERA over 5.5, unless things change drastically, the Indians season may soon be suddenly over — unless the management figures out why this is happening.

So how did the Indians respond to Lofton’s struggles? Simple – by moving him up to leadoff. Brilliant.

In the two games since, Lofton is 0 for 6, with zero total bases, zero OPS, zero everything.

It’s pretty clear the Indians are at least starting to suspect that it’s not 1994 anymore. Lofton sits against most left-handed pitching, something that never happened when he was, y’know, Kenny Lofton. With luck, either the Indians will drop him down the lineup, drop him altogether and get tomorrow’s more likely Kenny Loftons (Gutierrez, Ben Francisco, Brian Barton, etc.) the shots they deserve, or – my real hope – Lofton will suddenly pull himself together after all.

Maybe a month from now, Lofton will be batting .320 with an OPS of .850 and I’ll be eating my words. Much more likely, he’ll muster an OPS of around .720ish, just large enough for the Indians foolishly not to give up on him and get on with the future. But I’d be happy to eat this post, given the chance.

If you haven’t figured it out, I’m actually a fairly passionate fan.