Monday, July 15, 2013

Cleveland Indians 2013 Team Breakdown


Well it’s that time.  We are approaching the All Star break and I’m almost done with my team breakdowns.  I started with the AL West, before moving to the Senior Circuit and knocking out the whole NL.  I then returned to the AL, breaking down the East and have made my way to the AL Central.  And while I ranked teams alphabetically last year, this year I’ll rank them based on last season’s standings.  Using last season’s final standings, the fourth AL Central team I’ll take a look at will be the Cleveland Indians.


Projected Starting Lineup

C-        Carlos Santana
1B-      Nick Swisher
2B-      Jason Kipnis
SS-       Asdrubal Cabrera
3B-      Lonnie Chisenhall
LF-       Michael Brantley
CF-      Michael Bourn
RF-      Drew Stubbs
DH-     Mark Reynolds

Starting Rotation:      Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jiminez,  Zach McAllister Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Scott Kazmir

Bullpen:          Chris Perez, Vinnie Pestano, Joe Smith, Cody Allen, Bryan Shaw, Rich Hill, Matt Albers

Projected Batting Order

CF-      Michael Bourn
2B-      Jason Kipnis
C-        Carlos Santana
DH-     Mark Reynolds
1B-      Nick Swisher
SS-       Asdrubal Cabrera
RF-      Drew Stubbs
3B-      Lonnie Chisenhall
LF-       Michael Brantley

Cleveland is in a tricky area.  They’ve had strong first halves the past 2 years, but generally aren’t considered a good team.  It seems like they’re stuck between trying to build up and go for it now, or trying to re-build and get younger.  This offseason, they kept their core together to stay young, but added some talented players to win now.  However most of the guys they added aren’t that old and have plenty of life left in them.  Manager Terry Francona was one of the biggest new additions, and he has this team playing above themselves.  And while Detroit may be the team to beat, this team has talent and this division is weak.  They will make a run at the top, but could play well enough to find themselves in the thick of the wildcard race come playoff time.

Last year’s Indians weren’t that impressive.  At the plate, their leading hitter was Michael Brantley, who hit 288.  And while that number was good, it wasn’t great.  And it came with more numbers of the same vein:  6 HR, 60 RBI, 63 R and 12 SB.  He’s a fine hitter.  But nowhere near a star.  Not even an All Star really.  Slugging catcher Carlos Santana led the team in HR (18) and RBI (76) but both of those numbers were also too soft to be leading a team.  He paired that with a 252 AVG to show that he wasn’t a complete hitter last year either.  I don’t mean to pick on either of these guys as they clearly aren’t the problem, but since they were the best Cleveland had then they illustrate the problem well.  This offense just lacked pop.  Shin Soo Choo’s 16 HR were tied for second on the list, but he was shipped of to Cincinnati.  He tied with Asdrubal Cabrera who also slugged 16 HR.  He’s another one of the few strong pieces, adding a 270 AVG to those 16 HR with 68 RBI and 70 R.  And 9 SB.  He does it all.  Probably the best offensive player on this team last year was Jason Kipnis who only hit 257 but chipped in 14 HR, 76 RBI, 86 R and 31 SB.  That’s their core.  It’s solid.  Good even.  Kipnis and Santana are among the tops at their positions.  But Cabrera and Brantley can’t make the same claims.  Lonnie Chisenhall was supposed to be a major part of this core also, but injuries limited him to 43 games and he has been unable, thus far,  to live up to his potential.  That’s the core the Indians are building around offensively.  It’s not great.  The rest of their offense was rounded out with Travis Hafner, Casey Kotchman, Shelley Duncan, Matt LaPorta, Jack Hannahan and Brent Lillibridge. Not names that strike fear into the hearts of many.  So the Indians added some pieces.  The added Drew Stubbs and Michael Bourn to the outfield.  They added Mark Reynolds to the infield.  They decided Lou Marson would catch more often to give Santana more at bats at DH (he also plays first).  They brought in Nick Swisher to play first.  And they now have a strong team with a lot of lineup possibilities.  They can have Swisher at first, Kipnis at second, Cabrera at short, Reynolds at third and an outfield of Brantley, Bourn and Stubbs.  This enables Marson to catch and Santana to DH.  Or Santana DHs and they add Jason Giambi to the mix at DH.  Or Reynolds DHs with Hannahan or Chisenhall at third.  And Mike Aviles is around to back up the middle infield with Ryan Raburn.  This is an offense with some talent all of a sudden.  Bourn is one of the premier leadoff hitters in the game.   He hit 274 last year with 96 R and 42 SBs.  That came with a 348 OBP.  That’ll play.  He’s played well when healthy this year at 285 with 13 SBs and 37 R.  That’s a good start at the top of the order.  Stubbs provides 20 HR power to go with 40 SB speed.  He likely will reach neither plateau, but his 246 AVG is much more than the Indians hoped for (213 last year).  Nick Swisher has been solid with 9 HR this year.  He’s off the 24 HR pace he set last year, but those HR numbers were juiced by the little league dimensions of the new Yankee stadium.  Mark Reynolds has had a monster first half with 15 dingers and 47 RBI.  He’s still hitting 217, but that was to be expected.  He’s on pace to obliterate his mark of 23 HR from last year.  This group of guys is imperfect, but they are playing well.  Francona knew he didn’t have the best offense, but he needed some guys that would at least scare pitchers occasionally.  And that’s what he’s got.  With all the flexibility these guys have position-wise he can ride the hot hand and get some pop from the big boppers while protecting his core pieces that can do more at the plate (Santana, Kipnis).  His offense has got it all with power (Santana, Swisher, Kipnis, Cabrera, Reynolds, and Stubbs), speed (Kipnis, Bourn, Stubbs) and solid hitters (Santana, Kipnis, Cabrera, Brantley, Bourn).  Few of them can do it all.  But a lot of them can do part of it.  And this offense is a big reason why the Indians are only 2.5 games back halfway through the season.

However this offense’s successes haven’t rubbed off on the pitching staff as much as the Indians would like.  This year’s group closely resembles last year’s group, with most of the offseason makeover coming at the plate.  Justin Masterson was the ace of the staff last year, leading the team with 11 Wins, a 4.93 ERA and 159 Ks.  Those numbers are all fine, but none are nearly good enough to be leading a staff.  Unfortunately that’s what the Indians have.  Masterson is a good pitcher, and obviously isn’t the problem.  But he’s not an ace.  He’s more like a number 3 guy.  Maybe a number 2.  But, he’s playing much better this season, going 10-7 in the first half with a 3.72 ERA.  He’s doing all he can do, but he’s going to need some help.  The Indians would love to see that help come from Ubaldo Jiminez, who they acquired from the Rockies the season after his career best campaign in Coors Field.  But Jiminez has been unable to reclaim that magic going 9-17 last year with a 5.40 ERA.  His K rate dropped while his WHIP and BAA climbed for a second straight year.  They thought they were getting an ace in him, but he has been nothing but a disappointment.  He’s playing better this year at 7-4 with a 4.37, but he’s still a long way off from the ace he was for the first half of that year in Colorado.  The good news is that he’s lowered his WHIP a lot and dropped his BAA to around the league average while raising his K rate.  He’s got the stuff.  He just has to find his way back.  Of last year’s starters, Jiminez and Masterson were the only pitchers on the Indians who qualified for the ERA title.  No other pitcher made it to 23 starts, with only 2 more earning 20 starts.  Of those 2, 1 is gone (Derek Lowe) and the other is on the DL (Zach McAllister).  Unfortunately McAllister has been one of Cleveland’s better starters going 4-5 with a 3.43 in 11 starts.  When he gets healthy, he’ll be back in the rotation.  The Indians began to address their pitching concerns with the big trade that brought them Drew Stubbs and sent Shin Soo Choo to Cincinnati.  That actually was only part of the trade.  The Diamondbacks got involved, getting Didi Gregorious from the Reds and sending some relievers to Cleveland, along with Trevor Bauer, the Indians real prize.  However Bauer has been limited to only 4 starts due to injury, going 1-2 with a 5.29.  Not exactly the savior Cleveland was hoping for.  So while McAllister and Bauer get better, the Indians have been getting starts from Corey Kluber and the veteran Scott Kazmir, who was given another shot at the big leagues.  Kluber’s been great at 7-5 with a 3.88.  He’s struck out 94 in 95 IP while pitching to a 1.24 WHIP.  He keeps runners off base via the walk, which is good because hitters are hitting 262 off him, a tad high.  But he keeps the team in games and has been invaluable to this rotation.  Kazmir hasn’t been as good but is still eating innings that need to get pitched.  He hasn’t been bad, going 4-4 with a 4.74.  But he’s another middle of the rotation arm, of which the Indians have many.  And that’s there problem right now.  The pitching isn’t bad, it’s just limited.  Kazmir has no upside, Masterson has pitched the same for years so we don’t expect him to get much better, Jiminez hasn’t been good for years and the rest of these guys are young.  They need an ace.  Until they get that leader to pitch the big games and inspire the others, this pitching staff will be solid, but unspectacular.  The bullpen is possibly less spectacular.  There are some role guys who have pitched well, but some of the big names (Perez, Pestano) aren’t playing well.  Perez hasn’t been too bad, only blowing 2 Saves, but his ERA is too high for a closer and he has walked a ton of guys.  That’s not good.  And Pestano pitched himself out of the 8th inning role.  So that puts more pressure on these starters to play well, because the bullpen isn’t the safest bet right now.  And despite the weakness of their division and possible strengths in their offense, this team won’t make it deep into October (or possibly even in the playoffs at all) with this pitching staff.

The Indians are, like the White Sox, at a crossroads.  They have some talent on offense and play in a weak division.  But they lack an ace, aren’t the perfect offense that can overcome that and have questions in the bullpen.  They have some youth, but some key positions are currently staffed by players on the latter half of their careers.  Terry Francona wants to win now and has this team believing they can.  It’s admirable.  But they’ll never catch Detroit and will have to play well against stronger non-divisional opponents to snag a wildcard spot.  If they can hold off the Royals, perhaps whip up on the bottom of their division, and see the teams of the other divisions beat each other up enough, then maybe the Indians could sneak into the playoffs.  But any talk of championships is still a distant ways off.

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