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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