Another week has gone by with the Cleveland Indians apparently ignoring a big problem. Their offense isn’t good enough to win the American League Central Division.
The Tribe continues to rank near the bottom of the league in not only runs scored, but pretty much every offensive category.
Here’s the tale of the tape–
Runs scored 14th
Slugging Percentage 15th
Doubles 15th
Triples 15th (in fact, they don’t have one)
Home Runs 14th
OPS 15th
OPS+ 15th
The season will be 25% over when this trip ends in Chicago on Tuesday night, so you can’t say it’s early anymore. And with the 2nd best ERA in the league, if the Indians don’t start scoring runs soon, they are going to waste a yeoman effort by their pitching staff.
You can’t place blame many places, but really, what does that accomplish? You can’t go back in time and sign Michael Brantley, a professional hitter this lineup so badly needs.
Currently, the league average in OPS is 741. The only Indians who have a figure higher than that are Jordan Luplow (851), Carlos Santana (815), Francisco Lindor (745), and wait for it…Brad Miller (742), who was ceremoniously released when Lindor returned to the active roster.
The roster is poorly constructed with tons of left-handed hitters, so when a southpaw faces the Tribe, Terry Francona is forced to play Jason Kipnis (.148 vs. LHP) at second, and at least two of these outfielders: Leonys Martin (.171 vs. lefties with 14 strikeouts in 35 at bats), Carlos Gonzalez (.167 with 10 whiffs in 24 at bats), or Tyler Naquin (.214).
The ugly numbers continue. The league average for scoring to date is 4.65 runs. The Indians have played 10 games in May and scored 25 runs. Even the most mathematically challenged can discern that’s 2.5 per game.
They’ve scored five runs three times, and that’s the high water mark for the month.
Outside of the debacles last Sunday and Monday in which Cleveland lost 10-0 and 9-1, the pitching staff has held the opposition to four runs or less in every other game this month.
With a league average offense, that would mean eight wins. Instead, they are 4-6.
We have some suggestions as to what the Indians should do, but really, when it comes down to it, isn’t doing the same thing the worst thing they can do?
The organization, from Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff down to Francona have to stop burying their heads in the collective sands and start doing things differently.
Here are our recommendations:
End the Gonzalez experiment. The veteran didn’t have good numbers away from Coors Field last year, and it is time to start giving time to Jordan Luplow, who has an 874 OPS in AAA.
Let’s find out what the 25-year-old right handed hitter an extended shot at a job.
Bring up Oscar Mercado. Let’s not make Mercado the savior, but he had a great spring training, and outside of a 1 for 25 stretch at AAA, has been very good there, hitting .303 with a 909 OPS.
Plus he has 14 stolen bases in Columbus. It might be against the grain in today’s game, but why not run as much as possible with the hitting suffering.
An outfield of Martin, Luplow, and Mercado should be very good defensively too. This would also free Bauers to play some first base, giving Santana some rest.
Mike Freeman hasn’t done a bad job as a backup infielder (he had two hits yesterday), but he’s a left-handed hitter, so Francona has no alternative to Kipnis.
This recent stretch has nothing to do with the injury to Corey Kluber. This has been a problem since day one.
The frustration from the fans and media alike is the lack of trying something different. It’s time to take action.
Oh, and by the way, this isn’t helping sell tickets, Mr. Dolan.
MW
Cleveland Sports Perspective 