Browns Lose, But What Will They Learn?

We have been saying all along not to expect too much from the Cleveland Browns in 2016. They shed most of the veterans from a squad that went 3-13 a year ago, so this is a year to lay a foundation for future success.

Therefore, we are not going to judge today’s 29-10 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles that harshly. The best chance Cleveland had for a win today was poor play by the home team’s rookie quarterback, but Carson Wentz made enough plays to bring home a winner.

That doesn’t mean the Browns blew it by passing on Wentz either. A year ago, the Titan’s Marcus Mariota was fantastic in the season opener, and in week two, the Browns, yes the team that won only three games, handed the rookie his lunch.

Our point is that it is way too early to judge Wentz.

Here are some of our observations for Game 1:

Positives. Many of the rookies looked good, particularly Emmanuel Ogbah and Carl Nassib. The latter seemed to be in the Eagles’ backfield a lot, batted down two passes and had a sack.

Derrick Kindred was another rookie who stood out, with five tackles.

Corey Coleman caught two passes for 69 yards, including a 58-yard play. Coleman was also open on Robert Griffin III’s interception, but the ball was way behind him. If the throw was on target, it would have been a big game.

The run defense was solid, allowing the Eagles just 3.9 yards per carry. Not great, but much better than we saw in the pre-season.

Last year’s first round picks, Cam Erving and Danny Shelton, looked better than a year ago, except for…

Negatives. …the Browns ran 50 offensive plays today and Erving had 49 good snaps. However, the one bad snap kind of changed the momentum of the game, as it resulted in a safety.

Griffin missed a lot of plays with inaccuracy, one that resulted in his only interception. He also missed an open Andrew Hawkins for a touchdown, and an open Terrelle Pryor on a sideline pass. You can’t leave plays on the field consistently.

Joe Haden showed a lot of rust after missing a lot of time last season, giving up a long TD pass to Nelson Agholor, and Jordan Matthews had over 100 yards receiving.

The third down woes reared its ugly head again, as the Browns were just 2 for 10. The inability to stay on the field led to the Eagles having the ball twice as much as the Browns.

Also, the running game struggled early. Running the ball helps keep the defense on the sideline and also will help the passing game. Cleveland simply has to get better running the football. Perhaps Duke Johnson should carry the ball more.

We know Hue Jackson is trying to set a tone with his football team, but it seemed like he gambled a lot today and none of his gambles paid off. Going for it on 4th and 5 in your own territory in the first half is a tad reckless, and the last Eagles’ touchdown was because he went for it with less than three minutes to go.

None of the negatives should be picked apart until they see them raise up on a weekly basis. If the Browns learn from what they did wrong, that’s great. That’s really the purpose of this season.

Same with the things that went well, unless you can do these things every week, it’s can’t be considered a building block.

Those critical of today’s performance are missing the point. This isn’t a good football team. If they are a lot better by the end of the season, then Jackson and his staff are doing a good job. That’s what they should be judged on.

Browns Not Tanking, Just Using Common Sense

Last week, we started hearing it, the dreaded “T” word.

Tanking. Mostly, you hear about it in the NBA, when the prize for getting the first pick in the draft is a player like LeBron James or someone like that.

In basketball, having a superstar is a huge advantage because there are only five players on the court.

Both the local and national media alike are claiming that the Cleveland Browns are tanking, trying to lose purposefully to gain the first overall pick in next spring’s draft.

Our question is if the Browns are tanking this year, what have they been doing for most of the last 16 seasons since they returned to the NFL?

Face it, the Browns aren’t tanking.

What they have been doing to getting rid of veteran players who have no upside and played for a team that went 3-13 a year ago. And that just seems like common sense.

Have we fallen asleep and not realized Cleveland unloaded Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, and Jim Brown in the off-season?

No. They pared the roster of a lot of players over 30 years old who were on the downside of their careers, or rid themselves of players who didn’t produce much in the time they were here.

You could make a better case that Ray Farmer was tanking when he let Jabaal Sheard and T.J. Ward flee the team in free agency.

We have said it time and again, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team. Why not start playing a bunch of younger players, who may get better with experience, and see where the chips fall?

If you are tanking, the coaching staff tends to not play the best players. We don’t see any indication of that, unless you are a member of the media, and you still have a love affair with Josh McCown.

The Browns have tried a lot of different ways to improve their fortunes, but they haven’t tried going with a bunch of young players and let them develop, so why not give that a shot?

What’s the worst that can happen? In three years, they are still putting together 5-11 seasons? If that’s happening, then once again, Jimmy Haslam will be looking for a new coach and a new general manager.

The coaching staff and the players will want to win, and hopefully the young players will improve as the season progresses, and finally the Browns will have a foundation on which to build something.

If they were tanking, then Jackson would announce that Cody Kessler is the starting quarterback and they would have traded players like Joe Haden, and maybe even Joe Thomas.

Now, once the season starts and you are let’s say 2-10, you may not go out of your way to play veterans, so you can get an extensive look at more young players, the ones who haven’t been in there all year.

On the other hand, with all of the young players on the field, you hope to see improvement as the season goes on, and hopefully the Browns can be in a position to win those late season games.

The tanking issue is ridiculous. This was a bad football team a year ago, and they weren’t tanking then.

The Browns are trying to build something that will grow over the next few years, and doing it with young players is the way to do it.

When you really think about it, it’s just common sense.

Tribe Stuff: 5th Starter, Bullpen, and Tyler Naquin

Last night, Terry Francona used what he called a “bullpen game” thus bypassing struggling Josh Tomlin in the starting rotation.

The Tribe lost the game, but that wasn’t the reason. The Indians went into the seventh inning down just 3-2 before some subpar defense allowed the Astros to score three runs to basically ice the game.

This spot in the rotation will come up again this Saturday in Minnesota and we don’t want to see another “bullpen game”. It’s time to make a decision on what the team is going to do with their fifth starter.

Tomlin did come on and pitch a clean inning last night, but hopefully Francona and pitching coach Mickey Callaway don’t think the right-hander’s problems are cured and put him back out there to start.

Either bring up Ryan Merritt or Shawn Morimando to start, or start stretching Mike Clevinger out again and try to get four inning out of him this weekend.

We know that the fifth starter is not going to be used in that role once the post-season starts, but since Cleveland is in a pennant race, they shouldn’t be basing any games on a bunch of guys Tito wouldn’t use in a game he was winning either.

The Indians haven’t clinched anything yet, so they need to keep winning and can’t have a starter pitch less than two innings.

Bullpen. We know that when the Tribe has a lead late, Francona is going to use a combination of Bryan Shaw, Andrew Miller, and Cody Allen to finish games. And all in all, he’s done a great job of using the trio in the best situations.

Beyond those three, Dan Otero has been incredible this year with a 1.37 ERA and the ability to get ground balls at any time. Zack McAllister seems to have recovered from his slump in the middle of the year, and since August 5th has pitched 11-2/3 innings and allowed just one run.

Jeff Manship is struggling again, so we would like to see more of Perci Garner heading into the playoffs. The Dover, Ohio native throws hard and has good sink on his pitches. Garner could be of more help in October than a guy like Manship, who has given up seven homers in 36 innings.

Tyler Naquin. A lot has been made on social media about Naquin’s freakish lack of success against fastballs this season. The numbers don’t lie, but we can’t believe a player can reach the big leagues without being able to hit gas.

We’ve been studying the rookie’s at bats, and we believe the problem comes from chasing fastballs out of the strike zone. Last night, he swung at a 1-0 pitch that was outside, so instead of a great hitter’s count, it was back to even.

That has happened a lot lately.

We also think that Naquin has gotten a little home run happy after his June and July where he belted 12 home runs after not hitting one to that point in the season.

He needs to get back to his line drive approach he had early in the season, and the home runs will come. Remember, his first big league dinger was on a pitch he took over the leftfield wall at Progressive Field. It wasn’t pulled.

The Tribe has a little over a week to put a clamp on the division because starting a week from Friday, they have a steady diet of the Tigers and Royals, their closest pursuers. If they play well until then, the magic number should be in single digits by then.

Browns’ Final Roster Not Shocking

No one should be surprised that all 14 of the draft choices made by the Browns’ new front office made the initial 53 man roster yesterday.

How many of them are still there after Sashi Brown, Hue Jackson, and the personnel staff scour the waiver wire is a good question, but our guess is that most of the 14 will still be wearing orange and brown.

Let’s face it, it’s a new front office staff, and the team they inherited went 3-13 a year ago. The question should be why didn’t they just replace most of the players who were on the team a year ago.

After the 2015 season ended, the roster had too many players over 30 for a team that had the second overall pick in the draft.

Now, there are just seven, and only three (Joe Thomas, John Greco, and Gary Barnidge) are starters, and it would not be a shock if two more, Andrew Hawkins and Tramon Williams, are released after the organization reviews the players cut by other teams yesterday.

There are now only three players, Thomas, Williams, and back up QB Josh McCown who have been in the NFL for ten years or more.

Perhaps the biggest surprise yesterday was the trade of former 1st round selection Justin Gilbert to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a sixth round pick in 2018.

We understand Gilbert was a polarizing figure here in his two plus seasons, but we thought he was buried by the old coaching staff, and when he did play, he wasn’t burned consistently by wide receivers.

His reputation was that he didn’t take well to coaching, and we get that.

On the other hand, it is interesting that both Gilbert and another first rounder, Barkevious Mingo, were both acquired by teams with a history of winning football in Pittsburgh and New England.

If either become contributors with their new squads it will say volumes about the talent evaluation of the Cleveland organization, both past and present.

Our opinion of Mingo, in particular, is that he is an athletic freak. His interception of Peyton Manning against Denver last year may have been the most amazing play made by a Browns’ defender all season. Why any coordinator here couldn’t find a place or scheme in which to use him is a fail by Cleveland.

The current roster has 18 rookies or first year players, and 10 second year guys. That’s 28 of the current 53, which even a non-math expert knows is more than half.

That’s how you build a football team.

You also have to make a commitment to the coaching staff, so they don’t have to worry about accumulating wins while playing young players.

That was the weakness of previous regimes here. They wanted to get younger, but they also wanted the coach to win. That’s why the Randy Starks, Donte Whitners, and Karlos Dansbys of the NFL were brought in.

We trust that Brown and Jimmy Haslam have told Jackson not to be concerned with the Browns record in 2016.

How should we judge the coach this season? Focus on the progression of the team. If the Browns are a better, more competitive football team when they take the field on January 1st against the Steelers than they are next Sunday, then Jackson has done his job.

In the meantime, the next few days should be interesting to see who will dress a week from today, and who won’t be a part of phase one of the building process.

Tribe Set For Post-Season Race

The Cleveland Indians enter the last month of the regular season with a 4-1/2 game lead over the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central Division.

The magic number is 26.

All in all, the Tribe is in pretty good shape.

They fortified the roster by making a waiver deal to bring Coco Crisp back to the wigwam, and considering the trades that were made in August, that has to be considered a solid move.

After all, the Orioles just traded for former Indian Michael Bourn. Who would you rather have?

Crisp is the probable roster replacement for Abraham Almonte who is ineligible for the post-season due to his suspension for PEDs earlier this season.

The veteran switch-hitter did have a 778 OPS away from the pitcher friendly, dank Oakland ballpark this season, so he can still contribute with the bat and is more than adequate in the field as long as that field is leftfield.

The bullpen is also much improved from the end of July, partially because of Andrew Miller’s dominance, and also because some of the pitchers who were struggling seem to have righted themselves.

Zack McAllister looks like the guy who was a late inning dude during the first half of last season. He got a huge out Monday night with the bases loaded and two out in the 10th inning, and over the last two weeks has been real good.

And Jeff Manship is also getting hitters out giving Terry Francona an early option if he needs to go to his ‘pen. Mike Clevinger has also contributed, although it looks as though he may be getting stretched out as a starter again next week.

The starting rotation also seems to be out of the funk it was in since the All Star break. Corey Kluber has established himself as a contender for a second Cy Young Award, and it was a good sign that Danny Salazar pitched well last weekend in Texas.

Saturday is a big start for him to see if he is back on track. Trevor Bauer has put together back-to-back solid efforts, and Carlos Carrasco has been the best starter outside of Kluber since the break.

Josh Tomlin looks like he is out of the rotation at this point after he was cuffed around again against the Twins. Our guess is Clevinger will take his turn on Tuesday night, going as long as he can before the bullpen takes over.

We also think that the Indians will bring up either Ryan Merritt or Shawn Morimando to back up Clevinger at least early on. The way Tomlin has pitched, he should be relegated to mop up duties at this point.

This team still needs to win games to make the last two weeks of the schedule as meaningless as they can.

Remember, 13 of Cleveland’s last 16 games are against the Tigers and the Royals, and even though the Tribe has handled both team well this year, if the Indians keep winning, those teams will be desperate.

On the other hand, if Francona’s group can have let’s say a six or seven game lead going into those last 16 contests, it puts KC and Detroit into a position where they would have to sweep.

We have always maintained a five game lead on Labor Day is pretty safe, and the Indians can accomplish that with a good weekend against the Marlins, because the Tigers and Royals square off at the same time.

The front office has fortified the roster, now it’s up to the players. And if the starting pitching is back on track, the Tribe will be pouring some champagne in their clubhouse this month.

What Did You Expect From Browns?

It was shocking to read and listen to both fans and media alike being irritated by the Browns’ performance Friday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

What did these people expect? Did they believe Hue Jackson’s team was suddenly going to dominate another NFL team?

After Jackson was hired and Sashi Brown and Paul DePodesta took over control of the franchise, the management has made no bones about the direction of the team. They were going to get younger and build through the draft, really the only tried and true method of building a winning football team.

If you have read this blog since the beginning of 2016, we have advocated and predicted that Brown and DePodesta were going to rid the roster of most of the over 30 years of age crew.

After all, the only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team.

The purge started with Donte Whitner and Karlos Dansby, Dwayne Bowe followed, and now Paul Kruger and even punter Andy Lee were moved off the squad.

And we believe that Tramon Williams, Andrew Hawkins won’t be here for week one, and we have a feeling that Josh McCown won’t be either.

The Browns are accumulating young players and draft picks, and when you play a lot of inexperienced players, losing usually follows. At least at the beginning.

The expectation is the team will build around the players taken last season that weren’t really given a chance to play, the 14 draft picks taken last April, and all of the picks the front office has accumulated in the 2017 and 2018 NFL Drafts.

That doesn’t mean the players and coaching staff will not try to win every week, of course they will, that’s imbedded in the DNA of competitive people.

However, they are usually going to be outmanned in each game, mostly because of a lack of experience.

What the front office is trying to decide is who can be a contributing player in 2018 or 2019, when this team is ready to make a legitimate playoff run. If it happens sooner, then great, all that means is the Browns will be winners and still have a boatload of draft picks.

Gone is the philosophy of bringing veterans to patch some holes and keep the team somewhat competitive, perhaps winning five or six games so the coaching staff can say the Browns are improving.

Instead, the organization is throwing a lot of stuff against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.

The rookies and second year players are going to get to play and prove themselves. If they get better as the season progresses, the coaches and front office will determine them to be keepers. If they can’t get it done, they will be replaced by younger players acquired in the next two drafts.

It’s not a mystery. Every signal given by the folks in Berea indicate just that.

So, don’t be surprised if this team loses in the early part of the season, and sometimes, the games will be flat out ugly.

And if the team doesn’t show some improvement as the season goes on, then you can be concerned, because that’s the plan.

In the meantime, get ready for more veterans to depart and more young players, particularly players cut after the final cut this weekend, to be brought in.

Frankly, we are puzzled as to why people were expecting anything different.

Tribe’s Strength Is Failing Them

At the All Star break, the Cleveland Indians were sitting in first place with a 52-36 record and considered a favorite for the American League pennant because of their dominant starting pitching.

Two of the rotation members, Corey Kluber and Danny Salazar made the AL roster for the Midsummer Classic, and a case could be made for Josh Tomlin (9-2, 3.51 ERA) as well.

Carlos Carrasco wasn’t considered because he missed a good chunk of the first half with a hamstring injury and Trevor Bauer (7-3, 3.30 ERA) was pitching as well as he ever had in the big league tenure.

Collectively, Tribe starters had a 3.70 ERA at that point. Surely, it would be difficult to beat them in a short series.

My, how things have changed.

The Indians still lead the Central Division by 4-1/2 games over the Tigers and 5 over the surging defending champion Royals, but the starting rotation, considered the strength of the team by nearly everyone, experts and fans alike, is leaking oil. Badly.

Since the break, the Cleveland rotation has an ERA of 4.92, and this isn’t a ten or fifteen game stretch we are talking about. This span has now lasted 40 games, or a quarter of the major league schedule.

And if you remove Kluber’s sterling second half (5-0, 1.84 ERA) out of the mix, the remainder of the starting pitchers have a 5.87 ERA in the second half. If this continues, Terry Francona’s team will have a problem getting into the post-season, let alone making it all the way to the Fall Classic.

Here is how the rest of the rotation has fared since Kluber was the winning pitcher in San Diego to give the AL home field advantage in the World Series:

Bauer         2-3     5.20 ERA      45 innings
Tomlin      2-6     7.29 ERA      45-2/3 innings
Carrasco   4-4     4.25 ERA      55 inningsSalazar      1-2   10.70 ERA      17-2/3 innings

Salazar was disabled for two weeks with some discomfort in his elbow, and in his two starts since has lasted a total of five innings. Today’s start versus Texas is a huge start for him, the manager, and the pitching coach.

Francona didn’t use Mike Clevinger last night because he knew he needed him today in case the right-hander could only give him two or three innings.

Carrasco has been the next best pitcher after Kluber, but he has had starts where he dominates early, and then starts getting hit hard.

Bauer has been a mystery for most of his big league time, but looked to have figured it out in the first half. In the last month or so, he has started walking hitters again, and has been prone to the gopher ball. He did out duel Max Scherzer in Washington though.

When he has been good, he’s been very good. On the other hand…

Tomlin has been awful, with a 7.29 ERA over 45 frames. In many of the games he has started, he’s given the Tribe no chance to win. He has been especially bad against the better teams in the AL, and gives up dingers at an incredible rate.

Early in the year, most were solo shots, which is fine, but lately, they have been three run blasts and grand slams. Those are killers.

Can these guys get it back?

Carrasco and Bauer’s issue seems to be consistency. They are good some days, but horrible others. That seems fixable.

Is Salazar healthy? If so, he’s a dynamic third starter in the playoffs (assuming the Indians make it), capable of dominating opponents. If not, that’s a huge chasm to fill.

Tomlin has always been a back of the rotation guy anyway, albeit a solid one. He’s probably not going to start in the post-season anyway. But the Tribe needs another capable starter from here on out in the regular season.

Another failure Tuesday night vs. Minnesota could force Francona and Callaway to make a change.

Right now, this should be the biggest concern for any fan of the Indians. The team’s perceived strength as little as six weeks ago, has turned into a humongous question mark.

Browns Good At One Thing: Promoting Themselves

While many fans have complained about the fortune of the Cleveland Browns on the field since they returned to the NFL in 1999, they have established excellence in one area. And that is being in the forefront of the Cleveland sports media.

This “tradition” didn’t start in with the rebirth of the franchise. It really goes back to the early 60’s, and Art Modell.

The former owner of the Browns was a media darling, always glib and very friendly with the local scribes and broadcast media alike.

Modell started the practice, which continues today, of having one of the local television anchors as the team’s radio play-by-play people. Since the mid 1960’s, we have seen Gib Shanley, Jim Graner, Nev Chandler, Jim Mueller, Casey Coleman, and now Jim Donovan at the voice of the Browns.

That way, the broadcaster and station has a vested interest in covering the local professional football team.

A few years ago, when the Browns’ local radio contract was up for grabs, they did something that can be considered ingenious, making both of the city’s sports talk stations the “Home of the Browns”.

They even have their own self-serving show on daily on WKNR, Cleveland Browns Daily, which runs year round, and is hosted by Nathan Zegura, listed on the Browns’ website as Senior Media Broadcaster.

Can you imagine the Indians or Cavaliers asking any radio station in the northeast Ohio area to put a daily, hourly show to talk about either of these franchises.

Apparently as part of this deal with the two stations, listeners get to hear the head coach’s daily press conference in which he gives very little to no information.

Terry Francona and Tyronn Lue speak to the media everyday before the game during the season too, it’s just that no one is interrupting the normal broadcast schedule to put them on the air.

When the Browns’ play a game, it is hard to find a station that isn’t carrying the broadcast, as they also include 98.5 FM as a “Home of the Browns”, and they have other stations in the Akron area too.

If you do a scan on your car radio during a Browns’ game, more often than not, you will find a station broadcasting the football game.

You have to admire the job they’ve done in this regard, and wonder why the other teams in the market don’t do the same thing.

Particularly, the Cleveland Indians, who need all the help they can get getting air time on local sports talk stations.

The past two days, with the Tribe in a prime position to make the playoffs, the bulk of the air time on sports talk radio was devoted to Josh Gordon, a receiver who has been suspended for 27 of the Browns’ last 32 games.

The stations will tell you the fans will provide the direction of their shows, but why wouldn’t fans talk about the Browns when it is all around them?

We have said in the past that the Indians made a terrible miscalculation by staying on WTAM, which dedicates very little non game time air to the team. If they had gone to either WKNR or 92.3FM, do you think there would be more discussion about the team that fills their airwaves on most summer nights?

The Cavs have LeBron James and are NBA Champions. They will hold the area’s interest no matter what they do for the foreseeable future.

You have to tip your hats to the way the Browns handle this part of their business. Now, about the on the field stuff…

Tribe’s New Bullpen Order

We have been chronicling the Indians’ bullpen issues all year long. There were numerous games where Cleveland led or were tied after six innings, only to lose the game late.

There were also several times where the offense came back to tie the contest, only to lose in the end.

It’s why we kept insisting that the relief corps was the top priority to address heading into the trade deadline on August 1st.

Of course, the front office did just that, getting perhaps the game’s best fireman, Andrew Miller from the Yankees.

It is the southpaw’s versatility that is the reason we call him the best reliever in the sport. He’s not just a closer, a guy to get the last three outs of a game, sometimes with a three run lead. He is open to be used anytime, and Terry Francona has obliged him in that regard.

The big lefty has struck out 93 hitters in 56 innings, and the skipper has used him to close, as well as in the sixth inning of one game.

When the situation is there and the opposition’s best hitters are in the way, it seems that Miller is the guy Francona is relying on, and that is perfectly fine.

That’s why it was curious to see Tito use Cody Allen in the ninth Sunday against the Blue Jays in a one run game.

Another reason Miller is so effective is his control. He throws strikes. In addition to the 90 strikeouts, he has walked just eight batters. He has faced 206 batters this season, and has been behind in the count 17 times.

Cody Allen still seems to get most of the closing opportunities, and he has been very good. The blown save last week vs. Chicago was only his third in 27 chances. That’s very good.

But where Allen can be frustrating is in his nibbling. That, or perhaps his stuff moves so much, it’s difficult to throw strikes.

This was issue Sunday, when he appeared to not want to be aggressive with Josh Donaldson. If Donaldson hits one out, it’s a tie game. If he walks the reigning AL MVP, he brings Edwin Encarnacion, who has belted 34 homers, to the plate with a chance to give Toronto the lead.

Allen has an excellent strikeout to innings pitched ratio too, fanning 68 in 52-1/3 innings. But he was walked 23 batters.

He has been behind in the count 39 times in the 209 hitters he has faced. For some reason, that seems like it should be higher.

The point here isn’t that Allen isn’t a very good reliever, it’s just that he’s not the best one currently on the staff.

And if Francona has to use Allen in the ninth inning because he used Miller against the opponent’s best hitters in the 7th or 8th, that should be a comforting feeling. Allen is that good.

However, if it’s the ninth inning and Miller is rested and hasn’t been used, he should be the guy on the mound. Because he’s the best bullpen guy on the squad.

Also, add in a more rested Bryan Shaw to the mix and you have the type of ‘pen that makes it imperative for opponents in the playoffs (assuming the Tribe is there) to have a lead after six frames.

With Shaw, Miller, and Allen waiting, their chances to score won’t be very good.

Ramirez’ Emergence Not A Huge Surprise.

At the beginning of the season, we are sure you could have taken a lot of action on the Cleveland Indians being in first place by seven games on August 21st if people would have known Michael Brantley would only play 11 games this season.

Brantley is, after all, one of the best hitters in the game. He’s a guy who puts his bat on the ball, has some pop, and is one of the better hitters in baseball with men in scoring position.

Surely, if he were missing, the Indians’ struggling offense (as it was thought of before the season started) would not be able to score enough to put the Tribe in contention for the post-season.

Then again, at that point, no one was figuring Jose Ramirez for anything but a “super utility” role.

Coming into the season, Terry Francona planned to use the switch-hitter in the outfield and infield, being able to give breaks to Brantley, Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, and play 3B to give Juan Uribe a break.

Brantley’s injury forced Ramirez into basically an everyday role in LF and at 3B, and when Uribe didn’t hit at all, and GM Mike Chernoff traded for Brandon Guyer to help in the outfield, the 23-year-old settled in at the hot corner.

While no one expected Ramirez to hit .311 in his first year as a regular, his pedigree in the minors, where he is a .304 hitter lifetime, shows Jose has the ability to hit.

We forget that Ramirez came up at the end of the 2013 season, when he was just 20, to provide speed and defense off the bench for the post-season push. He started that year in Akron where he hit .272.

If not for his speed and the ability to handle three infield spots (2B, SS, 3B), he wouldn’t have been added to the roster.

He started 2014 in AAA and was called up when Jason Kipnis hurt his oblique. He went 2 for 25 until he was sent back to Columbus on May 19th.

He did hit .302 (801 OPS) with the Clippers until he was recalled after Asdrubal Cabrera was traded to Washington at the deadline. He batted .283 with the Indians the rest of the season, establishing himself in the organization.

Keep in mind, that Ramirez was just 21 years old at the time.

Last year, he was handed the shortstop job out of spring training, but didn’t look like the same player that took over for Cabrera the year before. He hit just .176 and struggled in the field.

We believe there were too reasons for that. First, Ramirez is a natural second baseman, not a shortstop and he was also probably looking over his shoulder at the progress of Lindor, the organization’s top prospect.

After Lindor arrived, and Ramirez went back to the utility role, he hit .259 (775 OPS) the rest of the year.

In between, he batted .293 in Columbus.

This year, he feels he belongs in the big leagues, and he is also getting better with age, as most good players do. His average is at .311. His OPS is 821.

The good news is he is still just 23 years old, so it is likely he will continue to improve.

He’s been the key player for the Indians, a team likely to make the post-season.

We have said this before. The best thing to like about this Tribe squad is their two best position players are 22 (Lindor) and 23 (Ramirez).

That bodes well for the window of contention staying open at Progressive Field for a few years.