Talk Of Tribe Fire Sale Is Crazy

The Cleveland Indians are struggling in 2019, there can be no doubt about that. But talk about the team’s window closing or going into a total rebuild is just stupid, in our opinion.

First, the Indians aren’t some old team that has been together for seven or eight years, and haven’t been able to get over the hump.

Nor are they are team loaded with free agents to be. When fans and media alike start talking about a fire sale, who are they talking about? The only players who will be a free agents after this season are Leonys Martin, and probably Jason Kipnis, because there is no way the Indians are picking up his option for 2020.

Those two players aren’t bringing you back anything substantial in a trade.

And talk of trading Francisco Lindor is just living in your own fears. Look, we have serious doubt that ownership will pony up the money to keep Lindor here long term (although they can and should).

But Lindor will not be a free agent until after the 2021 season, meaning they still have him here for 2-2/3 seasons. Remember, he’s one of the five best players in the sport. It would be foolish to move him now.

Despite some blips in the radar recently, the Indians also have an excellent pitching staff, still ranking 3rd in the AL in ERA. And in addition to Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, and Carlos Carrasco, they have developed more hurlers who look to be top of the rotation starters.

Mike Clevinger was excellent last year and got off to a tremendous start before going on the IL in April. He should be back in a couple of weeks. Shane Bieber is another horse who looks like he will be a very good starter.

And Tuesday night, it appears we will see this year’s version of Bieber when 24-year-old Zach Plesac starts against the Red Sox. Plesac is 4-1 with a 1.41 ERA in nine starts at the AA and AAA levels this season, allowing 38 hits and striking out 56 in 57-1/3 frames.

The Indians are still over .500 and just a half game out of a wild card spot. The problem is the ownership has a history of trying to make a big splash only when the Tribe is in front, they don’t seem to do it when they are trying to catch up.

Now, dealing from a strength is a different story. It’s what we thought the Indians would do in the off-season.

With Kluber’s injury, he can’t and won’t be moved. But Bauer is another story.

We should say here that we love Bauer, and have always thought he could be a staff ace. But the best trades are made from a position of strength, and a rotation of Carrasco, Clevinger, Kluber, and Bieber in ’20 would still be one of the game’s best.

Especially if you can get an impact bat. We believe they shopped Kluber and Bauer in the winter to try to get a young stud hitter, but they couldn’t get one, or demanded a second piece.

If you can do it now, it might make a big difference.

The Indians have what everyone wants, pitching. However, if you want to rebuild, trading a young, great player isn’t the way to do it. You build around that guy.

It’s also too soon to think about 2020. The Indians can still make the post-season, but the front office has look to add, not subtract before the deadline.

Talking Tribe Lineup Change

Former Indians’ manager Mike Hargrove used to say that two things everybody thinks they can do better than you are cook a steak and manage a baseball team.

Those Tribe squads that Hargrove managed were so loaded offensively, it probably didn’t matter what order the skipper put them in, they were going to score a lot of runs.

This season’s edition of the Cleveland baseball team cannot make the same claim. They are 13th in the American League in runs scored, so lineup construction is very important, or at least it should be.

Terry Francona’s batting order is curious to say the least.

For example, the Tribe has one hitter with an on base percentage over .400 and one hitter with a slugging percentage over .500.

Logic would tell you it makes sense to have the man who gets on base batting before the player with extra base power, but that’s not how the Indians do it.

Francisco Lindor has a slugging percentage of .513 but he leads off on a daily basis. Carlos Santana gets on base 40.9% of the time (he also has a .488 slugging percentage) and he bats third right now, and hit 4th for much of the year.

Lindor also led off last season when he had the third best OBP on the team (behind Jose Ramirez and Michael Brantley).

We understand Francona wants to A). get Lindor as many at bats as possible and B). likes the shortstop to set a tone in each game, but he is the team’s best hitter, and the new age baseball people will tell you the best hitter should bat 2nd.

The manager has used Santana in the leadoff spot before, but for much of this season, the switch-hitter has been the only source of offense.

Jose Ramirez has been hitting in the #3 or #5 hole all season long, even though he has a 600 OPS. The struggling third baseman is second on the team in walks, so we thought perhaps a switch to the top of the order would have him concentrating more on getting on base, rather than driving the ball.

The Indians have informed us that Jason Kipnis has reached base in 17 straight games, going 17 for 67 (.259) with nine walks. This is a big improvement, but he’s hardly tearing the cover off the ball.

Again, Francona’s logic in hitting the second baseman there is that he’s comfortable. We understand the feelings of the players should be taken into consideration, but the Indians need to make the most of their run scoring opportunities.

What would we do? Here is the lineup we would put out there vs. a right-handed pitcher:

Ramirez 3B
Santana 1B
Lindor SS
Bauers DH
Luplow RF
Kipnis 2B
Perez C
Martin CF
Mercado LF

We know Francona has a problem with hitting all the switch-hitters together, but again, dire circumstances. The rest of the lineup features an alternating left and right.

If Mercado keeps performing, he can be moved higher in the order, but having him right before Ramirez, Santana, and Lindor should help the offense.

We hesitated with Bauers at the #4 spot because he has struggled as of late, but he has done well working the count, and can hit left-handed pitching.

Something has to change to get this out of the funk, and patience has to be thrown out of the window.

Mostly though, this change was designed to get Lindor at the plate with runners on base, instead of coming up at least once a game with no one on. And Santana gets on all the time, so it makes sense.

The Ramirez change is done hopefully to shock him back into being Jose Ramirez. Again, let him focus in getting on base, so maybe it stops him from chasing.

There have been too many games where the quantity of hits and walks isn’t producing runs. Mainly because there are guys not producing mixed in with those who are.

Maybe next week, we’ll tell you about a good way to cook a steak.

Callaway Was Very Good, But Pitching Is Still Very Much A Strength

One of the things that is interesting about Cleveland sports fans is their intense loyalty if an athlete or coach has ever had any success in the city.

The latest example is the pining for current Mets’ manager Mickey Callaway to return to the Tribe if and when he gets fired by the team, which according to what you read, could be as early as today.

Callaway became the Indians’ pitching coach in 2013 when Terry Francona became the Cleveland skipper.

He took over a pitching staff that finished 14th in the American League in ERA in 2012, and improved that statistic by about a run per game, ranking 7th in his first year at the big league level.

He had been in the organization as a minor league pitching coach since 2010.

His biggest accomplishment was coaxing a dominating second half of the season out of Ubaldo Jimenez. That season also saw the first regular use as a starting pitcher by Corey Kluber.

The Indians as a team improved too, going from 68 wins the year before to 92 wins and a wild card spot. The pitching improvement was a big key, no doubt.

The following season, the staff ERA improved once again, dropping from 3.82 to 3.56, 5th in the AL. Kluber became a bona fide staff ace, winning his first Cy Young Award.

Callaway also rebuilt Carlos Carrasco, putting him in the bullpen to emphasize being aggressive from the minute he took the hill. After rejoining the rotation in August, Cookie was dominant as a starter, and really hasn’t looked back since.

In 2015, the Tribe’s team ERA rose, but their ranking in the AL went to #2. Carrasco and Kluber made for a formidable 1-2 punch, and much like T.J. House a year earlier, Callaway guided Cody Anderson into a very good second half (7-3, 3.05 ERA).

The Indians won the pennant in 2016, with a pitching staff that ranked 2nd in the American League in ERA. By then, Trevor Bauer and Danny Salazar were mainstays of the rotation, and the mid-season deal for Andrew Miller gave Cleveland a dominating back of the bullpen, along with holdovers Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw.

Injuries to Carrasco, Bauer, and Salazar ultimately took its toll in the post-season as Kluber and the bullpen showed wear and tear.

In Callaway’s last season here, the Tribe finished first in the league in ERA, and Mike Clevinger basically replaced Salazar in the rotation.

Carl Willis took over as pitching coach in 2018, and the ERA ranking dropped to 4th, but that had more to do with the bullpen’s problems. Miller and Allen kind of collapsed under the heavy workload from the previous two seasons, and Shaw departed as a free agent.

On the other hand, Kluber was a Cy Young finalist (again!), Carrasco was still very good, and Bauer and Clevinger became top of the rotation types for basically every team but Cleveland.

You also have to credit Willis for bringing along Shane Bieber, who looks like another very good starter for the Indians.

The point is the pitching staff, which currently is 3rd in the AL in ERA isn’t the problem.

It would be great if the Tribe brought him back in the organization if he loses his job because adding talented people is great, the more, the merrier.

However, the criticism being directed at Carl Willis is idiotic. The pitching staff is doing well. He has brought along Clevinger and Bieber, and you can make a very good argument the starting rotation is even better than it was when Callaway departed.

Mickey Callaway is a very good pitching coach, and may be a very good manager someday. But don’t let nostalgia get in the way of evaluation Carl Willis.

The Tribe’s Off-Season Plan And Where It Went Wrong

After being swept in the 2018 American League Division Series by the Houston Astros, the front office of the Cleveland Indians developed a plan.

They looked at the roster, which featured a starting lineup of position players all over the age of 30, with the exception of the team’s two stars–Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez.

We believe they felt the hitting was incapable of improvement except for the pair of young players, and so they set out on making the roster younger.

Oh yeah, at the same time, ownership wanted them to cut the payroll.

One of the team’s best offensive players, Michael Brantley, was a free agent. We believe he was a guy the baseball people wanted to resign, but the move to cut the players’ salary prohibited that.

So, Brantley, the professional hitter the team desperately needed, went off to Houston, leaving a big hole in the lineup.

You see, the Tribe was very top heavy last season. For the most part, when the Indians scored runs, it was because of Lindor, Ramirez, Brantley, and slugger Edwin Encarnacion, the only players with OPS over 800 on the roster.

Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff knew this, and that’s why they traded for Josh Donaldson at the end of the season. They needed another productive bat (or two).

They also knew Encarnacion declined from his first season with the Tribe (881 OPS in ’17, compared to 810 in ’18), and he would be 36 years old in 2019. So, they took the opportunity to move him and get a younger, though with less powerful hitter in Carlos Santana, who has been very good (840 OPS) thus far.

The brass also moved Yan Gomes (31), Yonder Alonso (32) in deals, and let Melky Cabrera (34) walk as a free agent. Coincidentally, the first two also were very well paid, so they saved money.

The also gave up on right-handed hitting Yandy Diaz, with his ability to get on base and a hitter who hit the ball hard, although on the ground. Still, Diaz didn’t make outs, he got on base.

The front office did bring in some young players, like Jake Bauers, a top prospect with Tampa (for Diaz), and Jordan Luplow, a good prospect for the Pirates. But, they didn’t bring in another proven bat, to lengthen the lineup.

The entire hope was that Bauers and Luplow, and perhaps Greg Allen, would step in and perform right away and give the batting order some oomph.

When the young guys struggled early in training camp, the front office panicked, bringing veterans like Matt Joyce, Hanley Ramirez, and Carlos Gonzalez. Joyce was released in camp, signing with Atlanta, and the latter two appear to be through as productive big league hitters.

So, the plan failed in not bringing in at least one bona fide hitter to replace Brantley, and then not sticking with Bauers and Luplow immediately.

There were some veteran bats out there in free agency and in the trade market. We believe the plan was to deal Corey Kluber for a young, stud bat, but when they couldn’t get what they felt was a great return, they stopped short.

We also think if the organization could have dealt Jason Kipnis, who falls in the same category as Gomes and Alonso, he would be gone as well.

One more thing, there was one young hitter who stood out in Arizona, Oscar Mercado. Cleveland sent him to the minors to start the season, and he was very impressive, and finally was called up last week.

But, the front office didn’t trust what they saw in Mercado. Would he have hit in the bigs like he did at Columbus? We will never know.

If you were going to go young, you should have done it. The slow start in spring training by the young guys caused someone to have cold feet.

Hopefully, it works out and Bauers, Luplow, and Mercado can be productive big league hitters and the offense improves. Otherwise, the front office has a lot of issues with the moves they made last winter.

No Luck, Neither Good Nor Bad, Involved In Lottery For Cavs

The NBA’s Draft Lottery was Tuesday night, and this year, for the Cleveland Cavaliers, there wasn’t any luck involved, neither good or bad.

The biggest percentage chance for Cleveland to end up was fifth, and that’s exactly where they wound up.

So, save the gripes about how the Cavs got screwed. In fact, we laughed all spring at media folks who said the wine and gold had to get the first pick, when the percentages said it was a 14% chance.

Now, by consensus, the first three picks in the draft will be Zion Williamson, who was the prize of the lottery, and will no doubt be the choice of the New Orleans Pelicans. And most agree the next two picks will be Ja Morant of Murray State, and another Dukie, R.J. Barrett.

That would seem to leave GM Koby Altman with a choice of Texas Tech guard Jarrett Culver, Duke shooter Cam Reddish, Vanderbilt point guard Darius Garland, and Virginia swingman De’Andre Hunter at the 5th spot.

And don’t forget, the Cavs have a second first round pick, the 26th selection, obtained from Houston in the deal where Cleveland took Brandon Knight’s high salary off the Rockets’ hands.

The biggest need for Altman and new coach, John Beilein is talent. Right now, the Cavs have one All Star caliber player in Kevin Love, and some other “nice pieces” in Collin Sexton, Larry Nance Jr., Cedi Osman, and Ante Zizic.

Sexton could develop into an all star type, and perhaps Osman can too, but if those two wind up being solid starters, that would be fine. There will always be a place on a team for someone with Nance’s skill set, and Zizic is still raw, but has ability.

Former Cavs’ GM Chris Grant used to say there are a few very good players in every draft, and his job was to find one of those players each year.

For what it’s worth, based on what we’ve seen and read about each of the prospects listed above, we would lean toward Culver, who is a student of the game, played in a great defensive scheme at Texas Tech, and whose weaknesses could be overcome with work, and he seems willing to do that.

The 26th overall pick could be important too, because don’t forget Altman could package that choice with a player, probably an expiring contract to move up from that spot.

Remember, the JR Smith contract is a very large asset as a trade chip. Maybe he brings back a higher pick and maybe even a third first rounder this season.

More likely though, Altman would be looking for another first round pick in the 2020 draft, to give him two next year.

Regardless, the Cavaliers have a very good chance to get a good piece this summer. And Altman will be moving at least one or two higher priced veterans (Tristan Thompson?) to accumulate more assets.

Remember, the best players on three of the remaining teams in the NBA playoffs were drafted 15th (Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo), 6th (Damian Lillard) and Stephen Curry was picked 7th overall.

We will read a lot about the players who will be taken with the 5th pick between now and the draft at the end of June.

There is talent available in the draft, it’s up to Altman to find someone who can help.

Beilein Hire Gets A Solid A

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a new head coach, and it was a shocker. Hiring a 66-year-old John Beilein from the University of Michigan was not expected at all.

And the narrative about this hire having Dan Gilbert’s imprints all over it overlooks the fact that Beilein is an excellent coach.

Beilein has a .650 winning percentage at U of M, and has coached in two Final Fours. And he has a Cavs’ connection in Mike Gansey, one of his former players at West Virginia, who is now Cleveland’s assistant GM.

The wine and gold were looking for someone who could develop talent, and the new coach certainly fills that bill. For the most part, Beilein wasn’t getting the “one and done” highly recruited players, and yet was cranking out top 20 teams on a yearly basis.

As for Beilein’s age, it has been rumored that one of the young, up and coming assistant coaches the Cavaliers have been interviewing will be named as the new coach’s chief assistant, sort of a grooming period for whoever gets the gig.

We understand this is Beilein’s first coaching job in the NBA, but learning from a guy with that kind of experience can’t be a bad thing, can it?

Plus, the veteran college head man isn’t coming into the league like a Rick Pitino or John Calipari, coming in looking to take the league by storm. He’s not a boisterous, overwhelming personality.

He’s just a very good basketball coach.

In watching his teams play over the years, the one thing we feel confident about, is the Cavs will be much better on the defensive end of the floor. The Cavs haven’t really been good on that end since the championship season of 2016, so that is something to look forward to.

He also prefers a motion offense, but he will have to adjust to the NBA game in that regard. It’s fine to run that type of attack, but he will have to put some pick-and-roll principles in because that’s a staple in the professional ranks.

Mostly though, Beilein has worked well with young players and let’s face it, the Cleveland Cavaliers are a young team. Outside of Kevin Love (30) and Larry Nance Jr. (26), the building blocks of the franchise are 24 and younger. Guys like Collin Sexton, Cedi Osman, and Ante Zizic.

And they will add two more youngsters in the first round of next month’s NBA draft. The Cavs need someone who can communicate and teach these guys, and at his core, Beilein is a professor in the class of hoops.

Any criticism of this hire comes from those who see Gilbert as someone who thinks he knows the game more than the trained professionals. While we understand this, if Gilbert was the driving force behind bringing in a college coach, he brought in a very good one.

Remember, Beilein was also in consideration for the Pistons head coaching job a year ago.

Also, it isn’t like the owner and the front office interviewed Beilein first, fell in love and didn’t talk to anyone else. They talked to several young assistant coaches around the league who dealt in player development.

If you take the hire on merit, and figure in the hiring of a younger coach as the lead assistant, we don’t see how anyone could think this is a bad hire.

Of course, as with any hire, the proof will come when the Cavs start playing games that count again in October.

Time To Take Action For Tito, Tribe.

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.

Our View Of Winning And Leading In Hoops.

Basketball can be viewed differently by a lot of people, it’s a very subjective sport.

Many people view it from a numbers perspective only, meaning players who score a lot are good players, although there are some guys who do that at the expense of everything else, so they aren’t really important to winning teams.

We hear it all the time in conversations about basketball, and we can cite examples right on our own Cleveland Cavaliers.

We believe people undervalue Larry Nance Jr. because he’s not a scorer, his career high in points per game is the 9.4 he tallied this season.

But Nance does a lot of good things on a basketball court. First, he makes 52% of his shots, meaning he understands his limitations in that area. He also grabbed 8.2 rebounds and dished out a career high 3.2 assists.

A big man who can pass is very valuable. Look at Nikola Jokic for the Denver Nuggets, who averaged over seven assists a game for the team with the second best record in the Western Conference.

Conversely, we aren’t big fans of Jordan Clarkson, who we believe is nothing more than a scorer for bad teams. Think about it, the Cavs averaged 104.5 points per game, and they were one of the worst teams in the NBA.

Someone has to score those points. When Clarkson did play for a good team, the second half of the 2017-18 season with Cleveland, he was invisible much of the time, particularly in the playoffs.

He doesn’t do much else to help a team win, and in our view, that’s why he is very replaceable.

Another thing that irritates us is talk of a players’ legacy, or determining who is the leader of a team.

Leadership is a very difficult thing, getting people to follow you isn’t easy. One thing we believe is that leaders don’t have to tell you they are the leader. Everybody just knows.

LeBron James did inform the media all the time he was the Cavs’ leader, but the players seemed to understand that as well. The holdovers from last year’s roster talked a lot this season on the work ethic that carried on even though James was in Los Angeles.

James led by being prepared for every season and every game. He is talented enough that he didn’t have to be, but he was. His teammates saw that.

And sometimes, players thrive when they aren’t a featured performer.

For example, Kyrie Irving wanted badly to have “his own team”. Right now, the phrase “be careful what you wish for” comes to mind.

Irving is having a problem with the leadership role, and really, there’s nothing wrong with being the second best player on a team that wins a title.

Look at how people view Klay Thompson or Scottie Pippen. They are thought of as great, even though they played with better players. They are important reasons as to why their teams are champions.

There seems to be too much self awareness in the game today. Why not win as many titles as you can? We understand that players can be free agents and can play where they want, and we don’t begrudge that. They’ve earned that right.

But shouldn’t the goal be to win? And win as much as you can?

It may be a generational thing, we guess.

Basketball is a beautiful game when played well. And as we said, it is a very subjective sport. This was our view.

How Long Of A Leash Will Some Tribe Players Get?

When you rank last in the league in runs scored, shouldn’t patience go out the window?

We have always said people in the front office have to be more patient than fans. Heck, many fans want to cut players because they go hitless in two straight games, or even worse, strikeout with the bases loaded in a one run game in the bottom of the ninth.

Baseball professional always talk about the numbers on a guy’s baseball card. What they mean is players who have reached a certain level will almost certainly return to those levels.

It’s why the Tribe brass isn’t panicking about Jose Ramirez’ slow start, even though it extended from the last six weeks of last season.

Last year, Paul Goldschmidt, a frequent MVP candidate, hit .144 (14 for 97) in May. He rebounded to hit .364 with 10 home runs in June.

That’s the way baseball is.

However, there should be a sense of urgency when you have played roughly a fifth of a baseball season, and your team in last in the AL in runs scored, which is the tale of the Cleveland Indians’ 2019 season right now.

Surely, it is easy to have patience with Jose Ramirez, who is 26 years old, and coming off a season in which he finished in the top three in the MVP voting. He may have been the best hitter in the league from the beginning of the 2018 season until the middle of August.

However, when a player gets past his 30th birthday, and he goes into a slump, it is natural to wonder if it is indeed a slump, or the beginning of a decline.

In the Indians’ case, if the offense was rolling, and everyone except for one player was producing, it would be easy to overlook the struggling player and give him time to work out whatever issue he is having at the plate.

But when they are only one or two hitters putting up decent numbers, there comes a time where the manager simply can’t wait anymore. And save your overly patient Tito comments for the time being.

Which leads us to ask, how long does the rope go for two non-performing veterans right now, Jason Kipnis and Carlos Gonzalez?

Since the end of the 2016 season, Kipnis has hit .227 with a 688 OPS. That’s below average production.

CarGo has just two extra base hits in 65 plate appearance this year, and last season had just 17 non-singles in 265 times at bat. Compare that to 35 in 239 times at the dish in Coors Field.

The question of whether or not the veteran outfielder was a product of the thin air in Colorado seems appropriate.

Keep in mind, Kipnis is 32 and Gonzalez is 33.

We get that it is not fair, but that’s the way it is in baseball today. Young players get the benefit of the doubt. Studies have shown ball players reach their peak between ages 27 to 29.

Once you reach 30 years old, there is additional pressure to maintain your production in order to keep a roster spot.

So, if the Tribe’s offensive struggles continue, at what point do they move on from the two veterans?

In Kipnis’ case, there really isn’t any alternative. The club’s best middle infield prospect in the high minors, Yu Chang, is hitting .151 at AAA. Does journeyman Mike Freeman start getting at bats in place of Kipnis? Not likely.

As for CarGo, the shadow of spring training sensation Oscar Mercado looms. If he starts hitting like he did earlier in the season, can the club afford to leave him in Columbus?

And if they bring him up, whose playing time decreases?

The point is the overall malaise of the offense doesn’t afford the opportunity to be patient for Terry Francona and the front office.

It’s not fair, but it’s reality.

Tribe Front Office In A Slump Too

The front office of the Cleveland Indians is well respected among Major League Baseball. Other teams are always interviewed people within the organization for jobs, people like Derek Falvey, now running the Minnesota Twins, Neil Huntington (Pirates), and David Stearns (Brewers).

Heck, even the Cleveland Browns hired a former Indians’ executive in Paul DePodesta.

However, the current front office is in a slump, otherwise it is hard to describe the moves made by the front office since the end of the 2018 season.

We understand the ownership ordered the executives to cut the payroll, even though the Tribe has won three consecutive division titles. That alone is a head scratcher, but we have already discussed that numerous times.

As the hot stove league started, we thought we understood what Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff were doing. The ’18 Indians were getting old. Among the regulars, only Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez were under 30 years old.

So, Michael Brantley left through free agency, and Yan Gomes was dealt to Washington, in a move that could pay dividends, as Jefry Rodriguez is now very much needed as a starter with the injuries to the rotation.

They traded Erik Gonzalez to Pittsburgh for Jordan Luplow and Max Moroff. Luplow has had a lot of minor league success that so far hasn’t translated into the big leagues.

The move that was really curious was dealing Yandy Diaz, an on base machine, to Tampa for Jake Bauers.

First, let us say, we like Bauers. He works counts, shows some pop, and is second on the Tribe currently in RBIs. But Diaz has started to hit with power, hitting seven homers to date with Tampa, and is still getting on base 36% of the time.

Only Carlos Santana can say that among the regulars with Cleveland.

The organization wanted to get younger and wanted to commit to younger players, but it seems the guys brought in were lottery tickets, they didn’t go all in and get a stud, like perhaps Alex Verdugo with the Dodgers, currently hitting .346 with a 981 OPS.

We felt the extension to the plan was to deal from strength, meaning moving a starting pitcher, either Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, or Carlos Carrasco, for a package involved a stud bat.

Either the offer wasn’t there, or the front office overestimated the market value for one of their starters, but it seems like they stopped short.

As spring training wound down, the front office seemed to think it made a mistake, so they signed veteran bats like Matt Joyce, Hanley Ramirez, and Carlos Gonzalez. Only the latter is still here, and quite frankly, hasn’t been an impact bat to date.

Players like Asdrubal Cabrera, Derek Dietrich, Adam Jones, and Nick Markakis (yes, we understand he probably was only interested in re-signing with the Braves) were all available and signed for very little money.

One of them could have been signed to give the team the veteran bat missing with Brantley’s departure.

Greg Allen had a very good last two months in ’18, and a great spring training, but Terry Francona buried him on the bench early in the season, and he floundered. It is tough for a young player to be in a reserve role.

Maybe the front office is trying to show ownership that you need to spend to win, this is their subtle way of protesting the payroll cut.

The pitching moves are odd as well. Cody Anderson was brought up because the team needed someone to soak up innings after the bullpen was heavily used in the first game of a series vs. Kansas City.

Anderson was in AAA to get stretched out after Tommy John surgery to be a starting pitcher again. The right-hander was used that night for two innings, but then stayed on the big league roster for a week, instead of going back to lengthen his workload.

Now, he is starting today, and Francona is probably hoping to get four innings. Of course, they currently have nine relievers on the team.

It’s an odd way of handling things over the last eight months. Hopefully, it’s just a slump.