Tag: al central divison

Tribe Coming Down The Stretch. What Does That Mean In 2020?

The Cleveland Indians start play on Sunday with just 21 games remaining in this COVID abbreviated season. And they are in the midst of a pennant race, or are they?

Currently, the Tribe is a half game behind the Chicago White Sox, who sit in first place and they are virtually tied with Minnesota for second place.

With eight teams in the American League making the playoffs, it would be shocking in all three Central Division leaders didn’t advance to the post-season. There are no first round byes, so the trio is playing for playoff seeding and right now, the Sox would take on the Yankees, the Indians would get the Houston Astros, and Twins would take on Oakland.

Chicago and Cleveland would be designated as the home team for each game of the first round, best of three set, because the Indians have the edge by percentage points over Minnesota, and would be designated as the Central Division’s second place team, with the Twins getting a wild card position.

Of course, the lack of separation between the three teams make this situation very fluid. By the end of today, the Indians could be the 7th seed as a wild card, or the third seed as division leader.

Cleveland has a three game series at Target Field next weekend against the Twins, and host a four game set vs. the Pale Hose the last week of the season. The Tribe is currently 3-4 vs. Minnesota and are 4-2 against the Sox.

The White Sox host the Twins for a four game set, after the Tribe plays Rocco Baldelli’s squad, and of course, has the four game set in Cleveland, while the Twins have seven straight games vs. the other two contenders, followed by three against the NL Central leading Cubs.

We will know a lot about the Twins after that potentially brutal 10 game stretch.

Within the three teams, the young White Sox have fared the worst so far, going 4-8 against the other two top teams in the Central. They have dominated everyone else, going 20-7 against the rest of the schedule.

Minnesota has fared the best, going 8-5 in games between the three squads, with Cleveland being 5-6.

Chicago has ridden their offense so far, ranking second in the AL in runs scored per game at 5.26. But in six games against the Cleveland pitching staff, they’ve scored just 17 tallies, and that’s just 2.8 per contest.

The Twins have had a lot of injuries to date, which has hurt their highly touted offense. They’ve had Josh Donaldson for just 11 games and catcher Mitch Garver for just 17, so they rank just 11th in runs scored per game at 4.38.

FYI, the Indians average just 4.18 runs/game.

Against, the Tribe, Minnesota has scored only 18 runs in seven contests. That’s 2.6 per game.

So, while the AL Central top tier will probably all make it to October, that doesn’t mean the games aren’t important. Having the opportunity to bat last in the first three games during the post-season is important.

As for the overall AL post-season raced, it’s not much of one. Currently, Baltimore and Detroit are the first two teams looking in, and they are both three games behind the eighth spot, with Seattle four games out. With only between 20-25 games remaining, that will be tough to make up.

Both of those squads are below .500, so the Indians need to only win six games to probably be in, while we figure around 35-25 will get you home field for the first round. To do that, Cleveland needs to go 11-10 the rest of the way.

The bigger thing to watch for the Tribe is how they play against the Twins, Cubs, and White Sox coming down the stretch. Those are the best team remaining on the schedule.

We know Cleveland can beat the likes of Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Detroit, but they are 5-8 against the three teams mentioned before (meaning they are 19-7 against everyone else).

It’s not September baseball as we know it because of the expanded playoff system. Can you imagine the excitement about the division race, under the normal format? Because likely one and perhaps, two teams could be left out, and the wild card teams would have just the one game to get to the Division Series.

Still, the Tribe has questions. Can their hitting survive games where better pitchers are facing them? Can the bullpen remain solid? Can they find some production out of the outfield?

That’s the reason to watch these last 21 games, even if it seems the Indians will qualify for the playoffs.

Is The Tribe A Playoff Certainty in ’19? Maybe Not

In writing about the Cleveland Indians, we have referred to them as the favorites to win the American League Central Division, pretty much assuming they will get to the playoffs in 2019.

The question today is–based on the current roster, is that a correct assumption?  Or are we thinking with our heart instead of the head.

Last year’s Indians scored 80 more runs than their closest competitors, the Minnesota Twins, a year ago.  They allowed 127 runs less than the Twins.

They were the closest to the Tribe in both of those categories in 2018, and not coincidentally, the Twins finished second in the division, 13 games behind Cleveland.

Since the season’s end, the Indians have lost four of their top six hitters in OPS:  Michael Brantley, Edwin Encarnacion, Yan Gomes, and Yonder Alonso.  Replacing them are question marks.

They also have cut ties with the players with the three highest OPS figures among the non-regular players–Josh Donaldson, Lonnie Chisenhall, and Yandy Diaz.

While pitching may rule in a short series, you have to score runs to get to the post-season.  In the AL, the top five teams in runs scored all made the playoffs, and in the National League, five of the top seven teams in runs scored advanced.

By the way, the Twins were the highest scoring team in the AL last season that did not make the playoffs, and they added C. J. Cron and Nelson Cruz to their lineup, while substracting Robbie Grossman and Joe Mauer, who retired.

Cron (816 OPS) essentially replaces Logan Morrison, who had the Twins’ lowest OPS among regulars, while Cruz (850 OPS) would rank as Minnesota’s best hitter, and had an OPS over 100 points higher than Mauer.

It would not be a stretch to say the Twins may score more runs than the Indians in 2019. We like Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler a lot, and the latter in particular should improve on his 2018 numbers.

Where the Indians have a huge advantage is in the starting rotation, arguably all five of the Cleveland starters could have better years than any of the Twins’ rotation members.

We like Jose Barrios, but right now he would be the fifth starter for the Indians.

Looking at the two teams, we would say the Indians are banking on their rotation’s ability to hold opponents’ hitters down, so they can win a lot of games 3-2 and 4-3.  That’s difficult to sustain over an entire season, and puts a lot of pressure on the Cleveland bullpen, which is also in a state of disarray.

The Twins, led by former Indians’ assistant general manager Derek Falvey, haven’t been super aggressive this off-season, but they have made moves to improve their ballclub, which we can’t say about the Tribe.

Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff shouldn’t be comfortable about ruling the division again next season, especially with uncertainty at pretty much every spot save for shortstop, second or third base (depending on where Jose Ramirez plays), and first base/DH (wherever Carlos Santana is).

While the Cleveland starting pitching is the most impressive and best unit among the two rosters, the gap has definitely narrowed.  And spring training is less than a month away.

We also haven’t mentioned the Chicago White Sox who are wooing free agent all-star Manny Machado.

Perhaps we should scale back our “certainty” that the Indians will get back to the playoffs in ’19.  They have a lot to do to be considered a lock.

MW