Tribe Still Surviving at the Quarter Pole

Tonight, the Cleveland Indians will play their 40th game of the season, which obviously means the campaign is one-quarter over.

Suddenly, it’s not early anymore, but there is still plenty of season remaining.

The Tribe sits at 18-21 on the season, and with the jumbled American League, they are still in the thick of it for a post-season spot, although the Tigers seem to be running away (again!) with the Central Division.

Eleven of the 15 teams in the AL sit within three games of the .500 mark, an incredible number considering the number of games played so far. Only Oakland and Detroit are more than three games over the break-even mark.

Cleveland’s pitching is holding its own, ranking in the top half of the league (7th) in ERA, despite the struggles of their #1 starter, Justin Masterson, and having to sit down the closer that started the season, John Axford.

Masterson hasn’t pitched poorly (2-2, 4.31 ERA), but he certainly hasn’t pitched as well as he did last season. He’s had several outings thus far where he has been dominating early, only to lose it completely.

Yesterday was one of those games, with the big right-hander retiring the first nine Blue Jays, but then giving up five runs in the next 2-1/3 innings.

Axford has struck out 16 hitters in 15-2/3 innings, but he’s walked 13 and allowed three home runs. Putting hitters on via walk and giving up bombs isn’t a way for a closer to stay a closer for long.

The bigger issue for Terry Francona’s club is the offense, which sits at 12th in the league in runs scored, 13th in batting average, and 12th in OPS. All of those ranks are in the bottom third of the AL.

While no one outside of Michael Brantley has been consistently good so far, the biggest culprits for the offensive ineptitude would be Carlos Santana, Nick Swisher, and Ryan Raburn.

Thank goodness, Santana has continued to draw walks (he’s second in the AL with 32), because otherwise he would be a total disaster. He’s hitting just .152 for the season with 4 HR and 11 RBI. His OPS is under 600 (597) for the season.

Francona is a very patient manager, but it will be tough to keep the switch-hitter in the clean up spot much longer.

As bad as Santana’s OPS is with his batting average at .152, Swisher’s isn’t much better at 618.

The Tribe’s big free agent acquisition a year ago, the first baseman is languishing at .204, 2 HR, and 15 RBI. That’s a pace to hit less than 10 dingers and knock in about 60 runs for the season.

The weird stat though, is that those RBIs ranked third on the team, behind Brantley and David Murphy. That’s how much everyone else as struggled as well.

Swisher has been terrible vs. lefties, hitting just .156 against southpaws. The Tribe has struggled against left-handed starters all season, and this is just one reason.

Another reason is the production of Raburn, hitting just .176 with a 433 OPS. He did a great job of hitting southpaws last season, one of the reasons for the team’s success vs. lefties. He batted .308 and slugged over .600 in 2013.
This year, Raburn’s just 7 for 40 against those pitchers and has just two extra base hits on the season. It’s reminiscent of his horrible 2012 season, which led to his release by the Tigers.

He’s pretty much only been used against left-handers this season, whereas last year, he got more at-bats against righties. Maybe he just needs some more playing time to get going.

Despite all that has gone wrong with the offense, including the injury to all-star Jason Kipnis, it really is remarkable the Indians aren’t buried in terms of contention.

Still, the bats have to pick up over the long haul or the burden on the starting pitching and bullpen will be too much for the staff to handle over the last 75% of the season.

Tribe’s Patience May Be a Bit Too Much

The one thing we have learned from following baseball for many years is that the management of a major league baseball team have to have an extreme amount of patience.

We like to think we are more patient than the normal fan, who wants to bench people, trade people, and sent players to the minor leagues after a bad week.

We lobbied for the Indians to deal or release Ubaldo Jimenez at this point last season, only to have the right-hander earn a huge free agent deal by helping the Tribe get into the post-season in 2013.

However, you have to wonder just how much more patience Terry Francona and GM Chris Antonetti will have with the under performing players currently on the Cleveland roster, namely starting pitchers Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco, and third baseman Carlos Santana.

Last year, when Jimenez struggled, at least the other members of the starting rotation (Justin Masterson, Corey Kluber, Zack McAllister, and Scott Kazmir) were giving Francona mostly solid efforts. You can kind of live with one guy in the rotation having problems.

When two starters are having problems, that’s a problem, because it puts pressure on everyone else to be good every time out.

The simple solution would be to send Salazar back to Columbus to rediscover himself and put Carrasco in the bullpen, because as we all know by now, he’s gone 16 consecutive starts without a victory. That’s a half season of turns in the rotation.

The moves make particular sense because of the performance of both Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin at AAA.

Bauer has made four starts so far this season, three at Columbus and one with the Tribe, pitching 24-2/3 innings and allowing 4 runs, striking out 29 batters and walking just four. Why wouldn’t it be time to give him a three or four start stint in the majors while he is pitching well?

As for Tomlin, he’s made four starts in AAA, compiling a 1-1 record with a 2.77 ERA. In 26 frames, he’s allowed 19 hits, walking nine and striking out 18 batters. And we know from Tomlin’s work in Cleveland that most nights he will keep his team in the game.

As for Santana, the switch hitter is now batting under .130 and yet is still in the clean up spot for a team struggling to score runs, getting three or less in 13 of the 24 games played. He is still drawing a lot of walks (still a .316 OBP), but maybe he should get a couple of days off, or least drop down in the batting order until he gets it going.

Understand, the Tribe probably isn’t going anywhere without a productive Carlos Santana, but right now leaving him in the #4 hole isn’t helping the Indians get on the scoreboard.

Really, when you think of the problems of this trio, and you add in the horrible defensive play from the Tribe on a night to night basis, it’s kind of miraculous they are only two games below the .500 mark at 11-13.

This bodes well for the rest of the season, because when the defense improves, or the bats start heating up, or the rotation starts performing on a night in, night out basis, Francona’s team should start reeling off some wins.

Nobody is saying to give up on anyone, but perhaps making a couple of tweaks to the make up of the roster after almost 1/6th of the campaign might be in order.

After all, the changes can’t be any worse than what has transpired thus far.

Tribe Pitchers Need to Throw Strikes

The biggest worry most fans of the Cleveland Indians had going into the season was the starting pitching. With two weeks of the season having been played, that concern still exists.

Despite the absence of Michael Bourn and slow starts by Nick Swisher, Asdrubal Cabrera, and to some extent Carlos Santana, the Indians have scored enough runs. They rank 3rd in the American League in runs scored, averaging 4.83 tallies per game and the team’s OPS ranks tied for 4th in the junior circuit.

Unfortunately, the two teams they trail in runs per night are teams they have played thus far in the 2014 season: The Twins and White Sox. Are those teams hot, or are the struggles by Cleveland’s starters responsible for their impressive ranking.

Terry Francona and Mickey Callaway’s pitching staff has struggled throwing strikes, leading the American League in allowing walks. They also lead the AL in striking hitters out. This combination leads to high pitch counts for the starting pitchers, and that puts a huge burden on the bullpen. And we all know how Francona likes to protect his relief corps.

In the Tribe’s 12 games thus far, the starter has completed seven innings just twice (Justin Masterson on Opening Night, and Zack McAllister vs. San Diego), and in only two other games have they thrown six frames (Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer, both this past week against the Padres).

That’s two out of every three games that the bullpen is forced to get more than nine outs per game.

To be sure, Callaway and the skipper would prefer the starters to be more efficient, throw strikes and let hitters put the ball in play to get outs. Masterson has walked nine in 15-1/3 frames, Carlos Carrasco has walked five in 10-1/3 innings, and Danny Salazar has issued five more free passes in 9-1/3 innings.

Speaking of Carrasco, it appears he isn’t pleasing his bosses. He struggled in his second start of the season on Friday night, but what had to have Francona and Callaway shaking their heads were the two walks he issued after the Tribe tied the game at three for him. Response runs have been a problem this season for the whole staff, but when they occur because of walks, it makes the manager upset.

After the game, reporters received the dreaded “ask him” answer from the pitching coach, a very good sign of his anger. Callaway sent a clear signal to the pitcher that he is no longer covering for him. And both he and Francona go out of their way to take the player’s side when at all possible.

The right-hander had his next start, scheduled to be Thursday at Detroit, delayed until at least Saturday vs. Toronto, but the guess here is that the front office is buying time to see whether or not to use Bauer or maybe Josh Tomlin in that spot with Carrasco staying in the bullpen.

Blake Wood (seven walks in 4-1/3 IP) could be sent to Columbus to make room in the ‘pen for Carrasco, as the organization tries to find a spot for the young right-hander and his electric stuff.

If he fails in the relief role, GM Chris Antonetti will likely have to cut ties with Carrasco.

While it is still very early in the campaign (less than 10% of the season has been played), the Tribe needs to get more length out of the starting pitchers. If the current guys can’t do it, Francona will make changes. He isn’t about to throw away a season because of this problem.

How Did We Do–Tribe Will Fall Just Short of Playoffs in ’14

This was orginally posted in April

For every baseball fan, today is a day filled with anticipation. Opening Day will be here tomorrow, and despite the weather from yesterday, baseball will be played at Progressive Field by the end of this week.

Can the Indians repeat their unexpected run to the playoffs (and yes, Kenny Lofton, they did make the playoffs) in 2014? That is the question on all Tribe fans minds this spring.

We believe the AL Central Division race will be highly contested this summer with the defending champion Tigers, Indians, and the Royals all in contention, and we also feel that less than 90 wins will take the title.

All three teams will win between 83-89 games, so Terry Francona’s squad will be in the mix all season long. And because the division will be so close, things like injuries and deadline trades will have a huge factor on how things will turn out.

That said, we believe the Tribe will finish second in the division once again, but this time will fall just short of a post-season spot.

Why? Because the front office just didn’t do enough to offset the losses from this winter, mainly the departure of two starting pitchers, Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir.

We agreed with letting both pitchers depart because the contracts they signed were more than we would have paid either hurler based on their past performance, but we believed GM Chris Antonetti would have acquired at least one innings eater to replace the 340 innings that left via free agency.

As we wrote last week, if Danny Salazar and Corey Kluber reach the performance expected of them this season, the loss of two starting pitchers will become a moot point, but that’s a tough leap of faith considering they have combined for less than 300 innings in their career.

The Indians’ offense also sputtered at times last year even though Cleveland finished fourth in the AL in runs scored. Francona could have used another established bat in the lineup and instead Antonetti signed David Murphy, who has a good track record (.275 lifetime batting average, 778 OPS), but hit just .220 last season for the Rangers.

The Tribe needs comeback seasons from Nick Swisher, bothered by a shoulder problem in 2013, Michael Bourn, and Asdrubal Cabrera, who will be a free agent following the season, in order to have a more consistent attack.

They will also need continued improvement from two hitters entering their age 27 (entering prime) seasons in 2B Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley. Everyone praised Brantley’s ’13 season, but actually his OPS and batting average were down from 2012 (728 OPS/.284 in ’13 compared to 750/.288 in ’12).

He has the talent to be a premier offensive player (.350 OBP, .450 slugging percentage) and needs to reach those levels in 2014.

Kipnis needs to be more consistent. He hit .301 (897 OPS) before the All-Star break, and just .261 (714 OPS) after the Midsummer Classic. As the #3 hitter in the lineup, he needs to stay away from weeks where he is producing like a bottom of the order hitter.

We also have doubts about the experiment of playing Carlos Santana will work out. Santana hit .268 with 20 HR last season, and you would think his production will increase without the burden of catching more than 100 games a season, but will the switch in positions affect him at the plate?

And, of course, will his defense be solid enough to play at the hot corner on a daily basis.

The division will be close and the Tribe will be playing meaningful games in September. However, there are enough questions to think they will fall just short.

However, if some of the scenarios outlined above reach reality, the Indians could win the division and make the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time since the late 90’s.

Battle For Last Two Spots on Tribe Roster

The Indians made their first cuts of the spring earlier this week, and there were no surprises. The first 12 players sent back to the minor league camp were players who didn’t figure to make the team anyway.

Today, the club announced that Jason Giambi has a fractured rib and will be out for 3-4 weeks, meaning there is another opening on the bench.

If we assume Lonnie Chisenhall starts at third, Carlos Santana is the DH, and David Murphy will start in RF, and the Tribe will open the regular season with 12 pitchers, then there are four spots on the bench.

Mike Aviles and Ryan Raburn, who were both stalwarts in reserve roles for Terry Francona in 2013, will fill two of those spots.

That leaves two spots open with the main candidates being infielders Elliot Johnson and Justin Sellers, picked up from the Dodgers during spring training, and outfielders Jeff Francoeur and Nyjer Morgan.

All four players have big league experience.

Of course, that could change if Francona wants to carry another catcher because Santana will be getting more at bats as a DH.

Johnson and Sellers have made a good impression thus far.

The former, 29 years old, has the benefit of being a switch-hitter and can play 2B, 3B, SS and both corner outfield spots. He’s 7 for 19 with a home run in Arizona to date.

The negative that in parts of four big league seasons, he’s a lifetime .219 hitter with a 592 OPS.

Sellers is 27 years old and is considered to be a better option at SS defensively, although he can also play second base and third base.

He’s 6 for 10 thus far in exhibition play, but lifetime has a .199 batting average with a 579 OPS, although in limited playing time (266 plate appearances)

The two outfielders are much more experienced, although they haven’t performed very well thus far in Goodyear.

Francoeur is 30 years old, and has spent time with the Braves, Royals, and Giants in his career, batting .263 (725 OPS) with 140 home runs.

He’s a solid corner outfielder defensively and has a great throwing arm. His problem has been strike zone judgment. He’s allergic to the base on balls.

He does have a solid history vs. southpaws, with a lifetime .285 batting average and 800 OPS.

Morgan has also struggled a bit in camp, hitting just .200 (5 for 25) and left yesterday’s game with some sort of leg problem. He is now 33 years old and has a career .280 batting average (705 OPS).

He also has a strong platoon split, hitting .297 for his career against right-handed pitchers.

If Francona wants a third catcher, he’ll choose between veterans Matt Treanor and Luke Carlin.

Our opinion is that Francouer will claim one of the spots, basically taking Giambi’s spot on the team, and occasionally spelling Murphy in right field with Raburn perhaps at DH.

The other spot will go to Sellers because of his defensive prowess at SS.

Those are the tough decisions for Francona and GM Chris Antonetti, but they are important because of the way the skipper uses his entire roster.

Just one more thing to keep an eye on in the last two weeks of spring training.

Tribe Versatility Important to Team Success

When Eric Wedge managed the Indians, many fans thought his ideal team would consist of players who could all play every position on the field. He loved versatility.

His most noted experiment involved trying to make Ryan Garko, a college catcher, who quite frankly had no speed whatsoever into an outfielder, playing him in both LF and RF.

He used Casey Blake, a third baseman by trade, at 1B and in the outfield.

He loved guys like Chris Gimenez, who could catch and play other positions, and when then-GM Mark Shapiro traded for Mark DeRosa, he had to be ecstatic.

The problem for Wedge was he tried to make young players, who were playing everyday (Garko) play other spots, and the guys like Gimenez are marginal major league players at best.

We say this because if you look at the current Indians’ roster, they have a bunch of players who can play multiple positions.

The difference is Terry Francona’s team is littered with guys who have performed in that role for most of their major league careers, and in most cases, have flourished moving around the field and not being in the lineup everyday.

The main players on Francona’s bench are veterans Ryan Raburn and Mike Aviles. Raburn can play the corner outfield spots as well as both infield corner spots and even 2B in a pinch.

Aviles can play all of the infield spots and even played a few games in LF last season.

And although neither of them will get 500 at bats in a season, when they get around 300 plate appearances in a season, they are solid big league hitters.

Everyone points out that Raburn will likely not be as productive as he was last season (901 OPS in 243 at bats), but his career average is .258 with 10 HRs per year and a respectable 762 OPS.

Aviles is a career .273 hitter and gets around 8 homers per year.

Francona was a master last year of putting players like Aviles and Raburn in situations where they would be productive, and there is no reason to think the same won’t be true in 2014.

Now, the Tribe is trying to improve the versatility of the Tribe by giving Carlos Santana some playing time at third base. While no one really believe the plan is for Santana to play full-time at the hot corner, he gives the skipper an option against a tough lefty to put Santana there instead of Lonnie Chisenhall.

The difference in the Santana conversion and those of the Wedge era is that the player went to Francona and the front office and wanted to make the move instead of being a full-time DH.

This way, the former and current back up catcher can play a day or two at first base, allowing Nick Swisher a day off or a day at DH, maybe a day at third, and catch one game to give Yan Gomes a day off.

If a young player isn’t on board with the move, then it doesn’t have as good a chance of succeeding. Besides, Santana was a third baseman in the minor leagues, so he’s played the position before.

It’s a tribute to the locker room that Francona and the front office have crafted that Santana wanted to make this move.

Watching this move from his view as an ESPN analyst, Eric Wedge is surely envious.

Why Don’t Fans Respect Santana?

Last night, Twitter was filled with rumors of a deal involving the Indians and Los Angeles Angels with the Tribe sending Corey Kluber to the west coast in exchange for slugger Mark Trumbo.

While both teams have denied the rumor and quite frankly, it doesn’t make much sense for the Indians from this point of view: It is very likely Cleveland will be losing two starting pitchers (Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir) to free agency, so it doesn’t make sense to trade another.

However, the debate then turned to a discussion of the merits of Trumbo, comparing him to current Indian C/1B/DH Carlos Santana.

It was surprising to find how little regard Tribe fans have for Santana, who is arguably (and statistically) the team’s second best offensive player behind Jason Kipnis.

The Angel’s slugger certainly has the traditional numbers, hitting 34 home runs and knocking in 100 runs last season with a .234 batting average.

However, if you look deeper into the numbers, it is very clear that Santana is a better offensive player.

Why? For one, he makes less outs with an on base percentage of .377 compared to Trumbo’s .294 figure. While some people pooh-pooh walks, they aren’t outs, so the offense moves on to the next player.

And while Trumbo belted 34 dingers compared to Santana’s 20 circuit clouts, the Tribe’s switch hitter had virtually the same slugging percentage (.455 vs. Trumbo’s .453).

However, Santana had nine more doubles in less official at bats because of the walks he takes.

So, in the two major categories that measure hitting effectiveness, the ability to get on base and the ability to move runners (slugging), Santana is superior.

And these aren’t subjective statistics either. They are measurable.

Both players are the same age (both will turn 28 in the first half of 2014), so there isn’t an advantage on the upside of either player.

You could assume that Santana may be more productive since he will likely be catching less next season as Terry Francona has publicly stated that Yan Gomes will be the starting catcher heading into training camp.

There aren’t many people who disagree that squatting behind the dish and taking foul tips off your body don’t help your offensive numbers.

Another statistic against Trumbo is his strikeout rate, which continues to go up. In his rookie year of 2011, the right-handed hitter fanned 120 times.

That number increased to 153 times in ’12 and last year, he whiffed 184 times. That’s Mark Reynolds territory.Still, what is surprising to us is how little Tribe fans regard Santana.

Is he a gold glove catcher? No, but he’s not the worst defensive backstop in the American League either.

He’s not a guy who belts 30 homers, nor does he knock in a boatload of runs.

And he’s not the pure hitter that his idol, former Indians Victor Martinez is either.

However, he is a very good offensive player. The average American League player has an OPS of 725. Santana’s is 832.

We have always said a player who has an on-base percentage of .350 and a slugging percentage of .450 is a very good offensive player. Santana gets a check in both of those areas.

Carlos Santana will probably never win a league MVP, and he may never make an All-Star team. However, he is a very valuable commodity.

It’s a shame some baseball fans in Cleveland don’t realize it.

Tribe Offense Succeeds or Fails as Team

The Cleveland Indians hitting has struggled as of late. That is no secret.

They have scored just 21 runs in their last eight games, seven of which have been losses. Scoring less than three tallies per night will not translate to a lot of victories in the American League.

However, a look at the AL team batting statistics shows the Tribe ranked fourth in the junior circuit in runs scored, making them one of the more prolific attacks in the league.

Why doesn’t it seem that way?

Certainly, any team that is not hitting looks lethargic and that is playing into the feeling that the Indians need some hitting. The other reason is that there isn’t really one Tribesman having a huge year at the dish.

Jason Kipnis is having a solid season, his best in the major leagues, but his numbers project to this for a full season: .290, 20 HR, and 94 RBIs. Good numbers, but they aren’t big time statistics.

With Mark Reynolds being released (he is still tied for the team lead in home runs), it appears Kipnis will be the only Indians who will hit 20 dingers, and unless someone gets scalding hot, no Cleveland player will knock in 100 runs this season.

The only other regular with an OPS of over 800 is Carlos Santana and right now his numbers projected to .262, 17 HR, and 68 RBI, numbers comparable to last season, which was considered a down year for the switch-hitter.

There is no question Terry Francona has received a huge lift from his bench, particularly from Ryan Raburn and Yan Gomes, who is starting to get more and more playing time.

Raburn has 13 homers and 38 ribbies in a little over 200 plate appearances, but he is succeeding because he has been used on a limited basis. His previous employers tried using him everyday and he has a horrible year.

That’s the reason he is in Cleveland rather than Detroit.

Gomes is just 25 years old and is giving the skipper more and more reasons to put him in the lineup more often.

The catcher acquired in the heist that also brought Mike Aviles in exchange for Esmil Rogers, has 8 home runs and 28 RBIs in less than 200 plate appearances, and he’s hitting for average too at .310 for the season.

And he’s hitting over .300 against both right-handed pitchers and southpaws, which gives Francona more reason to start giving him everyday at bats.

Yes, the Tribe bats have got hot at times and that is a reason they rank 4^th in the league in scoring.

They are 6^th in the league in home runs, but as noted earlier, they may not have anyone hit more than 20.

They are 5^th in the AL in drawing walks, but no one will walk 100 times for the season. The leaders in getting free passes are Santana (60), Kipnis (54), and Nick Swisher (54).

The point is that the Tribe has a very balanced lineup. That works to their advantage at times, but when many guys aren’t hitting, they don’t have that one great bat that can carry them.

Kipnis did it in June when he was red-hot, but no one else has approached that level since.

That’s why the attack is sputtering. If no one gets hot and soon, it will be very difficult for the Indians to reach the post-season this season, and it makes it a necessity to get a big time hitter for next season.