Looking Toward ’16 During Last Six Weeks

The Cleveland Indians are currently holding auditions for the 2016 season, all able-bodied players in their system should have a chance to state their case to be on next year’s Opening Day roster during the last six weeks of the season.

If the Tribe were putting an ad in the sports pages, that is what it would probably look like.

You would have to think that among the everyday players, only Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley and Yan Gomes are for sures to be here next April. Although, Francisco Lindor is making a pretty good case for himself as well.

However, with players who do not have a track record should be required to earn their spot. So, if Lindor came to Goodyear not in the best shape, or he hits .150 in the exhibition games, it’s not a guarantee that he makes the squad.

Our guess is that Carlos Santana will be moved elsewhere because the Tribe doesn’t want to pay him $8 million next year for the production they have received. And we believe Mike Aviles and Ryan Raburn will be free agents after the 2015 campaign.

Chris Johnson will likely be back because of his $9 million deal for 2016, but that’s a tradeable deal so that is not etched in stone.

Giovanny Urshela has been impressive defensively, but we aren’t sure he will hit enough to play everyday. And if Jose Ramirez continues to hit like he has since his call up, Terry Francona will have to find a spot for him, unless, of course, GM Chris Antonetti uses him to bring back a legitimate bat.

So, the tryouts are really at the following positions: 1B, 3B, CF, RF, DH.

Even if Lonnie Chisenhall hits well down the stretch, the front office cannot be fooled by that. Chisenhall was tremendous in the first half last season, but hasn’t done much since.

Fans will get a good look at players like Jerry Sands and Abraham Almonte in August, and many at bats will be given to guys like Tyler Holt, Jesus Aguilar, James Ramsey, and Zack Walters in September.

Can Sands be the Tribe’s version of J.D. Martinez?

Can Holt and Aguilar contribute if given steady playing time, something they haven’t received in any of their big league stints?

Can Almonte and Ramsey at least be steady enough to hold down the fort until Bradley Zimmer arrives in Cleveland?

Can Walters ever make contact?

There is no doubt Antonetti will need to find some veterans to fill in at the beginning of the year, but those players should be given one or two-year deals, at mid-range dollars.

The team’s foray into the big time free agent market should be over.

Most all-star type players don’t hit the market until they are past 30 years old, so what you are buying is the player’s declining years. Even Los Angeles’ Albert Pujols isn’t the same player he was in St. Louis, and the Angels will want to get out of that deal soon.

If we were the brass, we would start working on a 10 year deal with Lindor, so he will be here through age 31. We will that strongly about his talent, and because of his unproven talent, it would not cost the franchise $200 million to do it.

Think of the deal Evan Longoria signed in Tampa during his first year with the Rays.

So the positions that are open will need to be filled with either youngsters or whatever return you get in dealing Santana and/or Ramirez, and/or some pitching.

Even if the Tribe doesn’t want to move a starter, they have some bullpen depth, and should really open next year with at least three new faces in the relief corps.

And yes, we would consider moving Cody Allen for the right price. As former GM John Hart once said, closers grow on trees.

The organization cannot be fooled by any success the Tribe has over the last six weeks. They have several spots to fill before the 2016 season begins.

As we said before…let the auditions start.

The White Flag Flies Atop Progressive Field

The Cleveland Indians have now completed 2/3s of their season, and the last 27 games (1/6 of the season) were a disaster to put the team in the mode of looking toward next season.

1st 27 games: 10-17
Game 28-54: 16-11
Game 55-81: 12-15
Game 82-108: 11-16

As you can see only in that second set of 27 contests did the Indians play good baseball, and in those other 81 games, or half the season, their record is 33-48.

That’s a pace to lose 90 games, which is where the Tribe could be headed at the end of the season. That would be the fifth such season under the Dolan/Shapiro/Antonetti triumvirate, which is one more season than they have been over the .500 mark.

Yesterday’s trade in which GM Chris Antonetti unburdened the franchise of two bad contracts in Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher for Atlanta’s bad deal in 1B/3B Chris Johnson, only emphasized what a disaster this season has been.

Johnson has a .280 lifetime average, but has slumped horribly from his 2013 campaign where he hit .321 with the Braves. He’s a high strikeout, low walk hitter, but has been pretty successful vs. lefties in his career (.313 average, 788 OPS).

And yes, we know, the Tribe pitched in $10 million in the deal to make it happen, so to be sure, we will hear how the ownership is willing to spend money. However, we would prefer that the spend cash to get good players, not to make bad ones go away.

The pitching staff now ranks in the top half of the American League, which was expected at the beginning of the season, but the offense has been putrid, as the Indians rank 12th in the AL in scoring, 12th in home runs, and 10th in batting average. They are 9th in OPS as a team.

Before the July 31st trading deadline, Antonetti started to clean house, moving a slumping David Murphy to the Angels, and a disappointing Brandon Moss, who hit a few homers but little else, to the Cardinals. The Moss deal actually netted Cleveland a pretty good prospect in southpaw Rob Kaminsky.

So, the Tribe is now is spring training mode, trying to see if Lonnie Chisenhall can play right field, and giving auditions to guys like Jerry Sands, to see if he can be their version of Detroit’s J.D. Martinez.

It would not be a shock to see Ryan Raburn moved before the end of the season to a contender to open up another spot on the 25 man roster to look at yet another young player. That’s really all the Indians have left at this point.

They can see if Johnson can take over Raburn’s role in ’16, since Cleveland has to pay him $9 million.

They can see if Jose Ramirez can rebound from a bad start to the year, and become a viable utility player, or re-establish his trade value. Remember he is still just 22 years old.

They can look at potential centerfielders, hopefully this means Tyler Naquin when he comes off the disabled list in Columbus. Tyler Holt got a whopping 20 at bats, so we wonder who will be in center tonight. Hopefully, it’s not Michael Brantley, whose defense is no longer adequate for the spot. It will probably be Abraham Almonte, just acquired from San Diego.

The Tribe owes it to the pitching staff to put a good defender out in the middle of the outfield. So, a promising season has come down to playing out the string and finding out if any of the young players will be able to be contributors in 2016.

This sad baseball season has only one-third of it left. At least for the Cleveland Indians. MW

Sometimes “Conflict in Front Office” Is Good.

The other day, we wrote about how the Cleveland Browns get no credit for trying something different, when the Cleveland Indians are a stand pat organization, and they get criticized for not making any changes.

There is another way the two organizations are different as well, and it has to do with the relationship between the front office and the head coach/manager.

On the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, it’s a Kumbaya fest. Everyone seems to be on the same page and have the same opinion. In fact, it is difficult to tell who is doing the talking sometimes, be it president Mark Shapiro, GM Chris Antonetti, or Terry Francona.

They always seem to be in lock step, at least publicly.

On the other hand, the media loves to report about the discord between Browns’ GM Ray Farmer and head coach Mike Pettine. It is further proof of the team’s “dysfunction”.

The reality is behind the scenes, there should be some disagreement between the coach and the person who picks the talent, because they should be coming at it from two different perspectives.

The coach or manager is trying to win, and win right now. That’s the way he gets to keep his job, and also, he is ultimately the person who the wins and losses are assigned to.

When the Browns have a 4-12 record, no one is saying that Ray Farmer’s squad has that record. It goes on Pettine’s record.

The general manager has to look at not only this year’s team, but also the future of the franchise, and if football’s case, salary cap implications.

Many coaches fall into the trap of favoring veterans with little upside because they are dependable, instead of going with a young player, who may have a bigger upside.

Think about the Indians in this situation. Terry Francona likes to have his bench filled with veterans like Ryan Raburn, Mike Aviles, etc., instead of keeping younger players like Tyler Holt or Jesus Aguilar.

In baseball, the GM has to weigh the positives of major league experience against not playing. For young players, they need to play. No one gets better by watching extensively. If that occurred, there would be a lot of fans who would be suddenly able to play professional sports.

When a team is in a situation like the Cavaliers are, it is easy for the coach and GM to be on the same page, because there, the goal is clearly stated. The Cavs are trying to win a title now, and everybody is “All In”.

However, in other situations, there is a different point of view for both the front office and the coaching staff, and that is healthy. It’s why you also don’t want to have a coach/GM in charge.

We remember Butch Davis proudly saying that all of his draft picks made the team. Of course, they did, because he was in charge of keeping them or letting them go.

Now, you don’t want the two people is total disagreement to the point where they cannot work together either. But, they should not be in lock step with each other.

To be sure, there have to be players that Farmer likes, that Pettine doesn’t, and vice-versa. It’s healthy and necessary in a winning organization.

The Indians seem to have a “group think” approach, and that’s not working well for them.

So, don’t be concerned that Ray Farmer and Mike Pettine don’t see eye to eye on everything. They have two different points of view.

What Tribe Should Do In The Last Two Months

It is more apparent than ever that the Cleveland Indians need to do something about this roster as they head into the July 31st trading deadline at the end of the week.

The Tribe needed a good start to the second half, as they had nine games against the weaker squads in Major League Baseball (Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and the White Sox) and to this point are 3-5 against them.

Cleveland has demonstrated nothing to hang your hat on in the second half. The offense has been deplorable, the starting pitching has collapsed, and while the defense is better than the horrific first two months of the year, it still makes key mistakes at the most inopportune times, and the pitching staff cannot pitch around them.

The front office is asleep at the switch, seemingly refusing to address any of the problems this team has, and make no mistake, they have been around since day one of the season. And we have to take Terry Francona to task as well, as he hasn’t made any adjustments to what he has either.

This is a team with little home run power, yet he still sits back and plays for the three run bomb.

Look, the Indians’ hitters don’t strike out a lot, so why not send runners every once in a while. And SS Francisco Lindor, who stole nine bases in AAA, has attempted just one with the Indians, and that was in his first big league start.

So, perhaps the front office can improve the current roster by trading some of the veterans on the roster.

The obvious duo is the platoon tandem at DH in David Murphy and Ryan Raburn. Now, before you say these are two of the team’s better hitters, let’s look inside the numbers.

Over the last 28 days, Murphy has hit just .184 with a home run and seven RBI (569 OPS). In the same time period, Raburn has batted just 22 times, hitting .182 with three runs batted in.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped Francona from continuing to hit them both in the clean up spot on a regular basis.

Moving those two players and removing Michael Bourn from the roster would give GM Chris Antonetti three roster spots to work with.

That would enable the organization to find out if Jesus Aguilar and/or Jerry Sands can contribute to the team going forward, and also give Tyler Holt and/or Tyler Naquin some big league experience.

Naquin would be the most intriguing because he is the best prospect of the group, but Sands knocked in six runs in his 24 at bats here, which is three less than Mike Aviles for the entire season.

We are tired of hearing the argument that Bourn has to stay because of the amount of money he is owed by Cleveland. It’s a ridiculous argument. No player, repeat, no player should get at bats because of what they are making. YOU HAVE TO PAY HIM ANYWAY! There is no need to have him decrease the team’s chances of winning.

Why aren’t we hammering Nick Swisher for the same reason? One, he’s not on the roster right now. Two, he’s only had 101 at bats this year. If he is reactivated and he still is not doing anything, then he will draw the same ire as the centerfielder.

Of course, Antonetti said earlier this week that he is still confident in the team he opened the season with. Either he is dumb or a liar, because if you watch the games, you couldn’t possibly come to that conclusion.

This team’s only chance, and it gets slimmer by the day, is to make these chance and hope the younger players come through.

And if they don’t, then at least the front office knows who can contribute in ’16 and who cannot.

It’s Tiring Being a Tribe Fan.

The Cleveland Indians went into the All Star break dropping the last two games before baseball’s vacation to the Oakland A’s.

The usual culprits were involved in the defeats, the bullpen, particularly the situational guys, failed in Saturday night’s loss along with a defensive miscue, and yesterday, it was another anemic offensive display, but at least it was to one of the American League’s best pitchers in Sonny Gray.

After reading some stuff about the Tribe over the weekend, most notably, Marla Ridenour’s interview with president Mark Shapiro in the Akron Beacon Journal, we realized that it is getting exhausting to be a baseball fan in northeast Ohio.

So, here is a list of things we are tired of regarding the Cleveland Indians:

1). Stop the constant moaning about market size. It is what it is. There is no salary cap in the sport, so the only people limiting what the ownership spends is the front office. We know the revenue stream isn’t as big in Cleveland as in New York, Boston, Chicago, or Los Angeles, but figure out another way to get it done.

We get it, so stop bringing it up. In fact, we would prefer if the management embrace it, and cater to the toughness of the region.

Adopt an attitude of our payroll isn’t huge, but we are going to win anyway.

2). Stop operating out of fear. The Indians organization is afraid to make a mistake, mostly in the area of talent evaluation. It’s why Francisco Lindor didn’t get called up until the middle of June.

It’s why they don’t jettison Michael Bourn. It’s why Bradley Zimmer, a 22-year-old college player who was the Indians’ first round pick a year ago is still at Class A Lynchburg despite a .305 batting average and 889 OPS in a pitching friendly league.

With veterans, they are afraid of them finding success elsewhere. With young players, they fear trading them and having them turn out like Chris Archer.

You have a break a few eggs to make an omelet. The Tribe would rather go hungry.

3). Stop antagonizing the fans on social media. Sometimes, it’s like they are trying push fans away. After Lindor was finally recalled, they put out a tweet that if everyone who wanted the rookie in a Cleveland uniform bought a ticket, they would be sold out for the rest of the year.

Perhaps it would be better if they actually played better at Progressive Field. Their home record is among the worst in the sport.

4). Go for it when the opportunity arises. This isn’t to say the Tribe should deal Lindor or one of their young, controllable starters for a rental player or someone on the downside of their career. However, if you can deal from depth or move a mid range prospect for someone who can make an impact for a half-year or 1-1/2 years, then take a chance.

Like Detroit did last year for David Price. If the Indians would win the World Series, no one is going to care if the player moved turned into an all-star five years later. We would still have the trophy.

The front office seems to loathe even considering something like that. Heck, next year, you might be 20 games out half way through the season. Take a shot.

5). Stop believing that what went wrong last year will correct itself, and what went right will stay the same. The test for this going forward will be David Murphy and his option for 2016. Please, repeat, please do not pick up this option! Murphy is a decent major league player having his best season in the last five years. There is a very good chance that next year he will revert to hitting around .265.

There is no reason to pay him $7 million to do that.

Granted, the Scott Atchison deal wasn’t for a lot of cash this season, but we and many others could have told the front office he would not pitch as well in 2015 as he did in 2014.

Don’t their analytics people tell them the same thing?

As long time Tribe fans, we want to have fun following this baseball team, but over the past few years, it is tedious and exhausting.

We just want it to be enjoyable again.

Tribe Roster in Flux Already, No Need to Panic

The major league baseball season is a week old, and already the roster of the Cleveland Indians is in flux.

Even though the Tribe were swept in their first home series of the year by the Detroit Tigers, the biggest loss was that of Yan Gomes, who suffered sprained knee ligaments in a home plate collision on Saturday and will be out 6-8 weeks.

GM Chris Antonetti was forced to do some roster shuffling because of Gomes’ injury, as well as a back problem for Michael Brantley that has kept him out of the lineup for all but two games.

If he isn’t ready to play Tuesday night against Chicago, after three days off, he may join Gomes on the DL.

Brantley’s problem along with other teams throwing southpaws at the Tribe, forced the team to bring up OF/1B Jerry Sands, a right-handed bat to help in this regard.

Then after the home opener and Saturday’s debacle for the relief corps, Antonetti and skipper Terry Francona were forced to bring back Austin Adams, set back to active Sands, and also to bring up Shawn Marcum to provide innings in case T.J. House couldn’t provide innings on Sunday, which he couldn’t.

It just goes to show that major league teams really don’t have a 25 man roster, it is more like 30 guys, with all of the player movement between the big club and their AAA affiliate.

However, it’s still way to early to panic and worry, after there are still 156 games remaining.

This series against the Tigers reminded us of a weekend at home against Oakland last May, when the Tribe lost three games by scores of 11-2, 6-2, and 13-3. Everything the A’s hit that weekend either hit a hole or sailed over a fence, much like the Tigers this weekend.

How did the Indians respond last year? They won 5 of their next 6, including a three game sweep of? You guessed it, the Detroit Tigers.

And as for folks saying this year is the same as last, and Cleveland can’t beat the Motor City Kitties, let us remind you that the Tribe beat the Tigers in four of the first five games they played a year ago, and wound up the season at 8-11 against them.

Again, there is a long, long way to go.

Detroit is hitting .364 as a team, and we are fairly confident that won’t continue for the balance of the year. Also, if you want to have success against them, you have to get their first two hitter and the bottom of their order out.

Right now, Anthony Gose has a .450 OBP, Ian Kinsler’s is .480, and Jose Iglesias’ is .625. Lifetime, their figures are .306 (Gose), .344 (Kinsler), and .335 (Iglesias).

To summarize…the Tigers are red-hot and the Indians caught them at the right time.

Also, the Tigers only saw one of the Indians’ top three pitchers, Corey Kluber, and Saturday’s game featured a meltdown by the bullpen, which isn’t normal for Francona’s team.

Many baseball people say you can’t judge a team until the 40 game mark, but we disagree slightly, saying that at the 1/6th point of the season, 27 games, you can start to get a feel for what is going on.

So, relax. This week the Indians have two with the White Sox and three in Minnesota with the Twins.

Just think, a week from now, the optimism felt by everyone going into the season could very well be back.

Does Tribe Still Need Pitching

Yesterday was a good day for the Indians’ organization because the ace of their staff, Corey Kluber, won the American League’s Cy Young Award. He is the fourth Tribe pitcher to win that award, joining Gaylord Perry, C.C. Sabathia, and Cliff Lee.

Kluber deserved the honor, leading the league in wins with 18 and finishing second in the AL in strikeouts and complete games.

We knew this last season, but Terry Francona has a legitimate top of the rotation starter going into next season. The question is, does GM Chris Antonetti still need to add another starter, or should he be satisfied with the performance of the starters over the last two months of the season.

The answer here is you can never have too much pitching, and although the rotation was fantastic in August and September, there really isn’t much of a track record for any of the starters, including Kluber.

Before anyone goes crazy, to us, a proven track record is two to three years at a certain performance level. And while Kluber has been solid in both 2013 and 2014, the fact remains he threw only 147 innings in the prior year because of injury, and this year he pitched 235 frames. How will his arm react to the additional workload?

The only starting pitcher who toiled in the major leagues prior to 2013 is Carlos Carrasco, who was tremendous after returning to the rotation last season, but outside of the first half of the 2011 season, before needing Tommy John surgery, has little track record of success in the big leagues.

This isn’t to denigrate Carrasco, who has tremendous stuff. We are only saying it is a big leap of faith to assume the right-hander will pitch the entire 2015 season the way he finished ’14.

Trevor Bauer has the next most starts in the majors with 34, the same number Kluber had this season. His career ERA in those appearance is 4.18, which is a solid figure, but not earth shattering.

We like Bauer, and for most of last season he was the second most consistent starter for Cleveland. But, he’s thrown less than 200 innings (186) at the big league level. You simply don’t know for certain what he is going to do in 2015.

Danny Salazar? He has 30 major league starts and 162 innings under his belt.

T. J. House made 18 starts and has just a little over 100 innings in the bigs.

Josh Tomlin and Zack McAllister have more of a track record than the three guys we just mentioned. Tomlin is 29-28 lifetime with an ERA approaching 5.00 (4.89) in 477 innings. If he could pitch like he did in 2011 (12-7, 4.12 ERA) that would be nice, but that’s the last time he was effective.

McAllister is 19-25 with a 4.38 ERA lifetime in 65 starts, a total of 363 innings. He was solid in 2013, but had a mediocre season in ’14. He showed promise working in relief at the end of the season, and could be taking the same career path as Carrasco.

We wouldn’t want to bank on those two as backups if one of the youngsters falter.

It may sound like doom and gloom, but these are the things Antonetti needs to think about when constructing the pitching staff. He has to assume things will go wrong.

Think about it, Bauer and House weren’t in the rotation that opened the 2014 season.

That’s why the Tribe still needs to add another starting pitcher, preferably someone who can come in and the management can be reasonably certain they can soak up innings and pitch effectively.

The old adage is still true…you can’t have enough pitching.

Will Tito Staying Lead to Bigger Emphasis on Winning?

During this past baseball season, we speculated that we wouldn’t be surprised if Tribe skipper Terry Francona decided to resign this off-season because of the inactivity of the front office at the trading deadline.

Yes, we knew that Tito took the gig because of his relationship with team president Mark Shapiro and GM Chris Antonetti, but we felt experiencing what we perceived as a lack of interest in going for it would show Francona that this wasn’t the job for him.

How wrong were we?

This morning, it was revealed that Francona signed a two-year contract extension to remain the manager of the Indians, meaning he is signed through the 2018 season.

Perhaps the only bad thing this means is the ownership will not be making any changes to the front office group through that same time period.

Antonetti’s comments today trumpeted the “stability” mantra, claiming it is a positive thing. And it would be if this was one of the most successful organizations in the sport over the last 15 years. However, it isn’t.

If keeping Francona means more of the last two seasons, both of which finished with an above .500 record and in 2013 ended with a spot hosting the wild card game, then we are all for that. There is no question that although people have had questions with the manager’s in-game strategy (including us), he gets the most out of the talent on the roster.

And maybe Shapiro and Antonetti understand their best chance at remaining the contender the Indians have been the last two seasons is to have Francona at the helm. Because before Tito arrived, this was a franchise that couldn’t put two consecutive good seasons together.

After two World Series titles with Boston, it is doubtful that Francona wants to wallow in mediocrity here over the next four to six seasons. So, does this contract extension mean the front office is going to make another push to bring in more talent this off-season?

Remember that before his first season as manager, the Indians brought in Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn as free agents and also traded for Trevor Bauer. Now, the club has a solid, younger nucleus in Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, and Yan Gomes among the position players, and a young starting rotation led by Cy Young Award candidate Corey Kluber that will be in place for the next few seasons.

So, it is incumbent on the general manager to add some pieces, some productive veteran pieces, to this young core to push them over the top. Did Francona get assurances that this would happen going forward?

Probably not, but his friends have to know how he feels.

We have maintained that this roster doesn’t need an overhaul, it just has to add one or two pieces, and those will likely come via the trade route. Both MLB Trade Rumors and Baseball Prospectus listed the top 50 free agents this winter and neither site had the Tribe signing anyone on the list.

The good news is the best manager the Indians have had in a long time is going to be here for at least the next four years. The bad news is the tie in with Shapiro and Antonetti, and Tito’s link to them probably insures they will be here for that period as well, which is fine if the Indians are regular participants in the playoffs.

If they aren’t, it will be almost 20 years since Shapiro took control of the organization without the success of his predecessor, John Hart. How long will fans accept it if Francona can’t continue to work the magic of the last two seasons.

The Tribe Front Office Didn’t Believe in This Year’s Team.

Last night, the Cleveland Indians played the biggest game of the season and Terry Francona had to fill out a lineup card that included veteran Chris Gimenez at 1B and rookie Tyler Holt in right field.

We don’t think that was plan back in April.

Look, while Francona can be criticized for some in-game decisions, the reality of the situation is he has kept a flawed baseball team in the race for a post-season spot until the final week of the season. You also have to credit his pitching coach, Mickey Callaway, for putting together a starting rotation that has been dominant throughout August and September.

It is apparent that at the end of July, when the trading deadline takes place, the front office didn’t see the dominant pitching coming. The Indians were 53-56 and sat six games behind the second wild card team, the Toronto Blue Jays, and GM Chris Antonetti decided to deal free agents to be Asdrubal Cabrera and Justin Masterson, and basically get prospects in return.

To be fair, neither Cabrera nor Masterson were having good seasons, but in dealing those two, Antonetti didn’t address the Tribe’s weaknesses, mainly a right-handed bat and pitching help.

The inability to address the former led to Gimenez and Holt being thrust into a race for a playoff spot.

Antonetti and his boss, team president Mark Shapiro, can say anything he wants, but it is clear he didn’t have any faith that his ballclub would arrive at the last week of the regular season with a chance to make the playoffs.

We wonder what Francona thinks about the lack of confidence in his players.

When the Tribe made an August surge, going 18-9 for the month, the front office brought in some reinforcements to help out when players suffered injuries. Gimenez was brought in when Yan Gomes suffered a concussion, J. B. Shuck was eventually added in September after David Murphy and Nick Swisher went out of the lineup.

Those two have combined to go 1 for 30 while wearing a Cleveland uniform.

Meanwhile, players like Josh Willingham (Kansas City), Adam Dunn (Oakland), and John Mayberry Jr, (Toronto) were all moved during August, and while none of them have been difference makers down the stretch, they aren’t 1 for 30 either.

The point is even on July 31st, six games out isn’t enough to toss in the proverbial white towel. Maybe Antonetti didn’t see Corey Kluber becoming arguably the American League’s best pitcher, nor did he see Carlos Carrasco turning into a right-handed version of Sandy Koufax, but you don’t know if you will ever get that type of dominant starting pitching in 2015.

That’s why you have to go for a post-season spot whenever you have the opportunity. And that’s why the front office failed the players, the manager, and the fan base, who want to be convinced the organization wants to win.

While the rotation looks good for the future, we all know pitching isn’t the most stable commodity. It is doubtful that Kluber will pitch this well next year, and who knows about the rest of the rotation, who really don’t have a track record in the major leagues.

And whatever you want to say about Terry Francona, there is no question that he knows how to get the most out of his players. His belief and trust of his players offset any weaknesses he has in the in-game strategy department, and he squeezes the most out of his guys.

It’s too bad the front office didn’t understand this. As close as they came this season, any help that would have come in could have put the Tribe back in the playoffs this fall.

Yes, Tribe Has Good Young Core, but Can’t Sit Out the Winter

Well, the Cleveland Indians kept it interesting for a little while.

They hung in the race for a post-season spot until the middle of September, but last weekend’s sweep at the hands of the Detroit Tigers means there will not be consecutive post-season spots for the first time since 1999, and it is time to look forward to the 2015 season.

We understand that Terry Francona and the players will not make any changes to the lineup or the starting rotation until the Tribe is officially eliminated from playoff consideration, which probably won’t happen until the weekend, but we can still speculate on what needs to occur prior to spring training in February.

The Indians do have a good young core of players. They can build on several solid position players in Michael Brantley (who will turn 28 next May), Carlos Santana (29), Yan Gomes (28), Lonnie Chisenhall (26), and we believe Jason Kipnis (28) will rebound next year based on his track record and the fact he was battling injuries this year.

They also have Jose Ramirez (23), who has impressed this year since playing everyday after the Asdrubal Cabrera trade, and of course, Francisco Lindor, one of the game’s best prospects.

The organization will likely do the service time game with Lindor, which would be a mistake if he shows in spring training that he is ready to play everyday at the big league level. Too often, the Tribe gets off to slow starts because they don’t keep the correct players on the Opening Day roster.

The starting rotation is also very young with a lot of room to get better. Staff ace Corey Kluber will be just 29 years old in 2015, and he is joined by Carlos Carrasco (28), Danny Salazar (25), T. J. House (25) and Trevor Bauer (24) to form a rotation with a lot of upside.

However, Francona has said in the past that when you think you have enough pitching, you go out and get some more. Therefore, the front office cannot stand pat with the rotation and should look to bring in some reinforcements during the winter. You have to think at least one of those guys will not perform up to this year’s standards next season.

The one area that will need to be addressed in the off-season is the bench, which was a key component of last year’s squad, but had a huge drop off in ’14. We know Jason Giambi won’t likely be back, but GM Chris Antonetti should also look to replace Ryan Raburn and Mike Aviles, both of whom haven’t produced offensively.

Raburn is under contract for 2015, so that may be a challenge, but whenever Francona has wanted to rest a regular or an injury keeps a starter out of the lineup for an extended period of time, there has been a drop off in the offense.

Perhaps David Murphy can fit in as the fourth outfielder if Antonetti comes up with another alternative in right field.

And you really can’t use young players in bench roles because they don’t know how to handle it. It is better to find veterans who used to play everyday that can accept not doing that anymore or guys who have made a living playing in a reserve role.

It is difficult to be productive playing sporadically, and it is a challenge to find guys who can hit while getting 200-300 at bats in a season.

Yes, the Indians future does look bright, or at least it isn’t dismal. However, Chris Antonetti can’t afford to stand pat like he did last winter. They have to improve this club in order to avoid the wild card race and win the American League Central Division.

The bigger question is whether or not they will do just that.