How Have Tribe Outfield Issues Played Out?

One of the biggest questions heading into the 2019 season for the Cleveland Indians was their outfield.

After letting Michael Brantley walk away via free agency, the Tribe headed to spring training with their most proven player in the outfield being Leonys Martin, and he missed the last two months of ’18 with a life threatening illness.

Before spring training ended, they wound up giving a look see to veteran Matt Joyce, who was released, and signed three time All Star (the Indians keep reminding us of that) Carlos Gonzalez toward the end of the spring.

Gonzalez was activated to the big league roster on April 14th.

Again, we understand the season is just 21 games old, but the situation Terry Francona has to deal with on a nightly basis is still pretty clearly in flux.

Martin has been the one constant, starting all but one game in centerfield, but he still has big platoon split issues.

Against right handed pitching, Martin is batting .302 with a 932 OPS, belting three home runs. Versus southpaws? Not so good. He is 4 for 22 with three walks and nine strikeouts.

We said before the season started he should be platooned and we stick by that thought.

Tyler Naquin has garnered the majority of the starts in rightfield (17), but outside of the Toronto series when he went 5 for 11 in three starts, he hasn’t performed well.

He’s hitting just .220 with a 568 OPS. Take out those three games vs. the Blue Jays, and that mark falls to .167. He’s struck out 20 times, walking just twice. That might be fine if you are hitting the ball with power, but the early 2016 sensation has just one dinger.

It’s hard to understand Francona’s fascination with him at this point.

Jake Bauers has been the semi-regular in left, starting 12 times, with Greg Allen getting seven starts.

We are more impressed by Bauers the more we see him. He’s hitting just .219 with a 684 OPS, but he’s walked 10 times (with 15 strikeouts), and has held his own against lefties, going 5 for 20.

He’s getting more time now at first (with Carlos Santana DHing) with Gonzalez settling in left. We like his bat in the lineup.

Allen appears to be a young player who is having problems with a part-time role, starting the season just 4 for 34, with half of those hits coming Sunday night. He has fanned 11 times with two walks.

We would like to see Allen get regular playing time in right before determining if he needs to go back to AAA. As we said, his struggles may be the result of getting sporadic at bats.

We had high hopes for Jordan Luplow based on his numbers at AAA, but he struggled in spring training, and didn’t do much after opening the year with the Tribe. He has struck out 10 times in 25 at bats in Columbus.

The darling of spring training, Oscar Mercado, has continued to rake with the Clippers. He has an 897 OPS to date, and has stolen seven bases. We are sure the front office doesn’t want to call him up unless he will receive plenty of playing time, but he looks like he is forcing the issue.

And so is the lack of production that still exists in the outfield. Even if Gonzalez regains some of his form from his Colorado days, you still have a problem in CF against lefties, and RF is still a gaping hole of suck.

How and when will the front office resolve that problem? It this is still how things are going after 20 more games, action will need to be taken.

Area Of Improvement For Tribe: OF Defense

Just when you thought the Cleveland Indians were making defense in the outfield more of a priority, you see a story saying the Tribe is considering playing Carlos Santana out there this season.

Now, we understand there isn’t a lot of write about during the early days of spring training, so it could be Terry Francona just saying there might be a time for Santana to play out there, but here’s hoping the organization doesn’t have thoughts of making this more than a rare occurrence.

Our thought is the Indians believe that because their pitching staff strikes out a lot of hitters, thus keeping the ball out of play, they can survive with less than adequate defense beyond the infield.

To some degree, they are correct. It certainly is less of an issue than it would be if they had a lot of high contact flyball prone hurlers. However, in close games, which the Tribe may be playing plenty this year because of the unproven bats in the lineup, defense is at a premium.

Last season, Terry Francona put an outfield alignment which had Michael Brantley in left field and Melky Cabrera in right field, and asked the centerfielder to run for miles in between the two range challenged veterans.

We have heard various fans talk about playing Jake Bauers in the outfield, but Rays’ broadcaster (and former Tribe pitcher) Brian Anderson said although he can play out there, he’s really a first baseman.

Certainly, Santana can play there, heck, he started a World Series game in left field, but how much would the defense be compromised with him starting, let’s say 25 games out there?

It’s just not worth it in the long run.

This is an organizational issue too.

Remember, Cleveland has played each of the last two post-seasons with Jason Kipnis, a second baseman ordinarily, in center. While we can’t think of any egregious misplays in those playoff games, there were probably balls that an experienced outfielder would have made.

Getting Leonys Martin helped the defense before he got sick. You could see the difference in the few games he played after coming over from Detroit. He played a more shallow center, and got very good jumps on flyballs.

It seemed like management was trying to reverse this trend this winter. Letting go of Brantley’s bat doesn’t help the offense, but it should help the defense. And Cabrera was best suited for LF too, but because of Brantley, Francona used him in right.

The replacements, at least for now, would be a great improvement. Jordan Luplow has good defensive metrics in LF and RF, and Tyler Naquin is solid in the corners. Oscar Mercado has played a lot of center in the minors, so he should be good as well.

Again, this could all be Francona just trying to make his team more versatile, and he wants options defensively against certain pitchers.

Let’s hope that is the case. It would be nice to see the Indians’ pitching staff backed by an outfield that can run down flyballs. And if the team isn’t going to get a great deal of offense out of those spots, then they better be above average on defense.

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.

It’s Up To Tribe To Cause Excitement In Team

The Cleveland Indians held their annual TribeFest last weekend, meaning spring training is just around the corner.

In about 30 days, the Tribe will convene in Goodyear, trying to defend three consecutive Central Division titles. The question is, who besides the players currently on the roster will be joining them.

Baseball seems to be in a bit of a holding pattern, waiting for the two marquee free agents, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, to sign.

While many teams have been bolstering their rosters for the upcoming season, the Indians have said thank you for your service to several mainstays from the past three years.

Gone are Michael Brantley (Houston), Andrew Miller (St. Louis), Edwin Encarnacion (traded to Seattle), Cody Allen (free agent), Yan Gomes (traded to Washington), and Yonder Alonso (dealt to the White Sox).

Carlos Santana is back, but otherwise, no one would recognize any of the players the front office has brought into the clubhouse.

Right now, the projected lineup appears to be dotted with holes, and the bullpen, a major area of weakness a year ago, hasn’t been approved.

Meanwhile, ownership seems to have taken the position that because attendance was down in 2018, they not only aren’t going to increase the payroll, they aren’t going to hit the figure they spent heading into the ’18 season.

That position is the root of the problem baseball fans here have with the Dolan family. They feel the front office should spend when they have a chance to win the World Series, not simply when they get an attendance boost.

With arguably the best starting rotation in the game, and two of the best position players in baseball, why not take a shot at ending a title drought at 71 years. This isn’t the time to draw a line in the sand with the people who buy tickets to watch your team.

Perhaps once Harper and Machado sign, the front office will spring into action and will the holes that exist in the everyday lineup, notably the outfield and the bullpen.

There are plenty of options still out there, and maybe the waiting will play into the hands of the Indians’ braintrust and they will get real good players at below market prices.

However, that approach doesn’t exactly sell tickets. With all of the excitement surrounding the Browns right now, shouldn’t the folks at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario want to muscle in on that spotlight?

We understand it is a business and they have a right to make a profit, but on the other hand it’s an entertainment business. People go to games as a night out, a recreational activity, so you have to give them a reason to travel to Progressive Field.

There was a buzz after the World Series, and the Tribe capitalized on it by signing Encarnacion as a free agent. During the season, they added Jay Bruce when Michael Brantley was injured, and dealt for bullpen help in Joe Smith.

After that season, Santana left and Yonder Alonso replaced him, which got no one excited.

Last year, the Indians made a splash in the bullpen getting Brad Hand from San Diego and picked up Leonys Martin at the deadline. The Hand move created buzz, but it was more about trying to fix a disastrous bullpen.

What we are saying is that it’s the responsible of the team to create excitement, it’s not up to the fans.

We would tell everyone about Frankie Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and the other all star caliber players wearing an Indians’ uniform.

Instead they complain about attendance and ask out loud why people don’t go to the games. That’s not going to help.

Hold On! Tribe Trying To Restructure, Not Blow It Up

The Cleveland Indians were in the news over the past weekend and extending into today after it was reported the team would be willing to trade some veteran players, not including Francisco Lindor and/or Jose Ramirez.

Many fans took this to mean Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff were going into rebuilding mode. This could not be further from the truth.

Of course, the team also declined to make qualifying offers to Michael Brantley, Andrew Miller, or Cody Allen, the Tribe’s primary free agents.

We have talked about the fact that the Indians’ offense was very top heavy in 2018, largely dependent on Lindor, Ramirez, and Brantley, and the latter doesn’t look to be on the roster next spring.

Combine that with the payroll in ’18 was as high as the franchise can have, and you can see some restructuring of the roster has to be done.

If you look at the every day lineup from the end of last season, outside of Lindor, Ramirez, and Greg Allen, everyone else was over 30 years old, which means improvement isn’t likely, so we are sure the Indians want to get younger.

The issue is that among the Tribe’s top ten prospects (from Baseball America) show the only position player who played above the AA level last season was 1B Bobby Bradley.

So, there is no help on the horizon from the minor leagues.

While we are sure the front office would love to move Edwin Encarnacion, Jason Kipnis, or Yonder Alonso, our guess is there wouldn’t be much of a return for that trio, it would pretty much be a salary dump for low level prospects.

So, you have to look at players who you can sell high on, and that brings us to Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Yan Gomes.

There is no question the strength of the Indians is their starting pitching, and they brought up a rookie into the rotation this season in Shane Bieber, and their top prospect is another starter in Triston McKenzie, who was at Akron last season.

Both Kluber and Carrasco are under reasonable contracts for the next two years, so they would have huge value for teams looking for starting pitching.

We believe you should A). Deal from strength, and B). Better to trade someone a year too early than a year too late.

Kluber is going to be in the top three in the Cy Young Award voting this year, the fourth time in his career that will be the case. However, he did show signs of wear and tear as the season went on.

Keep in mind, he has thrown 200 innings or more five consecutive seasons. His strikeout rate was the lowest since before his first Cy Young season in 2014. Is he starting a decline? That’s what the organization has to ask themselves.

His salary jumps from $10 million to $17 million this year and basically stays there through 2021 on club options.

Carrasco has less wear and tear on his arm (only one 200 inning season) and is still making under $10 million in 2019 and 2020.

Carrasco might fetch more in a deal for that reason.

Gomes is 31 years old and is coming off perhaps his best season in the major leagues. It would be a good baseball move to try to trade him at his peak.

This current group perhaps went as far as it could in 2016, and the organization gave them two more shots to win a title.

The front office knows they need to address the offense and they need some younger position players who have an upside.

The core remains the same. The Indians are still trying to get better for 2019. They aren’t starting the rebuild.

Hot Stove Season Opens For Tribe

Now that the World Series has ended, the Hot Stove season has started for major league baseball teams, and initially there are a lot of procedural things that must be done.

The first is making decisions on the contract options for many players. The Indians historically don’t offer many (if any) player options, they like to be the one making the decisions on an extra year for a player in question.

Both decisions made yesterday by the front office were no brainers, in our opinion.

The Tribe picked up the option on Carlos Carrasco, one of the best starting pitchers in the sport. Carrasco has won 35 games over the past two seasons, striking out at least 200 hitters in each year.

They passed on outfielder Brandon Guyer, saving $2.75 million. Guyer is a platoon player who feasted on left-handed pitching when he came over from Tampa in 2016, but in the subsequent years, he’s had injury issues and his production, while still good, isn’t at an elite level versus southpaws anymore.

Next on the agenda are making qualifying offers to the prospective free agents. We are sure such a deal will be offered to Michael Brantley, but the real questions would be Andrew Miller and Cody Allen.

If you make the offer, you have to be prepared the player will accept, and that’s why we would extend the deal to Miller only. If he’s healthy, which he hasn’t been since the middle of last season, he’s still a dominant reliever.

Allen has declined in performance in 2018, perhaps due to the wear and tear of making a lot of appearance over his seven years in Cleveland. It’s a tough decision and a tough business because Cody Allen has been a loyal player, willing to do whatever Terry Francona wanted him to do.

To improve the roster for the 2019 season, the Indians will need to gain some financial relief, meaning it would behoove the front office to look at highly paid players, who aren’t producing to the level of their contracts.

The chief players to look at here are Edwin Encarnacion, Jason Kipnis, and Yonder Alonso. It is doubtful Encarnacion can be moved, because being a DH limits him to American League teams.

The other two would be in play, but there is no question in our mind that Cleveland would have to eat some money to make any deal happen.

Moving both would lop about $22 million off the team’s projected salaries, minus whatever the team would have to pay to make it work.

Although they will be the favorites to win the AL Central for the 4th consecutive season, it would be hard to take them seriously as a World Series contender with an outfield of Kipnis in LF, Tyler Naquin in RF, and a platoon of Leonys Martin and Greg Allen in CF.

There is also the matter of rebuilding the bullpen, which with Miller and Allen’s likely departure has just Brad Hand as a proven, reliable option.

It appears the organization has high hopes for Jon Edwards, but it would be nice to have another proven arm in the ‘pen going into spring training. The cost for relief help would seem to be less than that of a solid big league hitter.

In a few days, we will know who is available in the free agent market and can examine some possible low cost options who could help.

The Indians have the stars, now they need to surround them with better secondary players.

Examining Tribe Free Agents & Other Stuff

It’s been a week since the Cleveland Indians’ season ended after getting swept in the American League Division Series by the Houston Astros.

Thus, the Tribe joins all but four major league teams in looking forward to the 2019 season. Barring something drastic, the Indians will enter next season as the favorites for a fourth consecutive Central Division title.

However, there has the potential to have a pretty large roster turnover for Cleveland, and there probably will be. What should the Indians do to improve next season?

First, the everyday lineup needs to be deeper. The lineup was top heavy for most of the past season, and when Jose Ramirez slumped in the middle of August, there wasn’t enough hitting by everyone hitting after Edwin Encarnacion, and by that we mean consistent hitting.

The Indians have 11 free agents this winter, including Carlos Carrasco and Brandon Guyer, both of whom have club options for 2019. The other nine are as follows–

Cody Allen
Michael Brantley
Melky Cabrera
Lonnie Chisenhall
Rajai Davis
Josh Donaldson
Andrew Miller
Oliver Perez
Josh Tomlin

We would exercise Carrasco’s option, but let Guyer walk. Guyer was lethal against southpaws when he arrived in 2016, but although he had an 804 OPS vs. LHP in 2018, he hit just .233, which isn’t good enough. And he’s 32 years old.

The qualifying offer for free agents will be around $17.5 million, and there is no doubt the Tribe will make the offer to Brantley. They may also pick one of the two relief pitchers, Allen or Miller, as well.

That will get them draft pick compensation depending on the size of the contract they sign with other teams, should they go elsewhere.

Out of the two, we would pick Miller, because he didn’t pitch as much this season, and let’s face it, he’s the more dominant of the pair. If he accepts it, and he might to rebuild his value, you have another back end of the bullpen reliever.

Allen seems to have shown the wear and tear of averaging 68 appearances per season in his seven seasons with the Indians.

As for Brantley, we would explore bringing him back, but only on a two year deal max. The outfielder will be 32 years old next May, and we have seen the negatives of signing players over 30 to multiyear deals.

He hasn’t had a fall off in performance with the bat, but his defense has declined, and he had the injury issues in both 2016 and 2017.

The organization seems to have an issue with Chisenhall, who would seem to be an ideal candidate to bring back on an incentive laden one year deal. The former first round pick has been limited to 320 at bats, batting .297 with 13 homers and 62 RBI in the past two injury plagued seasons.

He’s a solid offensive player, particularly against right handed pitching.

They have to make room for Yandy Diaz to play everyday. It seems absurd to think the organization sent someone to the minors coming off a year at AAA where he slashed .350/454/460.

Diaz can hit, and he needs to be doing it at the major league level.

And the front office has to improve the batting attack by getting more consistent hitters. We believe you need seven solid hitters to have a solid lineup.

We will look at the free agent list when it is complete to examine who is on the market.

Oh, and one last thing. After Manny Machado and Bryce Harper sign, start working on a long term contract with Lindor.

This is a big, big off-season for the Tribe front office. Simply put, they must improve this roster around the core of Lindor, Ramirez, and the starting rotation.

A Tribe Post Mortem

The Cleveland Indians season came to a disappointing end in the American League Division Series for the second straight year, and this time they can’t even complain about blowing the series.

Giving up 21 runs in a three game series, while scoring only 6 doesn’t make anyone wistful about what might have been.

We were worried about the Tribe’s offense throughout the season, and our worst fears came true, as the Indians got just three hits in each of the first two games, and had only four yesterday until the Astros blew the game open off the Cleveland bullpen, which by the way, was another concern.

The offense was top heavy all year long, buoyed by excellent seasons by Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, and Michael Brantley. When Ramirez’ bat went AWOL around the middle of August, the offense really sputtered.

One thing that is needed during the winter is the addition of some solid, consistent bats to pick up the slack with that trio, and Brantley may not be back, isn’t hot.

While we all look at statistics, particularly the new ones, the analytics people need to realize that going 4 for 5 on a given night, and following it up with a couple of 0 for 4s, makes you 4 for 13 (.308 batting average), but you didn’t do anything offensively on two of those nights.

This year’s Tribe had too many players (Yonder Alonso, Jason Kipnis, anyone playing centerfield and rightfield) who did nothing at the plate on a nightly basis.

Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff have a lot of spots in the lineup that need an upgrade.

And while the starting rotation is the cornerstone of the team, the bullpen will need a massive overhaul. Brad Hand and Adam Cimber will return, but beyond that duo, who knows?

Cody Allen and Andrew Miller are free agents, and it is doubtful they will be back.

Terry Francona tried to force Trevor Bauer into the Miller 2016 role in the series, but Bauer is a starter, and being moved out of his normal role didn’t work.

He did it because he no longer trusted Allen and Miller to get big outs when needed.

And speaking of the skipper, he needs to do some internal auditing as well.

The patience vs. stubbornness fine line continues to be an issue. He wanted Miller to be the ’16 edition when he brought him out of the bullpen in Game 2, and probably pulled Carlos Carrasco too early as a result.

But that Miller disappeared midway through last season. Hoping he would come back didn’t help against Houston.

Perhaps there should be a dissenting voice on the staff. The current staff has been with Tito for awhile, and they probably think a lot alike. Sometimes, it’s good to look at things with a different slant.

The first order of business will be the free agents. If Brantley wants to stay on a one or two year deal, we would welcome him back. Let’s face it though, he’s declined defensively, and ideally should spend much of his time at DH.

However, the Tribe has Edwin Encarnacion for another season.

The contention window is not closing. The Indians still have a strong rotation, and still have two of the top ten players in the sport in Lindor and Ramirez. However, you can’t have below average players everywhere else and get to where you want to go.

That and rebuilding the bullpen are the biggest jobs the front office has this winter.

For Tribe fans, this loss with sting until spring training begins in mid-February.

A Tough Series Ahead For Tribe

Tomorrow afternoon, the Cleveland Indians start their quest to end a 70 year drought without a World Series title.

To make matters tougher, they embark on the journey having to take on the defending World Series titlists, the Houston Astros, in the best of five Division Series.

We could be completely wrong on this, because well, baseball, but we feel it will be a very difficult series for the Tribe to emerge victorious.

The Astros lead the American League in run differential, meaning them, not the 108 win Boston Red Sox are the best team in the AL.

The Indians’ hallmark is their pitching, particularly their starters. Their staff ERA is 3.77, ranking 4th in the American League. However, Houston led the league in that category, more than a half run per game less at 3.11.

Cleveland has scored more runs, but only 21 more than the Astros on the season.

The teams are very similar offensively. The Indians scored three runs or less 58 times, which is over 1/3rd of their games. That seems like a lot, right?

Except the Astros did the same thing more often, having 64 games with three runs or less.

Using the 350/450/800 standard for being a very good offensive player, the Indians have three such players (Francisco Lindor, Michael Brantley, and Jose Ramirez), while the Astros have two in Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman.

Houston comes in as the hotter team, going 21-6 after September 1st, while the Indians went 14-14. But as we found out last year, being hot coming into the playoffs makes absolutely no difference.

As we said, both teams have exceptional starting pitching, and in our opinion, that’s what the series will come down to. Corey Kluber won 20 games this year, but at times has appeared mortal this season. His game one mound opponent, Justin Verlander, quite frankly had a better season.

The two teams met seven times in the regular season, with Houston having a 4-3 advantage.

In Houston, all three games were close. The Indians were either tied or ahead through 6-1/2 innings in each contest, and a tired starter gave up runs late. Remember, at that time, the Cleveland bullpen was having major issues.

At Progressive Field, Houston won in blowout fashion in the first two games, the latter with the Astros scoring 11 runs in the last two innings.

Even in the extra inning win the day before Memorial Day, the Tribe led 3-2 after seven, before Houston scored six in the 8th, matched by a five run rally in the bottom of the ninth by the Indians.

In that game, Trevor Bauer was left in to throw a season high 127 pitches.

So, this series could hinge on how well Allen, Miller, and Hand do. Only Allen was fully healthy at the time. Miller was about to go on the DL, and Hand was in San Diego.

If Ramirez doesn’t start hitting in this series, the offense could depend on whether or not Josh Donaldson can contribute.

The record says the Astros are better than the Tribe, but last year it said the Indians were the better team than New York.

We say it will be a great series, and these two teams are more evenly matched than it appears record wise.

If we have to make a prediction, we would go with the Astros in four. We also can’t tell you how wrong we would like to be.

Champion Tribe Still Has Offensive Questions.

It’s been a baseball season filled with ups and downs for the Cleveland Indians, but since they reside in the American League Central Division, Terry Francona’s squad coasted to the division title, the first team to clinch that spot in the big leagues this season.

We have said it all season, the Tribe lineup is very top heavy, and the team is in the top three in the AL in runs scored because of SS Francisco Lindor, 3B/2B Jose Ramirez, LF Michael Brantley, and to a lesser extent DH Edwin Encarnacion.

Beyond that quartet, there have been some hot streaks by other players, but you know it has been a tough season for many of the Indians’ hitters, when Melky Cabrera’s signing was important.

Over the last month, Lindor and Ramirez have regressed from their superman status offensively, Lindor kind of being a normal human being, while Ramirez has been in a slump.

That has made it difficult for the Indians to maintain a solid offense for the last four to six weeks.

If Josh Donaldson can be even close to the player he was in 2015 and 2016, he brings an additional impact to the lineup. And that is needed because the Indians rank in the lower third of the league in WAR at several positions.

They are second last in the AL in centerfield, fourth from the bottom in rightfield, and rank 10th (out of 15) at second base.

That’s why the front office gambled on Donaldson. That moves Ramirez to second, an upgrade, and Jason Kipnis, who isn’t having a great year, to center, where his off year is better than what the Tribe has had to use in the middle of the outfield.

Bradley Zimmer started the year out there, but struck out 44 times in a 114 plate appearance, before getting hurt and ending his season with a .226 batting average and a 611 OPS.

He was platooning with Rajai Davis, who is still active, and has an even worse OPS at 567, with just 8 extra base hits in 210 plate appearances.

By contrast, Roberto Perez, having a miserable year at the plate by anyone’s standards, has 10 extra base hits.

Greg Allen took over and by comparison has looked better, but he’s has a 613 OPS and a .241 batting average and 13 extra base hits.

Management traded for Leonys Martin from Detroit before the July 31st trade deadline, but he fell ill after playing six games, and that sent president Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff scrambling.

The fear here is that the Indians will be one of those teams who are so deficient in certain areas that it offsets the greatness of Lindor and Ramirez, and the starting pitching, which claims three of the AL’s top ten in ERA, and four of the league’s top ten in strikeouts.

The Tribe’s likely first round opponent, the Astros, lead the league in ERA and in strikeouts. Meaning runs will probably be tough to come by, so even if the top of the order is hitting, someone will still need to step up to win the series.

Maybe it will be Encarnacion or Donaldson. Perhaps Kipnis will hit in the playoffs like he did in 2016, when he belted 4 homers and knocked in eight.

Unless the pitching staff is throwing shutouts, they will need more than Lindor, Brantley, and Ramirez. And remember, those three didn’t really hit well a year ago.

There can’t be anymore moves made, so the players on the roster are going to have to step up. The question is will they?