A Lot Of Success, But Guardians Have To Cash In (Sometime)

The Cleveland Guardians start their quest for their first World Championship since 1948 next Saturday, likely hosting the winner of the Wild Card Series matchup between the Astros and Tigers.

The first two games are at Progressive Field.

If you grew up in the sixties and seventies, when Cleveland baseball was largely a losing proposition, it might surprise you that the Indians/Guardians (and Blues, Naps, etc.) have the 7th highest winning percentage among the current Major League teams.

And if you limit this to current American League franchises, Cleveland is third, behind only the behemoths of the East, New York and Boston.

Among those top ten records, one thing sticks out, the number of world titles. Cleveland has the least with just two, ironically the only other team in this group with less than four titles is the club the Indians lost to in 2016, the Cubs have just three.

The franchise has won only six pennants, half of them coming in the last 30 years. Again, the regular season record is very good, but the A’s (15), Tigers (11) and the Orioles (7) have both won more American League championships, and remember, the Orioles were the lowly St. Louis Browns until 1955, and they only won once in 1944.

The White Sox and Twins have equaled the six pennants won by Cleveland, so they are actually tied for the least success achieved by the original members of the Junior Circuit.

This will be the 17th post-season appearance for the franchise, ranking behind New York (58), Oakland (29), Boston (25), Houston and Minnesota (each with 18, although it must be noted the Astros made the NL playoffs before coming over to the AL in 2013).

They have made the playoffs eight times in the AL, winning two World Series.

What is the point of rehashing a somewhat sad story?

It’s that it is time for the Guardians to cash in one.

We have heard about all the success in the wild card era, the Jacobs/Progressive Field era if you will. Fourteen post-season appearances in that span, 12 AL Central Division titles.

In that span, only the Yankees and Red Sox have made the playoffs more often, but they have each won multiple World Series.

Cleveland has dominated the division. Minnesota has won the second most division titles with nine, while the Tigers and White Sox have each won four and the Royals taking the crown just once.

But the White Sox and Royals each won the Series, Chicago winning in 2005 and Kansas City ten years later.

Minnesota has had trouble winning in the post-season recently, but most of their fans remember and celebrate their two World Series victories in 1987 and 1991.

It hasn’t been 76 years like it has for Cleveland baseball fans, but it has now been 40 years since the Tigers won their last Series in 1984.

The point is for all the success Cleveland has had since 1995; they need to cash in with a title. There was a discussion on social media about what franchise you would like to have as a fan over the last 50 years and Kansas City was an option.

Most fans selected the Royals because even though they have had some valleys, 17 seasons of 90 or more losses since 1992, they have the 1985 and 2015 World Series winners.

Yes, baseball is a sport that has a potentially volatile post-season, meaning any team that gets in the playoffs has a chance to win the world title. We’ve seen a few teams with less than 90 wins win it.

Heck, the 1997 Indians only won 86 games, and made it to game 7 of the Fall Classic.

So, we get the argument (and we’ve made it) to just get in and you have a shot. But what is missing from perhaps the best 30 year stretch of baseball in Cleveland?

1948 still rings in our ears.

Overall, Not Spending Means Not Winning In MLB

When people talk about Major League Baseball teams that compete on small budgets, the most common names that are brought up are the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland A’s. Obviously, the Cleveland Indians want to join that club by slashing their payroll over the past three seasons.

In 2020, two of the teams that ranked in the bottom five in payroll made the playoffs. The AL Champion Rays were one, and the Miami Marlins were the other. The other three were all under the .500 mark, led? by the Pirates, who had the worst record in the sport at 19-41.

The others were the Orioles and Royals.

The last season in which 162 games were played, which is a better comparison because more teams made the post-season in ’20 due to the shortened season. Only the Rays, among the five lowest payrolls in the sport, made the playoffs. The other four teams, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Miami, and the Chicago White Sox were a combined 117 games under the break even mark.

We understand that sometimes payroll is tied to a team’s success. For example, rebuilding teams, organizations that choose to tear down their rosters to go with young talent instead of declining veterans, will have low payrolls. And in the 90’s, when the Indians had perpetually contending teams, we remember GM John Hart defending his high payroll by saying the Tribe had a lot of good players, so they should rank high on the list of teams with big salary expenditures.

In 2018, the lowest payrolls belonged to Tampa Bay (90-72), Oakland (97-65 and made the playoffs), White Sox (62-100), Miami (63-98), and Pittsburgh (82-79).

And the lowest payrolls in 2017 belonged to San Diego (71-91), Oakland (75-87), Milwaukee (86-76), Cincinnati (68-94), and of course, Tampa Bay (80-82).

Because we wanted to show five full seasons (not counting 2020) of data, in 2016, the teams spending the least on players were Tampa Bay (68-94), San Diego (68-94), Milwaukee (73-89), Oakland (69-93), and Miami (79-82).

When people talk about being successful with small payrolls, they are really only talking about two organizations: The Rays and the A’s. That’s two teams out of 30, which isn’t a good percentage. Only Tampa Bay last season made the World Series. So, having a low payroll doesn’t exactly translate to success in the post-season.

The other organizations which were mentioned several times earlier included Pittsburgh, which had one season over .500 and that was 82-79, and Miami, which probably only made the playoffs in 2020 because they expanded the post-season last year, and would they have made it if the season were 162 games?

It also seems like there is room for only one small payroll team in the post-season each season. So, this year, the Indians and their slashed payroll have to compete with Tampa, because as of today, the A’s have moved out of the bottom five for 2021.

The White Sox were in the bottom five many times in this piece, but again, they were in rebuild mode, waiting for their young prospects to be good, and then spending to complement them, and San Diego pretty much did the same, although they collected a ton of prospects and then traded many of them (not all) for established players.

Yes, we understand the success that Tampa Bay and Oakland have had, but they are the only two organizations have success. Can the Indians join them as teams that don’t spend and still can compete? The odds say no, and that’s way it’s a huge gamble.

If it doesn’t work, the folks that will pay the most are the people who buy tickets. The Dolan ownership has already burned a lot of bridges with the baseball fans here, this move could be the final straw.

It’s A Pennant Race For Tribe, But Relax

It’s late August, and the Cleveland Indians are in a pennant race.

Actually, they are in two races. Most importantly, the AL Central Division is up for grabs, with the Minnesota Twins having a 2-1/2 game lead over the Tribe with 37 games left to play.

The two teams have six more games with each other, with an equal split between Cleveland and Minneapolis.

The Indians also are involved in a race for the wild card berths. They hold the top spot right now (meaning they would host the game) and lead Oakland by 2-1/2 games and Boston by eight in those standings.

We understand scoreboard watching is fun and it is interesting to see how Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Oakland, and Boston are doing on a daily basis, but we would caution it is too early to be overly concerned.

Why? Because there is a long way to go. And despite what some people think, none of the other teams are going to go 37-0 from here on out. All five teams, including the Indians are going to lose games.

The old adage is true. These teams want to just keep winning series. They can’t afford to panic losing games. Heck, before Sunday’s win against the Yankees, the Indians had just lost four of five.

Yeah, they went from a half game up to 2-1/2 down, but they are well within striking distance.

A good week for the Indians and a bad week for the Twins would put Terry Francona’s squad right back into first place.

Of course, this is all based on the Indians continuing to pile up victories, and after this week’s series with the Mets, 10 of the next 13 games for the Tribe are against the Royals, Tigers, and White Sox.

Likely, the final standings will come down to can the Twins dominate the Royals and Tigers like the Indians did, and can the Tribe improve their performance against the White Sox.

Cleveland has won 12 of 13 games vs. Detroit and won 10 of the last 13 against Kansas City. To date, the Twins are 6-3 vs. Detroit and 9-3 against the Royals.

However, the Indians have struggled vs. Chicago so far, losing seven of 12, where as Minnesota is 7-3 in contests with the Pale Hose.

For the Tribe, it could come down to how many times they see Lucas Giolito, and how they fare against him. He has dominated Cleveland in his two starts in 2019, while the Twins knocked him around when they faced him in late July.

Regardless, they have to improve their performance against Chicago. To be fair, they haven’t played the Sox since the offense started putting up more runs.

It’s been awhile since there has been an honest to goodness pennant race in Cleveland, so obsessing about the standings on a day by day basis isn’t healthy.

Until the two teams meet at Target Field on September 6th-8th, look at where the Tribe is on a weekly basis, that is as long as the Indians are winning. A losing streak is cause for concern for sure, but if the Indians keep winning series, they will be fine.

And it could be one of those years where winning 95 games doesn’t win the division. That’s the way it goes sometimes.

Other AL Contenders Have Dominated Vs. Bad Teams Too

The Cleveland Indians, thought by many to be out of the playoff competition in mid May, start today’s game against Kansas City 20 games over the .500 mark at 62-42, and have a four game lead over the second wild card spot ahead of Boston and Oakland.

Where they once trailed by 11-1/2 games in the division standings, they are today just one game behind Minnesota in the Central Division standings.

They have accomplished this by simply dominating the lower echelon teams in the American League. The Tribe has gone 37-11 against the five worst teams in the AL: Kansas City, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto, and Seattle.

There are those who will say this is fool’s gold. The Indians aren’t really contenders, they are the product of a soft schedule and cannot compete with the best teams in the league.

This ignores their 10-9 record against Boston, Houston, Minnesota, and the New York Yankees, all of whom Cleveland will play in the next three weeks.

In the interest of fairness, the Tribe is 2-8 vs. Oakland and Tampa, two other contenders for the playoffs, but all of those games came before this resurgence started after a loss to Boston on Memorial Day.

Since then, Cleveland has gone 36-15 in a stretch that included two games with Boston, three with the Yankees, and six with the Twins.

Going 37-11 against any five teams is a challenge. Heck, it’s Major League Baseball. It isn’t supposed to be easy, no matter how bad the competition.

At the end of June, the Indians lost a series on the road to Baltimore, a team certain to lose more than 100 games this season.

We looked at the other playoff contenders to see how they fared against the five teams Terry Francona’s squad has dominated.

The Yankees have piled up a 10-2 record against the Orioles and overall is 25-8 against the lowly five. They lost two of three to Detroit, where the Indians have won 12 out of 13.

Houston has played the least number of games against this group, mainly because only one of them is in the Western Division. The Astros have fared similar to Cleveland, going 18-4, winning nine of ten vs. Seattle.

Minnesota has the same number of losses (11), with 27 wins. They won all six games against Baltimore, but are a combined 16-9 vs. KC, DET, and TOR, where the Indians are 28-7.

They have a lot of games coming up against the Royals and Tigers, playing them in a combined 20 more games.

Boston has played the second most games against the quintet, but they haven’t fared as well as Cleveland, going 30-16. They’ve lost six games against the Blue Jays and five more to the Orioles. Perhaps they have an issue against birds.

Tampa Bay is 20-10, going just 4-3 against the Royals and 8-4 vs. Baltimore. They have yet to play the Mariners, and have 18 games left vs. the Orioles and Blue Jays.

Oakland caught Seattle early in the year when they were hot, so they are 8-7 with four to play. Toronto has also been tough, taking all six from the A’s, leading to a 17-14 record.

So, outside of Oakland, all of the contenders have beaten the living daylights out of the also ran teams.

The difference for the Indians, is they only have nine games remaining against the Royals and Tigers, and are done with the other three squads.

The Indians shouldn’t be condemned for beating the “bums”, they simply are doing what they should.

If they can hold their own through the middle of August after playing Houston, Minnesota, Boston, and the Yankees, they should be just fine.

And that’s assuming everyone else can match Cleveland’s dominance against the lowly five.