Mercado, Perez, and Bieber Key Tribe Resurgence

On May 26th, the Cleveland Indians lost to Tampa Bay, 6-3 at Progressive Field, ending a four game series against the Rays losing three out of four.

Their record was 26-26 and they were floundering, especially on offense. Their lineup that day featured five hitters with OPS under 681.

The starting rotation lost Corey Kluber at the beginning of the month, and Carlos Carrasco would make his (to this point, hopefully) last start four days later in a 10-4 loss to the White Sox. Mike Clevinger was still on the injured list, after making just two starts.

With games coming up against the Red Sox, Yankees, and Twins, it was easy to see the season quickly going down the toilet.

Then something weird happened, the Tribe started winning, going 23-12 since then, helped by playing well against the big boys of the American League (they went 6-3 vs. NY, BOS, and MIN) and taking advantage of a decidedly soft schedule.

Who were the big players in this turn around?

First, Oscar Mercado started getting regular playing time. Mercado received a call up on May 14th, and instantly gave the offense a shot in the arm.

His OPS is 777 and his batting average hasn’t dipped below .259 at any point in that period. He gave Terry Francona another solid hitter to add to Carlos Santana and Francisco Lindor.

He has some pop in his bat, slugging .440, and also is not a big swing and miss guy, with 34 strikeouts in 182 plate appearances.

Another huge contribution came from Roberto Perez, who since that date has belted 10 home runs and knocked in 21. Many criticized the veteran early in the season when he was hitting under .200 as late as April 26th, but we always liked Perez’ patience at the plate.

Even when he wasn’t hitting, and he had a .212 lifetime batting average coming into the year, he didn’t swing at a lot of bad pitches. We felt with regular playing time, he would be a better hitter than he had shown.

His emergence gave Francona a fourth bat in the lineup, and with Jason Kipnis’ recent hot streak (he has since cooled, going 3 for his last 23), and Jose Ramirez showing signs of regaining at least some of his old form, the offense suddenly wasn’t anemic.

And the rightfield platoon of Tyler Naquin and Jordan Luplow has been contributing too.

As for the pitching, with the top three in the rotation (Kluber, Carrasco, and Bauer) down to just one, someone had to step up.

Rookie Zach Plesac gave the squad several solid starts, although he has had rookie struggles lately. And another rook not on the radar when spring training began, Aaron Civale pitched in with a solid outing too.

Adam Plutko made seven starts, five of them very good, including a win at home over the Yankees.

But the breakout star, much like Clevinger in 2017, has been Shane Bieber, who was voted to the All Star team this week.

The righty, who made his major league debut just a year ago, is 8-3 with a 3.45 ERA on the season with 141 strikeouts in 112-1/3 innings.

The strikeouts put him 4th in the AL (behind Garret Cole, Chris Sale, Justin Verlander, and Matthew Boyd), while the ERA is 12th in the league.

His batting average against is the league’s 6th best figure.

With Clevinger back, Bieber gives the Tribe a new big three at the top of the rotation with Bauer, who has been the constant.

And if Kluber and Carrasco return this season? That’s a helluva rotation.

Who knows where the Tribe would be without this trio of players? We can be sure the front office would be contemplating who to sell off at the end of July.

That’s how important these three have been to the Cleveland Indians.

Halfway Through, Tribe Still In A Race.

After finishing the first third of the season right at the .500 mark, the Cleveland Indians went 17-10 in their next 27 games to sit at 44-37 at the halfway point of the season, an 88 win pace for the entire campaign.

Here is how the season has gone in groups of 27 games (1/6th of the schedule):

First 27: 15-12
Next 27: 12-15
Third 27: 17-10

After 81 games, the Indians sit just a game and a half behind Texas for a wild card spot, tied with Oakland, and are a half game ahead of Boston.

So, the Tribe is still in the midst of a playoff hunt, but the bigger question is how hard will the organization go after it.

The Indians have dropped to 4th in the American League in ERA after back-to-back shellackings at the hands of the lowly Baltimore Orioles, but have moved up to 10th in the league in runs scored despite being shutout in consecutive games by a pitching staff with the worst ERA in the league.

And playing in a major hitter’s yard.

Jason Kipnis has had a rebirth in the last couple of weeks, but is it sustainable? Jose Ramirez has a 918 OPS and a .306 batting average in the last 14 days. Is this yet another sign that the two time top three MVP finisher has turned the corner?

What we are trying to say is if they want to make a run at the playoffs, the front office still needs to improve the offense.

Right now, Cleveland’s third or fourth best hitter on most nights is Roberto Perez, who is having his best offensive season (14 home runs, 825 OPS), but how long will that keep up, especially considering Perez plays a position where the schedule takes its toll on your body.

Are young players the answer? Well, Oscar Mercado has been a revelation to date, helping lengthen the lineup with a .307 and 812 OPS, but should that mean a wholesale influx of people from Columbus.

To date, and we know it is very early, Bobby Bradley has not. After going 2 for 6 in his first two games with a couple of key RBIs, he has been the all or nothing hitter we feared, going 1 for 14 with six strikeouts.

Again, it’s an extremely small sample size, but what the Tribe needs is not more swing and miss hitters that occasionally run into one, but more guys who get on base, and hit doubles and triples with an occasional long ball.

Cleveland is 11th in slugging, and 12th in doubles, and tenth in triples and home runs.

Again, using Mercado as an example, he has nine doubles and four homers, to go with his .352 on base percentage.

And it’s why we’d like to see Mark Mathias (.358 OBP, .459 slugging) or even Daniel Johnson (.350 OBP, .518 slugging) get a shot with the big club.

We touched on some of the power arms for the bullpen in the organization earlier this week, and that is another area we would like to see improved in the second half.

We feel guys like Tyler Olson and Adam Cimber can’t be trusted to get big outs in important games and that puts a bigger load on Brad Hand and Nick Wittgren, who probably should be a 7th inning guy, not an 8th inning one.

But it comes down to the front office and a commitment from ownership to go after a post-season spot.

And to those who say the Indians can’t beat New York or Houston? They may have a slim chance of that, but they have no chance if they don’t qualify for the playoffs.

Looking At The Tribe’s Catching

The Cleveland Indians’ best prospect, and quite frankly, one of baseball’s best prospects is catcher Francisco Mejia.

Because of his presence at Class AAA Columbus, it seems like every time either Yan Gomes or Roberto Perez have a few hitless games in a row, fans are yelling for Mejia to be called up and inserted into the lineup.

Those people do not understand what the Tribe organization values in a catcher, nor do they realize Gomes and Perez aren’t the offensive zeroes they are viewed as.

If you understand baseball at all, you would know the Indians value defense first behind the plate, and that includes pitch framing and handling one of the premier pitching staffs in the sport.

We feel Perez is the better player and should get a higher percentage of the playing time, but the way Terry Francona handles the duo keeps them fresh at a very physically taxing position.

Last season, Gomes had the higher OPS at 708 (Perez was 664), but the pair combined for 22 HR and 94 RBI, not bad for two guys who combined to hit under .230 combined.

We like Perez better because he has a better eye at the plate. Even though he strikes out a lot (71 Ks in 217 at bats), he also works counts better and walked 26 times, five less than Gomes, even though the latter had 135 more plate appearances.

Perez also guided Indians’ pitchers to a better ERA at 3.22, compared to Gomes’ 3.36, both excellent figures.

Both catchers are excellent against the running game, throwing out over 40% of the runners trying to steal against Cleveland pitchers.

Both are also very good in blocking pitches, as the duo had just 9 passed balls last season, and the team ranked second to Boston in the fewest number of wild pitches.

Watching Tribe games makes you appreciate Gomes and Perez when you see Cleveland baserunners advance on pitches in the dirt.

By the way, this season, Tribe catchers have combined for 3 HR and 6 RBI, and both hit game winning home runs this week.

Getting back to Mejia, quite frankly we do not want him to continue catching anyway. He’s not a big guy at 5’10” and 180 pounds, and most scouts feel his bat is elite. Why subject him to the wear and tear that the position takes on these guys.

Outside of his season at Lake County as a 19 year old, where he hit .243 with 9 homers, the lowest batting average the switch-hitter has had was .282 when he was 18 at Mahoning Valley.

He doesn’t strike out a lot, and the front office sees his value as a hitter, because they are investigating a position change for the youngster, who won’t turn 23 until after the season ends.

Even if they weren’t thinking about moving Mejia from behind the plate, the way the organization thinks about the spot would keep him in the minors. He’s not ready to handle a big league pitching staff, especially one as accomplished as the Tribe’s, just yet.

And don’t forget Eric Haase, just 25 years old, who emerged last year in Akron to hit 27 dingers. He’s also at Columbus this season.

The Indians don’t have a guy who is going to start behind the plate for the American League in the All Star Game, but they are very happy with the quality they have at the position.

As for Mejia, he could wind up joining with Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez to form a switch hitting middle of the order which would be the envy of baseball.

More Tribe Decisions: Kipnis, Gomes, Shaw.

Last week, we wrote about the dilemma the Cleveland Indians have surrounding the club option they hold on Michael Brantley, and the free agency of Carlos Santana and Jay Bruce.

There are also other decisions that need to be made regarding the make up of next year’s roster for the Tribe.

The first involves longtime Indian Jason Kipnis. Kipnis is scheduled to take a huge jump in pay in 2018, a $4.5 million raise, and he’s coming off an injury plagued poor season, hitting just .232 (705 OPS) with 12 home runs last season.

It appears by their actions at the end of the season that Kipnis no longer is the Indians’ second baseman either. When the veteran returned from a hamstring issue in September, he moved to centerfield, with Jose Ramirez staying at second.

So, with Bradley Zimmer seemingly the incumbent in center, and a likely platoon (if Bruce doesn’t return) in rightfield of Lonnie Chisenhall and Brandon Guyer, if Brantley does return in ’18, where does that leave Kipnis?

Many have speculated that Kipnis will be dealt, but with the off year in ’17, a deal this winter will not bring the return the club would receive with a bounce-back season next summer.

So, it looks right now like the front office will be forced to choose between Brantley and Kipnis. Certainly not what they thought when the two signed contract extensions prior to the 2014 season.

The third player inked at that time and identified as a core piece was catcher Yan Gomes.

Gomes had a stellar ’14 season, hitting .278 (785 OPS) with 21 homers and winning the Silver Slugger Award.

Since then, it’s been all downhill. Injuries haunted the catcher in 2015 and 2016, with his offense all but disappearing in the latter year (.167 batting average, 527 OPS).

He rebounded a bit last season (.232, 14 HR, 56 RBI), but seemed to lose playing time down the stretch to Roberto Perez, a better pitch framer.

Gomes is still a very good defensive catcher with a plus arm, and could be a significant trade chip to a team looking for stability at the catching position.

If the organization wants to give Perez the bulk of the playing time going forward, Gomes could be a player who can bring something very valuable in return. We believe that will be the direction the front office is going in.

Bryan Shaw is also a free agent this off-season. For all the back and forth between his fans and critics, Shaw is durable and dependable, leading the AL in appearances three of the last four years.

With the bullpen craze the sport has seen in recent years, Shaw is going to get paid.

We would be interested in keeping him at a reasonable deal, but we feel another team is going to make him an unbelievable offer.

And with the wear and tear on the right-hander’s arm, it’s a risk to sign him long term.

Our fear is Shaw could follow the same career path as Scott Linebrink, who appeared in 70+ games from 2004-08 with San Diego and Milwaukee. The veteran went to the White Sox in 2009 and never had the same effectiveness, and was out of baseball at age 35.

Again, as a non-large market team, the Indians can’t afford to be paying a lot of money to someone who cannot contribute to the major league team.

With the World Series ending this week, these decisions will have to be made as early as this weekend.

Coming off an 102 win season and a division title, the Tribe front office has some tough calls to make.

The Mejia Question For Tribe.

The All Star break is over, and now the eyes of baseball shifts to the trading deadline at the end of this month.

And that leads to speculation about the Indians’ top prospects, catcher Francisco Mejia and pitcher Triston McKenzie.

Mejia gets even more scrutiny because of the offensive production on the catchers on the big league roster, Yan Gomes and Roberto Perez.

Gomes has an OPS of 680, and is hitting just .222 with a .315 on base percentage. Perez is even worse with a 517 OPS and his batting average is just .178. Combined, the two backstops have 6 HR and 36 RBI.

Mejia has all the look of a professional hitter. A switch-hitter, he is hitting .334 with 9 HR and 34 RBI at AA Akron, and has a 928 OPS. This following a season where he had a 50 game hitting streak, and combined at Class A Lynchburg and Akron, he hit .342 with 11 homers and 80 runs batted in.

He also doesn’t strike out, which is huge in today’s game where swinging and missing is plentiful. His high in whiffs is 78 in 446 at bats, and that was during his worst year in the minors, when he hit .243 at Lake County in 2015.

One thing we know, or should know, about the Tribe front office is they value defense, pitch framing, and handling a pitching staff the most from their catchers. If they can hit, that’s great, but they don’t seem to be in a hurry to replace Gomes or Perez behind the plate, because they do those other things very well.

Baseball Prospectus ranked Mejia as the third best prospect in the game, and said they would rank him first if they knew the Dominican native was going to remain behind the plate long term.

The reason for that is Mejia’s size, he’s 5’10” and weighs 180 pounds. By contrast, Gomes is 6’2″, 215, and Perez is 5’11”, but weighs 220 pounds.

Ivan Rodriguez, who will be inducted into Cooperstown later this month, was only 5’9″, but weighed 205 pounds, so Mejia can get a little bigger and be a catcher for a long time in the big leagues.

On the other hand, Mejia looks like the kind of hitter that is special, and do the Indians want that bat to be subject to the daily grind and pounding a catcher takes, and perhaps shorten his career.

Look at Joe Mauer, who is much bigger than Mejia, but was an elite hitter as a catcher, with an OPS over 800 nine times in his first ten full seasons, and a winner of three batting titles.

He was basically done as a premier hitter at age 30 in 2013.

Do the Indians want to subject Mejia to that pounding or perhaps move him to another position and keep a possibly elite bat in their lineup for a long time.

Obviously, the Tribe front office would rather not deal Mejia, but they may have to if they are making a deal like the one that brought them Andrew Miller last year. In fact, remember he was involved in the ill-fated deal with Milwaukee that Jonathan Lucroy vetoed.

By the end of the month, we will see if the Indians dodged a bullet with that move, or they don’t think Mejia can become the type of catcher they would be comfortable with defensively.

He is purported to have a great arm and gets out of his crouch quickly, so we would be talking about pitch framing and handling the hurlers.

When you understand what Cleveland wants from the position, you can understand why Mejia is not in the Indians’ plans for this season.

Is he is their plans long term? We will find out in a couple of weeks.

Tribe Won’t Do This, But We Would

The Cleveland Indians should be considered a conservative organization, although at times they do make some aggressive moves.

They may have cost themselves a playoff spot in 2015 with their stubbornness in leaving Francisco Lindor in the minor leagues until his service time would not be an issue.

They give some veterans every opportunity to succeed before replacing them with a possibly more productive young player. Think about the long rope vets like Michael Bourn and Juan Uribe received from the current regime.

That said, here are some things we would like to see the Indians do, even though we know it will never happen:

A change in position for Jason Kipnis. Kipnis was an outfielder in college and moved to second base when he was drafted. However, it is pretty clear to us that Kipnis is the third best defensive option at the position for the Tribe, behind Jose Ramirez and Erik Gonzalez.

The Indians leave outs on the field more than they should because of plays not made up the middle or double plays not turned.

We understand Kipnis is a key member of the team both on the field and in the clubhouse. The simplest thing would be to just flip flop Ramirez and Kipnis and move the latter to 3B.

In these days, where offense continues to put up numbers, outs are at a premium, you can’t give them away.

The Brantley Dilemma. Michael Brantley’s return to the everyday lineup is a boon for Terry Francona, with an OPS of over 800 on the season.

However, it is evident that his defense in left field has slipped greatly. Sunday night, a groundball single went for a double for Jose Iglesias because he couldn’t cut the ball off.

There have been other deep flyballs which haven’t been caught either throughout the season.

Where can Brantley go? Perhaps first base if Carlos Santana goes elsewhere via free agency after the season, but if Santana resigns, Francona may want to consider a defensive replacement in the late innings.

Swap Gomes and Perez. The Indians are blessed with two very good defensive catchers who can handle (frame) pitchers. And we understand Roberto Perez is hitting just .178 with a 517 OPS, compared to Gomes’ 680 OPS.

However, Gomes hasn’t really been an effective hitter since winning a Silver Slugger Award in 2014. And with men on base, Gomes becomes very impatient at the plate.

We would like to see what Perez would do offensively if he were given the bulk of the playing time. Our gut feeling is he would hit better.

We would just like to find out, because in a year or two it will be a moot point (hopefully) because of Francisco Mejia.

Keep Mejia/McKenzie. In order to make a big move at the trade deadline, the Indians will have to trade one of the studs in their farm system. We would love to not give up either because as a small to mid market team, it is important to keep players like them.

Besides, the Indians have other players that would be desirable to other teams. Gonzalez is good enough defensively to start for several major league teams, and we would consider moving Bobby Bradley because we fear he could be like Texas’ Joey Gallo.

And don’t forget Yu-Cheng Chang is another shortstop blocked by Frankie Lindor.

The Tribe has a lot of depth in the system, we know it might be a fantasy, but we would like to keep these two after moving Clint Frazier and Justus Sheffield last season.

Tribe Wins Opener, And More Thoughts On AL Champs

For some reason, many people, including baseball fans put a lot of importance on the results of the Opening Day of baseball.

In reality, it is just one game of 162, but because the non-baseball sports media actually watch the season lidlifter, there is more analysis on game one, compared to a contest in May between the Tribe and the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Indians did get off to a winning start, overcoming a 5-1 deficit after three innings to outlast the Texas Rangers 8-5 to go to 1-0 on the season.

Corey Kluber gutted out six innings on a day where he didn’t have his best stuff, Edwin Encarnacion debuted with a home run, and Andrew Miller and Cody Allen struck out five of the last seven Texas hitters to wrap this one up.

Remember though that baseball is a series sport, you want to win series, and the Indians have a leg up on that by winning last night.

So, while we celebrate a win in the first game, there are still some issues for this baseball team, although none of them are based on a lack of talent, which is very refreshing.

Over the weekend, the front office signed another player to a multi-year contract, Roberto Perez. Perez inked a four year deal with two club options that could take him through 2022.

Perez was a star in last year’s post-season, and it says here that he will be the regular catcher by the All-Star break. It is a well kept secret that Perez is better defensively than Yan Gomes (who is very good behind the plate), and better with a bat in his hand too.

Gomes doesn’t control the strike zone which in our opinion is why he has struggled at the plate since 2014. Pitchers know they don’t have to throw him a strike to get him out.

Perez is also one of the best pitch framers in the business, and draws a ton of walks too.

By the way, we know Terry Francona is protecting rookie Yandy Diaz, but hitting Gomes sixth seems like it will come back to bite the Tribe.

The other situation worth looking at is in the outfield, particularly when Lonnie Chisenhall is eligible to come off the disabled list.

Austin Jackson was told a week before spring training ended, leading to speculation that Abraham Almonte would be sent to the minors. But Chisenhall’s shoulder issue allowed the switch-hitter to make the team.

We still feel that Almonte is a better choice than Jackson for the roster because of his ability to hit from both sides of the plate, and because Jackson has had issues making contact at times.

We know it is one game, but Almonte had a day, didn’t he? Two walks and the go ahead single in the ninth. You have to wonder what happens when Chisenhall is back.

Does Almonte still go to Columbus, or does Jackson agree to go down. Or will the team send out Tyler Naquin. Just another problem teams have when they are good.

As for people disappointed that the Indians didn’t open at home? Relax, worry about something else. Hopefully, the Tribe wins both series on the road and they come home to a party after a successful trip.