Tag: The Royals

Royals Success is Cruel Reminder of Tribe Inactivity

Let this soak in for a minute…the Kansas City Royals are the American League Champions.

They will host the first two games of the World Series next week and have provided their fans with three weeks of excitement.  We remember that feeling from 2007.

During the regular season, the Royals won exactly four more games than the Indians (89 vs. 85) and based on run differential, the Royals should have won 84 games as opposed to the Tribe’s 83.  As you can see there isn’t much difference between the two clubs.

Kansas City GM Drayton Moore went all in to make the post-season, perhaps because the Royals last trip to the playoffs came in 1985.  He traded for right-handed hitter Josh Willingham, relief pitcher Jason Frasor, and veteran left-handed bat Raul Ibanez.

As we have well documented, the Indians traded Justin Masterson and Asdrubal Cabrera, and brought in OF J.B. Shuck and utility man Chris Gimenez.

The point isn’t the contributions made by the players who joined Kansas City in the last two months of the season, it’s that they made a commitment to the rest of the players on the roster.

We remember in 1995 when then GM John Hart traded for Ken Hill at the trade deadline even though the Indians were way ahead in the AL Central Division standings.  They didn’t need to add a pitcher, but Hart wanted to send the message to everyone on that team that the organization was it in to win a World Series.

And think about it, what message did GM Chris Antonetti send to this year’s team when he didn’t help them out on July 31st?

Kansas City’s success this year is a reminder that baseball is the one sport where getting into the playoffs gives you a chance to be the World Series Champions.  The percentages of the eighth seed in the NBA playoffs advancing past the first round are very slim, they are usually dominated by the best team in each conference.

In the NFL, although it was happened that a team gets on a roll, in most years, the last team to make the post-season, the sixth seed in each conference, has a lot of disadvantages.  They have to play all of their games on the road, and they have to play three games instead of two for the top seeds.

But in baseball, if you can get in, you have a shot.  It comes down to pitching, hitters getting hot at the right time, and solid bullpens.  That’s why the San Francisco Giants, on the verge of advancing to their third World Series in five years, have missed the playoffs twice in the same span.

They have a team perfectly set up for the playoffs, but sometimes they don’t hit enough to qualify for the post-season over a 162 game slate.

This year, if the Giants and Royals play in the Fall Classic, we will be assured that a great team will not win the Series.  That isn’t belittling either squad, but it is simply a fact, and it goes to show how important it can be to just make the playoffs.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear the Cleveland Indians didn’t go the extra mile to get in even though they were right on the doorstep.

The front office has to look at the Royals and think “that could be us”.

KM

Tribe Needs Five Players to Come Through in 2014

The Cleveland Indians will open their season less than a week from today and they are pretty much the same team that lost the wild card game against Tampa, 4-0.

The question is will that be enough again this season?

A lot probably depends on the other teams in the Central Division.

The Tigers seems to not be as strong as they were last season, losing Prince Fielder, Jhonny Peralta, and Doug Fister, plus they have suffered a rash of injuries in spring training.

However, they still have Justin Verlander, Max Sherzer, and Anibal Sanchez at the top of their rotation, perhaps the best 1-2-3 combination in the major leagues.

The Royals stayed in the race until the middle of September and their young core of talent is starting to mature. They’ve also added 2B Omar Infante, leadoff hitter Nori Aoki from Milwaukee, and starting pitcher Jason Vargas.

If ever Kansas City is going to make the leap into the playoffs, this looks to be the season.

While the Royals were adding to the roster, the Indians lost two starting pitchers from last year’s squad, Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir, who the Tribe is trying to replace from within.

We don’t think the Indians will win 92 games again this season, but we also see them in contention because we don’t believe any team in the Central will win more than 90 games.

It will be a three team race with the White Sox hanging around the fringe, with the Tigers, Indians, and Royals all winning between 84 and 88 games.

For the Tribe, their success depends on better seasons from their two big free agent signings a year ago, Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, and a free agent to be at the end of this season in Asdrubal Cabrera.

All three had down years in ’13, and an adjustment to their career averages would certainly help the offense that finished 4th in the league in runs scored. They will need the extra production because it is doubtful that Ryan Raburn will duplicate what he did last year.

Last year, the Indians jumped into contention because of their pitching which finished the year 7th in team ERA as new pitching coach Mickey Calloway performed magic with his young starters and also salvaged Jimenez’ career.

The front office is asking Calloway to do it again, putting more pressure on him to duplicate the success Corey Kluber had last season, and to bring along fireballing phenom Danny Salazar, and making him a successful starter for an entire season.

Because if the Tribe wants to get back to the post-season this fall, the starting pitching needs to be better than it was last summer. And that means Kluber and Salazar have to perform at a high level.

Justin Masterson will give Terry Francona 200 innings as usual. Carlos Carrasco, if he indeed starts the year in the rotation, is the wild card, capable of winning 10 or more games, but he could also be in the bullpen by May.

The Indians need Kluber and Salazar to be consistent; giving the ballclub quality starts throughout the season. If they can, Cleveland will contend.

If they can’t the organization will be scrambling for replacements. Josh Tomlin looks like the 2011 version of himself, but is Trevor Bauer ready to take a regular turn in the rotation?

They would be the next pitchers up.

The key to whether or not this will be a fun summer at Progressive Field depends the how the Tribe’s young starters will perform. In what should be a competitive division, that could make all the difference.

KM