2021 Spring Training Thread

sayonara Arizona....let's get this thing started. Enough conjecture, let's see it play out.

Lets simplify things...

If Jose and ERosa don't hit, we won't win many games...period.

Do you expect them to hit? I do. So their ST stats don't mean squat.

Now, lets look at the rest.

Looking good:

Berto
Reyes
Hernandez
Gimenez
ARosa

Even Bauers looked OK towards the end. A .768 OPS is above average, and sure trumps what we got from Carlos last year.

So, the guys we don't worry about didn't hit. But the guys we should concentrate on...six of them that are expected to play regularly had good spring trainings.

Add Jose and ERosa to them and thats eight of nine spots in the lineup. The only spot left is Naylor in RF.

When looking at our lineup, you have to assume that Jose and ERosa hit....because that's the basis of the offense. There's no sense talking about scoring runs if they don't. If the other six carry their ST into the regular season, we have a good offense...not great, but above average. And if Naylor doesn't hit, we have Johnson behind him.

By any account, if you have six of the seven auxiliary spots in your lineup have good STs, thats about as good as it gets. Throw in Johnson and Bradley as the plan B guys having super STs, it makes for a very good spring training.

Considering where we started and where we ended... Luplow starting in CF and Chang starting at 1st is quite the sea change from our initial projections.

I like it though and Chang may end up playing regularly and if Luplow finds his stroke... Who knows??

Derek said:

I didn't realize "hitting was non-existent" meant just certain hitters during certain innings.

Still, our everyday players (minus Eddie Rosario) did pretty well at the plate this spring.

Would you feel better if I said "mostly" meaningless? We were talking about actual their actual performances and results, not underlying peripherals, which is the context of me saying spring training stats are meaningless.

Also, I never once phrased my opinion as fact. I said, "personally, I don't think spring training stats matter at all".

As far as the bolded goes, maybe if people wouldn't make such generalized declarative posts (hitting is non-existent), that can be easily disproven, and instead chose to make a more nuanced post about their concerns, then you'd see more constructive debates.

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...mostly.. partially.. virtually every.. hardly any.. all qualify.. and they're still meaningless...

petes999 said:

To try to politely answer your question ... I did waste my time I guess and saw that of the 13 players on the MLB squad, they scored 60 runs out of 140 total runs (43%). To put it into perspective, the 13 players got 520 of the 930 AB (56%). To put Runs/AB, our MLB players was 12% and our AA/AAA players were 19.5%. Thus, much of our hitting was skewed to our up and coming players (and thus reason to be excited next year). But this year?

I hope people see that a players getting 40 AB in spring is a small sample size you can't take much from. But, when you look at the team hitting with 13 players getting 40 AB or 520 AB, it becomes more meaningful. You can point to someone like McK trying to figure out his mechanics based on what Indians staff wants and say that his stats are not indicative due to throwing more FB or something else (like 4 curves in a row). But, hopefully for hitting, 520 AB becomes more meaningful unless all 13 players were trying to take the ball to the opposite field and skewing things in one direction.

For a team (13 players), they hit .227 AVG and .719 OPS this spring --- last year reg season was .228 and .689 which was 27th in league. Based on correlation, most would hypothesize ... if we were a bad hitting team last year ... our spring #s for our 13 players didn't improve on average ... we are probably (but not necessarily) a bad hitting team again. I know that you can point to Perez and say he is hitting better but that many be an anomaly on 40 ABs .... but as you look at a team, it averages out with the hot hitters like Perez with the cold hitters like E Rosario.

EDIT -- Looking back to Derek, his OPS looks at our starters plus Chang ... I looked at all 13 (including Gamel, Luplow - our starter against LHP ... and Hedges as he is starting every 3rd or 4th game). You can say that some of our reserves are going to skew numbers one way (due to more AB in ST) as looking at starters will skew the other. And, my numbers do not include HBP in OBP (as it wasn't available for ST) but that is a small change in OPS.

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Thanks for putting this together Pete and putting your thoughts out there. It appears deciding on any one individuals performance in ST is based on your own opinion. See CATS posts or Derek's OPS post, you can reframe anything you want.

We may struggle at the plate. We may not. What we do know is everyone else is/has gotten better in our division the last few years. Where do we range on that scale, and whether or not our everyday players produce is the unknown. Expectations aside, these questions are not answered by spring training stats, but they may have some clues. Though they may not.

Criznit said:

Considering where we started and where we ended... Luplow starting in CF and Chang starting at 1st is quite the sea change from our initial projections.

I like it though and Chang may end up playing regularly and if Luplow finds his stroke... Who knows??

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If Chang hits and Bauers struggles it'll get real interesting.

BimboColesHair said:

If Chang hits and Bauers struggles it'll get real interesting.

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...don't you mean "when".. ?

As we put a wrap on Spring Training, I am very intrigued by this low expectations squad and generally optimistic beyond my normal state of being.

I believe we will pitch well and think we’ll get some help from hurlers beyond our initial 26...probably a bit more than will our competitors...and everyone is going to need lots of pitching reserves in 2021!

I believe we will defend well...top half certainly, but likely top third. Sure I am terrified at the apparent Amed/Luplow platoon to start the season, because defense matters in CF, and we need defense to support our pitching. That said, I believe Amed will learn to be adequate in a month or two...certainly he’ll make mistakes, but probably some excellent plays, too. Otherwise we are above average up the middle. Gimenez will impress and make us smile. Hernandez is good - yes. Everyone knows we have excellent defensive catching, but it has become easy for us to forget how important that is. I am delighted Yu Chang in on the the 26...hope he’ll be an asset.

We will hit enough...probably more than enough to win games, but not sway the doubters. So it goes... JRam is in the top end of MVP balloting, Franmil leaps forward in production, and Eddie makes for a strong center of the lineup. Naylor is my pick to surprise/impress among the unproven. We’ll flash some speed and aggression , too.

I am glad we made it out of ST with no real injury concerns...sounds cliche, but it makes a big difference!
Play Ball!

LL3 said:

I am glad we made it out of ST with no real injury concerns...sounds cliche, but it makes a big difference!

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No question about it, that is a big deal.

I just can't wrap my head around those who think we'll be fortunate to be better than .500. I see that as more of a floor than a ceiling, and that's even accepting that our pitching probably takes a step back, overall. But our defense is generally good, and I expect the hitting to step up as much as our pitching steps down. Even accounting for the stronger schedule (which affects everyone in our division) I fail to see how that adds up to .500 against the totality of last season's 10 games over .500.

Also, the Tribe tends to do better with low expectations. And boy, they're clearly out there.

WhoAzcue said:

No question about it, that is a big deal.

I just can't wrap my head around those who think we'll be fortunate to be better than .500. I see that as more of a floor than a ceiling, and that's even accepting that our pitching probably takes a step back, overall. But our defense is generally good, and I expect the hitting to step up as much as our pitching steps down. Even accounting for the stronger schedule (which affects everyone in our division) I fail to see how that adds up to .500 against the totality of last season's 10 games over .500.

Also, the Tribe tends to do better with low expectations. And boy, they're clearly out there.

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No injuries is a big deal. I only have to look at my fantasy team with Eloy Jimenez and Luke Voit injuries that have put me in a hole before opening day.

DCTribefan said:

No injuries is a big deal. I only have to look at my fantasy team with Eloy Jimenez and Luke Voit injuries that have put me in a hole before opening day.

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Yikes. That's way too much misfortune for one fantasy team. Big shoes to fill. I be scramblin'.

WhoAzcue said:

No question about it, that is a big deal.

I just can't wrap my head around those who think we'll be fortunate to be better than .500. I see that as more of a floor than a ceiling, and that's even accepting that our pitching probably takes a step back, overall. But our defense is generally good, and I expect the hitting to step up as much as our pitching steps down. Even accounting for the stronger schedule (which affects everyone in our division) I fail to see how that adds up to .500 against the totality of last season's 10 games over .500.

Also, the Tribe tends to do better with low expectations. And boy, they're clearly out there.

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Yes, I would say 81-81 strikes me as the CLE floor...I am predicting 88-74, but our ceiling might be 3-4 more wins. The improved division may make it hard for one team to run away and hide.

How much does the Chisox loss of Jimenez effect how folks feel about them vs the Tribe?

CATS44 said:

How much does the Chisox loss of Jimenez effect how folks feel about them vs the Tribe?

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Considering he would cold resurface around August.. Not much... Andrew Vaughns bat should cover some ground... His loss hurts his team, but had the tribe lost such a piece... Not so rosy...

WhoAzcue said:

No question about it, that is a big deal.

I just can't wrap my head around those who think we'll be fortunate to be better than .500. I see that as more of a floor than a ceiling, and that's even accepting that our pitching probably takes a step back, overall. But our defense is generally good, and I expect the hitting to step up as much as our pitching steps down. Even accounting for the stronger schedule (which affects everyone in our division) I fail to see how that adds up to .500 against the totality of last season's 10 games over .500.

Also, the Tribe tends to do better with low expectations. And boy, they're clearly out there.

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We should all be grateful that our team exited ST unscathed by injury, because as you stated it's a big deal.

I would say .500 is floor as well, I just don't have the ceiling as high as some others. On paper, the AL Central is improved overall. We won't be going 18-1 against the Tigers like we did in 2019. The Royals look to be significantly improved. We're still a better ballclub, but every team in our division is as good or slightly better than they were last season.

I'm still concerned about CF, RF, and 1B production. Because of that, I think we'll finish similar to last year. We might get 2nd in the division, but we could end up behind the Twins and the White Sox battling the Royals for 3rd place. Then again, the stars might align and we run away with the division. There's a reason the games are played. The inability to mash the ball like the Twins, White Sox, and Royals puts this team at a disadvantage in the late innings when we don't have a lead. I also think that if we can get to the late innings with a lead then this BP will lock it down. I think they'll be a little regression with the SP. It's extremely unlikely that Bieber and Plesac can post those kind of numbers over a 162 game schedule. After those 2 we're kind of in "wait and see" mode. I've never been more confident in a Cleveland BP as I am with this one. I would have preferred to keep Gose over Perez, but hey, you cannot discard what Ollie gave us last season.

Waiting in the wings are some very good young hitters and a couple with some serious thump. I can only guess that MC's phone is ringing off the hook with inquiries about Freeman and Miller. Jones is the kind of hitter I would like to see more of and hopefully he solidifies himself defensively. Johnson's combination of speed and power is intriguing. Bradley's power potential and ST showing has most of us wondering why they would even worry about Bauers and his lack of options. My concerns about CF, RF, and 1B could all possibly be addressed internally by the break. Hopefully we're not too far out of it by then.