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2021 Series #6 | White Sox @ Indians | April 20, 2021

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This is going to be your Tribe, about as mediocre as you get. Bieber, Civale, McKenzie, and bullpen will keep us in some games. Logan and Plesac, wildcards... Offense is offensive and will score just enough backed by great pitching, or not enough sometimes. I expected 2-3 games under at this point.

Baseball sucks when your team doesn't show up. Then the cold weather excuse, but Chicago can torch us. Can we get a APB on Hosey? He's approaching Mendoza.
 
This is going to be your Tribe, about as mediocre as you get. Bieber, Civale, McKenzie, and bullpen will keep us in some games. Logan and Plesac, wildcards... Offense is offensive and will score just enough backed by great pitching, or not enough sometimes. I expected 2-3 games under at this point.

Baseball sucks when your team doesn't show up. Then the cold weather excuse, but Chicago can torch us. Can we get a APB on Hosey? He's approaching Mendoza.
Hosey has been hitting the shit out of the ball. Got robbed twice tonight by the baseball gods.
 
Well, since I don't have much faith in Naylor right now I thought he'd make the final out. When he doubled off the LF wall I thought that there's no way Berto will get a hit. After Berto singled up the middle and I saw Bauers coming to the plate I knew the game was over. Moral of the story, when you think things are bad they can get worse. Why in the actual fuck is Bauers still on this roster?
 
Well, since I don't have much faith in Naylor right now I thought he'd make the final out. When he doubled off the LF wall I thought that there's no way Berto will get a hit. After Berto singled up the middle and I saw Bauers coming to the plate I knew the game was over. Moral of the story, when you think things are bad they can get worse. Why in the actual fuck is Bauers still on this roster?

Trying to give him a fair chance (slight sarcasm). But I agree, his track record has not improved at all, for a long time. Bradley or Naylor or _________ a shot NOW is a good call.

Honestly for all you Bradley haters/lukewarmers do you think he doesn't deserve a shot to hit in the 8th or 9th hole everyday-ish at this point? Especially because Chang hasn't sealed the deal and see above for Bauers.. So Naylor plays 1st, or maybe Luplow and the other one plays RF for now..

Why isn't that a good plan?
 
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Trying to give him a fair chance (slight sarcasm). But I agree, his track record has not improved at all, for a long time. Bradley or Naylor or _________ a shot NOW is a good call.

Honestly for all you Bradley haters/lukewarmers do you honestly think he doesn't deserve a shot to hit in the 8th or 9th hole everyday-ish? Especially because Chang hasn't sealed the deal and see above for Bauers.. Naylor plays 1st, or maybe Luplow and the other one plays RF for now..

Why isn't that a good plan?
I think Bauers has actually become worse during his time in Cleveland. If I was a struggling hitter I wouldn't want to be in this organization. As good as they are at tuning pitchers, I don't think the same can be said for hitters.

I think Bradley's penchant for the SO will be severely exposed, but what could be hurt by giving him a shot. We're not getting any production from 1B as it is. You want to put Naylor there then fine by me. I don't think he's a very good baseball player right now, but like I said, we're not getting any production from 1B anyway.

I'm throwing my hands in the air because I don't know what to do. It just appears that this team isn't very good right now. Guys like Jones, Miller, Freeman, and Johnson can't get here fast enough for me.
 
I think Luplow is the only one hitting at all right now. I don’t think it—it is pretty damn obvious. The only player on this team that is a more wasted at bat than Bauers is Mercado last year.
 
For as much grief as Jake Bauers justifiably receives, Yu Chang hasn't been too impressive at the plate either.

Yu Chang:
PAABRHHRRBISBAVGOBPSLGOPS
302856020.214.267.286.552
WOBA: .266
XWOBA: .259

Jake Bauers:

PAABRHHRRBISBAVGOBPSLGOPS
2021302704010.148.207.185.392
WOBA: .178
XWOBA: .303

Considering how Jordan Luplow has earned an opportunity to be in the lineup every day and the team is getting virtually nothing offensively at 1B, it might be wise to move Naylor to 1B full time and have Luplow play every day in RF. Cut bait with Bauers and keep Chang as the utility infielder until they're ready to call up Owen Miller.
 
Trying to give him a fair chance (slight sarcasm). But I agree, his track record has not improved at all, for a long time. Bradley or Naylor or _________ a shot NOW is a good call.

Honestly for all you Bradley haters/lukewarmers do you think he doesn't deserve a shot to hit in the 8th or 9th hole everyday-ish at this point? Especially because Chang hasn't sealed the deal and see above for Bauers.. So Naylor plays 1st, or maybe Luplow and the other one plays RF for now..

Why isn't that a good plan?
If I'm giving out 500 AB's to one of Bauers/Chang/Bradley, Bauers would be out of the conversation.

I think Chang has the most likelihood to succeed out of the three, but I think Bradley, if he succeeds, is the larger success. Bradley has a higher ceiling because of his power. To be fair to Bradley, he also walks more than Chang.

I just think it's more likely for Chang to put his bat on the ball than Bradley, and a middle infielder with pop can always have value... if Chang can even still be viewed as that.

Personally though, I'm not doing any of that. I'm giving Naylor the 1B at bats, and playing Rosario/Rosario/Luplow every day in the OF, with Daniel Johnson getting the first crack at everyday AB's if one of them gets hurt.
 
I think you could argue in a roundabout way, the desire to keep Bauers has cost us 2 additional games..

1. Chang's overplay error - wasn't an effort/ability miscue.
2. Naylor.. Maybe he should have been double switched, IDK..

But that is hindsight..

Luplow deserves a crack and Naylor is supposedly a 1st baseman by actual trade... Do it now please.. We do not have to make any roster adjustments to do it either...
 
If I'm giving out 500 AB's to one of Bauers/Chang/Bradley, Bauers would be out of the conversation.

I think Chang has the most likelihood to succeed out of the three, but I think Bradley, if he succeeds, is the larger success. Bradley has a higher ceiling because of his power. To be fair to Bradley, he also walks more than Chang.

I just think it's more likely for Chang to put his bat on the ball than Bradley, and a middle infielder with pop can always have value... if Chang can even still be viewed as that.

Personally though, I'm not doing any of that. I'm giving Naylor the 1B at bats, and playing Rosario/Rosario/Luplow every day in the OF, with Daniel Johnson getting the first crack at everyday AB's if one of them gets hurt.
Chang while on the roster will always be the utility/emergency guy. Playing first is a bonus for him to succeed as a major leaguer and the difference between him and Bradley right now, is he is getting a crack. Even if he fails as a 1B option, he will still be one of our utility options... Odd makeup in the dugout....

No need to argue here. I think we all want to see Luplow play more games and take more swings. Moving Naylor to 1st and Luplow to RF makes the most sense to me, but....
 
The White Sox own Plesac. 12 runs off him in his last two starts covering 6 innings. At least he had a 1-2-3 first inning. It's a start.

Got my first look at Sam Hentges. Wow! He looks like the Big Unit's little brother. He made one bad pitch to Abreu, who was locked in tonight, but struck out his other three batters with a combination of 97 mph heat and a hook that reminded me of Andrew Miller. Enormous potential for this kid. I can see why Tito is so excited about him.

Rodon has now allowed 2 hits in 14 innings of work against the Indians. At least they ran up his pitch count and got a run off him. Baby steps. The Indians drew nine walks but still struck out numerous times chasing pitches well out of the zone. Do we have a left-handed hitter on this team who isn't a sucker for a slider down and away from a lefty?

Speaking of walks, Luplow had a home run (off Rodon so it counts double) and three walks. But the one time we really needed a good at-bat he struck out chasing two high fastballs with the bases loaded, one out, and the Indians down 3-1. The second one was a foot above the top of the zone. That's been the story of the Indians' offense this year - no situational hitting.

If Luplow takes a walk there and Naylor doesn't run through the stop sign the game is tied 3-3 with one out and Hosey coming up with the bases loaded against a tiring Rodon. But Luplow chased a fastball at the shoulders for strike three and Naylor made a boneheaded baserunning error.

Lots of solo home runs, but no situational hitting. The other night Naylor went 3-for-4 and his only out came with the bases loaded and two out, same as Luplow tonight. The Indians were 4-for-16 with RISP and left 13 men on base.

Franmil went 3-for-4 with a walk. Maybe he's starting to get on one of his hot streaks. He definitely got Rodon's attention with that rocket shot right over his head.

If I'm Tito I would put Luplow in right every day, Rosario in center, Gimenez at short, and Naylor at first. No Bauers or Chang, except Chang can be the UIF.

Haven't been impressed with Quantrill this year. In one inning tonight he gave up three hits including a home run. He's supposed to have great stuff but I'm not seeing it.

The Indians are 4-2 against Detroit, 1-1 against KC, 1-2 against Cincy, and 2-3 against the White Sox. Yeah, I'd say they're mediocre, but part of that is hitting in bad luck. They rank 29th in BABIP, but according to FanGraphs they're tied for 6th in hard hit percentage. They're near the top in hitting the ball hard and scraping bottom in BABIP. Lots of line drives to infielders. Heck, one was turned into a triple play.
 
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Hamilton would be better if the TEAM were better.
The BEST announcers are great regardless. Hamilton is an adrenaline junkie addicted to the sound of his own voice. He can't wait until his next hit. To the extent that this team isn't consistently dramatic, Hamilton is helpless, because he's incapable of telling a story without adjusting the volume up. Subtlety completely escapes him. Taken together with the TV crew, Cleveland is a wasteland for baseball broadcasting, and is one reason the fan base (such as it is) reacts with such ignorance to what transpires with the team.
 
Especially when you don't have many HR hitters.
If you'll check team statistics, you'll find the Indians right near the top of MLB rankings in homers per plate appearance.

How do they do that without home run hitters?
 
If you'll check team statistics, you'll find the Indians right near the top of MLB rankings in homers per plate appearance.

How do they do that without home run hitters?

They only are hitting HRs and nothing else... That's the problem since we aren't meant to do that on paper...
 

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