The 2020 Cleveland Indians

[Kevalier]

I think if the tribe wins out, there is probably a good chance indians are no longer a wild card team and instead become the 2nd team in the AL central

The Reds would have to sweep the Twins for the Indians to win the division along with us beating the White Sox tonight and then sweeping the Pirates. The Twins own the tiebreaker against us.

 

[bob2the2nd]

The Reds would have to sweep the Twins for the Indians to win the division along with us beating the White Sox tonight and then sweeping the Pirates. The Twins own the tiebreaker against us.

The indians would be 2nd behind the twins. If the indians win tonight, they would only be 1 GB of the white sox. The white sox will be playing the cubs, the indians will be playing pirates and i belive the indians would own that tiebreaker.

 

[LL3]

sorry I should clarify my stance here.

Yes by picking up the option it gave kluber a higher guarantee of salary this year than he would have otherwise received had he hit the open market. Probably by 5+ million. That is doing him a favor.

However from a long term perspective it may or may not end up with him getting more money.

Even before the trade I felt Kluber was probably in a physical state where he'd never return to form...I was surprised when they picked up his option, but not at all surprised when they traded him. Many complained as to the return, but my feeling was that all involved knew there was risk....I was and still am glad Kluber got paid and we now have a "well rested" Clase.

 

[Derek]

sorry I should clarify my stance here.

Yes by picking up the option it gave kluber a higher guarantee of salary this year than he would have otherwise received had he hit the open market. Probably by 5+ million. That is doing him a favor.

However from a long term perspective it may or may not end up with him getting more money.

I think regardless of the end result, the team did right by him given the information available at the time.

I don’t believe there would have been a big market for him in free agency based on what he was traded for. Teams knew the injury risk and the depreciating skills of a guy in his mid-30’s.

 

[Urban]

The Tribe made a gamble and it paid off handsomely, as they got Kluber at a drastic discount for what he provided. They won a gamble. And again, if this is only about what is in the Tribe's best interests, the players have already taken note. I think outside of Latinx players who aren't superstars we will see more going the Bauer/Lindor route and turning them down. I guess we see.

This still would've been true had he played out his contract to get to free agency ASAP, like Lindor is doing now.

We're seeing plenty of players take these pre-arb, team friendly deals around the league. Not every team does it as there is risk involved- see Jason Kipnis.

 

[CATS44]

A couple thoughts..

Feller is in the HOF, and in his day was considered one of the all time greats. He obviously had a career much better than Kluber. But he never put together a string of five/six years that Kluber did here. Of course, his war time years probably would have been his peak years.

Its too difficult to compare pitchers of different eras, but you can compare how each stacked up with others of the same era...thru stats like WAR, ERA+, and FIP.

In re how the Tribe handled Kluber at the end:

Like any other team in the same situation, and like 95% of free agents. The players are businessmen, too. When it comes to their individual futures, they don't care about the Kluber trade Also, consider the reaction of nearly every Tribe player who gets traded or released after a long stay in Cleveland...overwhelmingly appreciative of the org as a whole.

As for my preference for the first round opponent, I don't really care. I don't want to play the Rays, but thats not a consideration. I'd love to play Toronto, but that's not gonna happen. One stat to consider...Chicago has a losing record vs RH starters.

Running the table may not be likely, but its well within the realm of possibility. And Chicago getting swept by the Cubs isn't that unrealistic either. The White Sox will be sending its BORs up against the Cubs. The Cubs are scheduled to use Darvish and Lester in the first two games. They will probably go with a bullpen game on Sunday, but Reynaldo Lopez is going for the Southsiders. Lopez is among the worst starters in baseball this year.

As noted previously, the Reds are in survival mode. I'm not educated on the tie breakers in the NL, but the Reds may need to sweep Minny to get in. Right now they are in a six team race for four spots, and everyone is within a game.

 

[Andrew Scheid]

9 underperformers set to step up in playoffs

During a typical campaign, stars who weren’t performing up to expectations through 60 games would still have plenty of time for their numbers to even out, but that’s not the case this year. Some of MLB’s best players are going to end the regular season with unsightly stat lines. However,

www.mlb.com

"The switch-hitter has MLB’s fifth-largest difference (63 points) between his xBA and his average and the third-largest difference (135 points) between his xSLG and slugging percentage, and his .367 xwOBA is only six points below last season’s mark."

If Santana gets better luck in the postseason than he has in the regular season, our lineup lengthens out considerably more.

 

[dkbldev]

I think this is my single biggest issue with what they did to him- they picked up his option only b/c they planned to trade him, effectively denying him a shot at FA. He is now entering FA not only a year older but coming off a second season of injuries. Had he hit the market this past offseason, he stood to make more than 16m in a multiyear deal, even if it was a prove it deal. Now he will probably be looking at a incentive laden 1 year deal. And all for a reliever who can't pitch without pharmaceutical enhancement and a 4th OFer (no matter how much we like him). Just not how you treat a guy who was arguably the team's best pitcher since Addie Joss, left all his belongings here, and played here on an insanely team friendly deal. It sends a message to the players that this team is purely a business, a sentiment that Clevinger voiced on the way out. That's fine, but once the best player liason this team has in Francona retires here soon we will see how many non-vulnerable players 'buy in' on this team's long-term contract offers. To me, the human thing to do would have been to decline his option and let the guy who gave this club a HOF-caliber 5 year run or whatever his chance to pick his team. But oh well, water under the bridge. At least we got Deshields, who may not be a world beater but looks like an excellent 4th OFer.

Dont sleep on Clase, I am very excited to see what he can bring to our pen for years to come.

 

[Gson]

Dont sleep on Clase, I am very excited to see what he can bring to our pen for years to come.

Think of Emmanuel Clase as a RH'd Garrett Crochet.. plenty of heat.. at a time when bullpen heat is highly desired..

..and yes..what we're seeing of this CWSox guy.. is impressive.. impressive indeed..

 

[dkbldev]

Think of Emmanuel Clase as a RH'd Garrett Crochet.. plenty of heat.. at a time when bullpen heat is highly desired..

..and yes..what we're seeing of this CWSox guy.. is impressive.. impressive indeed..

Crochet doesn't even look like he is throwing that hard when he was hitting 101. Fun to watch even though his is on the Sox

 

[DCTribefan]

Think of Emmanuel Clase as a RH'd Garrett Crochet.. plenty of heat.. at a time when bullpen heat is highly desired..

..and yes..what we're seeing of this CWSox guy.. is impressive.. impressive indeed..

We’ll see if Clase off of PEDs still throws 100 mph. I’m skeptical.

 

[dkbldev]

We’ll see if Clase off of PEDs still throws 100 mph. I’m skeptical.

If I remember, whatever PEDs he took, it was to help recover from his injury faster. I think he was throwing gas naturally. Could be wrong and someone else may have more insight.

 

[Derek]

We’ll see if Clase off of PEDs still throws 100 mph. I’m skeptical.

You shouldn’t be skeptical. Even if the PEDs were aiding his velocity, gains achieved through PED usage typically stay with a player for many years after he stops using.

 

[TFIR]

Yeah, Nelson Cruz didn't exactly fall off the map.

 

[TFIR]

The amazing José Ramírez

By Joe Posnanski 2h ago 19
The season is almost over. This season only just started. This is 2020.
1. The wonder of José Ramírez
A longtime scout named Ramón Peña – who through the years signed players like Jose Lima, Fernando Rodney, Omar Infante Jeurys Familia – was pretty much the only guy who saw talent in a 17-year-old kid named José Ramírez. What was there to see? Ramirez was barely 5-foot-9 with a body type that leaned a little too close to “bowling ball.” Ramirez had no power to speak of, he was not especially fast, and it wasn’t clear at all what his defensive position would be.
The kid could hit, though; he just had a knack for putting the bat on the ball. Peña talked his way into $50,000 as an offer, and Ramírez took it because there wasn’t really anyone else making offers.
The thing that people noticed right away about Ramírez was his confidence. Ramírez didn’t see himself as the marginal prospect that he so clearly was. Instead, he saw himself as a young star who was just waiting for the rest of the world to figure it out. When he came to his first big league spring training, Terry Francona and various players thought he walked like the television character George Jefferson, you know, who was moving on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky. He radiated confidence, cockiness, assurance, whatever you want to call it.
For the first couple of years, his performance didn’t match his attitude – he was a part-time player who hit .239/.298/.346 and didn’t look like anything more than a utility infielder. Then came 2016. Suddenly, he was stinging the ball. The Tribe seemed as surprised as anybody. They just kept trying to find places on the field to play him – left field, third base, second base, shortstop, he played them all and played them well. He hit .312 and cracked 46 doubles. He was as important as anybody as Cleveland went to its first World Series in 20 or so years.
Then in 2017 and 2018, he was about as good as anybody in baseball not named Mike Trout. He finished third in the MVP both seasons, hitting a combined .290/.384/.567 with 94 doubles, 68 home runs and 51 stolen bases.
And, being honest, not too many people outside of Cleveland noticed. To be even more honest, many people in Cleveland focused on other players like Francisco Lindor and Corey Kluber and Andruw Miller. It has just been José Ramírez’s destiny to be overlooked; people have never been able to quite believe just how good he is. He got off to an absolutely brutal start in 2019, and was hitting sub-.200 in the middle of June. It was like people around baseball shrugged and thought, “Yeah, that’s about right.”
But here’s the thing: He got absurdly hot for the rest of last season – something easy to miss because he got hurt and missed a month – and this year he is quietly having yet another MVP season. His OPS is nearly 1.000, he’s top five in the league in homers, RBIs, runs scored, runs created, and at last check was leading all of baseball in FanGraphs WAR.
If you go back four seasons, the top five everyday players in FanGraphs WAR are:
1. Mike Trout, 27.7
2. Mookie Betts, 24.9
3. Anthony Rendon, 22.6
4. José Ramírez, 21.1
5. Christian Yelich, 20.8
It really is time people understand that José Ramírez is not just a good player, not just a great player, but someone playing at a Hall of Fame level.