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Your 2019 Cleveland Indians

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Look at the Rangers as well, somehow they are 36-30 with that roster, both teams cannot keep playing this well, and those are the two teams in front of us when it comes to the playoffs.

The Twins are on a unsustainable pace. My guess is when the weight of what they are doing catches up with them, they may hit a bit of a slide.
The issue for the Tribe is they are so far behind it may not matter. They need to cut that lead to 6 or so by the all star break, but that just seems unlikely.
 
The Twins are on a unsustainable pace. My guess is when the weight of what they are doing catches up with them, they may hit a bit of a slide.
The issue for the Tribe is they are so far behind it may not matter. They need to cut that lead to 6 or so by the all star break, but that just seems unlikely.

6 GB would be a good place to be. We have 13 games against the Twins after the break, including 3 at home to start the 2nd half of the season.
 
Awesome that he made it back so quick. Didn’t expect for at least another month.
 
I just want to take a minute to kind of summarize just what a great job this front office has done:
  1. Not re-signing Cody Allen or Andrew Miller. This was a contentious issue over the summer for some casual fans, and boy did it pay off in spades. Both relievers have completely fallen apart, and if either of them was sitting on our payroll at their current salaries, we'd be screwed.
  2. Trading Yan Gomes. Most of us disliked this move at the time. We saw it as a purely cost-cutting move. We got rid of our best catcher, the guy who has handled the best pitching staff in baseball. Sure Robo is okay, but Gomes is better. Well.... we're all wrong about that one. Perez has been one of the best catchers in baseball this year, combining an elite presence behind the plate with the 6th highest OPS among catchers this year. THEN add in Jefry Rodriguez, Daniel Johnson, and the fact that we saved 4.5 million? What a complete steal.
  3. Speaking of complete steals, how good has Mercado been this year? With him in the lineup, we're showing signs of life--and that may not have happened if the front office didn't swipe him from the Cardinals organization last year for two prospects.
  4. Another bat that has helped us so far, Jordan Luplow, was acquired from the Pirates for Erik Gonzalez and two low level prospects. Luplow looks like a solid MLB-level platoon outfielder, which is more than what we gave up.
  5. We acquired Nick Wittgren from Miami in exchange for another low prospect. Wittgren has helped solidify a bullpen we were all worried about coming into this year.
  6. Speaking of that bullpen, we have to go back to the Brad Hand deal last year. Getting Hand and Cimber has helped tremendously, and somehow Hand's value has increased since we acquired him. Mejia hasn't broken through yet in San Diego, with only 116 at bats over the past two seasons.
  7. The questionable move early on this season was the giant Santana/Edwin/Bauers/Yandy deal. To break it down, we gave up Edwin, Yandy, a garbage prospect, and Competitive Balance pick #76 overall. We acquired Santana, Bauers, $6M in cash. Santana is an upgrade over Edwin at the plate, in the field, is younger, and has a longer, better contract. That's a complete win. Bauers has tools, but man does he look awful at the MLB level this year. But, to be fair, after his hot start, Yandy has come back down to earth as well. After his .990 OPS and 7 HR's through the end of April, he only added 3 more HR's this season, and put up OPS lines of .597 and .760 in May and June respectively. I'd still rather have Yandy on this ballclub than Jake Bauers, but the difference between the two isn't enough to offset getting Santana back on a multi-year deal at a reasonable price. If we ever get Bobby Bradley up in the majors filling that DH role we would've been playing Yandy in, we might have never had a place in this organization for Diaz anyways. This trade is a complete win in my book.
  8. Dumped Yonder Alonso's contract to Chicago. Huge win to get out from that dumpster fire contract. Alonso is hitting worse than Jake Bauers and Leonys Martin this season, posting a .596 OPS. The dude is cooked and getting out from his $9 million owed was a great move.
  9. Grabbed AJ Cole, Tyler Clippard, Hanley Ramirez, CarGo etc. For this dumpster diving, I'm going to give us a losing grade, as just keeping Melky would've been a better move. But the bullpen arms have been pretty solid.
  10. Traded for Plawecki--gave up two guys, which is probably an overpay even if I don't expect either of them to ever make the majors. But, this was necessary with the uncertainty at catcher when we moved Gomes. As much as I've poked at Plawecki, it's more of us being spoiled by elite catcher play for a while now.
I really think the only reason we've been below expectations this year is our failures on the field. Jose is the biggest culprit. He's gone from an 8 WAR season last year to garbage this year. Bauer and Cookie have struggled, Kluber and Clevinger are hurt. Frankie was out to start the year... but Jose is still the biggest issue on this team.

How do you get him right? Can you get him right again? I think that's the most important issue facing the organization. I hope they can figure it out.

Oh, and bring up Bobby Bradley and Daniel Johnson already. We've got some ballgames to win.
 
Looked into Plezac and cant believe how quickly he moved through the system.
 
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  1. Not re-signing Cody Allen or Andrew Miller. This was a contentious issue over the summer for some casual fans, and boy did it pay off in spades. Both relievers have completely fallen apart, and if either of them was sitting on our payroll at their current salaries, we'd be screwed.

For what it is worth, Miller has pitched really well recently. But yeah, he did pretty well for himself in free agency considering how often he was on the DL in '17 and '18 and how poorly he pitched in '18 when he was out there. Best of luck to him, he'll always be one of my favorite Indians.
 
For what it is worth, Miller has pitched really well recently. But yeah, he did pretty well for himself in free agency considering how often he was on the DL in '17 and '18 and how poorly he pitched in '18 when he was out there. Best of luck to him, he'll always be one of my favorite Indians.

Has he? His WHIP in the last two months has still been 1, which is down from the 1.765 he posted through March and April, but for comparison, his WHIP in that magical 2016 season was just .552.

With his age, salary, and performance this year, we dodged a huge bullet.
 
Has he? His WHIP in the last two months has still been 1, which is down from the 1.765 he posted through March and April, but for comparison, his WHIP in that magical 2016 season was just .552.

With his age, salary, and performance this year, we dodged a huge bullet.

You say that like a 1.00 WHIP is bad

Last 7 weeks:

2.13 ERA - 2.75 FIP - 2.49 xFIP
12.8 K/9 - 3.55 BB/0
1.11 WHIP

Again, not saying the Indians should have signed him not did I have any expectation they would, but he's objectively rebounded well from a bad start to the season.
 
You say that like a 1.00 WHIP is bad

Last 7 weeks:

2.13 ERA - 2.75 FIP - 2.49 xFIP
12.8 K/9 - 3.55 BB/0
1.11 WHIP

Again, not saying the Indians should have signed him not did I have any expectation they would, but he's objectively rebounded well from a bad start to the season.

You're right--it's not bad, but it's also not a "return to form" for him. He got paid like he was going to return to form.

It's also been only 12 appearances across May and June.

But hey, I wish him the best. Filthiest slider I've ever seen--but Hand is close.
 
Apparently the Mariners ate $18.5m of the $21.3m owed to Jay Bruce, so maybe Encarnacion's money will not be such a sticking point should the Indians engage in trade talks to bring him back. With that said, would still like to give Bobby Bradley a fair shot at proving himself.
 
I tell ya the one that got away is Gio Urshella. I was watching the Yanks game yesterday and they literally could not get him out. Amazing a utility guy ar best, put on the pinstripes and becomes Don Mattingly.
 
I'm considering all insane deals for Brad Hand. A mega haul could jumpstart our rebuild tenfold.

I'm 60-40 on trading Hand. Especially after Buster Olney's thoughts on Indians fielding calls for Lindor at this year's Winter Meeting's.

Prospects aren't guaranteed to turn out good or great, but what's guaranteed is Hand and Lindor getting mega deals on the market that we simply cannot afford.

Question is, do you wanna throw away our best chances that we won't see in years to win a world series in these next 2 seasons?

It's a business, small market Cleveland can't shell out a 300 million contract when we only get 24k at the park here and there.

Give me the sun, moon, and stars for Hand and Lindor.
 

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