How Good Are the Indians Really

Let me preface this by saying 2 things:
1. I'm not sure but it looks to me like Joe Carter is wearing wristbands with a picture of his own face on them. If that is the case, I want a pair of wristbands with my own picture on them like, now.

2. Look at Corey Snyder's arms. Corey Snyder was supposedly a power hitter back in 80s. Here in the future, there are guys on Dancing With the Stars with biceps twice the size Corey Snyder's are in this picture, and I'm talking about the ones who are professional ballroom dancers, not Emmitt Smith. Geez didn't they have gyms 20 years ago?


So, using this Indians 1987 SI cover to segue into the main topic:

Yesterday my SI baseball preview issue comes in the mail..and the first thing I do is flip to the AL Central section. As the pages flip between my carpal tunnel syndrome riddled fingers, I keep thinking to myself, "I bet they fucking picked Cleveland", and then, lo and behold, there it is, SI picks Cleveland to win the AL Central and has them pegged as the 7th best team in baseball.

Which leads me to ask the obvious question of "what are they basing this on"? (The other obvious question being "How can SI think that the best team in the AL Central is only the 7th best in MLB?")

Last year the Indians finished 12 games out, of THIRD PLACE, in the AL Central. By saying that the Indians are the favorite this year despite that fact, SI is telling me that in the offseason the Indians have somehow closed a 19 game gap on the Twins, an 18 game gap on the Tigers, and a 12 game gap on the Sox.

You would think that for a prestigious publication like SI to predict such an unlikely improvement by a team, that team must have made some really bold moves in the offseason, moves that change the entire complexion of the team. Well, let's see how this year's supposed AL Central champion Tribe will differ from last year's sub .500 little Indians.

1. Casey Blake moves from right field to 1st base, where he will platoon with Ryan Garko. Last year Ben Broussard got the majority of the innings at 1st base. The net effect of this is more ABs for Ryan Garko, and none for Broussard, who I think is in Seattle now or something.

Broussard .793 career OPS
Garko .825 OPS in 06, his rookie year

So that's a slight upgrade. But last I checked two of the best hitting first basemen in baseball, Paul Konerko and Justin Morneau, are also in this division, so the Indians aren't making up a double digit gap on 3 teams on the strength of Ryan Garko.

2. Josh Barfield replaces Ronnie Belliard as the second baseman. Belliard had a .757 OPS with the Indians last year, while Barfield was at .741. Defensively they are pretty much the same. So I don't see an improvement here except that Barfield is younger and possibly has more upside, although the flip side of that is at least Belliard is a known quantity.

3. Andy Marte replaces Aaron Boone at 3rd base. Marte is a rookie who struck out in 20% of his appx. 200 plate appearances in his stint in the bigs last year. To me he seems like Joe Crede before Joe Crede got good, which, of course, is bad. In fairness though, Aaron Boone was terrible last year so the Tribe could put me at third base and it would be an upgrade.

4. They've added David Dellucci to platoon with Jason Michaels in left field. So now, by my count, that's two positions you kind of depend on for offensive production that they don't have anybody good enough to play every day in (1st base being the other).

5. Trot Nixon will move into the right field spot formerly occupied by Blake. People who have made their careers hitting in Fenway often go on to great success after leaving the Red Sox, just look at, uh, er, Brian Daubach. So while the 3 teams the Indians have to surpass have Michael Cuddyer (.284/24 HR/109 RBI), Magglio Ordonez (.298/24 HR/104 RBI), and Jermaine Dye (.315/44 HR/120 RBI) in right field, the SI favored Indians have Trot Nixon (.268/8/52). Okay then.

6. Joe Borowski moves into the closer role which was held by Bob Wickman until he was traded midway thru last season. Borowski would have been a Phillie this year instead of an Indian, if only he could have passed his physical, which he couldn't. So, as you can see, this 36 year old with a Kerry Wood-esque injury rap sheet is a super-reliable option at closer, and that's IF he retains the effectiveness he had last year, which is in itself a big if as he was released by the Devil Rays, MLB's last chance saloon, in 2005 before resurrecting his career on last year's real life version of Major League Florida Marlins, something he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do if there wasn't a team in the league like the Marlins who seem hell bent on achieving a 6 figure team payroll, I'm sure this is a run on sentence but that is the beauty of the internet.

7. 24 year old lefty Jeremy Sowers will be in the rotation full time. He was 9-1 with 1.39 ERA in AAA last year, and 7-4 3.57 in 14 starts with the Indians last year. So that's pretty exciting. But before you go thinking he's going to have a Francisco Liriano-like effect on this team, consider that he struck out only 35 batters in 89 innings last season. His best case scenario with stuff like that is that he puts up Mark Buehrle numbers this year, and the Sox already have a Mark Buehrle, so tell me where the advantage is there.


Based on these offseason changes, I am going to draw the conclusion that they aren't closing the wide chasm between them and the top 3 teams in the division based on what they added this offseason.

So, Option B is that their stars just underperformed last year, or were injured, and with everything back the way it should be this year, the Indians will win the best division in baseball.

OK, let's test that.

In 2006-
Catcher Victor Martinez had an .856 OPS, hit .316, and had 93 RBI. If you're expecting much more than that out of your catcher, you are expecting too much.

Grady Sizemore led the league in runs scored with 134. Can't ask much more than that out of your leadoff hitter.

Travis Hafner hit .308 with 42 HR and 117 RBI.

SS Jhonny Peralta's average fell 35 points from 2005, and he hit half as many home runs. On the flip side, when you swing so hard that you are a shortstop in a shortstop's body and you still strike out 150 times a year, you can in fact tend to run hot and cold like that.

Alright, so really if you don't count Peralta, who is not a proven star anyway, the Indians money players actually played up to potential last year. So you can't say they finished under .500 because of injured or underachieving superstars, because that was clearly not the case.

Hmmm..well then, clearly last year's disastrous season was a result of injuries and poor performances in the starting rotation then, right?

-Ace CC Sabathia's ERA was actually almost a full run LOWER in 06 than in 05, and at 3.22 was the BEST OF HIS CAREER.

-#2 Jake Westbrook lowered his ERA from 05's 4.49 to 4.17, and again pitched 200+ innings.

- Cliff Lee pitched over 200 innings also, and his 4.40 ERA was only .01 higher than his 4.39 career ERA, so you got a pretty much dead on approximation of what he actually is in 06. Oh yeah, and he's starting the season on the DL, so I'm sure he's going to have an awesome year this year because injuries to starting pitchers just heal up so easily and quickly, and they always come back and are just as good as they were before they got hurt. Just look at Mark Prior.


- Paul Byrd was added to the staff for the 06 season because of the fact that he had a game in the playoffs where he pitched OK against the White Sox. In his first season in Cleveland, he was pretty much not good.

His 4.88 ERA was .50 higher than his career ERA, but there is also an old saying that when pitchers get old like Paul Byrd and have missed almost 2 of the last 4 whole seasons in a row due to injury like Paul Byrd has, these things can happen. Byrd, by the way, is still a part of the Indians rotation in 07, and now that Lee is starting the season on the DL, he's their #3 starter. So, the division favorite's #3 starter is Paul Byrd, while teams picked to finish behind them have a guy that went 18-7 last year (Jon Garland), and 17-9 (Justin Verlander) in that same slot (as assigned by Baseball Prospectus.com).

Based on this I see that Cleveland actually got a career best season out of their ace last year, pretty much on-target performances from their 2 and 3, and a disappointing but durable year out of a fading, old #4 starter. This doesn't seem like a prescription for disaster to me.

So, to summarize, here is why I feel SI and anyone else who is peeing their pants over the Indians this season is wrong:

1. Cleveland finished 10+ games behind THREE teams in their division last year.

2. By picking them to win that division this year, you are saying they have, in the last 4 months, improved their team to the point where they will leapfrog three other competitors that they were much, much worse than last year.

3. Possible reasons that could be true:
a. Offseason acquisitions
- No. The Indians are not upgraded at any position with the possible exception of having Jeremy Sowers as their 4th starter for a full season.

b. Return to form of injured or underachieving superstars
- Sorry. Hafner, Sizemore, Martinez, and Sabathia all had great seasons last year and the Indians still sucked.

c. Weird Cub-like calamities in the pitching rotation happened last season that won't happen again this year
- Can't say that's true either. As I already mentioned, Sabathia was great last year, the #2 and #3 pitched pretty much at their exact potential, and the #4 pitched like the aging mediocre pitcher he is. This year, that solid #3 starts the year on the DL, and you've still got Noodle-Arm McGee and his old balls penciled in for 30 starts this year in the 4 slot.

Based on this there is no logical reason to justify saying Cleveland is going to go from finishing 18 games out of first place in 2006, more than 10 games behind 3 other teams, to 0 games out and behind no other teams in 2007. Barring the Minnesota, Detroit, and White Sox team planes all colliding with each other in midair and killing everyone on board there is no way this can happen given the facts behind it.

SI is seemingly basing this pick on the logic that:
A. This team was good in 2005
B. They have pretty much the same players they had in 2005
C. They'll be good in 2007

I'm saying this pick is bullshit based on the logic that:
A. This team sucked in 2006
B. They have pretty much the same players they had in 2006
C. They will suck in 2007

Since my logic is based on more recent data, my logic wins.

I may not know much, but I have seen a lot of bullshit in my day, so I know bullshit when I see it, and the idea that Indians will win the AL Central this year is bullshit.