Remaining Schedule Plays to the Cleveland Indians’ Strengths
As the calendar page prepares to turn to August, the Cleveland Indians are atop the standings. Their remaining schedule could help them stay there.
For the Cleveland Indians, the final two months of the season are going to be all about home cooking. After having endured a tough nine-game road trip to begin play after the All-Star break that took them to Minnesota, Kansas City and Baltimore (Thanks, RNC!), the Tribe was left with 39 of their final 65 games at Progressive Field, and that is a clear advantage for Terry Francona’s team.
At 58-42 through the team’s first 100 games after Friday night’s comeback win over the Oakland A’s, the Indians own the best winning percentage in the American League and third best in all of baseball.
Cleveland is a surpassingly better team offensively when playing at home, and it’s not even close. Here’s a quick look at the club’s home/road splits thus far in 2016 entering play on Saturday:
HOME |
ROAD
GAMES
45
55
RUNS
254
237
RUNS PER GAME
5.64
4.31
BATTING AVERAGE
.287
.238
ON-BASE PERCENTAGE
.356
.296
SLUGGING PERCENTAGE
.467
.405
OPS
.823
.701
sOPS+
120
92
tOPS+
118
85
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The Indians are roughly a run and a half better per game offensively when playing at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario, with significant improvements in team batting average, OBP, slugging and OPS. Even more outrageous are the disparities in the team’s OPS+ numbers, both against league averages and individual players’ usual splits.
For comparison, here is a look at home/road splits for the American League as a whole:
HOME |
ROAD
RUNS PER GAME
4.66
4.42
BATTING AVERAGE
.263
.254
ON-BASE PERCENTAGE
.330
.315
SLUGGING PERCENTAGE
.433
.415
OPS
.763
.730
sOPS+
104
100
tOPS+
105
96
As would be expected, teams do perform better at home, but not nearly to the extreme level that Cleveland has to this point.
Up and down the lineup, this contrast bears itself out. For instance, take Mike Napoli, who is sixth in the AL in RBI and tied for the team lead in home runs:
Home: .277/.387/.574 with 13 HR, 44 RBI, .961 OPS, and 154 sOPS+
Road: .211/.268/.392 with 9 HR, 24 RBI, .660 OPS, and 80 sOPS+
At home, Napoli is playing at an MVP-caliber level, vaporizing the ball and scaring scoreboards to death, while on the road he’s barely batting above the Mendoza line and basically performing worse than a replacement-level player.
But Napoli isn’t alone. Here are the splits for Francisco Lindor, who was named to the AL All-Star team in just his first full big league season, and currently ranks ninth in the league among position players with a 4.2 bWAR:
Home: .355/.408/.550 with 5 HR, 29 RBI, .958 OPS, and 155 sOPS+
Road: .270/.325/.386 with 7 HR, 22 RBI, .711 OPS, and 96 sOPS+
Aside from the home run total, Lindor is a more productive hitter at Progressive Field, as is the rest of the Indians team. The only notable exceptions have been Carlos Santana, who has been slightly more productive overall on the road, and Rajai Davis, who has hit eight of his nine home runs away from home but otherwise falls in line with his teammates.
A team thought at the beginning of the season to be overly reliant on its pitching staff, which coincidentally leads the AL in earned run average, ERA+ and WHIP, and places second in FIP, has parlayed its production at home into scoring the fifth-most runs in the league. And it has done so without Michael Brantley, arguably the best hitter on the team.
Next: Indians' Mejia Extends Hitting Streak
So what does this mean for the team with the largest divisional lead and the best odds in the American League, according to Fangraphs, to reach the World Series? While the Indians’ success to this point may not carry over through the dog days of summer and the stretch run, a schedule decidedly tilted towards the team’s offensive advantage at home, to go along with the league’s best pitching staff and the looming possible return of Brantley, could have the Tribe set up for a deep run in the postseason.