Cleveland Indians: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

Cleveland Indians: Team preview, prediction for 2020 season

The starting pitching for the Cleveland Indians is questionable, but I’m not overly worried about it. Yes, the rotation is young, but there is still a lot of room for growth in guys like Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac. They both got some quality innings in 2019 and really picked up the slack for a rotation without its top two pitchers for a majority of the season. I’m not sure if either will surpass the top two pitchers on this year’s staff with their stats, but I happen to think they’ll both surprise and hold their own in their second years of work once they are both brought up.

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Mike Clevinger is out right now recovering from knee surgery, and that’s a bit of a concern considering his injury history, but I know for a fact that once he gets healthy that he’s going to be one of the top starters in baseball. Clevy was 13-4 last year and struck out about 34% of his batters he faced, which is better than about 95% of the league. His numbers put him up there with the elite pitchers in baseball, and if he were to stay off the DL, I think we’d see him contend strongly for a CY Young this season.

His velocity and spin rate continue to climb and now he’ll be the number one starter on this team. I think we see a big year out of Clevy if he’s healthy.

As for my man Shane Bieber, he’s another starter I’m very excited about watching this year. Biebs tallied 259 punch-outs in 214.1 innings last season to the tune of a 3.28 ERA and 30% K-rate, as well as the All-Star Game MVP. Bieber was another one of the younger starters of the Indians organization that stepped up in Corey Kluber’s, Carlos Carrasco’s, and Trevor Bauer’s absences and now he comes into 2020 as a pitcher on the rise.

He gets hit a little harder than you would like and I don’t believe his ceiling is as high as Mike Clevinger’s, but make no mistake about it, The Biebs is still a star to watch. Watch for him to take another step forward in 2020.

Concerning the rest of the Tribe’s rotation, we’ll have to see what Carlos Carrasco is up to in regards to his medical issue. Will he be a full-fledged starter? Will he require some time in the bullpen to not tax himself as much?

Jefry Rodriguez and Logan Allen are two interesting rotation options that could also be utilized out of the bullpen. Allen came over last season from San Diego in the Franmil Reyes trade as a power left-hander. Rodriguez has been with the Indians for a bit now after coming over from Washington and he has a very strong arm.

We might also be looking at playing time for Triston McKenzie on the mound, the Tribe’s number one prospect. McKenzie has been tearing it up in the lower levels of the Indians farm system and has gotten as far as Double-A. Can he have himself a strong 2020 and work his way up through Triple-A and into the Majors? 2020 wouldn’t be a bad time for him to breakthrough.

Moving on to the bullpen which was actually statistically the best bullpen in baseball last year, one year mind you, after they were the worst bullpen in baseball in 2018. Fast forward to 2020 and they’ve dropped Tyler Clippard, Dan Otero, Nick Goody, and Tyler Olson who were all very good in 2019, so I’m not exactly sure what to expect from this group in 2020.

I would say there has to be some pullback since there’s nowhere to go but down for them from what they were able to do last year. They’ll bring in two very interesting power arms in Emmanuel Clase who came over this offseason from Texas in the Corey Kluber trades, and James Karinchak who’s been in the Indians’ minor league system for a few years now. In Clase’s case, he’s downright now with an upper back strain that could leave him out until late April-early May. But if we take a look at some of the recorded pitch speeds and average velocity from a year ago, Clase average 99.4 mph on his fastball and 99.2 mph on his cutter in 2019- coming in at fourth and fifth for the highest average pitch velocities in all of baseball. So, Clase needs to get back and healthy for this Indians bullpen to have a chance at mirroring what it did in 2019.

Other than Clase being questionable, Brad Hand is one of the most consistent closers in the game and the Indians still have Oliver Perez, Adam Cimber, and Nick Wittgren on the back end of their pen, all of whom were solid for the Tribe last season, especially Wittgren. So, even though I don’t think it’ll be as strong as last year, there’s still a lot to like about the Indians’ pen in 2020.

I like this team a lot. I think they got younger in the offseason but not necessarily worse. Losing Corey Kluber is huge and potentially losing Francisco Lindor mid-season will be devastating, but if this team can stay on the winning path, I think they can surprise a lot of people and possibly make the postseason.

For me, it’s between them and the Twins in the AL Central this year and although I think the Twins take it, I feel like these teams are a lot closer than most people think. I had the Tribe finishing the season 88-74 and eeking its way into the Wild Card Game this year before everything with the Coronavirus went down.

So, I don’t know how their record will look. Plus, a shortened schedule could potentially do them in if they get cold at the wrong time. So, unfortunately, I have them just missing out on the playoffs and that second Wild Card spot behind the Yankees. The Tribe are going to surprise some people this season, but in the end, I think they’ll come up just short of a postseason berth.