The Cleveland Indians have one of the better pitching staffs in the American League. Will that be enough to compete in 2021?
Spring training is a time when a fan’s mood can swing back and forth between boundless hope and deep despair. The following is a debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 Cleveland Indians.
Opti-me: Baseball games are won with pitching. Everybody’s known that since Connie Mack was a kid. The Cleveland Indians have the best pitching staff in baseball. Everybody knows that. The Indians had the majors’ best run prevention and the AL’s lowest ERA in 2020, they’re bringing back the Cy Young Award winner, and they’ve got the next young star.
Begin with Shane Bieber, obviously. He’s 26 and he’s lowered his ERA each of his first three seasons. Since he’s coming off a 1.63 ERA last year I’ll concede that he probably won’t lower it again, but so what. He lost one game in 2020, and that was because his team only scored one run behind him. He started 12 games and never gave up more than three earned runs.
Next, let’s talk about Triston McKenzie. Will he start the season with the big club? I don’t know; that’s Terry Francona’s call. But when he hits the rotation it’ll be impactful.
He made six starts last year, only once allowed more than three earned runs, and showed a 3.40 ERA. He has a 93 mph four-seamer that opponents hit .194 off of. He’s got a 33 percent whiff rate. You want to know why we traded Carlos Carrasco; Triston McKenzie is why.
Pessi-me: I get trading Carrasco. I want to know why you traded Francisco Lindor. I’ll tell you why Indians fans are all geeked up about their pitching…what else is there to be geeked up about?
Cleveland may have had the best pitching in baseball in 2020. But they also may have had the worst offense, or close to it. They ranked 13th in the AL in runs scored per game, 12th in batting average, and 13th in slugging. Only the Mariners, Rangers, and Pirates had worse slugging percentages than the Indians’ .689.
And what did the Indians do about it? They traded their best hitter. You better hope Andres Gimenez is a heck of a find because if he isn’t you guys may lead the majors in shutouts in 2021.
Opti-me: Gimenez batted .263 for the Mets; not bad for a 21-year-old. The other part of that deal, Amed Rosario, is a .270 hitter with some power. He had 15 home runs two years ago, not bad for a middle infielder.
Jose Ramirez is still in his prime. His OPS has topped .930 in three of the last four seasons; that’s real offense. Plus he’s coming off a runner-up season in the MVP voting. And Cesar Hernandez is a legit hitter at second, a steady .280 average guy.
We’ve also got Bobby Bradley ready to blossom at first. He’s 6-1, 225, lots of projected power, got a brief intro in 2019. Is he ready for full-time responsibility? Only one way to find out; play him. That’s what the Indians have been doing this spring and Bradley’s hitting .321 with a 1.05 OPS.
Pessi-me: Where to begin? Unless you’re planning to play Gimenez and Rosario both at shortstop, Rosario has to switch to the outfield. His production may be good for short, but it’s below average for left. So far Bobby Bradley has whiffed in 40 percent of his actual big league plate appearances. Letting Carlos Santana go to free agency to make room for him sounds somewhere between risky and reckless.
But the real problem is your outfield production. Your depth chart shows Rosario, Bradley Zimmer, and Josh Naylor. Rosario doesn’t want to play left and Zimmer and Naylor combined to hit .202 in 2020 with one home run and five RBIs.
Your main backup is Jordan Luplow, who hit .192 with two homers and eight RBIs. Your catcher, Roberto Perez, is a superb backstop – that point is granted. But he’s a career .212 stick who’s been under .210 in four of the last five seasons.
Opti-me: Forget 2020 numbers…nobody hit last year. Well, actually Franmill Reyes did hit last year. He’s back at DH, and combining with Ramirez should be one of the league’s best three-four combos. If Bradley or Gimenez hit even a lick, the middle of the offense should be more than respectable.
The Indians pitching staff doesn’t need much support. Beyond Bieber and McKenzie, Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac are both back and healthy. Plesac had a 2.28 ERA and his numbers would have looked even better but for that Covid foolishness he and Clevinger pulled that got him sidelined for three weeks and got Clevinger traded.
Civale’s another guy you can count on. Pay no attention to that 4.74 ERA; it jumped nearly a full point due to one bad game at the end of the 2020 season. He’ll be in the mid-threes in 2021.
Pessi-me: The Indians scored two runs or fewer 25 times in 60 games in 2020. Somehow they managed to win six of those games. But there isn’t a pitching staff in the known universe that can withstand that kind of starvation runs diet year in and year out.
And the offense is worse this year thanks to the loss of Lindor. Combine that with the fact that Bieber can’t possibly have as good a season as he had in 2021 – then combine that with the loss of Carrasco – and this is likely to be one rough season in Cleveland.
The only positive thing fans can say is that after 2021 they won’t have the Indians to kick around anymore. But then maybe a name change is what this team needs.
Opti-me: Pitching wins games. Never forget that. The Indians will be a division title contender for as long as those arms stay healthy.