Whether you gave up on the Indians at the All-Star break, last week or head on to the bitter end, the Indians were officially eliminated late last night/early this morning when the Houston Astros beat the Mariners to retake the lead in the second Wild Card.
While there is little honor in being the third to last team to be knocked out of the AL play-off race, they did manage to stick around until the last week of the season. Whether you want to blame Trevor Bauer, Terry Francona, Chris Antonetti, Larry Dolan or even Mark Shapiro for some reason, what’s done is done and it is time to move on to next season.
Taking time to look back, it is interesting to note how our opinions have changed throughout the season:
Pre-Season Staff Predictions
Before game one, both the Burning River Baseball staff and the members of the Tribe Time Now podcast got together and attempted to predict the future. To read the full predictions of the former, check here and to listen to that inaugural podcast, try this one. As would be expected, no one thought things would be this bad.
For Burning River, none of the five writers (plus one radio host) correctly chose the Royals as the top team, instead taking either the Indians or Tigers straight across the board. The worst predicted finish for the Indians was by John Hutchison, who thought they would come in second in the division, but first in the Wild Card race. We’ll review all the staff predictions later on, but suffice it to say that optimism was high.
For Tribe Time Now, the mood was similar. Representing Burning River Baseball, Kevin Gall was one of multiple people who predicted at least 90 wins for the Indians and those who thought they would win as low as 85 were questioned as to how they could be so negative. Not a single member thought they would finish as low as .500 and now they have a very real possibility of finishing below. The next Tribe Time Now (follow @_TribeTimeNow on twitter for exact timing) is scheduled for next week and these predictions will certainly come up.
First Doubts
Less than a month into the season, the Indians were literally the worst team in the American League (second to last in MLB), I wrote the first piece questioning the Indians as a play-off contender. In it, I questioned the Indians defense, particularly Lonnie Chisenhall, Jose Ramirez and Carlos Santana as well as the team’s decision to keep Francisco Lindor, Tyler Holt, Kyle Crockett and Zach Walters in AAA. This was a continuing theme the entire season and I will still stand by this statement:
In order to save money, keep players around longer and justify former mistakes, there are multiple players being kept on and off the 25 man for reasons that have nothing to do with winning baseball games. Both offensively and defensively, the best Indians short stop at any level is Francisco Lindor and everyone who knows anything about baseball knows it.
More than anything else, playing Ramirez over Lindor and Bourn over Holt or Tyler Naquin cost the Indians obvious wins, possibly enough that it could have made a difference in the play-off race. Considering that many, including myself, were writing about Lindor as a probable 2014 call-up shows how offensive the Indians statements about him not being ready for the Majors straight out of Spring Training.
Mid-Season Optimism
At the half way mark (in games, not the actual All-Star break), things were looking up I bit and I said this tempered optimism in a mid-season breakdown:
…this conversation would be largely unnecessary if it weren’t for the 5-0 run from the end of June to the beginning of July. Because of this, sweeping the first place Rays and winning the first game against a great Pittsburgh team, some of the pre-season World Series Indians thoughts have been validated.
At this point, a few of those defensive minded changes had been made and they had an immediate impact. One of the lesser seen stories of this season is that the Indians starters FIP and ERA started extremely far apart, but grew closer together as the season dragged on. This likely had more to do with the Indians improved infield defense than any other factor.
This was commented on in this article from July 6th as well as the possibility of removing Michael Bourn, David Murphy and Ryan Raburn from the 25 man roster to further improve the defense and the necessity for Yan Gomes to step up his offense if the Indians would have any chance. On the first point, two of the three were traded and the primary replacements (not Holt and Naquin as postulated, but Abraham Almonte and Chisenhall) did as much to improve the Indians outfield defense as Lindor and Urshela did earlier in the year for the infield. On the second, Gomes never really recovered from his early season injury and his lack of offense was another huge part of the Indians downfall.
John echoed these remarks in his All-Star break report card, crediting the Indians starting rotation, bullpen and the improvements made by the infield defense while coming down hard on Gomes, the outfield and Carlos Santana.
The Surge That Kind of Was
Shortly after the break, we began talk of the annual Terry Francona second half surge. The original article breaks down exactly how each of the last two Indians teams managed to play better in the second half (it wasn’t luck or magic) and has a fun chart, so I recommend reading, but the pertinent information for the moment is found in the following paragraph:
A 43-31 second half would be within reason compared to the last two seasons (.581), but certainly can’t be expected without a little more offensive production. Assuming turn arounds by Gomes, Santana and Moss or the addition of an All-Star caliber center fielder, an improvement of this magnitude could be imagined. Even so, it’s not like the 2013 squad went from sub-.500 to their .612 second half. An improvement of 5.5% like both previous seasons would actually lead to an expected win total of just 39 for the second half (.528 W%), good enough for just 81 wins and no where near a Wild Card.
It turns out the Indians did get their surge, to exactly the same degree as the previous two years and generally for the same reasons. Improved defense, Mickey Callaway‘s impressive coaching and less dependence on the veterans who got them in the hole in the first place has been a sure fire way to make Francona look good after making himself look bad in the first place.
Towards their expected second half record of 39-35, the Indians have already went 36-33 with one less game to be played than originally expected. If they split the series with the Twins by winning tonight, then take two of three from the Red Sox as they should, they will finish with exactly 81 wins, although one game over .500 with only 80 losses. As predicted, this will be no where near a Wild Card.
It Turns Out the Optimism Was Crazy
After a few wins, I produced this non-sensical look at how the Indians, who were then expected to win just 78 games, could possibly turn things around at the last second to come back and steal a play-off spot. Legitimately, the purpose of this piece was to show how unlikely that was, but I broke down exactly how many games/series the Indians would have to win the rest of the way out. Again, the numbers have generally maintained with the only change being the Rangers taking the West over the Astros. As predicted, the second AL Wild Card will be won with at least 86 games (the Astros have 84 already) and the Twins and Angels will be the closest behind.
For one last look at my prediction sheet, I expect the Astros to take two of three from the Diamondbacks (they are off today) and end the season at 86 wins, exactly what I predicted for the Rangers/Wild Card winner months ago. The Angels have improved their expectations to 85 wins (assuming they split their final four games with Texas) and the Twins are still expected to win 83, just a couple games ahead of Cleveland. While much randomness can happen in a short period in baseball, nothing actually did this year and, aside from the flip of the two Texas teams, the Wild Card, despite it’s closeness, is essentially identical to the way it was on August 27th.
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