Comparing Aprils

Last season, the Indians finished 81-80, a largely disappointing season considering the lofty expectations they had entering the year. The poor showing was primarily due to the Indians’ very poor performance in April, a month that saw the Indians begin the season with a record of 7-14, and they spent the rest of the season playing catch up but never quite recovering. The Indians just wrapped up April 2016 with a record of 10-11, an improvement in the win-loss department, but how does it stack up in other categories like hitting and pitching?

As a team in April 2015, the Indians hit 19 home runs, scored 79 runs, stole 10 bases, batted .238 with a .302 on-base percentage, a .373 slugging percentage, and a 85 wRC+. Nearly every one of these statistics placed the Tribe at or near the bottom 1/3 of the entire league. As you can see below.

The offense struggled for large amounts of time last season so I don’t think it comes as much surprise seeing the Tribe fall near the bottom in these categories.

It also may not come as much surprise that the offense hasn’t been that much better this season. The team has hit 20 home runs, scored 91 runs, stolen 19 bases, batted .248 with a .306 on-base percentage, a .399 slugging percentage, and a 97 wRC+. While these are all increases from last season, aside from stolen bases, the team has made only minimal increases up the league leaderboards.

Thanks to the additions of Rajai Davis and Francisco Lindor, the Tribe has been one of the league’s best at swiping bases, a trend that hopefully continues throughout the entire season. Despite the relative stagnation of the Tribe’s location on the league leaderboards, they still went 10-11 through April so the small increases did some good.

The Indians’ pitching staff had similar troubles in the first month of last season. Staff ERA was 4.54 last season, while FIP was 3.48, a disparity that was well-documented last season due to the team’s defensive deficiencies. The Tribe K/9 rate was 9.86, while the BB/9 was 3.61, and the HR/9 rate was 0.83. Breaking these number down by league rankings, we see the following:

The Tribe’s staff was great at striking out batters and that wasn’t just the case in April, it remained so throughout the season. Not surprising when you have the likes of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar and Cody Allen on your side. Outside of the poor control, the staff was solid all-around in April of last year.

This season the staff has taken a step backward in this first month. Staff ERA this season is 4.01, while FIP is 4.13. The K/9 rate finished the month at 8.16, the BB/9 was 2.95, and the HR/9 was 1.26.

The Tribe has shown a penchant for allowing the long ball in the first month of the new season. This has been the biggest step backward that the team has taken from last year to this year. Bryan Shaw, Allen and Cody Anderson all have HR/9 rates over 2.0, an astoundingly poor number. The good thing is it’s a number that is likely to regress downward, hopefully substantially.

Overall, there really hasn’t been a dramatic difference between last season and this season. The offense is a little bit better this year, but the pitching is a little worse. While the performances may not have been much different, the important thing is the results were better. Even though many fans are disappointed in some of the close losses, the Tribe easily could have gone 14-7 or better in the season’s first month. I choose to look at this as a positive. Last year’s team dug themselves such a big hole early on that they couldn’t dig themselves out. If the team can play around .500 ball early on that could go a long way in keeping the team in contention for when Michael Brantley returns to form and Carrasco returns from the disabled list.