Until Josh Tomlin won Game 3 of the ALDS vs. Boston, the last Indians drafted pitcher to win a postseason start was CC Sabathia in Game 1 of the ALCS against Boston in 2007.
Until Jason Kipnis, Roberto Perez and Francisco Lindor homered in Game 1 of the ALCS vs. Boston, Victor Martinez in Game 6 of the ALCS in 2007 was the last Indians home grown player to homer in a postseason game.
Those gaps explain why the Indians missed the playoffs from 2008 through 2012, made a cameo in 2013 and then didn’t crash the party until this year.
To be more specific, the last Indians draft pick (and not international FA) to homer in the postseason was Jim Thome in 2001 in a 17-2 blowout of Seattle in Game 3 of the ALDS.
After drafting Sabathia in 1998 in the first round, from 1999-2007, seven first round picks made it to the majors with the Indians. Jeremy Guthrie, Michael Aubrey, Jeremy Sowers, Trevor Crowe, David Huff, Lonnie Chisenhall and Alex White.
Guthrie has a cumulative 18.1 bWAR in 12 years but none were with the Indians. Chisenhall with 7.6 is second among that group. Nine first round picks in that time never made the majors and three others made it with other teams for brief cups of coffee.
The 2016 AL Pennant winning Indians (man, that sounds surreal still) featured 17 drafted players that suited up in an Indians uniform this year (including Chris Gimenez who served his third tour of duty with the club).
Another 10 were acquired but spent time in the Indians minor leagues at some point (not including injury rehabs). Four others were international free agents signed and developed by the Indians.
That 2007 team had seven drafted players on the roster at any point in the year. That included the likes of Jason Davis, who didn’t spend all year in the organization, and Jeremy Sowers.
Eight were international free agents and 12 players were acquired via trade and spent some time in the minors.
While injuries to Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez and slow starts by CC Sabathia and others got the Indians off to a very poor start in 2008, that team was largely put together thanks to great trades by Mark Shapiro after he took over for John Hart as the GM. The drafts hadn’t produced any difference making talent since Sabathia and Shapiro and his scouts were able to identify others teams talent to make up for this gap. So aside from the crippling injuries to Hafner, eventually Sizemore and Jake Westbrook (ironically the Indians three largest contracts during this era), it wasn’t really a surprise that this group didn’t have much staying power or any real reinforcements to keep it going. They just missed out in 2005 and had to wait till 2007 to really get it going again.
This years team has the heaviest home grown influence since the 1995 team had 11 draft picks. By the end of the 90s a lot of the team was built around trades/free agents and the remaining drafted originals.
The 90s success was built on good drafts and trading for good, young talent. Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Charles Nagy, Chad Ogea and Jaret Wright are good examples. Acquiring players in trades like Carlos Baerga, Sandy Alomar Jr., and Kenny Lofton also represented this.
Veterans at the end of their careers like Eddie Murrary, Dennis Martinez and Orel Hershiser hoped on board because of that young talent.
The 2016 Indians? Kipnis, Lindor, Chisenhall, Naquin, Josh Tomlin and Cody allen were all drafted. Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley were acquired as young talent and developed here.
Rajai Davis and Mike Napoli, while not having the pedigree’s of the Murray’s and Hershisers, are near the ends of their careers and joined because of the young core.
The similarities don’t end there. Thome, Ramirez, Carlos Baerga, Omar Vizquel, Alomar and Nagy all secured contracts from the Indians at young stages of their career, much like Kipnis, Gomes, Santana, Brantley, Kluber and Carrasco (and you can bet Lindor and Jose Ramirez aren’t far behind). Not as different ways of operations as you might think.
But without homegrown talent, you have teams like the mid-2000s Indians – talented enough but a shorter window and no way to sustain it without good drafts behind them.
Mark Shapiro was blamed in Cleveland for a lot of things, many unfairly. He followed some of the best teams in franchise history that featured and old and bloated payroll with a changing landscape within the sport. His trades deserve a ton of credit to this day because their trees are still impacting this run. His biggest flaw was hiring and sticking with John Mirabelli running the draft far too long despite terrible, unproductive drafts.
The change to putting Brad Grant in charge of amateur scouting and the much better drafts deserve a ton of credit as to why the Indians are where they are. The team is littered with him and his staffs drafted and developed players. And without the continued draft success, the Indians wouldn’t have had the firepower to acquire fire breathing Andrew Miller, who was the ALCS MVP. There’s no guarantee the Indians will be back in the 2017 postseason. Everyone assumed 07 wasn’t going to be the last one for that team either – but this homegrown pipeline of talent gives you more hope and the position they are in right now has a lot to do with better drafting by the Indians. Their best period of drafts since the early 90s.
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