Tribe Rotation Steadiest to Start Season in Years

Going into every season there is a common refrain about pitching depth; that you need at least 7 or 8 starters, because no team makes it through the season with five. Last year, this was certainly the case as injuries and inconsistency decimated the rotation from very early on in the season and the team was forced to use nine different starters including reliever Zach McAllister twice. In the most injury free season in recent history, the Indians only used six starters in 2005, but still had CC Sabathia hit the DL to start the year (he was replaced by Jason Davis), then Kevin Millwood miss a few starts mid season (again replaced by Davis). In addition, despite pitching poorly, Scott Elarton and Jake Westbrook made more than 30 starts each, showing that it wasn’t necessarily a choice to stick with five men for most of the year, but a necessity due to lack of depth.

The 2017 team has no such lack of depth. Even with Cody Anderson out for the year, the entire AAA rotation is arguably at least at MLB replacement level (the argument may come from Chris Narveson, who is pitching well, but has a poor track record and has mostly been a reliever in his career). Each of the other pitchers, Ryan Merritt, Mike Clevinger, Adam Plutko and Shawn Morimando, were brought up late in 2016 to help with the injury issues and Merritt and Clevinger even pitched in the postseason. The Indians have their 8+ potential starting pitchers if needed.

Incredibly though, they’ve made it four times through the rotation without needed them (I don’t believe in “jixes”). While they almost certainly will need one or two as the season goes on, I think it needs to be illustrated how difficult is has been for the Indians to go through a rotation four times in order in the past few seasons.

Now that is an ugly illustration. While some of the odd sequences were due to off days early in the season that allowed Terry Francona to adjust his rotation to get more starts out of his ace (Justin Masterson from 2013 to 2014, Corey Kluber from then on) and we’ll get back to that later, much of the mixing was due to injury or extremely poor play.

The 2013 season was perhaps the most entertaining to look at because of Brett Myers. The Indians had planned to start the season with Scott Kazmir in the rotation, but while he started the season on the 25 man, he was added to the DL just five games in before he ever made a start. Instead, they went with a rotation of Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Myers, McAllister and a flexible fifth man, the first being Trevor Bauer, who was called up from AAA just for one game, then immediately sent back down. Carlos Carrasco started the season on the roster, but was suspended for the first five games of the season, then was sent down after relieving Myers in his second start. Myers and Jimenez both had absolutely dreadful starts to the year and Corey Kluber was called up from AAA just two weeks into the season and added to the bullpen. He would relieve Kazmir in his first start back from the DL, then join the rotation himself when Myers was placed on the DL after four starts. Bauer would make two more starts in the first 40 games, each time being called up for a single game then sent back down.

Ultimately, the Indians would get great pitching all around from their regular starters in 2013, but it was far from what they originally expected. Danny Salazar, who started the year in AA had a breakout season in ten games while Kluber and McAllister also shined.

In 2014, Salazar, T.J. House and Josh Tomlin all started in AAA, but would play a significant role in the rotation as Masterson and McAllister each spent time on the DL (following which Masterson was traded). In 2015, Salazar started in AAA again, only to miss one start before returning to the rotation. House started in the rotation, but would hit the DL less than a month in and miss the rest of the year. His replacements were a motley crew including 2017 WBC hero Bruce Chen, Shaun Marcum and Toru Murata before Cody Anderson was able to bring some stability to the back end of the rotation.

We should all still remember 2016, but if you don’t, Bauer started the season in the bullpen before coming back to make more starts than anyone other than Kluber or Tomlin. Carrasco hit the DL 17 games in when he pulled his hamstring covering first, then Anderson was demoted two games later. Clevinger would help out greatly through this turmoil, although he wasn’t added permanently to the rotation until after Salazar was injured and he made his start on August 4th.

This year, to have all five starters make all their starts for four consecutive turns through the rotation is pretty special (it will happen when Bauer starts tonight). Considering Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, Bauer and Tomlin the Indians best five from 2016, they did this last from July 5th through August 1st. Before then, the rotation was actually steady for the entire month of June and of course, this was what allowed the Indians to go on a 14 game winning streak.

Getting back to Francona’s decision to not shuffle the rotation to take advantage of off days this season, there are likely two reasons, both being confidence. First, he has confidence in all five starters. While there is a big drop off between Kluber and Tomlin, the difference isn’t worth skipping Tomlin to get Kluber an extra start, because the Indians should be able to win behind any one of their five regulars. Secondly, the confidence that the Indians can win the division by more than the four extra starts that Kluber might get throughout the season. If he doesn’t have to pitch the extra innings, he will be more well rested when they return to the post-season, something that the Indians still have to see as more of an expectation than a challenge.

The Indians have used as few as six starters in one season in franchise history although there have been quite a few with only six regular starters and one or two others making spot starts here and there. Even in 1904, when the Indians used only seven pitchers for the entire season, all made at least one start (show some respect for Bill Bernhard for pitching 320.2 innings and holding a 2.14 ERA, because that’s just what they did back then). This season will not be any different (meaning that they’ll use at least six starters, not that Kluber will throw 300+ innings). I’ve already called for Clevinger to be called up and undoubtedly he will return at some point. We may end up talking about Tomlin’s 2017 season the way we talk about Myers’ 2013, but there is still a sense of stability in the same five men going to the mound to start games in the same order for an entire month. Enjoy it for however long it lasts.