Burning River Baseball Predicts the Future: 2016 Indians

With the new season about hit us in the face, it’s that time again! Predictions! After a relatively quiet off season full of free-agent signings, questionable rumor leaks and grasping at straws every few weeks for solid topics, it’s finally everyone’s favorite collaboration effort! Burning River Baseball’s staff has come together and assumed to the best of our abilities what the outcomes of 2016 might be. Granted, everyone could be way off, or just the same completely on point, and even have some slight bias for our Cleveland Indians. This year the guesses and assumptions are coming from Joseph Coblitz, Mike Melaragno, John Hutchison, Kevin Gall, and first timers Caitlin Boron, Justin Lada and Gavin Potter.
Please agree or agree to disagree on our choices, and have fun with it.

First, we’re going to start off with the triple crown boys on the squad. Keeping it simple, the stats that we’re going to use are average (qualified), home runs and RBI for the bats, and ERA (qualified), wins and strike outs for the flame throwers.

It’s not a huge surprised that the two biggest names to come up when talking batting average are Michael Brantley (4 picks) and Francisco Lindor (2 picks), save for Joe who picked Jason Kipnis. The confidence is there in Brantley’s bat, even though he’s starting 2016 on the DL and to be honest, I believe he deserves that confidence. Even while being hurt for part of last season, Dr. Smooth still ended 2015 with a .310 BA. We all know what a healthy Brantley is capable of, though last year is very impressive. Lindor, on the other hand had a rookie season that blew everyone away, finishing his first year in the bigs batting a .313 just under 100 games. Is a sophomore slump worth worrying about? Maybe, but obviously some of the BRB staff is comfortable enough putting their Lindor eggs into the batting average basket. And then there’s Kipnis. Not a crazy choice. A healthy Kipnis is a hot Kipnis worthy of being an All Star. In 2015 he batted a strong .303 average that’s hard to argue, and I believe we can all agree that the hope is he can do that again, if not better, in 2016.

As far as home runs go, the answers flow in the same direction as average did. There’s a majority answer, Carlos Santana, a secondary, Mike Napoli, and that one person who wanted to go in a completely different direction altogether choosing Lonnie Chisenhall. All three are solid choices. Santana lead the team in home runs last season, while Napoli has had a very promising spring training this year, or at least as promising as spring training could be. I understand the Chisenhall, I think? The hope is there that he will have a full season in right like the sample we saw from him in 2015. If he gets locked in, he oozes potential on the field and at the plate.

It surprises me that Michael Brantley was only chosen by one of us to get the most RBI this season after coming in just behind Santana last season with 84 to his 85. That being said, Santana was the leading assumption for the collector of the most RBI for 2016. Napoli had two picks, while only having 50 RBI between Boston and Texas. I, being the lone little wolf, picked Lindor. There might be a thing or two that he dominated in last season that could be lacking this season, but I don’t believe RBI will be one of them.

As for the pitchers, we’ll dive into predictions for best ERA first. Danny Salazar lead the pack with a respective 3.45 ERA last season, though all guesses swayed between Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco. It’s no secret that Cleveland’s top three starters are all Ace material, and for that all the answers for the three pitching categories are a mix of Salazar, Kluber and Carrasco. Nothing was across the board, as all three ended up being number one, one way or another in 2015. Wins for last season ended in a 14 game tie between Carrasco and Salazar. With the addition of some solid bats for 2016, because 90% of what kept Kluber far from 14+ wins (he finished with nine) were the lack of offense, it’s no surprise that he has most of the BRB prediction votes (3) FOR 2016.

In strike outs, Kluber was the leader, killing it with 245 K’s, and it was ALMOST unanimous that he would be the one to take the title again, but I had to throw a rock into that pond and put Salazar, who finished 2015 with 195 strikeouts.

On to the other section of predictions! This one is a tad bit more fun to do, trying to predict the Burning River awards, only to laugh at how off we all will be (or won’t be?) when BRB comes together again for the real winners at the end of the season.

Most improved; the Lee award, was kind of all over the place, ranging from the most consistent of the picks, Yan Gomes with three, then running wild. Trevor Bauer, Chisenhall, Santana, and Giovanny Urshela. Does this spell an optimistic year for turn-arounds? We shall see! The leader for Super Joe Rookie of the Year was, no surprise, CF Tyler Naquin, who could start his rookie year on Opening Day. RHP Mike Clevinger took two of the predictions, and RHP’s Jeff Johnson and Shawn Armstrong both had single votes.

With the Steve OlinMemorial Award for top reliever, again I threw a wrench in the plan like I did with strike outs. While everyone else from the BRB staff picked closer Cody Allen (who wouldn’t be a shock to anyone, my hopefulness, and because I think T.J. House will end up in the bullpen, allowed me to go in a completely different direction. I might get the biggest laugh for this at the end of the season, but stranger things have happened. I suppose you could say the same for Top Defender, where everyone went with the flow of Lindor, except Mike who decided to place his lone bet on Chisenhall. Depending on how he comes back after being placed on the DL to start the season, if Lonnie has a season in RF to match his time there in 2015, Mike could end up being completely on point with this.

On to the top hitter, which was mostly a mix of Brantley (3 picks) and Napoli (2 picks). Joe and Mike parted ways with the crowd and went Kipnis and Chisenhall. Bats might be the most important this year, seeing who ends up with this award could potentially say whether Brantley continued to dominate and be the best hitter in the order, if Napoli becomes the right-handed power bat everyone has been aching for (Will that stop the complaining? Probably not), on top of Kipnis and/or Chisenhall building on their 2015 seasons.

The award for top pitcher; The Addie, came between Carrasco and Kluber, with the Tribe Ace squeezing one more pick over Cookie. The confidence behind Carrasco must have increased since last season’s predictions where Kluber swept the category and did in fact take the award at the end of the season.

MVP is quite the mix, as are the All Star picks. The most valuable pick leader is Brantley taking home three of the seven picks and with the All Stars, Lindor collects four of the seven. All the rest are singles, Chisenhall, Lindor, Kluber and Carrasco rounding out the last of the potentially most valued, and Brantley, Kluber and Carrasco finishing up the All Star list.

The new season is just upon us, less than a week away at this point, and more than any recent season, anything can happen. The Indians are starting their 2016 with a whole new outfield, supporting one of the best pitching rotations in all of baseball, and new bats to back them up. Taking away from the realities that we might be finding through the season, these staff predictions are a fun way to get everything going, no matter how right or wrong we might all be.