It’s hard to measure heartbreak, but if the 2018 ALDS wasn’t the toughest post-season on the current rendition of the team, then we can just look at the cumulative results of the Francona era and say things could have gone better in the play-offs. The following are some quick tips on how some recurring problems could be fixed this time around instead of ignoring them and doing the same thing next year.
Let it Go
Remember when everyone wanted to bring back Joe Smith, Bryan Shaw, Jay Bruce and Carlos Santana after last season? Smith and Shaw were both on play-off teams this year and both were left off the post-season roster for a reason. Bruce was worth -0.4 WAR and hit just 9 home runs in 94 games for the Mets. Only Santana was valuable at all and was so expensive that the Indians never really attempted to bring him back. Nostalgia might sell tickets, but it doesn’t win championships.
This year the Indians have the biggest group of core players exiting as free agents since the Francona era began and I’m sure they will be tempted to bring them all back. The list includes Josh Tomlin, Lonnie Chisenhall, Michael Brantley, Cody Allen among Andrew Miller long term Indians and Oliver Perez, Melky Cabrera and Rajai Davis among rentals. My recommendation is to let them all go. Chisenhall has played a total of 111 games over the last two years due to a wonky calf and both Allen and Miller seem to have hit limits on the prime of their careers. Perez was most likely lightning in a bottle this year and all of the above are on the wrong side of the aging curve.
Brantley is the most intriguing of the players to bring back and doing so wouldn’t necessarily be a disaster, but he was a bad defensive outfielder when he was fast and the Indians already have three DH’s on the team with another 1B about to join. It’s time to move on from the old guys and try something new.
The Kids are Alright
Despite hitting .312/.375/.422 and having a 115 wRC+ that matched Edwin Encarnacion and surpassed Cabrera, Yonder Alonso, Melky Cabrera and Jason Kipnis, Yandy Diaz played in just 39 games this year. Despite the fact that he played 45 games in left and 37 in right in the minors in addition to playing more games in center in the Venezuelan winter league in 2017 (20) than Kipnis had in his entire professional career coming into 2018 (18), it was Kipnis who was moved to center rather than keeping Greg Allen there and using Diaz in right.
Every single time the Indians have had a chance to bring up a highly touted prospect they have dragged their feet. They held Francisco Lindor back until June and cost him the Rookie of the Year and a Gold Glove in 2015. They said there wasn’t room for Francisco Mejia because the worst catcher in baseball had just signed a contract extension. Now, they are pushing Diaz to the bench.
Things could be pretty fun next year. Bobby Bradley should reach the big leagues next year and Yu Chang could have been called up this year had they needed him. Eric Haase deserves more playing time than Roberto Perez and the most exciting prospect of all, Triston McKenzie, could potentially make his debut later in the season. If the Indians re-sign their exiting free agents or bring in new aging players, these things will probably not happen. This would be a huge mistake. The Indians have nine minor league teams and spend all year working on the draft and international signings for a reason and that reason isn’t to make sure you have enough utility infielders.
They should have tested internal options in the bullpen in 2017 knowing that Miller, Allen and McAllister were leaving this year and Shaw last year, but they didn’t. They should have tested them in 2018, but they didn’t. Now they have internal options, but it’s unlikely Francona will trust them enough to start the season with them in the bullpen. In the end, they couldn’t possibly be worse than this year’s pen and bringing up new blood is exactly what this franchise needs.
Good Enough isn’t Good Enough
Before the season started, I wrote some negative things about the signings of Mike Napoli and Michael Martinez and saw responses of “why does it matter? They’ll only get a few meaningless spring training at bats.” When the season started and Josh Tomlin was included on the roster I had issue of him starting over more qualified Indians minor league pitchers and saw a similar response. The Indians were going to win the central with anyone as their fifth starter, why did it matter if it was Tomlin, Adam Plutko or Ryan Merritt?
The fact is that there aren’t meaningless innings or meaningless at bats. Tomlin put together very literally one of the worst seasons in baseball history. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 70 innings in Indians history, Tomlin’s -1.3 WAR is worst among 853 applicants. Among all teams since 1901 he isn’t worst, he’s just 18,619th of 18,641. Yet somehow he made multiple starts as the 0.1 WAR starter Plutko was moved into the bullpen and we never got a look at Henry Martinez, Cole Sulser, Ben Krauth, Keiran Lovegrove or Shao-Ching Chiang in the bullpen.
This section isn’t exclusively about minor leaguers though. The Indians front office used the near guaranteed AL Central title as a reason to coast through the regular season with players like Tomlin, Melky Cabrera and Roberto Perez taking up innings and at bats, knowing full well they wouldn’t be of any use in the play-offs. They used an extremely large amount of games against the AL Central down the stretch to build up confidence in these players, then saw a team that never coasted just decimate a team that was half All-Stars, half guys they found wondering in a parking lot somewhere.
Ultimately, one problem was slightly fixed when they traded for Josh Donaldson, although it just moved another problem to center field. This brings up our final subject.
Stop Trying to Make Everyone a Utility Man
The Indians can be an infuriating team to watch at times because when there is a simple solution to something, they seem to search their hardest for a much more complicated one. Jason Kipnis to center in 2017 was the most confounding version of this as it was done essentially to get Giovanny Urshela in the game at third.
The career 57 wRC+ player got into all five of the Indians 2017 ALDS games and went 2 for 12 with six strike outs. While that seems like a last year problem, it spawned the Kipnis to center move that took over in September. Throwing outfield defense completely to the wind, the Indians chose to go with Brantley (26.1 ft/s sprint speed, third slowest LF), Kipnis (26.9 ft/s, second slowest CF) and Cabrera (26.0 ft/s, fourth slowest RF) in the outfield. This decision hearkens back to the last section for a moment as it was good enough to win most of the time because the Indians pitching staff does strike out more batters than any Indians staff ever, however, when a ball is hit to the gaps it is guaranteed not to be caught and will probably be misplayed.
At the beginning of last off-season, the Indians front office told Kipnis flat out that they didn’t know what position he would be playing in 2018. This is an awful way to treat a veteran and, it brings more stability to Jose Ramirez‘s statements when he willingly moved to second, but asked that he not be juggled back and forth. Ramirez could be a Gold Glove third baseman. He could also be a Gold Glove second baseman, but he can’t be both. Kipnis can be an average defensive 2B. Maybe he could play first or even a corner outfield spot, but he isn’t fast enough to play center and he needs to play wherever he is going to play all the time so he can reach that potential.
A versatile roster is valuable and it allows you to get the exact line-up you want every day, but it doesn’t maximize defensive efficiency and it leaves players feeling slighted. In this manner, perhaps the old school way is the right way.
If the Indians find a permanent 3B or decide to use Yandy Diaz or Yu-Cheng Chang there, then move Ramirez to second and Kipnis to right or left and be done with it. If they find some big name outfielder instead, move Ramirez back to third, Kipnis to second and leave it there. Both players are guaranteed contracts next year (Kipnis has an option for 2020, Ramirez is guaranteed through 2021) and both deserve to play one position at a time.
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