The Indians have arguably the best top 3 starting pitchers in all of baseball. Corey Kluber and Carlos Carrasco are aces in their own right and Danny Salazar is steadily reaching that same point in his career. But after these three top dogs, the back end of the rotation becomes a bit murkier and not quite as solid as the forerunners. At the end of last season, Josh Tomlin and Cody Anderson were stellar in the fourth and fifth spots of the rotation, providing surprising stability to a rotation desperately searching for it. The question is will they be able to duplicate their results in 2016? Or will someone else be taking their spots next season?
This time last year we were debating who would fill the fifth spot in the Tribe’s rotation as well. Kluber and Carrasco were locks for the one and two spots, for some nonsensical reason the recently acquired Gavin Floyd was penciled in at three and Trevor Bauer was given the fourth (or vice versa with Floyd). That left Salazar, Tomlin, Zach McAllister, Shaun Marcum, and T.J. House to duke it out for the final spot. Injuries (House, Tomlin, Floyd) and outrageous ineptitude (McAllister, Bauer) further complicated the issue, but eventually Anderson rose from AA to fill the void and Tomlin returned from the DL to replace Bauer while the Indians made a too little, too late playoff push.
This spring there are two spots up for grabs, with four players (Anderson, Tomlin, Bauer, & House) competing for those openings. Each of these players has a good case for why they may deserve the spot, but there is also cause for concern with each.
Trevor Bauer
In my opinion, Bauer is the most likely to be given a spot in the rotation come Opening Day and I say this for one reason. Of all of the four of these pitchers, Bauer is by far the most talented. Obviously Bauer has proven time and time again that talent is not nearly enough to make you a successful MLB pitcher and after this past season this very well could be Bauer’s last chance to prove he is deserving of a spot in the rotation.
Last season began tremendously well for Bauer. Through the first two months of the year he had a 2.97 ERA, 3.34 FIP, was striking out 9.19 batters per 9 innings and limiting his home runs to a reasonable degree. From June through the end of the season, Bauer was terrible. Bauer has suffered from two major flaws in his game, his propensity to issue far too many walks, and his knack for allowing home runs like he’s pitching batting practice at the Home Run Derby. Both of these issues got dramatically worse from June on forward. His BB/9 during the first 2 months was 3.53 (not good, but not god-awful), it would rise to 4.33 in the season’s final months (worst in all of baseball). His HR/9 rate went from 0.71 (good) to 1.44 (absolutely horrendous).
Bauer was the third selection in the 2011 draft for a reason and I don’t suspect that the Indians are ready to give up on him just yet. Given the fact that the organization has made absolutely no effort to appreciably improve the team’s lineup this off-season, they will need the best pitching staff they can possibly assemble. If Bauer can finally get himself together the Indians will arguably have the best rotation in baseball and because of that possibility I don’t see Bauer being kept out of the starting rotation in April. However, I do believe his leash is going to be short. Eventually the Indians will have to move on from Bauer entirely if he continues to show the inconsistency he’s shown since he made his MLB debut, but for now I believe the job is Bauer’s to lose.
Josh Tomlin
Anyone who has followed Burning River Baseball closely may know that I am not the biggest fan of Josh Tomlin, but despite his overwhelming mediocrity and inability to show consistent results over the course of a full season, there are times when Josh Tomlin is a very good pitcher. His ten starts last season proved just that. The question becomes whether or not he can repeat this success over a full season? The stats tend to show he cannot.
Tomlin, like Bauer, has a knack for allowing the long ball and last season was no different. In those ten starts last season, Tomlin allowed 1.78 HR/9, which is alarmingly high. The one aspect of his game that may have offset his home run rate was his incredibly low batting average on balls in play. Batters were hitting just .199 on balls in play last season, an unsustainably low rate when compared to the league average which sits around .300 and his career rate which is .276. Let’s not forget that Tomlin lost his spot in the rotation in 2014 due to his ineffectiveness, I have seen no change in his game to suggest that he’s a different pitcher now.
Given the two-year contract extension Tomlin signed in January, there’s a good chance he’s a member of the rotation in the beginning of the year. It’s not all doom-and-gloom with Tomlin though. He may not be a top of the rotation starter, he is a serviceable innings eater who can hold down the fifth spot in the rotation.
Cody Anderson
Anderson was a pleasant surprise this past season as he rose from the AA ranks where he was coming off a terrible 2014 season to a prime contributor in the big league rotation. Anderson made 15 starts in Cleveland, posting a solid 3.05 ERA with a less than stellar 4.27 FIP. Anderson was solid in nearly every aspect of his game in his first stint with the big league club. If there is a downside to him it’s the fact that there is virtually no swing-and-miss to his game. Obviously a pitcher doesn’t have to strikeout batters at a Kluber-esque rate to be successful, but combined with his .237 BABIP, I have some concerns that his success over his short stint may not have been truly representative of his actual talent.
I’m a big fan of Anderson’s, I believe he can be a good back of the rotation starter in the big leagues, but I think he needs a little more seasoning before that point. Every pitcher has to have some ability to strike a batter out when he needs to. Anderson is after all a relatively new pitcher, having just started in college. With some more work on his pitching repertoire, he has the potential to be a pretty solid pitcher. He could also be the first pitcher called to fill a spot in the rotation should an injury arise or a spot start become necessary, regardless it’s a good chance we see Anderson in Cleveland at some point this season.
T.J. House
House went from unknown hero in 2014 to injured and irrelevant in 2015. This season, he may be on the outside looking in until he gets a chance to work his way back into the rotation. While House continues to work his way back from an injured shoulder, he may see time in AAA or perhaps even the Tribe’s bullpen once the season begins. Hopefully his struggles were because of his shoulder ailments and not because he’s just a bad pitcher. House made four starts last season, pitching just 13 innings, and only made it past the 3rd inning on one of those starts.
If House can return to his 2014 form, he could be a valuable asset to the Indians, a club devoid of left-handed starters. If this happens, I wouldn’t be surprised if he leapt all three of the above mentioned pitchers and took over the fourth spot. House’s 2014 output wasn’t just surprising because he was a relatively unheralded prospect who didn’t suck when he was given the opportunity to pitch, but the surprise came in the fact that he was a relatively unheralded prospect who was actually very well over 18 big league starts, no small feat for any pitcher much less one who many fans didn’t even know he was in the organization.
Mike Clevinger
Each of the past two seasons, the Indians have had pitchers come up from the minors to make an impact in the big league rotation. In 2014 it was House, in 2015 it was Anderson and in 2016 it very well could be Michael Clevinger.
Clevinger has been on a meteoric rise through the organization ever since he was acquired from the Angels for Vinnie Pestano. Last season, he began the year in Akron with very low expectations and finished the season pitching 7.2 innings of shutout baseball in AAA during the Clippers push for the Governor’s Cup. If he continues this growth he very well could find himself making a few starts with the Indians some time this season. Regardless of where he spends 2016, he is one of the most exciting pitching prospects in the Indians entire organization and everyone should keep an eye on him this summer.
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