Fresh off an impressive sweep of the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians will play for a chance to represent the American League in the 2016 World Series.
An interesting wrinkle in this American League Championship Series match-up against the Toronto Blue Jays is that there will be familiar faces in the front office in Mark Shapiro, the longtime GM and team president, and Ross Atkins, who worked in player development for 15 years with Cleveland. Now, Shapiro is the Blue Jays team president and CEO, while Atkins serves as Toronto’s GM and vice president of baseball operations.
As most Indians fans probably recall, Manager Terry Francona cited his relationships with Shapiro and GM Chris Antonetti as the key reasons why he decided to manage in Cleveland. The culmination of building the Tribe into a World Series contender ironically comes to a head against someone (Shapiro) who left for perceived greener pastures.
Many in the national scene chose to focus on the Boston series as the last for slugger David Ortiz, rather than really giving Cleveland credit for a dominant series. That same early thinking might prevail in the sense that the Tribe is likely perceived as the underdog to beat a power-hitting Blue Jays team that swept Texas in the best-of-five ALDS series.
However, as I’ve written before, this Indians teams has shown resiliency that no other team in baseball has matched this season. Two of the team’s top starters are out of the rotation and the loss of Michael Brantley was no small thing. It’s been a collective effort and it’s hard to really make a definitive case for who was the MVP of the ALDS series against the Red Sox.
A big chip in the Tribe’s favor is the home-field advantage for the seven-game ALCS series against Toronto. Cleveland will host the first two games starting on October 14 and 15, then the teams will head to Toronto for games 3 and 4 and, if necessary, 5. If the series goes farther, Game 6 and 7 would be played in Cleveland, where the Indians were 53-28 at home in the regular season.
Here’s a look at how the Cleveland Indians and Toronto Blue Jays compare in this 2016 ALCS match-up:
Offense
Toronto likes to hit the long ball and clubbed 221 home runs during the regular season to help score 759 runs in 2016 for an average of 4.69 per game. The Blue Jays had six players who hit 20 or more home runs including Edwin Encarnacion who hit 42 and Josh Donaldson who hit 37. With a team batting average of .248, hitting for a high percentage isn’t the top concern for Toronto, rather hitting with power is. The Blue Jays do get on base at a decent clip with a .330 OBP and they do slug well with a .426 slugging percentage. The key for the Indians will be to limit walks and hits, so that home runs hit by the sluggers will be mostly solo shots.
The Indians actually were slightly better in the offensive department and ranked second in the American League in runs scored with 777 to average about 4.83 runs per game. The balanced attack is led by Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana, Jason Kipnis, Francisco Lindor and the streaky Mike Napoli. Rajai Davis and his league-leading 41 steals could play a role when the team need an extra base late in a game or to help manufacture a run.
As a team the Indians numbers are a bit better than Toronto’s as the Tribe slashed .262/.329/.759 during the regular season with a .288/.359/.469 at home. On the road, the Tribe slashed .236/.300/.391. So home-field advantage could again factor into the Indians favor.
Advantage: Cleveland
Starting Pitchers
Toronto will be lead by J.A. Happ (20-4, 3.18 ERA) and Aaron Sanchez (15-2, 3.00 ERA), who both had outstanding seasons. Other starters in the mix are Marcus Stroman (9-10, 4.37 ERA) and Marco Estrada (9-9, 3.48 ERA), who pitched 8 innings and and gave up just one run in Game 1 against Texas in the ALDS. As with many teams, the top two starters for Toronto are formidable opponents, but the depth drops after Sanchez and Happ.
Corey Kluber continues to lead the Indians staff and he had a dominant performance in game 2 in the ALDS series against Boston. As he’s done all year, Kluber has pitched well when the Tribe needed him and there’s no reason to doubt that he will continue to do so. He will start game 1 against Toronto. Trevor Bauer also has stepped up and has kept his team in the game while he’s on the mound and starts game 2. The same can be said for Josh Tomlin who seems to be continuing on the same path he rode on during September and he has been announced to start game 3. Rookie Mike Clevinger will be tapped to pitch Game 4 and won’t likely pitch that long. That approach might have worked in the regular season, but it remains to see how effective it can be in the playoffs when the bullpen already is expected to carry a heavier load.
It will be interesting to see how the Indians proceed if they want to have Kluber pitch on short rest. It’s a worst case scenario for the starting unit as Danny Salazar isn’t even ready to be part of the bullpen for the ALCS and the current plan is to go with the bullpen in game four.
I think Toronto’s top two starters as a group might be better than Kluber and Bauer, but I believe Tomlin is a better number three than anyone else the Blue Jays might start. However, the Blue Jays should have an advantage if they go with a fourth starter or if they ask their top starters to pitch on short rest.
Advantage: Toronto
Relief Pitching
As we know, Cleveland features a dominant bullpen lead by Andrew Miller and closer Cody Allen. These guys are the cream of the crop and have quality bullpen mates with Bryan Shaw and Dan Otero. Again, this is where the Indians have the greatest team advantage because, if a starter can go five innings with a lead, the Indians can use that strength to close out the game. Each of these four relievers is capable of pitching more than one inning, so that’s a huge strength and Francona has been a master using his best pitchers in the proper situations with the game on the line.
Roberto Osuna (4-3, 2.68 ERA) leads the Blue Jays’ bullpen and had a good year with 32 saves and 82 Ks in 74 innings. However, he’s not necessarily a lights-out closer, but he can usually get the job done. Francisco Liriano, Joe Biagini, and Jason Grilli are among the other solid options in the bullpen for Toronto.
Advantage: Indians
Defense
The Indians are led by potential Gold Glove winner Francisco Lindor (who is ranked as the best player in all of MLB by Fangraphs.com advanced statistics) at short and Jose Ramirez at third. Catcher Roberto Perez emerged as a defensive star in the ALDS as he consistently block balls thrown in the dirt by the pitching staff. The Indians also have good team speed at every position in the outfield.
Toronto has a great outfielder in Kevin Pillar and a solid shortstop with Troy Tulowitzki. Russell Martin is also a reliable defensive catcher, but after that, the Blue Jays are average at the other positions on the diamond. Defense isn’t one of the team’s bigger strengths, but it’s also not really a liability.
Advantage: Indians (by a comfortable margin)
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