Burning River Predicts the Future: 2015 Indians Edition

Every year the staff at BurningRiverBaseball.com incorrectly predicts who they think will be the Indians statistical leaders by the end of the season as well as the winners of the Burning River Awards given out at the end of the year. Proving how impossible it is to predict, very rarely do we get things right, but it won’t keep us from trying. Prognosticators this year include head writers Joseph Coblitz and Mike Melaragno, newly added staff writers Kevin Gall and John Hutchison, part time writer Jennifer Coblitz as well as Cody Slaybaugh from ESPN 970 AM in Ashtabula.

This first group of predictions are for the Indians triple crown leaders for the 2015 seasons. Instead of using the more important and easily predicted stats like OBP and slugging percent, we stick with the original average, home runs and RBI for hitters and wins, strike outs and ERA for pitchers. Not surprisingly, there are some obvious favorites here as Michael Brantley, the Indians best hitter in 2014, and Corey Kluber, the best pitcher, were the most popular picks. There are no sweeps, however and Carlos Santana gets his name in the group as a solid contender to lead the team in RBI. Brandon Moss and Yan Gomes also got some consideration for leading in average and home runs. Last year, Gomes was picked by a couple people as a surprise contender to lead the team in average and power, but he won’t be surprising anyone if he is among the leaders in 2015.

On the pitching side, if Kluber doesn’t sweep the Indians triple crown as he did last year, he is most expected to lose the strike out category as Danny Salazar and Trevor Bauer are also experts in this matter. Legitimately, Carlos Carrasco could also lead the team in K’s with enough innings, so that one really is up for grabs.

A little more meaningful, this second group of predictions is for the Burning River Awards given out at the end of every season by this website. While the awards have cute names and explanations, we’ll stick with simplicity here.

There are plenty of options for the Most Improved Player (Aka, the Lee Award) this year as many players played below expectations in 2014. In fact, this is the only category where five of six pickers chose different athletes. The eventual winner will likely be the best of this group, although there are even other options not mentioned including Michael Bourn, Lonnie Chisenhall and Jesus Aguilar.

As with the last award, there are a ton of possibilities for the Super Joe Rookie of the Year Award. Even among those not mentioned, Tyler Holt is still a rookie, while Shaun Armstrong and James Ramsey among others could easily make their debuts this year. As expected, Francisco Lindor is the obvious choice as the most anticipated rookie, but to be a little different, Mike is picking Giovanny Urshela and I’m going with a personal favorite, Jesus Aguilar.

While there was some conflict in the triple crown pitching stats, there is little contention as far as the two pitching awards go. Cody Allen is a strong favorite to win the Steve Olin Memorial Award for top reliever (although Bryan Shaw and Marc Rzepczynski did get looks) and Kluber got a straight sweep for The Addie.

On the field, there are also a limited amount of players expected to be the team’s top defender. Michael Brantley won in 2013 and Jose Ramirez in 2014 with Yan Gomes coming sitting close behind both years. All three players are solid picks this year, but the staff has split right down the middle with three for Ramirez and three for Gomes going into the season. Of course, Ramirez is a bit of a risky pick because if Lindor is called-up early, Ramirez might not even qualify.

Since no one picked Kluber as the MVP (despite the fact that he won the award in 2014), the top hitter (The Golden Belle) and the MVP (The Rose Award) are likely to be the same person. In fact, only John picked different players for the two awards, joining myself by choosing Carlos Santana as the most probable MVP. For the rest of the group, Michael Brantley is the only choice as the third place American League MVP finisher in 2014 is expected to get better by a majority of the staff. Stick around, because the League predictions come out next week and Brantley will continue to get some play even on a national level.