Stupid, Crazy Optimism

Ever since the Indians went into the All-Star break sitting behind eight teams in the Wild Card race and then even more so after they went on to lose six in a row to the White Sox and Royals I have been firmly in the camp of waiting for 2016. At that moment it looked like nothing could wake the sleeping offense, that Nick Swisher was about to come back to waste another roster spot and that a whole lot of great pitching would continue to be wasted.

The trade of Swisher and Michael Bourn to Atlanta brought relief to the team, the fans and the city and it was enough to reawaken an offense that was mired in a season long slump. Now, like the defacto leader of a heist, who doesn’t think the score is possible, but is willing to try if you are, I bring you what the Indians need to happen to get back into the post-season in 2015.

By winning three games in a row, the Indians have reached a place just five games out of a play-off spot and more importantly, now sit behind two less teams in the race. It had been since April 25th that the Indians had been in as much as a tie for third place in the AL Central and since April 12th that they were in sole possession, but that is where they find themselves now. A game ahead of Chicago and 1.5 in front of Detroit. They are still 4.5 behind Minnesota, but let’s take things one team at a time.

Above is a look at the current Wild Card standings. They are in fact just for the second spot in the AL Wild Card, because the Yankees are four more games ahead of everybody and if they were to be displaced altogether, it would mean two teams played so well that the Indians wouldn’t even have a chance. Since we are trying to be ignorantly optimistic, we have to ignore the the first Wild Card.

As in any come from behind race, there are two parts to this one. The team in front must fail and the team behind must succeed. Obviously if all the parties involved continue at the same rate, either the Rangers or Twins will take the second seed. Luckily, that rarely happens in baseball. Using the most simplistic method of predicting future wins based on the team’s current winning percentage compared to their scheduled opponents, the below chart shows a basic end of season projection.

This confirms the season long prediction that both Wild Card winners will need at least 85 wins as the Rangers look likely to win around 86 games. While they just finished a three game set with Toronto, Texas has one of the easiest schedules down the stretch, playing three against the Padres and 13 combined against the Athletics and Mariners. With the Tigers about buried, they could too be considered among the Rangers easy opponents.

Considering all the listed teams as “play-off contenders,” the Indians have one of the toughest schedules left. This could be expected as all five Central Division teams are within 6.5 games right now and all but the final three games of the season are against the Central, the Blue Jays or the Angels. This also provides the team with a wonderful opportunity as they get a chance to play one of the top legitimate contenders, Minnesota, seven times over the final two weeks of the season. If Francona can pull some kind of late season win streak magic like he did in 2013, that alone could be enough to at least move the Indians into second in the Central.

Going back into our expectations, it is unlikely that the Rangers will finish far below 86 wins and if they do, those losses could come in their seven games against Los Angeles or two against Baltimore and wouldn’t be helpful anyway. Shooting for this goal of 85 or more wins, we will have to look into the Indians schedule and see how they can turn 12 expected losses into wins.

The easiest and most unrealistic way is to say they have to win every game. If they were to win their next 20 in a row, that would put them at 81 wins with 15 left to go, possibly leaving enough time to mess with the Yankees. Since that won’t happen, we need to look at individual match-ups. While the Indians have won six of their last eight, mostly against superior teams like the Cubs and Yankees, they are still expected to lose both the series against Los Angeles and the upcoming series with Toronto. If they can win either of these series, that adds one. Winning both would add two unexpected wins and so on.

Assuming wins in both these series and every other three game series (splits in the four game series) for the rest of the season excluding games against Kansas City, the Indians would be at 81-81, a perfect .500 and far enough out of the play-offs it wouldn’t be worth getting mad over. This remains the most realistic optimism level.

To get any better, you have to assume some sweeps and this is likely where any projection would fall apart. Even the best team in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, have only seven sweeps (or eight if you count the make up game against KC) in series of three or more games, so it is severely irrational to believe the Indians, who have swept just two series of at least three games all season (one coming against the .409 W% Reds) could sweep more than one or two series in September.

For the sake of making this possible, we can assume the Indians sweep one series against Chicago and take six out of seven against Minnesota. This should be enough to keep the Twins out of things at least, but even if the Indians win all but one three game series for the rest of the year, split two four game series with the Tigers and Royals, sweep series against the Twins and White Sox and win the four game set against Minnesota, the Indians would still just have 84 wins and no games against Texas, Baltimore or Tampa to make the wins count double.

We began this journey in an effort to show a positive way the Indians could finish strong and make the post-season again, but even the most optimistic should be able to see there are just too many road blocks. The Indians pitching (when healthy) is good enough to break off a lengthy winning streak, but the offense has been far to streaky to make that happen. The goal right now should be to see who is ready for the 2016 season and to shoot for .500. Unless that 20 game winning streak happens (or something near it), the Indians will have a far better chance to win a World Series in 2016 than at any point this year. This time now should still be used to make sure that what happened this April and May doesn’t happen again next year. I don’t want to be writing about the permutations of what will have to happen to get the Indians back into things at the end of next August. Hopefully, they will have wrapped up the division by then.