The Cleveland Indians are coming into a season with the kind of expectations they haven’t faced since 2008. Not only are they the division favorites, they’re expected to have a strong chance at getting back to the World Series.
In 2007, the Indians were within one win of going to their first World Series in a decade (good thing twitter wasn’t around back then, because, there just aren’t enough 3-1 jokes now, are there?). Despite bringing back almost the entire 2007 team into 2008, the Indians could not take the next step and win that extra game.
Sounds depressingly similar, right?
Despite a good amount of similarities, the 2017 Indians will not be the 2008 Indians where a team with championship expectations fizzles early.
While the Indians were just one win away from going to the World Series in 2007, they were outscored in the ALCS 51-32 by Boston. In Games 6 and 7 alone there were outscored 23-2.
The Indians and Chicago Cubs in the 2017 World Series scored 27 runs apiece and played to the 10th inning in Game 7.
Injuries played a big part in the demise of the 2008 Indians. It was the beginning of the end of Travis Hafner as a productive, full time hitter despite the fact that he had just signed what is now the second largest deal in club history. Jake Westbrook went down with a UCL tear and missed most of 2008 and all of 2009, also after signing a long term deal. Victor Martinez missed a lot of June, all of July and a lot of August with an injury. He was hardly himself on the field. C.C Sabathia allowed 27 runs in his first four starts and the team lost eight of his first 12 starts until he picked things up and June and was traded after his first July start when the Indians were 37-48 and 12 games back of first place.
While injuries could certainly come into play for the 2017 Indians as well, it’s hard to imagine they could get much more unlucky in the injury department. Danny Salazar spent two stints on the DL and missed the ALDS and ALCS and was barely functional in the World Series. Carlos Carrasco missed time with a hamstring injury early in the season and then had his hand hit by a liner to end his season. Michael Brantley played in 11 ineffective games, Yan Gomes missed time with two separate injuries and Roberto Perez missed a big chunk of time with a thumb fracture.
The contract situations were also not in the 2008 Indians favor. Sabathia was due to be a free agent at the end of the season and the Indians couldn’t reach a pact with him long term so they decided to extend Westbrook and Hafner, so he was gone at the end of 2008 one way or the other. Casey Blake was an impending free agent. Cliff Lee came back from being nearly released to win the Cy Young on a pitching staff that had nothing else to write home about otherwise. The bullpen was a disaster and blew 20 saves. Joe Borowski, who barely got by in 2007, was sent home.
It’s possible Brantley could go the route of Hafner with his shoulder in 2017 and there could be some regression from young players like Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and even a bit from Carlos Santana (who along with Bryan Shaw, are the only two significant free agents after 2017, so it would take an epic collapse to trade either in season). Asdrubal Cabrera and Ryan Garko had great 2007’s but 2008 both saw them take a step back.
Let’s say that the Indians get anything better from Brantley in 2017 than they did in 2016, combined with the addition of Edwin Encarnacion (the Indians only real additions heading into 2008 were Jamey Carroll and Masahide Kobayashi (the real hot dog guy would have been better), will give the Indians some insurance against regression.
To make matters worse, the ’08 Indians top prospects (NSFW) featured an injured Adam Miller, Beau Mills, Chuck Lofgren, Wes Hodges, Josh Rodriguez, Jensen Lewis, Jared Goedert, Trevor Crowe, and Jon Drennan. Only Lewis and Crowe cracked the big leagues and Lewis had the best career of the two.
Nothing is guaranteed about the Indians current crop of prospects, but having pitchers like Mike Clevinger, Adam Plutko, Shawn Armstrong and hitters like Yandy Diaz, Bradley Zimmer and Greg Allen, help could be on the way in 2017 from a much more promising group if the need arises.
The 2008 Chicago White Sox had most of their 2005 World Series core still intact, the Minnesota Twins had peak Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau and an overachieving pitching staff.
The 2017 AL Central features a very much rebuilding Twins team, a torn down White Sox team, an aging Tigers teams and then the Royals, who still have most of their World Series core from two seasons ago, but a few key pieces are gone and the majority are free agents at the season’s end, much like the 2008 Indians situation.
Unless the Indians manage to have worse luck in the injury department in 2017 (maybe no sacrifices to Jobu in 2017?), they have a much better shot at meeting expectations than the 2008 team did.
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