After a short exit from the play-offs disappointed the Indians in 2013, nothing less was expected this year. Despite those expectations, the Indians were eliminated even earlier in 2014 than they were the season before, two days before the regular season’s end. While some of this is due to the maturing talent in Kansas City, where the Royals will play in October for the first time since the 1985, the Indians have no one to blame but themselves for their premature departure.
The major faults of this year’s Indians team are well known. The defense, which allowed 70.9 more runs than the average team according to Fangraph’s UZR, was the most obvious fault. While every other aspect of the team also had issues from time to time, poor defense is a quality that survived the entire season. In addition, however, the Indians also had a large problem scoring runs, outside of two great hitters and a few more who had inconsistent success and had a little acknowledged issue with bullpen depth that lead to major overuse down the stretch run.
Starting with the defense, it is a little unfair to say it stayed the same all year as one player showed how big a difference one player can make. As a shortstop with the Tribe, Asdrubal Cabrera had a -6.9 UZR this year and a total of -49.8 over his career at that position since 2007. His replacement since being traded to Washington, Jose Ramirez, has made a complete turn around at that most important defensive positive. In just 65 games, Ramirez has already saved 7.2 runs more than the average short stop this year, a difference hard to fathom in such a short period. Since the -70.9 above includes Ramirez’s addition, assuming Cabrera had stayed with the team, they would likely be closer to -82.4. For an offense that averaged just more than four runs per game, that twelve run difference over just 65 games was huge, and would have been a much bigger deal throughout the season.
Of course, the defense was never fixed in whole and it was not all Cabrera’s fault. Lonnie Chisenhall was the team’s worst defender compared to others at his position at -12.2 UZR with almost every other regular also posting a negative UZR. In fact, only Michael Brantley in center (0.3) and Mike Aviles at second and short (total 1.8 between the two positions) are the only players who started the year and have been even slightly above average at their positions. Of course, neither Brantley or Santana started at those positions and were been below average in their initial spots of left field and third base.
There are a few solutions for this overall defense problem, one of which is reorganization, like moving Carlos Santana to first and Brantley to center. Another option is replacement from below, something that has been the most effective answer for the Tribe to this point. In addition to Ramirez, who was the team’s most effective defender despite the short time, Tyler Holt was the team’s second best defender at 3.3 UZR. He replaced David Murphy and Ryan Raburn as the primary right fielders, who had combined for a -9.2 UZR (eight of which belonged to Murphy), making almost as big of a difference in right field as Ramirez did at short.
Of course, you can’t blame all the Indians struggles this year on the defense as scoring runs is equally important to preventing them. In fact, despite the 71 unearned runs, only five games were lost by the difference of the unearned runs in that individual game. Like with defense, two players can be excluded from complaint in Michael Brantley and Yan Gomes, who have been among the best with the bat at their positions. While Santana and Chisenhall have shown glimmers of excellence, every single other starter from the beginning of the year has been mostly terrible.
Nick Swisher and Ryan Raburn came into the season with fairly low expectations, but managed to undershoot even those, batting .208 and .200 disrespectfully. Others, like Jason Kipnis and Michael Bourn, had incredibly lofty expectations that were possibly a little unrealistic. While they performed well on the bases (stealing successfully in 32 of 41 attempts combined), neither were as solid at the top of the lineup as the Indians needed. Also, unlike when considering defense, the youngsters did not help. Holt was average, batting .254, but hit just a single extra base hit and knocked in just two. Ramirez struggled early on, but picked things up once he became a starter, raising his average to .249 by the end of the year. Jesus Aguilar was also a disappointment, although this was possibly because he was never used regularly, even after multiple regulars were knocked out for the season with injuries.
It is hard to blame the amazing pitching staff for the Indians not making into the postseason in 2014, but even they have had their problems. Early in the season, the rotation was in constant flux, but once Justin Masterson was traded, things settled down with a very impressive rotation made of Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, T.J. House and Trevor Bauer. One problem that was never fixed, however, was bullpen depth. Bryan Shaw, Cody Allen, Marc Rzepczynski and Scott Atchison were fantastic, but a modern bullpen cannot survive with just four members. In fact, the Indians carried eight pitchers for more of the season, expanding to ten once rosters expanded in September. Eighteen total pitchers were used at some point in relief this year, yet those four listed above made more than 50% of the Indians relief appearances. Shaw was the most used pitcher in all of baseball (79 games), Allen was second in the American League (76) and all four were in the top 16 most used. While the Indians had four of the most used relievers, only Baltimore and Los Angeles had more than one (each had two) in the top 15. No other team in baseball abused it’s bullpen as much as Terry Francona did this year with the Indians and it showed and in fact, no team in American League history has ever used four relievers in at least 70 games in a single season.
By the end of the season, it was only those four pitchers that were trusted and it ultimately lead to Shaw blowing the two most important games of the year. To make matters worse, while a few solid LOOGY’s have appeared dependable in Kyle Crockett and Nick Hagadone, there were no obvious solutions for next year found in the trio of young right handers including C.C. Lee (4.33 ERA, 24 K in 27 IP), Austin Adams (9.00 ERA, 4 K in 7 IP) and Bryan Price (20.25 ERA, 2.2 IP). Going into next season, evaluating the team’s talent and deciding where to improve externally will be integral for success and the bullpen may be the easiest place to start. The defense may improve with better coaching and the introduction of more young stars, like Francisco Lindor, but it is hard to imagine the offense really turning things around without some major outside aid.
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