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14-2 in the 8th
Tribe bats coming alive

Really good series win over the twins, much needed. I’m not going to read too much into tonight’s offensive output, but, Franmil

There you go

I rarely get to see these guys play, so last night was a delight!

Wahoo! Go you Tribe!

Franmil Reyes over his last 19 games:

.394 avg, 3 doubles, 6 homers, 19 RBIs, 1.147 OPS

The hard truth about trades, money & the future: Let’s talk Cleveland Indians

https://www.cleveland.com/tribe/2020/08/...nd-indians.html
By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer
ABOUT THE TRIBE & TRADES

1. I’ve heard some fans talking about the Indians picking up a bat such Boston’s J.D. Martinez. Just stop. It’s not going to happen. The Indians are like several other mid-market teams in the COVID-19 era. They have no plans to add a dime to their 2020 payroll.

2. For what it’s worth, Martinez is batting .213 (.686 OPS) with three homers and 15 RBI this season. He’s a big-time hitter off to a slow start. In the previous three years, he averaged 41 HR and 113 RBI. He also has two more years on his contract worth $19.5 million annually.

3. The Indians have been cutting payroll even before the virus hit. Their payroll dropped from $135 million in 2018 to $119 million in 2019. This season, it would have been in the $90 million range if 162 games were played, according to Cots Contracts.

4. As Tribe President Chris Antonetti recently said: “We’ve been pretty transparent about the magnitude of our financial losses. That’s the case for a lot of teams across the industry.”

5. But the Indians were having financial problems before the virus. Part of the reason is they lost minor investor John Sherman, who purchased the Kansas City Royals. Sherman had an estimated 15-to-20 percent interest in the Tribe. I’m told his stake in the team is in some type of escrow account. The Indians will either add another minority owner or they have to buy out Sherman’s share. But I’m not sure what is the timetable for that to happen.

6. In June, Antonetti said: “Our financial losses will be extraordinary this year.” Nothing has changed since then. In fact, the Indians are one of many teams where employees have taken pay cuts and/or were laid off.

7. With the exception of some big market franchises, most teams are reluctant to make big moves. While it appears the season will be played to a conclusion and then have an extended playoffs, that is not a sure thing. The virus has hit some franchises very hard. Teams wonder, “What if we don’t finish the year and that cuts off the TV revenue?”

8. In the short term, that brings us to Mike Clevinger. The pitcher has about $750,000 left on contract for the rest of 2020. The Indians don’t feel any urgency to trade him. He has worked his way back into favor with the team and the players after his night out in Chicago.

9. Teams are calling the Tribe about Clevinger. The Indians do have an excess of starting pitching, one of the few teams able to make that claim. Clevinger has two more years left under team contract. That means a club trading for him can view it as a long-term acquisition.

10. The Indians are interested to making a Trevor Bauer-type trade for Clevinger, with one exception. They would not pick up a somewhat-expensive veteran OF such as Yasiel Puig, who was part of the deal in 2019. They would be looking for players such Franmil Reyes (under team control for four years) and pitching prospects Logan Allen and Scott Moss.

11. Puig agreed to a contract right before the season with Atlanta. He failed the COVID-19 test. Since then, there have been rumors about Puig signing elsewhere, but it hasn’t happened. That does tell you something about him and his market value.

12. One of the rumors floating around for a while has been Clevinger to the Yankees for some prospects starting with former Tribe OF Clint Frazier. It does make sense. The Yankees don’t need him when their OFs are healthy. In 462 MLB career plate appearances, Frazier is a .258 hitter (.785 OPS) with 18 HR and 64 RBI.

13. The 25-year-old Frazier has had some immature moments in New York. He has a history of concussions. But I think putting him in a stable, less-pressurized situation such as Cleveland would allow his promising bat to produce. But I don’t hear strong rumors about this deal right now. The Indians have made trades with the Yankees, including the 2016 deal for Andrew Miller that sent Frazier to New York.

14. Money will become a concern with Clevinger. He is arbitration eligible in 2021. His 162-game base salary was $4.1 million. That probably will increase to $7 million or more. That’s why it’s likely the Indians will trade him in the off-season if it doesn’t happen in the next few days.

15. I was wondering about Brad Hand being traded. After a slow start to the season, Hand has pitched well lately. He is is 9-of-9 in save opportunities with a 3.72 ERA. He has a $10 million team option for 2021. The Indians won’t pick that up.

16. James Karinchak is set to close in 2021. If they can move Hand for an outfielder, Karinchak can take over the role right now. He has allowed one run in 16 2/3 innings. He’s fanned 31 and walked only six.

17. The Indians will be making some painful decisions after the season. Carlos Santana has a team option for $17.5 million. That won’t be picked up, even though the Indians treasure their durable first baseman.

18. Santana will probably end up like a lot of free agents after the 2020 season: The market will be stingy and very tight. Perhaps he comes back to the Tribe on a very cheap contract. Hand is another who could find few teams willing to bid for him.

19. Of course, there will be the Francisco Lindor rumors after the season. He will be in line for a contract worth more than $20 million through arbitration in 2021. The Indians won’t pay him that.

20. A big problem for teams such as the Tribe is selling 2021 tickets. How many (if any) fans will be allowed to attend? Even if fans can come, how many will do so? COVID-19 keeps changing our behavior and also has delivered a major hit to disposable income for individual fans and those businesses that seek season tickets.

Painful changes are coming for many teams, not just the Tribe.

I would misss Clevinger. Many franchise wallets are going to suffer from this one. Hope we do well with this group in playoffs.

I think I'd be more willing to part with Carrasco than Clevinger

Indians take the lead in the 12th, 2-1.

Tom Hamilton just said that Roberto Perez had 3 hits last night, raising his batting average to .167. That's awful. The bottom 4 of our line-up are awful.

EDIT: Indians win 2-1 in 12 innings. Yippee, or something.

1st Place Cleveland Indians

Indians 21-12
White Sox 20-12
Twins 20-13
Tigers 14-16
Royals 12-20

they really are, Perez is just never going to be a MLB hitter, and the catcher position in general for us. but Perez, Leon, Luplow and allen are really really bad. We are lucky our pitching is lights out. Def. the reason we've won as much as we have. Offense in general has been inconsistent. 14 runs yesterday on 20+ hits and today takes 12 innings to get 2

I know catcher is considered a defense-first type position, but come on, you gotta hit at least .220 or .230. Perez hit over 20 HR last year and now he couldn't hit a beach ball if it was tossed underhand.

Perez is a good hitter. He has missed a great deal of time with an injury, and only has only played 7 games this year, with a whopping 22 AB. Give him a chance to get going already.

Last year he hit .239 with 24 HR and 63 RBI. That is more than respectable for a "defense first" catcher.

In the AL, the division leaders at this very moment are the:

#Rays, #Athletics and #Indians.

Cleveland has the highest payroll among those three teams.

Those teams #MLB payrolls rank near the very bottom in all of baseball:

#24 (CLE)
#25 (OAK)
#28 (TB)

*$ info via Spotrac

#Indians Closer Brad Hand is now tied for the MLB lead in Saves with 10.

You're right. I just got frustrated with the bottom of the line up, listening to and watching games so far this season. So tired of watching guys not even put the ball in play these days. They just swing and miss, it seems.

If Naquin can stay healthy, always a big if for him, he will contribute offensively. It looks as though DeShields is starting to come around. Carlos Santana is a huge concern to me. He's drawing walks, but even with leading the league in walks, he's only hitting just over .200.



We'll see what happens. We faced a very good pitcher today in Flaherty.

The babbling heads were talking last night on the TV broadcast, and the Indians have a very advantageous schedule from here out. After we finish up in St Louis tomorrow, our next 10 are 7 against KC, and 3 against the Brewers. That's a real opportunity to make some hay (as they say) right there.

White Sox lost today and the Twins got swept by the Tigers in a doubleheader. Indians are alone in 1st place.

Indians 21-12
White Sox 20-13 - 1 GB
Twins 20-14 - 1-1/2 GB

The Indians are alone in 1st in the AL Central, which boasts 3 teams with 20+ wins and they’ve done it with:

-A manager who has spent more time in the hospital than the dugout.
-Two players who made headlines with irresponsibility.
-Major offensive struggles.

It’s impressive.


https://twitter.com/H_Grove/status/1299860707375296513

Cleveland's pitching has been historically great so far in 2020
In related matters, Cleveland is now alone in first place in the AL Central

Cleveland's win over the Cardinals on Saturday (CLE 2, STL 1 in 12 innings) in tandem with the Twins' fourth straight loss means Cleveland is now alone in first place in the American League Central. So how does a team rise to the top of what's been baseball's toughest division despite an offense that's solidly below average in pretty much every regard? There's no surer way to overcome lackluster hitting than by dominating on the slab, and that's precisely what Cleveland has done in 2020.

Right now, Cleveland leads the majors with a team ERA of 2.75, which puts them just ahead of the second-place Dodgers, who have a team ERA of 2.76. However, the Dodgers play in a park that suppresses run-scoring, while Cleveland's home yard benefits the hitter. As well, the Dodgers have allowed 14 unearned runs in 34 games, while Cleveland has allowed four unearned runs in 33 games. Despite the earned/unearned distinctions, pitchers bear a great deal of responsibility for unearned runs. On top of all that, Cleveland has been significantly stronger than the Dodgers when it comes to underlying pitching indicators.

Really, though, saying Cleveland "merely" has the best pitching staff of 2020 thus far undersells how dominant they've been. So let's put their performance in context. To do that, we'll use a stat called "ERA+," which is sometimes known as Adjusted ERA. ERA+ is a pitcher's or pitching staff's ERA adjusted to reflect home ballpark and league environment. It's scaled so that a mark of 100 is league average, and the higher the mark the better from the pitcher's standpoint. An ERA+ of 110 means that the pitcher's park- and league-adjusted ERA was 10 percent better than the league mean. Likewise, an ERA+ of 90 means that the pitcher's park- and league-adjusted ERA was 10 percent worse than the league mean.

With that freshly in mind, let's look at the top 10 team ERA+ figures of all-time.

Rank

Team

ERA+

1.

2020 Cleveland

164

2.

2020 Dodgers

159

3.

1906 Cubs

151

4.

1909 Cubs

147

5.

1905 Cubs

146

6.

1907 Cubs

143

7.

1926 Athletics

139

8.

2017 Cleveland

138

9.

1942 Cardinals

135

10.

2018 Astros

134

These numbers from the very excellent Stathead are current as of Saturday morning, so they don't reflect the fact that Cleveland later on Saturday allowed one run in 12 innings. So that 164 figure is even higher now. Things as they are, Cleveland is on pace to set the all-time team record and then some. Yes, the 2020 regular season will span just 60 games, so discount accordingly because of the small sample size. Even so, that's dominance on a historic scale.

Speaking of dominance, the 2020 Cleveland pitching staff has a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.26. The current single-season record belongs to the 2017 Cleveland staff with a mark of 3.98. As you can see, the current Cleveland model is on pace to smash that record to bits. That also means their sparkling ERA+ is backed up by excellence at the command-and-control level.

It's further impressive that Cleveland has been able to achieve this given that they traded Trevor Bauer last season and Corey Kluber this past winter. As well, Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac have been limited to seven combined starts because of their decisions to violate COVID-19 protocols. The personnel turns over, and Cleveland just keeps conjuring up arms who keep runs off the board. It's hard to overstate just how excellent the organization has been at developing pitching. To put a finer point on it, five of the seven pitchers who have made starts for Cleveland this season are homegrown -- that includes AL Cy Young front-runner Shane Bieber.

There's also this bit of aesthetically pleasing balance: Cleveland this season ranks first in MLB with a rotation ERA of 2.95 and third in MLB with a bullpen ERA of 2.38. No matter the inning -- early, middle, or late -- it's difficult to score runs against this team. More precisely, it's difficult to unprecedented extremes.


https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/clevelands-pitching-has-been-historically-great-so-far-in-2020/

Salazar and Trevor Bauer should have been added to my list of young pitchers this team has developed.

It's a shame Salazar had his injury issues and could never recover. I think he could have been special.

I think a lot of it was mental as well for Salazar in the end.

Post-injury....absolutely.

USA Today's Bob Nightengale is reporting that the Indians and White Sox are discussing a deal that would send Clevinger to the White Sox for Michael Kopech and Adam Engel. It doesn't make sense to me.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ml...ors/5674088002/

I agree with Jensen Lewis who tweeted that if it doesn't include Luis Robert, there's no reason for it. Kopech opted out this season, is coming off TJ surgery, and Adam Engel isn't going to fix this offense.

The 1st thing I thought when I read this is: "Someone's out of their ^$#^*) mind!"

To me, if I don't hear at least one of these two names - Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert - along with Kopech, I hang up the phone on the Sox GM.

Yeah, unless I absolutely rob them, they aren't getting Clevinger. I want heavy duty, controllable pieces in return for a guy who could conceivably compete for a Cy Young, and why is under control for 2 more years.

Padres are making major moves

j/c...

That's a lot of players involved.

Josh Naylor is listed as 5-11, 250 lb. I have no idea about his speed or athleticism, but that seems pretty heavy. I'm guessing we better have a roadrunner playing CF if he's going to play LF.