Teams that I find interesting: Cleveland

The Indians finally put it together last season as their 5-year plan started to take shape. But I haven't seen anyone picking them this year. Is this fair?

Year 3 of the five-year Cleveland plan was a rousing success in the middle of last season. The Indians were close. They were hovering around .500 in a weak division and were hot. They looked poised to surge back to the playoffs for the first time since 2001 and prove the skeptics wrong.

Then they lost a lot of games in a row, and the dream was over.

But it wasn't a lost season. This was Cleveland's best year since 2001. They had some great performances from a few surprising sources, most notably Travis Hafner, who had an outstanding season and did it with no one noticing. He hit .311, on-based .410, jacked 28 homers and 41 doubles, all on his way to leading the AL in park-and-league adjusted OPS.

Hafner had some help, though, and most of it is back for seconds.

Out:

Matt Lawton
Omar Vizquel

In:

Aaron Boone
Jhonny Peralta / Alex Cora

Boone's a question mark and he lugs a track record of mediocrity. He didn't play at all last year, and his best seasons were never that great. He is a better fielder than the disastrous Casey Blake, who moves to an outfield spot. While Vizquel was once a great fielder, those days are passed, and the future is now in a man whose parents screwed up the spelling on the birth certificate, Jhonny Peralta. Peralta's 23, but oh, those doubles....44 in 560 ABs in AAA. He hit .323/.382/.489 last year after a bad 242 big league ABs at the age of 21 in 2003. Moral of the story? He'll most likely be damn close to or better than Vizquel's .291/.353/.388, and Vizquel's 38 now.

Casey Blake's big year from last year came out of nowhere, unfortunately for him. It doesn't mean that it won't happen again, but I wouldn't expect anything better than or really close to his 28 homer season and .354 OBP from last year.

One acquisition that might surprise this year is Juan Gonzalez, back for what seems like a 5th tour of duty with Cleveland but is only a 2nd. I wouldn't expect anything outstanding from him, but he can still hit for some power, even at this point in his career. He hit 24 homers in 2003 with only 346 plate appearances. I don't think that the power has disappeared...it won't be 45 homers on a full season, but he can still hit (if he's healthy).

The lineup is generally young and it's solid. Just because it's young doesn't mean it will improve this year, but it's a fair possibility that you'll see some more solid numbers from the Cleveland lineup.

I like Cleveland's lineup as much as anyone else's in that division, if not more.

The pitching isn't as good, but there are some interesting guys here.

1. Jake Westbrook - big surprise last year, went from a groundball pitcher with below-average control to a groundball pitcher with above-average control. Hence the 0.95 drop in ERA. Westbrook is young, still.
2. Kevin Millwood - I liked the Millwood signing for the Indians, actually. Millwood was hit hard in BABIP, ranking 5th highest in the bigs with .327. I expect that to drop. His walks weren't bad, he struck out a lot of guys, and he only allowed 14 homers in 141 innings at the bandbox known to some as CBP. It's not much of a conclusion, but he'll be pretty good this year.
3. C.C. Sabathia - Sabathia's still really young, even though it feels like he's been around forever. He's also thrown a ton of big league innings for a young guy. It's tough to say where Sabathia will fall, but my best guess is that he'll do what he typically does: come close to 200 innings, win some games, and give you slightly-above-average pitching. It's not awful.
4. Cliff Lee - What happened here? The last I saw of Cliff Lee, he was having an excellent season in the first half. And then he gave up a 7.91 second half ERA, didn't do too many innings, gave up 18 homers....this isn't a good story. He's also young, and it appears that he was suffering from some "dead arm" of some sort. I don't expect much from him, but, basically, Westbrook + Millwood + Sabathia + Lee as a 1-4 looks to be....about average.
5. Scott Elarton - It's been a while....4.53 ERA in Cleveland last year. Didn't walk too many in 117.3 innings. Still entirely too susceptible to homers. 5th starter at best....I don't even know if he'll get the job.

1-2-3 in this rotation could be very good. There's no "ace" per se, but Westbrook could be headed in that direction.

The Indians bullpen will be a bit better with the acquisition of Rhodes, but, as I stated in an earlier post, Rhodes is on the back end of his career, I think. Wickman and Howry are OK. Not great, just OK. Howry is probably a better relief ace than Wickman at this point.

I think the Indians could take the division this year from that general weakness in the AL Central. This division has had a power vacuum since the last powerhouse from Cleveland, and Minnesota hasn't been a great team over these last 3 years. The fact that they've won 90+ games for 3 straight years is largely a product of their division and the unbalanced schedule:

2002: .512 WP out of division, .667 in division
2003: .547 WP out of division, ,.566 in division
2004: .534 WP out of division, .605 in division

The Twins are beatable. The team that cleans up the AL Central games most effectively has adamn good shot at taking this division....

So, I think that the Indians need 3 things to happen this year:

1. Cliff Lee needs to be closer to the first half of last year than his second half. Doesn't have to be as good as that first half, either....just close.
2. C.C. Sabathia comes back healthy from his current abdominal injury.
3. Millwood's gotta stay healthy, too.

Hey, the things are all in starting pitching!

Most teams have 3 things like this that, if they go right, would keep them in contention, so there isn't much value in having three "things that need to happen" like those. The AL Central is a bit different. It is so...open right now, that it's tough to make a real guess here. The team who wins it is probably going to b/c the fewest things went wrong. If Morneau and Mauer stay healthy and hit well, the Twins'll probably run away with it, but where's the fun in that?

I like Cleveland a lot this year. We'll see.