Film Room: New Browns OT Shon Coleman
May 25, 2016Love finds a way: Cavaliers vs Raptors, Behind the Box Score
May 26, 2016Sometimes, one game can make all the difference for the current perspective about a team. With a win on Wednesday afternoon, the Cleveland Indians make a bold statement by winning a series 3-1 against the Chicago White Sox and defeating both Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. They would pull within a half game of the AL Central division lead and complete the road trip 6-3. With a loss, however, the Tribe would drop back 2.5 games behind Chicago, tie the series with the White Sox, and finish 5-4 on the road trip. What a difference a game makes.
So, despite the calendar depicting it is only May, the game felt as if it mattered a bit more. And, while the White Sox (27-21) made a late run, the Indians (25-20) were able to escape Chicago with a 4-3 win, providing them with the fewest losses in the AL Central.
Corey Kluber says “Hey guys, remember me?”
Corey Kluber has been a good pitcher in 2016. He just hasn’t been the dominant Kluber which he has been in the past. Sure, a bunch of his issues have been misfortune in sequencing as his 3.10 FIP shows he has not been nearly as bad as his 4.10 ERA entering Wednesday would have indicated, but he also has only had one “I am Corey Kluber, hear me roar” game (April 23 against the Detroit Tigers).
Well, it was about time for another one. And yes, pitching 7 1/3 innings with nine strikeouts, just one walk and one earned run (with another unearend run) qualifies.
The Klubot was activated and the White Sox had no answer. Even the earned run only came across the plate after Kluber had retired to the dugout (see below). In fact, the only hitter who seemed to give Kluber any trouble was Jose Abreu (who would finish the day 3-for-4). Any time the White Sox threatened to start a run, however, Kluber would rear back and set them down quickly.
https://vine.co/v/i9rMQi6Kv7t
The Cy Young winner never had an inning with more than 22 pitches and finished three separate innings with single-digit pitches thrown.
Quintana cannot slow Tribe attack
On the other side of the ledger, the Indians continued their run-scoring ways. While the four runs scored is beneath their season average, the Tribe did jump on Jose Quintana early. And, Quintana (like Chris Sale before him) came into the game as one of the premier pitchers in the American League. He led the American League with a 1.98 ERA. His 2.09 FIP not only led the AL, but was 0.63 runs better than second-place Rich Hill.
And, he had only allowed more than two runs scored in one of his nine previous 2016 starts. So, scratching out three runs in his six innings pitched is a feat as is taking down two of the Top 5 AL pitchers.
It was a triple by Lonnie Chisenhall in the second inning that scored both Yan Gomes and Juan Uribe.
https://vine.co/v/i9rOZVFriVE
Uribe would be at it again in the third inning when he sacrificed in Jose Ramirez. Just as importantly, the Indians were racking up the pitch count on Quintana with lengthy at bats such as an 11 pitch strikeout by Mike Napoli that moved J-Ram over to second on a balk.
Of course, Chisenhall with a triple meant back-to-back games with triples for Indians for the first time since the Tribe accomplished the feat three times in a row against the White Sox September 5 through September 7 of 2014. Gomes, J-Ram, and Michael Bourn were the triplers in those games.
When Gomes pushed across an insurance run by hitting a triple of his own in the eighth inning, it meant multiple triples in a game for the Tribe. Once again, one of the bright moments of Bourn’s tenure in Cleveland is recognized.
First two triple game of 2016 for Indians
2x in '15 : KC & DET (both in Sept)
Aug '14 last against CWS (Bourn had both!)— michael bode (@mgbode_WFNY) May 25, 2016
Defense disappoints, spoils shutout bid
Oh boy, the defense did not harken back to the early days of 2015, but they were not all that far off those horrendous units either. Twice, multiple bases were given up outside the normal realms of play.
First, it was Austin Jackson in the third inning. After a single, Adam Eaton would line out to center field. The Indians would get a bit cheeky and throw it to Napoli over at first base and well, Austin Jackson would advance to second base.
Then, Austin Jackson advanced the third base in the third inning before Jimmy Rollins harmlessly grounded into the third out on a passed by Yan Gomes on the second pitch of the at bat. Admit it, you thought I was going to say the third pitch. Well, it wasn’t. Anyway, passed balls happen from time-to-time with Kluber’s nasty stuff and no harm done.
However, a little league run was scored when Todd Frazier takes off to steal second base. He is safe on a bad throw from Gomes, OK. So, that is the end…wait, what? Oh, so Rajai Davis extends the play with his own error allowing Frazier to make it to third base, which is bad, but wha? Frazier scored? In the sixth inning of a shutout bid by gaining three bases without a pitch being thrown and two outs? Of course, Kluber would then strike out Brett Lawrie on the next three pitches. Sigh.
Shaw tries to burn the house down, but Allen had an extinguisher handy
Yeah, so Kluber pitched great, but he did leave a man on with an out for Bryan Shaw to help out with in the eighth inning. He jumped to a quick 1-2 count on Melky Cabrera, so he had a couple pitches to play tease him. Instead, he hangs one that Cabrera deposits in the right field bleachers and everyone has to hold their breath as Abrue follows it up with a single. Thankfully, he closed out the inning quickly, but the game was a mistake away from being a huge disappointment.
Everyone breathed a nice sigh of relief though when Allen came in can slammed the door shut by striking out Avisail Garcia, Jackson, and inducing a harmless groundout by Eaton to close out the game.
https://vine.co/v/i9rZdP7wPaI
The Indians will take Thursday off before hosting the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers to close out the month of May. Recency bias notwithstanding, fans have to be thrilled with how the Tribe took down the AL Central’s best.
18 Comments
Does analytics still view the defense as highly as it/they did before the opener? Do these things ride the season-rollercoaster or remain fairly flat throughout the year? PLZ LEARN ME SUM MATHZ!!
Side note – I love the Walmart patio furniture in right field.
I was listening as I was running errands. Zach was warming up before Kluber finished the sixth. Really wish they’d brought him into the game in lieu of Shaw.
UZR is finding the defense to be really good.
DRS is less forgiving (particularly CF w/ Rajai and Naquin)
Defensive statistics are really tough because think about how many chances a defender gets in a game…so, the sample sizes create a whole bunch of noise. I don’t fully trust them, but use them as a guide to confirm what I see or make me think about things further.
Overall though, it’s tough to watch this defense and not see the significant benefit it provides the team. Uribe’s double play in the Sale game, Lindor every game (and Gomes), Martinez’s throwout at the plate in Anderson’s game. So many momentum-changing plays from the defense.
Shaw has been so good lately though. And, he did settle down and take care of business. Those first two batters though I thought he was going to blow Kluber’s start (and the series).
I just spent 30 minutes writing a reply to a question you did not ask.
Well… where is it? The answers to questions not asked are often the best. Give me the answer, and I’ll make up a question. We’ll play this like Jeopardy.
Deleted… I thought you were asking more generally if analytics view defense highly or not. In terms of value. As compared to offense. So I ended up writing my take on a history lesson of how the sabermetric crowd has viewed defense over the years.
Shorter version: they generally overvalue offense because it’s easier to track. Even the good defensive metrics get dismissed whenever it is convenient, mainly because they all suffer from issues like small sample size. Meanwhile, R/G continue to plummet which means that defense/pitching has gotten better and better.
So while dorks like us prefer to ignore defense or discount it as intrinsically unknowable, much smarter people than us (people actually in baseball) clearly have come to value defense more and more, so much so that people now complain that the game is too low scoring.
Also, I think the Royals ascendency over the last couple of seasons has especially forced the Internet Sabermetric Collective to re-think how they view the game.
The biggest part of run scoring plummeting is strikeouts increasing. The pitchers are carrying a heavier load of that total defense than ever before.
And I’m not sure we overvalue defense because it’s easier to track, but, similar to what you said, we can’t be confident enough in small samples of defensive metrics to make any grand proclamations.
LMGTFY
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2016&month=0&season1=2016&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1906760
The second link has BPro saying we convert 1.15% more balls in play into outs than the average team, with some adjustments for park factors.
Going by Kluber’s last two starts and Carrasco beginning his rehab soon, the rotation is in position to dominate the American League all summer. Not saying it will happen, just that it could. The Tribe has hung around .500 with an undefeated Tomlin crushing losing streaks, Salazar having the best two months of his career, and a lot of turnover and inconsistency in the other three spots. A dominant Klubot and healthy Cookie would make this group really, really special.
The lineup still has some question marks, obviously. I know our run differential is outstanding, but we’re done facing the Reds’ pitching staff for 2016 (sigh). But giving Sale his first loss and hanging in there vs. Quintana (sans Frankie!) was impressive. A healthy Brantley would make the 1-5 spots in the Indians’ lineup among the best in baseball (albeit a little underwhelming form a power standpoint). Or, the Tribe could make a deal at the deadline to bring in a bat. We finally have the farm system to do so–the glut of starting pitching prospects at Columbus and Akron could nab us two months of a respectable, middle-of-the-order bat.
Think of defensive statistics like scouting. You need to evaluate the tools and consistency rather than the metrics. Statcast has been valuable for many items such as showing how much of the OF certain players can cover. Whether or not playing certain pitchers or teams determines how you should align your OF (deep or short) and whether or not IF shifts make sense.
These are all things most teams have had info on for years. We are just now getting a taste of how they effect the game quantitatively (as qualitatively we have known obviously, it’s intuitive).
Yes, we feasted on the Reds, but we also have been raking all month consistently scoring more than four runs per game (not just getting that as an average due to a few huge games).
I was skeptical of the offense coming in and am still hesitant all of it can hold up, but the offense has been a huge part of the reason for our recent winning ways.
I think the statcast stuff is vastly different than defensive metrics like UZR and DRS. I see the latter like batting average. What happened in the past can’t be changed, but we need a huge sample size to actually discern the true talent level.
Interesting. And all without Brantley, of course.
This lineup is far from spectacular but it clearly differs from last year’s team in the absence of complete black holes up and down the order. From Opening Day to approximately Memorial Day last year, Michael Bourn (CF), Jose Ramirez (SS), and Lonnie Chisenhall (3B) were three automatic outs. And Swisher would have been a fourth had he not been on the DL so much. Say what you will about Uribe, Rajai Davis, and Marlon Byrd this year, but at least they’re putting up professional at bats and making pitchers work to get them out.
This is true and its an important part of the order to chew up pitches.
Unless facing KC, then you want the SP to stay in there.
If we’re getting anyone worthwhile back for prospects, it’s going to have to be Aiken, Sheffield, or Bradley. We’ve already needed to use Clevinger, so I doubt he’s on the move unless we’re blown away, and none of the rest of the infield/SP prospects at the higher levels have much shine on them.
I think the lack of a trade for Frazier shows the problem we have. The Reds asked for nearly untouchable guys, and once we confirmed they weren’t available, they had no interest in the rest of the farm system.
The other issue with the Frazier trade was they wanted positional prospects back where we are more flush in the higher levels with pitching prospects. The White Sox needed the Dodgers to swoop in to help.
Should note our farm system has the best record in MiLB. Not an indicator of it being the best as far as MLB talent, but it does demonstrate some growth and ability.