8:02 PM – The way Carlos Carrasco has been pitching of late, I figured starting a liveblog recap an hour into the game would put us roughly in the bottom of the first inning.  But you know what they say about assumptions in the Bible, don’t you? (It’s against it.)

Anyway, Carrasco is working on a perfect game into the fifth inning, while his counterpart James Shields is looking pretty good himself. This game is approaching its halfway point and we’re scoreless.

8:05 PM – Welp. There goes the perfecto.  After retiring the first 13 Royals he faced, Carrasco gives up a hard-hit single to Lorenzo Cain to right.  Jinxety-Jinxy-Do.

That said, Carrasco is looking sharp—pitching on both sides of the plate with good separation and command.  I mentioned this to Craig on Sunday, but I find it odd how quickly the rotation seemingly has been converted from contact-groundball types to power-strikeout-flyball guys.  Corey Kluber, Scott Kazmir, Carlos Carrasco and Zach McAllister are all guys who get it up in there in the mid-90s and induce lots of swings and misses.  We’ve come a long way from 2009, when Jeremy Sowers had the single worst swinging-strike rate of any pitcher in Major League baseball.  In fact, let’s look a quick chart of the Indians starting pitchers over the last five years. [Read more...]

The Indians lost two of three to Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, which really isn’t all that interesting until you stop to notice exactly how they went about it.

We should have known that strange times were in store on Friday evening when, after being delayed by two hours, the Indians allowed the game to begin before succumbing to a second rain delay just ten minutes later.  Perhaps this was the plan of the crafty Tribesmen, thinking that their starter, Corey Kluber, wouldn’t be able to match up against the Rays young ace Matt Moore.  Perhaps the Indians thought they had a better shot throwing their bullpen against that of the Rays, who are sporting an ugly 4.25 ERA on the season, good for 13^th out of 15 AL teams?  Get both starters out early, and steal game one with a strong bullpen effort?

Except the Indians don’t really have a good bullpen this season.  [Read more...]

8:01 PM – I just learned that today is Terry Francona’s birthday. Hours before, I heard that it’s also Jack Nicholson’s birthday. What a small world!  I can only imagine the fun those two might have at a birthday party together, what with all of the chewing tobacco and nubile feminine attention.  Sounds like a good time.  You know what else sounds like a good time?  Live blog recap!  That’s what.

8:45 PM – Speaking of young ladies, my four month old daughter has occupied the last 44 minutes of this recap, giving me a look of suspicion that I can only interpret as: I know that you have no milk, Dad. And I’m going to hold that against you until I’m thirty-seven.

In the midst of my insufficient parenting/lactating, the Indians managed to scratch across a run in the top of the second on a flare off Lonnie Chisenhall’s bat that scored Jason Giambi from second.  The White Sox followed suit in the bottom of the second with a leadoff HR from Conor Gillaspie, who is not, as I assumed, a fictional pub owner from James Joyce’s Dubliners, but a real-live Chicago White Sock with a uniform and everything.

After 2 innings, it’s 1-1 and I’m still getting back in the saddle. [Read more...]

It’s almost here, you guys.  One more day.  But before each new Indians season starts, I like to indulge my crippling gambling addiction by setting fake lines for the Tribe and then wagering fake money on one side or the other.  Last season, I broke about even, but much like the team itself, I think this year will be different. TD will have a more organized set of predictions tomorrow from the whole gang, but for now, let’s make some fake prop bets.

169.5 Team Home Runs – Believe it or not, hitting 170 home runs would likely still result in a below average performance in the American League.  Last season, eight of the 14 AL teams hit at least 175 HRs, led by the Yankees with 245.  The issue, of course, is that the Indians were woefully under-resourced from a power perspective last season, launching only 136 long balls as a group—with 28 of those coming from players who are no longer on the roster, in Shin-Soo Choo (16) and Travis Hafner (12).   After losing those two, is it reasonable to think the Indians will boost their home run total year-over-year by 40? [Read more...]

I’ll get to some actual predictions later this week, but today I thought I’d share with you some stat-lines I’ll be paying extra close attention throughout this year.  Think of these as “leading indicators” for how successful each player’s season might be.

Michael Brantley’s On-Base Percentage – Given that he’s been in Cleveland since 2009, it’s pretty easy to forget that Michael Brantley is still fairly young.  Younger than Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana and Justin Masterson.  In fact, the only position player expected to see any regular playing time who’s younger than Brantley is Lonnie Who Loved Baseball, who can barely grow an awesome handlebar mustache.  I guess I just want to point out that any criticisms of Brantley need to be tempered by his obvious though easily forgotten youth.

On the other hand, he’s not twelve.  Michael Brantley will turn 26 in May, and it’s time for him to demonstrate the OBP skill that made him such a valuable prospect in the first place.  For his minor league career, Brantley had a .388 OBP across nearly 2,500 plate appearances.  So far in the Big Leagues, he’s at only .329.  For reference, in 2012 .388 would’ve placed Brantley fifth in the AL in OBP, behind Miguel Cabrera; .329, on the other hand, is right around league average.  Of course, it’s harder to get on base in the Show than it is in the Minors, but if Brantley isn’t going to hit for power (career SLG% .376) or contribute strong defense at a position of need (adequate defensive LFers grow on trees), then he’s going to have to get better at not making outs.  Or he’ll be out of a job. [Read more...]

For the last several years the Indians have sported one of the youngest teams in the Major Leagues. ¹   This youth-movement was more effect than cause; trading off a team’s major league assets in the hopes of rebuilding necessarily results in a young Major League roster.  Couple that with an almost ritualistic (and rational—considering their place on the win-curve) aversion to dabbling in the free agency market, and the Indians played with a day-in, day-out roster that wouldn’t be winning any inter-squad beard-growing competitions, if you get my drift.

Perhaps it is in my nature to be carried along by circumstance, but I often found myself heralding younger players throughout this period—defending them from imaginary criticisms lobbed by no one in particular.  Younger players are more exciting than those old, broken down free agents, dontcha know?  They generate more wins for less money than anyone!  And did I mention the prospects?  MY GOD THE PROSPECTS!! How lucky we all are to live in this Land O’ Cleve, and witness the youngest and most exciting team around! [Read more...]

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1. Averaging baseball-reference’s BatAge and PitchAge—an admittedly crude estimate—suggests that since the beginning of the 2008 season, only three teams have been younger: the Oakland A’s, the Kansas City Royals, and the Florida South Beach Marlins of Miami.  I’ll put the full table beneath this article for your enjoyment, because, well, I like you, man. [back]

I was listening to Craig and Scott on the podcast the other night, and I heard Craig say something about how projecting a player’s performance in any given year seems, to him, a fool’s errand.  He argued that there’s just so much that we don’t know about baseball teams—too many moving parts—and all that stuff we don’t know a lot about can count toward winning games just as much as a player’s prior year wOBA or his ERA or the cut of his jib.  There’s stuff, he said, about team chemistry or lineup protection or the euphoria of playing for a good manager or the simple effects of hope that can help a team win games, and projection systems just can’t (or don’t) account for any of this.

And far be it from me to bash hope.  I like hope.  I’m down with hope.  It’s the new opiate of the masses, and as someone who’s had several minor surgeries in his life, I can assure you that opiates are AWESOME. [Read more...]