Great season, Indians!

I am writing this three days early to beat the rush.   The Indians are very likely not to make the playoffs.

However, that, in no way, talks about the success they had this season.  Granted, if you remove the games against Detroit and Kansas City (30-8) they would only be 5 games over .500.   Still, when you look at their record against the AL division champions (Yankees, Twins and Astros) they are 16-15.  Where they have fallen down is mainly against the A's and Rays where they are 2-11 which appropriately, I guess, means that they really shouldn't be in the playoffs over those two teams who, frankly, both play in better divisions than the Indians do.

I hate whining about injuries and breaks although the Indians have had their share of bad things happen.  When you look at how the Indians, Rays, Twins and Oakland played down the stretch, clearly the last 3 teams won those close games the Indians lost and rallied from behind so many times I probably doubled my gray hair just watching and hoping they would lose only to be disappointed in the last or next to last inning of a LOT of the Rays, As and Twins games.   Basically, it was the Twins' year.   Most things broke well for them and they took care of business against the weakest teams, something the Indians did not do against the White Sox (8-11).

Still, if you are an Indians fan you should really be happy with this season.   I am OK with not having a wildcard game loss or a 3-0 exit against the Astros or Yankees, although I think we could have easily upset the Yankees.  We would need it to be 'our year' to get to the World Series with everything having to fall into place down the stretch, which it didn't.  Hand going south and Ramirez getting hurt really, for all practical purposes, ended our season.   With all the other injuries we had those last two were just too much.   Again, just not our year!

Kudos to the front office though.   They brought in Puig who gave us hope for 2019 and they brought in Reyes, Allen and Moss who give us hope for the future. Losing Puig is a big deal but we have bodies to cover that.    

The front office still has work to do, though.   Bauers is looking like a bust while Yandy Diaz, is looking like the one that got away and, had he not gotten hurt, would look even MORE like that. The Luplow trade is looking a little better than it did when it was made but frankly, time will tell on that one as Gonzalez was hurt most of the year for the Pirates and, frankly, probably cost the Pirates any chance to make the playoffs as unlikely as that sounds to you.

Kudos to the player development people for drafting and developing pitchers.   Still, on the hitter side they have a lot of work to do as Nolan Jones, Will Benson and Bobby Bradley still have significant work to do before they can help us.  Right now, only Freeman looks like a sure-fire thing although Jones is looking more like one, although he might have to move to the OF or first base which would put more pressure on his bat that it currently projects to produce.  Plus Bradley not being called up late in the year could be a red flag on his worth to the team.   The fact that they traded for Arroyo and Valesquez and brought up Flaherty in September is also telling.  I don't know how much they think of Mark Mathias as bringing him up would have made sense as they have to make a Rule 5 decision on him this off-season.   As Ernie Clement is not eligible for the Rule 5 this off-season I get not bringing him up for 40-man roster management.   Still, as we head to this last weekend with Kipnis hurt and Chang struggling, I would have liked to see both Clement and Mathias get their cup of coffee in.  Now that we are backed up with utility infielders with ML experience it is tough to see either of them getting much of a shot next year.  Honestly I think Clement would have had more of a positive impact on this team than Flaherty did and I am 50-50 whether Mathias with youthful energy and lack of knowing the gravity of his situation on his side would have been better than the non-factor Flaherty was.

As far as young pitching, we saw as much this year as we could possibly have hoped to see.     Karinchak getting his cup of coffee and all the other young guys being brought up and performing well was perfect.   Given the injuries to Sandlin, Cam Hill, and McKenzie, and their resultant unavailability for an August or September callup, we have established a good, young core of pitchers in the future with more pitchers, if they can avoid surgeries, on the cusp of getting promoted.

Coming up next: my end of season top 50 Indians prospects.  Stay tuned.