MLB ’16 Comeback Candidates: Cleveland Indians

Our next subject in the continuing 2016 MLB Comeback Candidates series is the team that Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci picked — and therefore jinxed — to win the World Series in 2015. That would be the Cleveland Indians, whose championship-starved fans were forced to wait at least one more year after a mediocre Tribe season (and a heartbreaking loss by the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals). The Indians have one of the game’s best rotations in place, but will that be enough to get them over the hump in 2016?

The Lowdown

A 7-14 record in the month of April put the Indians behind the eight-ball, but a sweep of the Boston Red Sox in the final series allowed them to finish just over .500 at 81-80. Don’t blame the pitching staff, which finished eighth in all of baseball in ERA. The bullpen was particularly stout, posting the fourth-best ERA in MLB, while the rotation was 10th. The rotation gave manager Terry Francona enough length to where the bullpen pitched the second-fewest innings in baseball. Unfortunately, the lineup lacked pop, finishing 18th in runs scored and 22nd in home runs. The team went just 15-18 in one-run games and finished with a losing record at home (39-41).

Reasons for Hope

Pitching, particularly starting pitching. Corey Kluber incurred some hard luck coming off a Cy Young season, going just 9-16 despite posting a 3.49 and finishing third in the American League with 245 strikeouts in a league-leading 222 innings pitched. Kluber is the grizzled veteran of the staff at just 29 years of age (he’ll turn 30 in April), with Carlos Carrasco (28), Danny Salazar (25), Trevor Bauer (24) and Cody Anderson (24) all in or approaching the primes of their careers. The Indians led the AL in strikeouts, with three of their starters averaging more than a strikeout per inning. Closer Cody Allen notched 34 saves while whiffing 99 batters in just 69 1/3 innings. If he doesn’t crack the rotation, the Indians have an outstanding swingman in Josh Tomlin, who was 7-2 with a 3.02 ERA in 10 starts last year. The offense has some centerpieces in place, namely outfielder Michael Brantley, second baseman Jason Kipnis, and shortstop Francisco Lindor, but the rest of the lineup needs to produce more. Lindor is the complete package and should put up big numbers in his first full year in the big leagues.

Reasons for Doubt

Brantley will miss at least a month at the beginning of the year after offseason shoulder surgery, which could very well hamper Cleveland’s offense. Since the beginning of the 2014 season, Brantley leads all MLB left-fielders in batting average, on-base percentage, and WRC+ and is second in slugging percentage. Catcher Yan Gomes’ production suffered during an injury-riddled campaign, and the team lost some significant pop when it traded Brandon Moss to St. Louis last summer. Mike Napoli was brought in via free agency, but like Carlos Santana, he strikes out quite a bit and likely will not provide much in terms of average.

Will they or won’t they?

Despite so many things seemingly going wrong in 2015, the Indians managed to post a winning season for the third straight year, the first time the franchise has done that since 1999-2001. The AL Central is not a particularly rugged division; the Kansas City Royals are the defending World Series champs, but the other three teams all enter 2016 with major question marks of their own. The Brantley injury could be detrimental depending on how much time he misses, but if the pitching staff delivers again the way it did last year, the Indians should at least be in line to grab a wild card spot.