What Should Indians Expect in Rematch with Kansas City Royals?
When the Cleveland Indians and newly acquired right fielder Kosuke Fukudome take the field Friday night, they’ll get to face off against a familiar opponent: the Kansas City Royals.
The scuffling Indians haven’t won a series in almost a month (they took 2 of 3 from the Yankees, July 4-6), but they’ve got a good shot at turning that around against the Royals (44-61, 11 GB). Cleveland is 7-2 against Kansas City this year, and the Indians have taken five in a row against the Royals.
To get a better idea of what the Indians should expect from their weekend guests, I sat down (metaphorically speaking) with RoyalsAuthority.com‘s Clark Fosler to talk about Alex Gordon’s breakout year, Billy Butler’s ceiling, and who Kansas City could be selling at the trade deadline. Here’s what he had to say:
WAHOO BLUES: The trade deadline is three days away, and while the Royals have already traded Wlson Betemit, a number of other Kansas City players have been mentioned as being on the block. Who do you expect to see traded? Are there any particular prospects you’d want to target in return?
CLARK FOSLER: Royals GM Dayton Moore has set a pretty steep asking price for many of his more ‘tradeable’ players. The price for either Melky Cabrera or Jeff Francouer is a near major league ready starting pitcher, so they are likely to stay put unless some team gets really desperate. The Joakim Soria rumors have subsided as well. Right now, Jeff Francis is the most likely to go (Bruce Chen is available, too), but other than a very small Francis to Arizona rumor a week ago, there is not real news on that front. Moore has always and is likely going to continue to trade for young pitchers, but would seem unwilling to give up enough to warrant a true ‘prospect’ in return.
WAHOO BLUES: The Royals have an extremely impressive-looking collection of prospects and young players. When do you expect the next Kansas City dynasty to rise? (more…)
Cleveland Indians’ Playoff Odds Rise to Nearly 1 in 4
Say what you want about the Cleveland Indians’ June swoon or the holes in the lineup or the fact that nothing ever goes right for Cleveland sports teams, but we’re well into the second half of the season and the Indians are in first place in the AL Central.
Not just tied for first place, or effectively tied for first place with an infinitesimally small advantage in winning percentage. If the season ended today there would be no ambiguity and no need for a tiebreaker. The Tribe would win the division.
As a result, while the Indians’ playoff odds still might not be as high as we’d like them to be, they’re at least heading in the right direction. (more…)
What Would It Take For Cleveland Indians to Blow Their Division Lead?
It was a rough road trip for the Cleveland Indians.
After losing two of three in Tampa Bay last weekend, the Tribe got throttled 11-1 in the series opener against the Blue Jays and came frighteningly close to blowing a 12-0 lead in Toronto last night. Even with the reigning AL champion Texas Rangers coming to town for a four-game series starting tonight, I’m guessing the Indians are glad to be home.
But rough as the road trip may have been, Cleveland emerged once again in possession of the best record in baseball (33-20). And though the Tribe’s lead over the second-place Detroit Tigers in the AL Central has dwindled from its peak (Detroit was seven games back on May 23), the five-game difference is still double the advantage of the next-best division leader.
With one third of the season now in the books, it seemed as good a time as any to once again test just how big of an impact the Indians’ division lead will make on the pennant race.
I calculated how many games the Tribe would win under five different circumstances, from extremely skeptical to overly optimistic. I then determined how well the Tigers (29-26, five games back), Chicago White Sox (27-31, 8.5 GB), Kansas City Royals (25-30, 9 GB) and Minnesota Twins (17-37, 16.5 GB) would have to play in order to wrest first place from the Indians.
If the Indians play .451 ball (FanGraphs’ preseason Fan Projections), they will win 82 games. In order to get to 83 wins:
- Detroit Tigers—would need a .505 winning percentage
- Chicago White Sox—.538
- Kansas City Royals—.542
- Minnesota Twins—.611 (more…)
What Would it Take for Cleveland Indians to Lose Division Lead?
After yesterday’s 12-4 shellacking of the Cincinnati Reds, the Cleveland Indians have the best record in baseball (29-15). They also have the best run differential (+66) in baseball. And, most importantly, the Indians have the biggest division lead in baseball.
Cleveland has seven games on the second-place Detroit Tigers (23-23). The next-biggest lead a division leader has is the Giants‘ 3.5-game edge over the Rockies, which is half the size of the Tribe’s lead.
The gap between the Indians and the Tigers is as big as or bigger than the differences between the first- and last-place teams in more than half of the game’s other divisions. The Phillies have a 7.0-game lead over the Nationals in the NL East; the AL East-leading Yankees have just four games on the last-place Orioles; and the AL West-leading Rangers are just two games ahead of the cellar-dwelling Athletics.
When assessing the Indians’ ability to prolong the season into October, it’s not just a matter of whether or not they can keep up their torrid pace—it’s about whether any of the other four teams can make up for their already-lost ground.
Here’s a look at six different scenarios for the Indians’ rest-of-season record, along with my calculations of how well the Tigers, Royals, White Sox, and Twins would have to play in order to overtake the Tribe.
If the Indians play .459 ball (Baseball Prospectus’ true-talent winning percentage projection on Sunday) they will win 83 games. In order to get to 84 wins:
- Detroit Tigers—would need a .526 winning percentage
- Kansas City Royals—.534
- Chicago White Sox—.544
- Minnesota Twins—.590 (more…)
How Secure is Cleveland Indians’ Division Lead?
The Cleveland Indians are in pretty good shape. Against all odds, they have the best record and run differential in baseball. And, most importantly as the Tribe fans look toward the playoffs, the Indians’ five-game lead in the AL Central is the biggest advantage of any first-place team—no other division leader has more than a two-game lead.
The question is, how much of a difference does the Indians’ lead make? To find an answer, I calculated end-of-season results for the Tribe for five different expected winning percentages going forward, and figured out how well the other four AL Central teams would have to play in order to usurp Cleveland’s place. Here are the results:
If the Indians play .461 ball (Baseball Prospectus’ projection on Tuesday) they will win 83 games. In order to get to 84 wins:
- Detroit Tigers—would need a .512 winning percentage
- Kansas City Royals—.529
- Chicago White Sox—.555
- Minnesota Twins—.582
In this pessimistic scenario, the Tribe doesn’t have a very good chance to get to October. The Tigers are playing .537 ball right now, so they’ll definitely pass the Indians if they play this poorly going forward. It’s at least somewhat plausible that the Royals could do this—remember, they were over .500 until the start of this series.
The White Sox certainly have the talent to play .555 ball, and the Twins—well, it’s theoretically possible if Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Francisco Liriano all return to form. It’s hard to see Cleveland taking the division in this scenario, and an 83-win team won’t be the Wild Card.
If the Indians play .500 ball, they will win 88 games. In order to get to 89 wins: (more…)
