Win one, did the Kipper: Jason Kipnis wins AL Player of the Month
June 3, 2015Ball Played: Corey’s special Ks not enough in KC
June 4, 2015Happy Thursday, Blawg Pound! The Draft is Thursday. Wait, that’s not right. Well, it is and it isn’t. Yes, the NBA Draft is on a Thursday, June 25th, three weeks from now. But, The Finals are Thursday. Today is Thursday. The Finals are today! The Cavs are in them!
The best way to describe my disposition for the last six or seven weeks has been nervous excitement. It’s that constant buzz of Cavs talk around the water cooler and extended family gatherings that lay dormant for four long years. For four years, us Cavs bloggers hummed around the Twitterverse, the blogosphere, and any other combination buzzword you can think of to describe this corner of the internet. We talked about NBA Drafts, cap-saving trades, player development, film rooms, Spurs models, Thunder models, and any other model you could think of. And it was all simultaneously incredibly meaningful and painfully devoid of purpose.
I’m not sure the Cavaliers are going to win the title. The Warriors are heavy favorites, and they haven’t shown many cracks in the postseason. But, this feels different from that 2007 Finals trip or those other efforts that came up short. Those teams were very good in their own right, and the last thing I want to do is devalue those teams’ role in getting us to where we are today. But, the Cavs are not facing a team that overshadows them in playoff experience. The Warriors are very, very good, but they’re figuring all of this out on the fly with a rookie head coach and players making their first Finals appearances much like the Cavaliers are. These teams are on equal ground, and I think this series will show that.
Ahead of whatever will unfold over the next two weeks, my only advice from fan to fan is to take it all in as much as you can. Remember this feeling. Don’t forget what it feels like to be playing in a championship round. In 2007, the Cavaliers were a bit ahead of schedule when they made the Finals, and it was granted that they would be back as LeBron matured and the team evolved. Only, they didn’t make it back. Through several iterations, the Cavaliers lost to the Celtics twice in the second round and once to the Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals. I don’t think this will be the last time LeBron leads the Cavs to The Finals. But, you just never know. Being ahead of schedule doesn’t mean the Cavaliers can’t win this series. Love, Varejao, and Irving’s injuries aside, the eight (or seven and a half) the Cavaliers do have available to play are capable of the task at hand.
You guys can read my Finals preview later today on these pages. You can also take a run through my film room dissecting how the two teams can guard the other’s MVP. You can also check out the fascinating work this week from Will, Kyle, Jacob, Josh, Corey, Joe, Scott, Clayman, and Craig. We’ve been running with this postseason coverage full tilt. I’ve already done twice as many film rooms in the postseason as I did all regular season. It’s been exhausting but incredibly rewarding.
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OK, so I lied in the title. I’ll dabble in something else briefly. Hey, in case you haven’t noticed, and judging by the attendance, you haven’t.. the Indians have managed to win a few and are threatening to climb into the race!
I’m encouraged by a lot of things, including the break on Cody Allen’s breaking ball, the scorching bat of Jason Kipnis, the illogically productive platoon of Ryvid Rabphy, and even the pulse from Michael Bourn in the month of May. One thing that continues to eat away at #IndiansTwitter almost universally, however, has been the production (or lack thereof) from shortstop Jose Ramirez. Ramirez has been, in a word, dreadful.
In that dreadfulness, however, comes an unquenchable bloodthirst for Francisco Lindor in a Cleveland Indians uniform. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of Lindor. I think he’s going to be as good as advertised. But, I don’t see the immediate need to promote him. People see Ramirez’s numbers, and they fail to look at what Lindor is doing in his age-21 season down in Triple-A Columbus. Through the end of May, Lindor was hitting just .238 with a .677 OPS and in the midst of a 5-for-38 slump. Five hits in the last three days have raised his average to .260, but fans need to remember that Lindor has only been at Triple-A since July 22nd of last year. He’s just 8-for-14 in stolen base attempts, and he has eight errors in the first two months.
Lindor is right where he is supposed to be. Ramirez’s struggles shouldn’t force the Indians to promote Lindor before he can make an impact. You don’t yo-yo a player like Lindor. When he’s here, he’s not going back to the minors, so why not make sure he’s equipped to handle the big show? The Indians have a capable shortstop who can and should be taking more and more plate appearances from Ramirez in Mike Aviles.
Lindor will be free soon enough. Let’s not act like this is Kris Bryant being sent down at the start of the season. Yet.
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Some links for your Thursday morning coffee:
A 42-year-old, 6-1 guy had an obsession with dunking. Sports Illustrated and Michael McKnight followed his journey, and it is all kinds of awesome to watch his progression to the finished product.
As mentioned above, sometimes the next opportunity never comes. Dan Marino knows all too well, per Greg Bishop of SI.
This NBA on NBC (who doesn’t love that song?!) modernized Finals preview is guaranteed to give you a tingle or two ahead of tonight’s game.
Andrew Sharp of Grantland talks about LeBron the underdog in this series and the ease of rooting for him in this role.
I’ve been saying it for most of the year on Twitter. #LOBOB = Larry O’Brien or bust. Now, that notion is a reality. The Cavs are there, four short wins from unimaginable joy. Go Cavs!
13 Comments
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-w45zXvEZuxY/VTr0wOrC30I/AAAAAAAANJQ/wFldkEpgzaE/s1600/lets-do-this-ucas-gif.gif
Indians talk from Kirk!!!!
And, TD brought up a great point on Ramirez. Just put Aviles there for now and send him down to wherever you can find Jose at bats. I agree with both of you that Lindor is where he should be and it’s silly to rush the process. People are worried about a few games out of 162 when we need to worry about his whole career development.
Agree about not assuming we’re in line for multiple Finals appearances. Next year the path may be more difficult, the personnel different and the care-free “All In” chemistry replaced with something a little more tense and desperate. I was sure the talented, lovable ’95 Indians were destined for a championship. And none of us expected the ’97 Indians, with a less than stellar record and plug-ins like Grissom and Matt Williams, would upset NY and make the series.
Losing these Finals won’t crush me. But it sure would be good to get it when we find ourselves just 4 games away. Why not us, for once.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA
Just really feels to me that we;ll know by Sunday night. 1-1? I really like their chances to repeat whatever is working, at home. (Lebron’s jumper/dominance on the glass/Irving/etc.) 0-2? They’re probably getting torched by the three, or James cant hit a shot, and they;re not going 4-2 the rest of the way.
Common sense on Lindor? How dare you sir!
Haha I joke, but mostly because he will stink. Like all of our home-grown non-pitching prospects. We are great at hyping them and we all buy in, only to see them absolutely wither in the bright-lights of the bigs. It’d be nice to be proven wrong on this one especially though since it seems like we’ve been looking for an SS since Omar.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cabreas01.shtml
Asdrubal spent the majority of his developmental days in Seattle’s organization. So some don’t see him as a “home-grown” guy.
I’m sure there are other more obvious exceptions to Hopwin’s point, but I can’t be bothered thinking of any since I’m so busy checking who won AL Player of the Month honors for May.
WFNY got a mention from Windy (11th paragraph down): http://espn.go.com/blog/cleveland-cavaliers/post/_/id/1020/clevelands-elephant-in-the-room
“The most popular blog on Cleveland sports is called Waiting For Next Year, which might as well be a city motto.”
That’s a backhanded compliment by the rotund one!
I was just responding to Hop mentioning how long we’ve been looking for a SS. We have had 2 all-star shortstops in Peralta and Asdrubal since Omar days. Jhonny was even homegrown if you want to look for a homegrown non-pitching prospect! Granted that was a long time ago, but it bothers me when people don’t realize how good the Indians SS have been since 2003. No reason to think Lindor won’t carry the torch
Peralta and Ascab made it on offense, never on defense. Click over to their defense stats and it paints a different picture.
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