2016 NFL Draft: The Cleveland Browns should trade down – WFNY Podcast No. 476
April 1, 2016Jerry Jones believes Jimmy Haslam is one of the best owners in the NFL
April 1, 2016Last year for April Fool’s Day, the WFNY team created a handful of fake, only slightly exaggerated headlines and features — including at least one character sketch of a Keanu Reeves character — for reader consumption. We really got into the spirit of the holiday, as much as being a bunch of wise asses can embody “the spirit” of anything. I’m certain we enjoyed doing it 100 times more than did the readers who come to WFNY with their morning coffee to see what kind of shenanigans the Browns have been into. This year, the team declined to duplicate the April Fool’s effort having wasted the novelty of it.
However — at the insistence of Michael Bode at WFNY — I’m writing a preview post about baseball, which is probably funnier than anything I did last year for the sake of comedy on April Fool’s Day. The thing is, I know very little about baseball. I follow the Indians (largely with the help of Michael Bode and Andrew Clayman at WFNY), but I’m seldom able to watch them. I follow the Indians at such a physical and emotional distance, and with such minimal effort, that no information on the other 15 teams (wait, what, there’s 29?) seeps into my brain, even on accident.
What I’m saying is that I’m wildly uneducated about baseball. This post is the most uninformed thing you’ll see or hear about baseball today, with the exception of everything on Twitter and everything in ESPN’s Afternoon Squawk-Block. Asking me to write about baseball is like asking J.R. Smith to play third base for the Indians — a middling talent in the wrong sport.
It wasn’t always this way (he said whilst clearing his throat, stalling like an eighth grader giving a book report having never read The Grapes of Wrath). Baseball was my first love. I remember crying when the Indians lost the 1997 World Series (hey, I was eight years old), bouncing ground balls off the cinder block walls in our unfinished basement between exposed wiring and 2x4s, having my eyes opened to the world of sports as life and life as celebration when I went to Opening Day with my dad.
But eventually basketball and football bullied their way into the picture. I realized I sucked at baseball, become more infatuated with other sports, and life took over. Other extracurriculars, schoolwork (damn learnding!), then college and work. Now, it’s basically impossible for me to follow baseball with a discerning and attentive eye. Things get in the way: a full-time and (relatively) demanding job, other work, miscellaneous professional obligations, other activities to advance one’s career, something resembling a social life, exercise so I don’t turn into a sedentary pile of goo, chores to maintain the illusion of a home (at least until the clothes and dishes begin to pile up again), bodily functions like sleeping, feeding myself, touring with the French Foreign Legion (not real), night-time vigilante crime-fighting (also not real), and my second life as an eccentric yet charismatic leader of a polygamist cult that worships Callisto, the fourth moon of Jupiter (definitely not real … as far as you know).
My point is, cuts had to be made. And baseball didn’t make it. Baseball was cut from the daily life routine; and with it college basketball, video games, and lots of bad television. Life is hard, even if mine is pretty easy.
So, what to write about as someone who knows little to nothing about baseball? I follow the Indians because I still like baseball (as much as someone who’s basically abandoned it, anyway). But I mostly follow the Indians out of a sense of duty, loyalty, and nostalgia. As Clevelanders, we only get three entrants into the Championship Lottery each year, and I don’t want to miss miss if the Indians’ name is called. The Indians don’t need to win the World Series for their season to be meaningful or entertaining. But I need to believe they could win the whole damn thing. It’s just easier to lie to myself than to contemplate why I spend so much time and effort following these poor, doomed teams.
As most fans do already, I need to delude myself into thinking the Indians can win a championship. And unbound by obstructions such as reason or honesty that limit any expert or honest educated observer, I can do just that. Won’t you join me? While knowledge about the Kansas City Royals and Toronto Blue Jays may give WFNY’s baseball writers pause when exclaiming the Indians fit for a championship — just as my knowledge of the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors hinders my ability to dream about the Cleveland Cavaliers — I’m liberated from this knowledge! I’m undaunted! In the world of baseball, I’m intrepidly stupid! As they say, ignorance is bliss, and I’m the most ignorant sonovabitch on earth when it comes to baseball. So, let’s get irrational! Working backwards so the Indians will qualify, here are my criteria for a World Series champion.
The Ingredients for a World Series Champion
Starting Pitching – Projected Starting Pitching WAR over 12.0
It turns out starting pitching isn’t a necessity to make the World Series. Only six of the last 10 pennant winners have had a top 15 starting pitching staff, according to WAR.1 Three of the last five World Series winners have had a WAR of below 12.0 on their starting staff. But we’re including this criteria anyway! Because if you’re deluding yourself into a Cleveland Indians World Series, then your starting point is that starting pitching is the key to success, because the Indians have a projected top-five rotation in 2016 with a WAR of 17.5, according to FanGraphs.2 It’s a great staff on paper, with Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, Carlos Carrasco, Cody Anderson, and Josh Tomlin pitching most first innings. Here’s to hoping the Indians have great starting pitching, and that it can help them get to the biggest show in the big show.
Consistent Mediocrity or Recent Dominance (AKA Recent History of Non-Suckitude) – More than 250 team wins over the last three seasons
The Indians haven’t brought home any jewelry in the past … 67 years (not that anyone’s counting). However, they haven’t sucked in recent seasons. They’ve been, like any long-term relationship partner, reliably mediocre. We’ll take it. From 2011 to 2015, six of the ten World Series participants won 250 games in the preceding three seasons. That’s between 80 and 85 wins per season (83.3 to be more precise).
Teams don’t often come from nowhere to win a championship. (Sorry, Seattle.) Four of the last five World Series Champions entered that season in the top half of combined wins in the three prior seasons. I don’t even care if the 2015 Royals and 2015 Mets are both obvious counterexamples to this corollary — I like this criteria. And the Indians — with spectacularly average-to-above-average campaigns of 81, 85, and 92 wins over the last three seasons — qualify with 258 wins since 2013.
Multiple Lindors – More than one .300 hitters3
Obviously, there’s only one Francisco Lindor in Major League Baseball — and he plays for the Cleveland Indians. Other teams have fellas who can hit like him and fellas who can field like him. Hell, some might even have guys who can do both.4 But no other team has a guy with that winning hitting, winning fielding, and winning smile. Lindor has an infectious enthusiasm that’s terribly out of place in the cynical business of professional sports. The actors in Crest advertisements are jealous of that Lindor smile.
But because it would be unfair even under these rigged circumstances to disqualify every team in baseball for its irreparable lack of Lindors, I focused on Frankie’s hitting, particularly his over .300 (.313) batting average. Jason Kipnis, Michael Brantley, and Francisco Lindor all hit over .300 last season. (Before 2015, Michael Brantley in 2014 was the only Indian to reach the .300 mark since since Shin-Soo Choo in 2010.)
I know focusing on batting average is old-fashioned when we have new things like WAR, OPS+ and R2D2,5 but I still open the car door for my lady-friends and I still think there’s something to be said about having a .300 hitter. It’s something as a baseball fan that you can count on … a guy in the lineup that’s not an easy out. I love having that .300 hitter in the hole down one run in innings seven-to-nine. It feels safe and dependable, like ordering a cheeseburger at an unfamiliar restaurant. It probably wont’ be a disaster. That’s why it’s important to have more than one .300 hitter in the lineup, and why it’s good that the Indians had three last season.6
There have been only 154 players to have a batting average of over .300 with 300 or more at-bats in a season since 2010. That sounds like a lot, but only 41 teams have had multiple .300 hitters in that same span — which is less than nine per season.7 But seven of the last 10 pennant winners have had multiple Lindors (.300 hitters), and nine of the last 10 have had at least one .300 hitter, something the Indians have had in only two of the last five seasons, but hopefully they have in abundance in 2016. The table below shows how the last World Series participants over the last five seasons have compared with my proposed criteria.
Results
When throwing all our criteria into the Kitchen-Aid mixer with some eggs and baking powder,8 we find that only two teams meet all of the criteria I made up for a world champion: the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Nationals. The results are summarized in the Venn diagram and table below.
So, there you have it. All it took was one man with some really bad ideas, an internet connection, a spreadsheet, and some mental gymnastics, and suddenly the Indians are of the two teams in the league with a chance to win the World Series. It was convoluted, contrived, and utterly desperate; but given the last 50 years of Cleveland sports history, I’ll take those odds. Enjoy Opening Day on Monday, folks. Don’t forget to call off work.
- Wins Above Replacement. I have no idea how it is calculated. [↩]
- Trevor Bauer’s move to the bullpen no doubt changes this calculus; though for good or bad I can’t say. Bauer was the Indians’ most uneven starter last year. The move might lower the starters’ ceiling, but raise the floor. [↩]
- With 300 or more at-bats. [↩]
- Mr. Trout comes to mind. [↩]
- Not actually a thing … I think. [↩]
- I’m relying on last year’s hitting numbers for projecting 2016, which is a big assumption given how much hitting numbers can fluctuate. But as far as the Indians go, they had three .300 hitters last season, and it’s not a huge leap to project that two of them repeat the feat. As for rookies, only five players, including Lindor, have hit over .300 with 300 AB as rookies, so I don’t feel it’s unforgivable to neglect them. None of the qualifying rookies played for pennant winners. [↩]
- If someone switched teams midseason, I gave both teams credit for having that player on the roster. [↩]
- Read: Microsoft Excel, with lots of nonsense and gibberish. [↩]
13 Comments
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/07/fa/f7/07faf774e3bda43ba9a1b7e9f61b04f5.jpg
.. .
Dr. Jan Itor!
I think you are onto something here. ESPN agrees with you on the Nationals and everyone is still hurt by their 2015 projections to pick the Indians.
https://twitter.com/chucksapienza/status/715962511380652033
I’ll be happy with a .500 or better April. Baby steps.
.500 or better in April last year would have been 11-10, 4 games better than we were making 85 wins for the year (all else staying the same) and 1 harsh game out of the Wild Card (Astros won 86 games) except it would have setup Game 162 that we didn’t play.
So, we would have had a calvacade playoff.
Game 162 – win and go to
Wild Card Game – win and go to
ALDS
Man, that April…I blame Swish.
Looking at the ’15 April Fool’s links…that was the first “movie quote extravaganza” article that I did. So, all who hate those from me can blame that series for them.
Dammit Bode, I said baby steps. You already have us do or die in game 162.
🙂
I blame Swish
No, that is what would have happened in 2015. We would have had to play Game 162 as a do-or-die game.
Wait, I messed up, we would have then tied the Astros, so we would have had to play them in a do-or-die game. So…
Game 162 – win and go to…
WC Play-In vs Astros – win and go to…
WC Game vs Yankees – win and go to…
ALDS
I still blame Swish.
https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E03/920518.jpg?b64lines=ICggZ2FzcGluZykgSSBHT1QgSElNISBOTywKIERPTidUIExPT0sgRk9SIFRIRQogQlJPLg==
I am getting a salary of 7100 dollars each week. Over a year ago I was in a horrible condition , jobless and no bank credit ..ad Thanks to one of my friends who showed me a way where I was able to gather myself and making average of 58 d/h. So it can change your life as it has changed mine. Why not try this.
Look here for details
sw…
Finally some statistics I can get behind.
PS: Carlos Santana sucks.