I love Francona but I do think he could go a little longer with the starters and help the bullpen a little.

and win Tuesday and Wednesday and probably every other day. Edging out KC is not enough to make the playoffs. mariners and A's are well ahead of us, too.

Love this little writeup on Kluber:

Klubot Locked In



From a guy who was discussed as a possible deadline deal to a player who was once a sidenote in a trade deadline move, Corey Kluber continued his dominant 2014 campaign with another gem Sunday.



The right-hander, who was once part of a three-team deal that included Jake Westbook and Ryan Ludwick, struck out 14 batters for the second consecutive game, limiting the Twins to two runs for his 17th victory. Kluber now leads the majors with 258 strikeouts, pretty good for a guy who had 195 career strikeouts heading into the season.



For his part, Kluber doesn't get too concerned with the specifics.



"When the year is over that's when you'll take a second to look at and appreciate it," Kluber said of the strikeouts. "It's not important right now. It's important that we got the win.



"I don't keep track of the strikeouts (during a game). If they want to swing at the first pitch, and the result is an out, that's fine with me."



Strikeouts are plenty important to his success, though. His 17 wins are a career high, as are almost all his numbers with one start left this season. Another important number: Kluber's 6.5 fWAR, second to only Clayton Kershaw among pitchers.



With one more turn left before the end of the regular season, Kluber might be pitching for another career first -- his first American League Cy Young award.

The emergence of Kluber as an ace, and the emergence of Carrasco, Salazar and even Bauer have me unbelievably geeked about this team for next season and the future.

Bauer as a solid #4 type guy looks good to me! The other 3, well, it goes without saying.

4 young, cheap, great arms - and here for the foreseeable future as well.

We all know the offense needs patching. That's the goal without doubt for next season. Let's quit kidding ourselves that the hitters we have are sufficient. They aren't, and one big imported bat would do the trick in the right spot.

BTW, if you look at Santana's splits for the year, once he moved to 1B he was THE MAN! So leave him there and that spot is golden.

Michael Bourn - OF - Indians

Michael Bourn went 3-for-5 with three runs scored in Sunday's win over the Twins.

The leadoff hitter played catalyst for the Indians offense, scoring in each of the team's three run-scoring innings. Bourn had a double among his three hits, his first three-hit game since August 28. Bourn is hitting .261/.317/.367 overall this year.

By the way, I know this opinion on Bourn will draw disagreement, and deservedly so. But to me, every time he gets going he gets hurt. I don't see this as a negative necessarily though. I do think if he can string together UN-injured time next year, he can serve that role of leadoff hitter, base stealer, and good center fielder. Those guys aren't easy to find.

We're stuck with him anyways, but it could turn out fine. Swisher on the other hand...well...need I say it. OUCH!

OK, even if the knees were responsible for him sucking this year, now what do you do with him next year??? He really can't be trusted for a real role on the team.

I've been relatively satisfied with Bourn's offense; his numbers are about on his career averages, except of course he can't steal bases any more. He probably would be better hitting 9th with someone who can get on base at the top of the order. His defense apparently is statistically way below average and that concerns me more,

and continuing on that offense/defense angle, although I don't disagree with

We all know the offense needs patching

I am more interested in patching the defense to make the pitching even more dominant. I think much of that can be taken care of in house, with Ramirez and Lindor and Urshela manning the left 3/4 of the infield. Chisenhall's bat belongs somewhere, I guess at DH, which doesn't leave room for Kipnis anywhere.

Santana at first, Gomes catching and Brantley in LF or CF are the offensive core. Lindor has more power than expected, at least in AA and AAA he stroked 11 homers and he's still only 20 years old so plenty of development time coming. Urshela had 18 homers and 30+ doubles and half dozen triples in AA/AAA breakout season.

Maybe there's an FA available for a corner OF spot? Otherwise we give looks to Walters, Ramsay and Moncrief, although I don't know if any of them are going to be core hitters.

Assuming he hits as well as in AAA, could Lindor lead off? I kind of agree with Civ that Bourn might do better near the bottom of the order, he strikes out too darn much.

Lindor hasn't walked a lot, but also doesn't strike out a lot. This year at Akron: 61K, 40 BB, for Columbus 36 K/9 BB. Career on base pct is 355. But in assessing all of his stats we need to remember he' always been far younger than the average player in his league. [The closest to average was 2012 in Lake County where he was 3.6 years younger than average player in Low A. This year 4.7 years younger than AA average; and later 6.9 yrs younger than average AAA player]

I wouldn't see him as a leadoff man yet, since good management likes to start a kid off with as little stress as possible. Unfortunately I don't have another leadoff candidate; it could have been Kipnis if he could still hit; or Brantley but he hits too much!

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minor ... ndor000fra

After the Tigers series we were all talking about next year; now we are back to 2014. At least for a few days it will be fun to delay the Hot Stove League

Winning that suspended game and then again tonight will give us a 2 game swing from 3.5 to 1.5 back.

From something I read earlier today.

If the Indians found a way to win their final seven games of the season, they would need at least two of the following scenarios to play out to clinch a Wild Card spot:
1) Mariners lose at least three of final seven.
2) Royals lose at least five of final eight (including four-game sweep by Indians).
3) Athletics lose at least five of final seven.

Seems pretty low in probability but not in possibility.

GO TRIBE!!!

loufla wrote:Seems pretty low in probability but not in possibility.

GO TRIBE!!!

And not Inconceivable!!

Back to next year for a second, totally agree about the defense loufla, that's a big one that was a major buzzkill on this season for this team.

However, to think that Kipnis won't be at 2B next year is a pretty large stretch IMO. I suppose they could switch him back to OF but I do think it's unlikely. But more likely than him not being in the lineup at all though.

He had a promising year last year, and we have all seen oblique injures derail a player's season before. I fear that was the case with Kipnis.

Baron wrote:Winning that suspended game and then again tonight will give us a 2 game swing from 3.5 to 1.5 back.

From something I read earlier today.

If the Indians found a way to win their final seven games of the season, they would need at least two of the following scenarios to play out to clinch a Wild Card spot:
1) Mariners lose at least three of final seven.
2) Royals lose at least five of final eight (including four-game sweep by Indians).
3) Athletics lose at least five of final seven.

Of those three, I think #1 is the most likely, followed by #3