Cleveland Sports Forum

This is a fantasy baseball article.

Which Former Met will be the Tribe Starting SS?

Of the two shortstops that the Indians acquired from the Mets in exchange for Francisco Lindor this winter, Amed Rosario would seem to be the favorite to open the season as the starter considering his experience advantage over Andres Gimenez. Rosario had a breakout 2019 in which he hit .287 with 15 HR's and 19 SB's, but took a big step back in 2020, slashing .252/.272/.371 with just 4 HR's and not a single SB in 46 games. Nearly all of his metrics declined - His K% rose 4%, his HardHit% dropped by 6%, his EV fell by 3 MPH, and his Launch Angle plummeted from 8.8 to 4.2 degrees. With an ADP of 330, fantasy owners apparently either believe his 2019 was an aberration, or that he won't end up being an everyday starter. Both of things are possible, but an argument can also be made that his 157-game sample in 2019 should outweigh the 46-game sample from 2020. If he does play every day, double-digit HR's and SB's and a decent BA are reasonable expectations, which makes Rosario a solid option if you still need to fill a MI slot in the final rounds of the draft.

Andres Gimenez has gotten off to good start this spring, going 4-7 with a HR and a 3B in the early going. While he only has 49 big-league games under his belt, a strong spring could allow Gimenez to challenge Rosario for the Indians' SS job. Gimenez has never shown much power, but he makes decent contact (21.2% K% last season) and more importantly for fantasy owners, he steals a lot bases. Gimenez combined for 66 SB's in the minors from 2018-19 before swiping 8 bags with the Mets in the abridged 2020 season. If he indeed plays regularly, he's worth a look based on his steals alone, but at this point, that's still a big if.

Who Will Round-Out the Indians' Rotation?

Even after trading four frontline pitchers over the past two years (Bauer, Kluber, Clevinger, and Carrasco), the Indians still look primed to have a strong rotation in 2020. The team seems to have a knack at developing starting pitchers, with their current top-4 starters (Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Zack Plesac, and Triston McKenzie) all having emerged over the past 3 seasons. The #5 starter has not yet been determined, but considering the recent track record, every Tribe SP needs to be looked at closely.

Cal Quantrill came over from the Padres in the middle of last season, and pitched well in 2020 (both with SD and CLE) recording a 2.25 ERA with a 31:8 K:BB across 32 IP. Most of that work came in relief, although he did make 3 starts in which his ERA was a shiny 1.69. The Indians are considering him for the 5th spot in their rotation, but he didn't go more than 4 IP in any of his starts last year. He did make 18 starts for the Padres in 2019, recording a 5.69 ERA, 4.59 xFIP, and 1.35 WHIP as a starter. While his ERA dropped significantly last season, his xFIP only fell slightly to 4.27. In short, Quantrill has yet to prove that he can be an above average big-league starter, although this year may be his chance to do just that.

Logan Allen, another former Padre, appears to be Quantrill's main competition for the rotation spot. Allen struck out 2 in 2 scoreless IP in his Spring debut, but has struggled mightily in two MLB seasons, with a career 5.40 ERA, 5.35 xFIP, and an ugly 24:20 K:BB across 38.1 IP. If you're looking for a bright spot, he does have a 48.85 GB%, but other than that, he's statistically been pretty bad. That said, Allen has been considered a pretty good prospect and the Indians have done a good job at getting their young pitchers to succeed, so don't give up all hope yet. Right now though, he's still probably behind Quantrill for a spot in the rotation.

Adam Plutko could also be a rotation option for the Tribe, having made 36 starts for the Indians over the past 3 seasons. Plutko has a longer track than either Quantrill or Allen, but that could actually work against him as he a long track record of mediocrity. He has a career 5.05 ERA (5.58 xFIP) and 6.46 K/9, and the latter number was even worse in 2020 (4.88 K/9). To make matters worse, Plutko has a career 49.8% FB% and 21.6 LA which have led to a disastrous 2.03 HR/9. Unless there's an injury, the Indians are more likely to leave Plutko in the bullpen, and give the starting job to pitcher with a bit more upside.

There are some good insights there but in the case of Gimenez vs Amed Rosario I do think the fantasy side might have taken over.

The Tribe (look at that Roberto Perez contract) are smart in valuing defense. Look if you are going to be a pitching organization then you have to be a defense organization.

I will say this. Tito knows talent. So now that he is getting a sniff of Gimenez in live action he'll do the right thing,

how about defense in the OF? Are any of the candidates good defenders? Maybe Zimmer. Rosario? Naylor? Luplow? Mercado was only so so. Johnson?

Actually Johnson was supposed to be the best defender - RF - cannon arm. But that could be Naylor there.

Billy Hamilton would be by far the best fielding CF but i doubt he makes the team.

Letters From Spring: You can’t count Cleveland out
By Joe Posnanski Mar 10, 2021 141
For the next 30 or so days — weekends off so my family doesn’t leave me — we’re going to try to take a little baseball tour. Thirty teams. Thirty days. Thirty reports. In these hopefully dwindling days of COVID-19, I’m not going to actually go to the spring training sites. This will be a tour of the mind, a love letter to baseball’s history and future. We’re going to count these essays down from 30 to 1, worst team to best as I see it going into 2021. Coming in at No. 17 is Cleveland.

Cleveland
Established: 1901 (as Cleveland Blues, then Bronchos, then Naps, then Indians, then …)

Nickname quality (scale of 1-10): N/A

Well, they will be tentatively known as the Cleveland Indians for one more year and then the name will be changed to … something. If you were following along with The Athletic’s nickname contest, you know that they started with 16 names of various quality. In the first round, Comets, Rocks, Rockers, Grays, Blue Sox, Baseball Club, Buckeyes and Cuyahogas got knocked out. I generally agree with voters — I’ve decided it’s smart to avoid any corny name connecting to rock ‘n’ roll* — but I was sad to see Buckeyes get knocked out so early. Yes, I do realize that Buckeyes has no chance (either in the poll or real life) because Ohio State already has the name. But Cleveland Buckeyes was the name of the Negro Leagues team, and there would be something fitting about the city that played such a big role in the integration of Major League Baseball paying tribute to those teams.

Anyway, like I said, it had no chance because of Ohio State.

*As a Clevelander, I am of course super proud of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — heck, I’m a member — but let’s be honest, the city’s connection to the birth of rock is, er, pretty ambiguous and dubious. It basically comes down to an old disc jockey named Alan Freed, who was unquestionably an early pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll and may even have invented the name. (It’s more likely that he popularized it but did not invent it.) But, I mean, he was a disc jockey in Cleveland for like three years, and it’s not like Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly or Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard or Elvis or James Brown or Ray Charles were from Cleveland. Cleveland has always been a great rock town with a great rock station, and I’m glad the Hall of Fame is there.

In the second round, voters knocked out the Redtails, Clash, Captains and Walleye, which is good because none of those names should have been good enough to make it to the second round.

That got us to the final four — Spiders, Guardians, Blues and Commodores. Of these four, there are only two that make any sense at all to me: Spiders and Guardians. Unfortunately, they matched up in the semifinals rather than the finals; Guardians was grotesquely underseeded as a No. 13. Guardians ended up beating the Spiders and winning the whole thing, and I could get behind the Cleveland Guardians name. It is unique, it has a strong connection to the city — the “Guardians of Traffic” are eight art deco sculptures on the iconic Hope Memorial Bridge — and there are many cool things you can do with it, including “Guardians of the Galaxy” tie-ins.

I could also get behind the Spiders because of its connection to Cleveland baseball history. People like making fun of those old Spiders because they ended with a 20-134 season. But those Spiders were often really good, and six different Hall of Famers played for the team, most famously Cy Young.

Basically, I’m just ready for the team to make a decision and tell us the new name.

Uniform quality (scale of 1-10): N/A

The team will obviously have different uniforms when it has a different name; this will be the last year of the Indians uniforms and, quite frankly, that’s a good thing. This team has been a rudderless ship when it comes to uniforms, in large part because it never really knew what to do with that dreadful Chief Wahoo logo, and once it got rid of it, it entirely seemed out of ideas. The block “C” hats; the script “Indians” across white uniforms; the all-caps CLEVELAND across gray uniforms — boring, flat, blow it up, start over.

Stadium ranking out of 30: 11th

All-time pitching rotation: 9th best (Bob Feller; Stan Coveleski; Mel Harder; Addie Joss; Bob Lemon).

Random player from history: Jack Brohamer

There were too many for me to choose from my childhood, but I’ll pick Brohamer because one time when I was a kid, I got to play catch with him in the Cleveland Municipal Stadium parking lot. I was really young, maybe 7 or 8, and in retrospect, this game of “catch” that I have romanticized all my life might literally have just been him throwing me the ball once or twice. In my memory, it was a lot like the “Field of Dreams” scene.

Brohamer had enough personality to earn two nicknames in his career: Scrappy Jack and the Hammer, one of those literal (he was scrappy!) and the other a bit more ironic (he wasn’t really much of a hammer). He did hit two homers in a game off Bert Blyleven in his rookie year, and he hit for the cycle once when he was with the White Sox. He was good defensively throughout.

After he retired, Brohamer became a detective sergeant with the Oceanside Police Department in Southern California.

Major-league club summation: Well, they have Shane Bieber, José Ramírez and a spectacular history of developing great pitchers. So, you know, there might be some surprises. (And there are some significant problems to be worked out as well.)

Minor-league system summation (from Keith Law): “Cleveland is loaded with position player prospects — including a whole fleet of shortstops who will try to fill the void of Francisco Lindor in the coming years — but the pitching well that has been so bountiful is about to dry up.”

Top prospect: Triston McKenzie.

Reason to watch in 2021: Ramírez is probably the best player in the American League not named Trout and always worth watching.

Wait, he plays on this team?: Eddie Rosario.

Funniest name: Franmil Reyes.

It’s not exactly a whimsical name, but it is unique. Reyes is the only Franmil in the history of baseball. In fact, if you type in the word “Franmil” into Google, there is literally not a single link that refers to anyone or anything other than Franmil Reyes.

Best hopes for 2021: That rookie pitcher McKenzie becomes a star, teaming up with Bieber to become the best 1-2 punch in the American League. Then you hope that Terry Francona and company can figure it out from there.

The pure joy of Francisco Lindor — that’s the irreplaceable part. Yes, Lindor in his six Cleveland seasons (or five seasons plus 2020) was a brilliant player, breathtaking even, a Gold Glove shortstop, a home run masher, a stolen base threat, the very heart of a team that won three straight division titles and a pennant. He was, regularly, one of the very best players in baseball.

But it was that joy, the boundless energy, the ever-present smile, the way he joked around with Cleveland sideline reporter Andre Knott, all of it; that’s the part that can never be replaced, never be restored, never be duplicated. It always hurts when a team loses a great player because of business considerations. But in this case, it’s like a game of Operation, and Cleveland lost its wishbone, its breadbasket, its funny bone and, alas, its broken heart.

Baseball has long struggled with this conundrum. Most fans would probably agree that the game is better when players stay with one team. And at the same time, most fans would probably agree that the game is unfair when players are not free to maximize their earnings and follow their own path. When the Red Sox dealt Mookie Betts — the last time before Lindor that a particularly joyous player was dealt away from the city that loved him — there were rumors that Betts didn’t want to play in Boston any longer. As far as I know, those rumors were not confirmed. But as much as I wanted Betts to be a Red Sox player forever, as right as that seemed, I certainly would not want him to play in Boston if that isn’t what he wanted.

So what do you do? If Cleveland was unwilling or unable to pay Lindor what he’s worth, then, no, the team does not deserve to have him. At the same time, do we want a sport like the Premier League where certain teams can afford great players and others cannot? And also at the same time, do we want a sport with a hard salary cap that limits what players can make and just puts more money in the pockets of owners?

It’s all a muddled mystery.

In the meantime, though, Francisco Lindor is no longer Cleveland’s shortstop. And for a team perpetually struggling to connect with its city, that just feels like a terrible loss.

Take a look at this stretch:

2014: Cleveland’s Corey Kluber shows up more or less out of nowhere — it’s his first season with 200 innings pitched at age 28 — and he wins the Cy Young Award.

2015: Carlos Carrasco, after years of injuries and difficulties, finally pitches a full season, finishes third in the league in FIP, gets some Cy Young consideration.

2016: Cleveland’s staff finishes second in the American League in ERA and goes all the way to Game 7 of the World Series, despite injuries galore.

2017: A 26-year-old Mike Clevinger shows up in Cleveland and immediately becomes one of the better pitchers in the league. Also, Kluber wins his second Cy Young Award after leading the league in just about everything.

2018: Trevor Bauer, after years of promise, puts it all together, leads the league in FIP and finishes second in the league in ERA. He gets some Cy Young support.

2019: A second-year pitcher, Shane Bieber, leads the league in shutouts, fewest walks per nine and finished fourth in the Cy Young Award voting. Clevinger also pitches extremely well.

2020: Bieber wins the Cy Young Award. Zach Plesac, in limited time, pitches brilliantly. A 22-year-old rookie, Triston McKenzie, shows ace potential.

That is some kind of pitching run. But here’s the best part — other than Bauer, who is his own case, and McKenzie, who is still a work in progress, none of these pitchers was really a big prospect. Kluber, Bieber, Clevinger, Plesac, none of them were high draft picks, none of them was ever a Top 100 prospect, all of them came to the big leagues with no hype and quickly developed into terrific pitchers. I’m not sure what they have going on in Cleveland, but as long as that magic is happening, you can’t count them out as contenders.

From CF to 100 mph: Indians’ Anthony Gose shunned pitching for years; now it might save his career


By Zack Meisel Mar 10, 2021 23
On Opening Day 2008, Anthony Gose’s senior season at Bellflower High School in Southern California, his fastball triggered readings of 97 mph on the radar gun. He breezed through one inning after another, piling up strikeouts as pimply faced teenagers couldn’t catch up to his high-octane heater.

His coach, Keith Tripp, advised Gose to keep flinging fastballs down the middle, to avoid trying to finesse the corners of the plate or toy around with off-speed options. Gose possessed a gift, and the hitters were overmatched.

In the fourth inning, with Gose’s strikeout total nearing double digits, the left-hander tossed a first-pitch strike. The third-base coach shouted to his hitter to swing, rather than rest the bat on his shoulder. The hitter held the bat with both hands and motioned it toward the coach, as if to offer him the opportunity to step in against the hard-throwing phenom.

As Tripp recalled, the batter defended his inactivity with a shortened, more frustrated version of: “Do you see how hard he’s throwing? You make it sound like, ‘Oh, no problem, swing the bat.’ There’s a lot more to it than that. This is not easy.”

Gose was a star at Bellflower, about 20 minutes southeast of Los Angeles. The baseball team delayed its games by 15 minutes so he could lead the school’s track team to victory in the 4×400-meter relay. His baseball teammates watched his mad dashes from the nearby diamond. Gose would then hustle over to the dugout.

He covered miles of outfield grass. He racked up hits. He stole bases with ease. But he really dazzled on the mound. He wielded a captivating change-up, too, but often had to ignore the pitch because it matched the velocity of most high schoolers’ fastballs.

As the draft approached and scouts flocked to his games, however, Gose dismissed input from others and delivered the same, adamant message to suitors: He did not want to pitch as a professional.

Gose ultimately validated his stance, as he reached the majors as an outfielder and played in parts of five seasons. But in 2017, his career careening toward a dead end, he finally relented and agreed to tap into the potential he refused to cultivate nearly a decade earlier.

Switching to pitching was the only way to salvage his career. And now, with Cleveland, it might grant him a second act in a fascinating script.

If Gose wasn’t roaming the outfield during defensive drills at Bellflower, he served as the runner. Tripp would slap a base hit toward the right-field corner and Gose would activate his turbo button. For most players, a hit to that area resulted in a triple. Tripp liked to test Gose to see if he could scamper around the bases for an inside-the-park home run. He usually delivered.

Gose oozed athleticism. He would have started at quarterback or wide receiver his senior year, but he opted to drop football from his sports curriculum to focus on baseball and track. Though he boasted a golden arm, he enjoyed showcasing his speed on the bases, his agility in the field, and his bat.

More than anything, he wanted to play on a daily basis. He wanted to influence the outcome of each game, not sit helplessly on the bench four out of every five days.

During intrasquad scrimmages, Gose and teammate Reggie Williams — the Twins’ fourth-round selection in the 2007 draft — would square off in matchups that seemingly determined the fate of the universe. Williams would crowd the plate to challenge Gose. Gose would zip fastballs toward the inside corner to challenge Williams. Tripp would watch with trepidation from the dugout, pleading with both players to save their tenacity for the games.

The Phillies drafted Gose in the second round in 2008. Two years later, they included him in a package that relocated Houston fixture Roy Oswalt to Philadelphia. The Astros then dealt Gose to the Blue Jays.


Anthony Gose singles during his 2012 rookie season with the Blue Jays. (Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images)
Baseball America declared Gose the No. 39 prospect in the sport before the 2012 season. He made his big-league debut that July at Yankee Stadium. Gose replaced Ben Francisco in right field late in the game, and Derek Jeter greeted him with a double down the line. Gose spent parts of three seasons in the majors with Toronto and two more with Detroit before his tenure as an outfielder fizzled.

When the Tigers informed him in 2017 he wouldn’t break camp with the major-league team, Gose loosened his left arm. It was time for the long-hibernating pitcher to re-emerge.

“It’s easy to dream,” Terry Francona said. “The kid’s got such a big arm.”

The new venture first meant a trip to the Tigers’ lower levels. He pitched at High-A Lakeland, and climbed to Double-A Frisco with the Rangers a year later.

“I always thought it was going to take somebody to say, ‘We’re going to give you time,’” Tripp said.

Confident they can guide any pitcher toward prosperity, the Indians scooped him up in 2019, and he split the season between High-A Lynchburg and Double-A Akron. He posted a 2.48 ERA, recorded an impressive strikeout rate and limited opponents to a .165 average and .237 slugging percentage. But he also walked 29 batters in 29 innings.

He caught the attention of his new team, though. He had the pure stuff. He just needed more repetitions, more chances to replicate his delivery, which would translate into better command. The Indians were hopeful he could gain that experience in 2020, and possibly join the big-league bullpen later in the year. Instead, the pandemic arrived, wiping away an opportunity for Gose to take a substantial step forward on his comeback trail.

“He was probably a guy that it could have affected more than anybody,” Francona said, “because he just needed repetition.”

Gose logged 10 stellar innings in the Dominican Winter League, but an illness cut short his stint. For the second straight year, he’s in Cleveland’s big-league camp. Francona said he looks “more refined” this spring, and that has translated to three scoreless innings.

“I’m excited to see his ceiling,” Adam Plutko said, “because I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface yet.”

Gose throws in the upper 90s, topping out at 100 mph. He has added a slider to his repertoire that he can tunnel with his fastball to keep hitters guessing which pitch is spiraling their direction. He still throws an occasional curveball. The key, of course, is commanding each pitch and consistently finding the strike zone. If he can do that, he could work his way back to the big leagues.

For the longest time, Gose had no interest in pitching, but the Indians are thrilled he decided to return to the mound.

“It’s a pretty cool story,” Francona said. “He’s obviously a kid we’re rooting for. His stuff is off the charts.”

Guardians sounds kind of clunky to me As a long ago newspaper copy editor I think it is too long for snappy headlines I still like spiders But blues are ok too

I'm not so sure I agree about pitching prospects drying up Logan Allen may be ready to join the rotation
The next top arms are a few years away but by 2024 Espino Hankins and Torres will be ready And wouldn't put it past the Indians to develop some other talents like Cody Morris Joey Cantillo Tanner Burns

civ ollilavad wrote:I'm not so sure I agree about pitching prospects drying up Logan Allen may be ready to join the rotation
The next top arms are a few years away but by 2024 Espino Hankins and Torres will be ready And wouldn't put it past the Indians to develop some other talents like Cody Morris Joey Cantillo Tanner Burns

civ - the guy himself (and we know this) said that the list of guys he provided (Civale etc) were not considered top prospects and snuck under the radar. So he contradicts himself when saying "drying up" - no one thought the guys who came through existed before they succeeded in Cleveland.

‘A different Bobby Bradley’: Inside the Indians’ prodigious power hitter’s rise and renewed push for the bigs
By Zack Meisel Mar 11, 2021 13
On a Saturday afternoon in May 2014, Bobby Bradley unleashed swing after swing at his high school field in Gulfport, Miss.

Brad Grant, then the head of Cleveland’s scouting outfit, had attempted to attend Bradley’s games on several occasions, but Mother Nature spoiled his visits, so they scheduled a private workout. Bradley punished each of scout Mike Bradford’s pitches, sending them to every nook of the outfield.

Another pitch, another baseball begging for mercy as it sailed toward the fence.

Bradford kept winding up. Bradley kept walloping his tosses.

Finally, Grant interjected: “Uh, Bobby, you need to stop. You need to get to prom, man.”

To Bradley, the dance could wait, as long as he was showing the scouts he was worthy of a high draft pick. His date, on the other hand, was agitated they missed the first round of pictures.

“It wouldn’t have surprised me if he would’ve just changed into his tux at the field,” Bradford said. “He just had an innate passion to be out there doing that. He wanted you to know that it was important to him.”

This spring, Bradley is bidding to leave a similar impression, one that convinces the Indians he’s ready to seize their vacant first-base gig after waiting several years for an extended look.

Before his sophomore year at Harrison Central High in 2013, Bradley revealed his intention to attend LSU. Some of his upperclassman teammates were skeptical; LSU, a regular College World Series participant, had an elite program, and Bradley had yet to flex his muscles at the plate.

The first game of the season, Bradley clobbered a 450-foot blast to center.

“They were like, ‘OK, we believe it now,’” teammate Brandon Barna said. “From that point on, there was never a doubt in his ability.”

As Bradley established himself as a potent power threat — teams routinely pitched around him — Harrison Central’s loaded lineup paved the way to the state title game that season. Cleveland’s scouting crew often arrived in Gulfport a day early to watch Bradley take batting practice, just in case their in-game report included only mentions of Bradley’s leisurely, 90-foot treks to first base.

Bradley aimed to showcase his ability to deposit pitches beyond the outfield fence and to spray the ball to all fields. His mom, Deloris, filmed his games. Sometimes, teammates would capture video of his swings, hoping for a mighty hack that produced one of those outer-space-bound blasts.

Bradley recalled every detail about every momentous swing when sharing his favorite highlights with Bradford: the count, the score, the situation, the pitch type and, of course, the result. He sometimes chuckled to himself while marveling at the baseballs’ majestic flight paths and remembering how relieved he felt to actually see a pitch worth socking, usually when the score was lopsided.

Barna can still visualize a 2012 line drive to the opposite field against D’Iberville. The ball soared over the wall in left-center, which stood 380 feet from home plate.

“It was gone in about three and a half seconds,” he said. “I thought, ‘That’s insane.’”

Bradley’s home runs don’t sneak past the fence. They’re launched into orbit.

“Off the bat, you know,” Barna said. “If he gets it, it’s going.”

As the Indians evaluated Bradley, they initially marked him down for a 60 raw power grade on the 20-to-80 scouting scale. Since then, he’s grown stronger and more adept at hitting to all fields, an element he started to prioritize two years ago.

Last week, a Bradley home run ball smacked off a concrete tower behind a spacious section of right-field seating at Goodyear Ballpark. Bradley said he wished the wind was blowing out that afternoon; the ball might have reached the White Tank Mountains.

Four days later, James Land — Bradley’s high school teammate and the nephew of Gulfport native and former Cleveland outfielder Matt Lawton — approached Barna and his brother at a game and said, “You see that ball Bobby hit?”

Barna had watched the video of Bradley’s home run on a loop.

“No,” Land said, “he hit another one to right-center.”

Within the hour, Barna saw the highlight, a three-run shot toward the clusters of fans soaking up sun on a grassy hill beyond the center-field wall.

“He’s always had more power than most guys,” said Scott Meaney, Cleveland’s senior coordinator of amateur scouting.

Bradley really popped on Cleveland’s radar, though, when he shed 30 pounds before the spring of his senior season. Barna said he resembled a middle linebacker.

“He was just absolutely chiseled,” Meaney said.

The club snagged him in the third round of the 2014 MLB Draft, and Bradley headed to rookie ball in Arizona. Deloris packed up her Ford Expedition and made the 24-hour journey to meet him there. Bradley posted a .361/.426/.652 slash line and claimed the Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs.

In the years since, he has crafted an entire catalog of home runs, delivered a decent amount of doubles and recorded a respectable walk rate. He has also piled up strikeouts. Bradley received his first opportunity against big-league pitching during a 15-game stint in 2019 when the Indians sorely needed lineup reinforcements. His lone Cleveland home run traveled 457 feet and nearly reached the right-field concourse.

Now, he has all but graduated from Triple A, with little left to prove against minor-league pitching. He logged a .912 OPS with 33 homers for Columbus in 2019, though he did strike out in 34 percent of his plate appearances.

To make the leap, to prove to the organization he can succeed Carlos Santana at first base, he committed to an offseason training regimen that reshaped his body and equipped him with the proper blend of strength and agility.

Each spring, Bradley’s size and training tactics serve as a popular discussion topic. Three years ago, he dropped 30 pounds via Orangetheory workouts and a strict diet, but he quickly discovered he lacked the necessary energy and strength to fuel his home run binges. He endured an abysmal April — nine hits (only two homers) in 79 at-bats — and registered the worst season totals of his career. Other winters, he has added weight, which has decreased his defensive nimbleness.

“It was absolutely a different Bobby Bradley this offseason than offseasons in the past,” said Mack Chiulli, Bradley’s trainer.

Bradley went on daily 6 a.m. runs with a friend. He spent the first week of each month at Traction Sports, Chiulli’s facility in Baton Rouge. They devised a three-month program to help Bradley build lean muscle mass, lower his body fat, generate more power and bat speed, and enhance his mobility at the plate and in the field. He also met with a nutritionist and worked with former big leaguer Ryan Theriot on hitting mechanics.

The first phase of that process fixated on functional movement and Bradley’s ability to create power with each leg. He worked with a medicine ball and completed exercises to increase his rotational strength and stabilize his core. Then, Bradley advanced to the power phase.

“That’s where I was just trying to lift every weight I could find,” he said.

The final stage of the plan eased up a bit to prepare Bradley for the lengthy season ahead. Bradley said he feels lighter on his feet, has a quicker first step and more range in the field, and is more mobile at the plate. He dropped 35 pounds, and Chiulli said he lowered his body fat from 19 percent to 15 percent.

“It was self-motivated,” Chiulli said. “That’s what made us so proud.”

Bradley spent last summer at the team’s alternate site in Eastlake, a daily slog of scrimmages against the same pitchers that resembled the mid-February mornings of spring training, not the midsummer big-league atmosphere Bradley had experienced a year earlier. Bradley said it was challenging to “mentally stay locked in.” Chiulli suggested that might have supplied Bradley with “a little bit of humble pie.”

“It’s like, ‘I have all the talent in the world. Now I have to dedicate myself.’ It’s been a tale of two different people, really,” Chiulli said. “The transformation to now — he’s a professional baseball player.”

This spring, the Indians opted to limit Josh Naylor to right field, clearing a path to first base for either Bradley or Jake Bauers. Bauers is out of options, which could give him an advantage. If the club isn’t ready to sever ties with Bauers, it could send Bradley to Triple A to start the season.

Bradley, though, has garnered attention this spring for his svelte frame and sizzling bat. He has two homers and two doubles in 13 at-bats.

Bradley has always hit for power, since long before his senior prom. Now, he’s out to prove he has more to offer than the occasional upper-deck homer.

“The work he has put in,” manager Terry Francona said, “is going to pay off for this kid.”

I smell at trade with Bauers moving on.

Although he could be a backup OF and 1B I guess.

Why Indians pitcher Triston McKenzie’s mechanics haven’t changed much from childhood
By Andy McCullough Mar 12, 2021 35
In the summer of 1983, three decades before Triston McKenzie became the latest potential frontline starter to emerge from the Cleveland pitching pipeline, the skinny boy who would become his father sat in front of a television in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Stainton McKenzie was only 12 when his family left Jamaica. He had few friends when he arrived. What he did have were the broadcasts of Yankees games on WPIX.

Night after night, Stainton listened to Phil Rizzuto and Bill White call the action. On occasion he flipped the channel to hear Tim McCarver on the Mets. He loved “Kiner’s Korner.” He caught episodes of “The Baseball Bunch” with Johnny Bench, complete with hitting lessons from Ted Williams and fielding exhibitions by Ozzie Smith and pitching clinics from Tom Seaver.

The outlet for his solitude would one day prove beneficial for his son. Stainton never played organized baseball. He did not discover how much of the game he had absorbed by osmosis until Triston was growing up. When the boy asked his father for instruction, the classical tips and tricks and advice came rushing back.

“Everything that I taught him was something that I heard from a Hall of Famer, for the most part,” Stainton McKenzie said.

Stainton and his wife, Shereene, could not be there when Triston climbed atop the mound at Progressive Field on a Saturday evening last August for his big-league debut. But the residue of his parents was apparent when McKenzie rocked into his motion and buried a 94-mph fastball for a strike. The rail-thin rookie was pitching the same way he had since he was a child.

“I feel like a lot of the pitches that I use, even to this day, are very similar to the pitches that I’ve thrown since I was 9 years old,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie struck out 10 Tigers that night. He offered a glimpse into why Cleveland chose him with the 42nd overall pick in the 2015 draft and why The Athletic rated him the No. 12 prospect in the sport heading into 2021. He also demonstrated why some scouts project him as more of a back-end starter than an ace. The television broadcast captured his preposterously slender 6-5 frame. Cleveland lists his weight as 165 — nearly 20 pounds lighter than Chris Sale. There are concrete concerns behind the cosmetic appraisal: McKenzie briefly fell off top prospect lists after missing the 2019 season with injuries.

McKenzie, 23, is familiar with the worry. He heard it as a teenager thirsting for fastball velocity. He heard it after he got drafted. He can see it whenever he gazes into the mirror. Brian Kaplan, a co-founder of Cressey Sports Performance, has trained McKenzie since he was 14.

“He looks no different than he did in eighth grade,” he said. “He’s a lot taller, and his body’s pretty much the same.”

Later, Kaplan offered a tip to a reporter.

“Don’t make the entire article about weight,” Kaplan said. “That’ll drive him nuts.”

McKenzie chuckled when he was told this. He admitted that those questions once annoyed him. He has grown used to it.

“When you watch me perform, are you watching my weight?” he said. “Or are you watching me try to throw the ball by guys? But I’ve accepted that’s who I am.”

McKenzie was born in Brooklyn. Stainton and Shereene met in high school. Both became physical therapists. In the early 2000s, they left the city for Florida’s Palm Beach County. As Triston got serious about baseball, Stainton culled from his memory banks the lessons from all those games on TV. (He estimated he watched “literally” every Yankees game from 1983 to 1990, a dark period for the franchise, which should qualify him for some sort of medal, or at least some autographed Butch Wynegar memorabilia.) He understood the importance of command, and emphasized the cleanliness of delivery rather than the nastiness of stuff.

Stainton developed a drill to teach Triston to pitch inside. He handed Triston’s younger brother, T.J., a bat and a helmet. T.J. stood on the sidewalk outside their home. Stainton squatted to catch behind him. He held the glove near his younger son’s waistline and instructed Triston to hit the spot.

“Don’t hit your brother,” he told Triston.

“Don’t flinch,” he told T.J., now a sophomore infielder at Vanderbilt.

A few years later, Triston was throwing at a park when a stranger walked by. The man called Stainton over to the chain-link fence surrounding the field. He said he was a Cubs scout. Stainton could not recall the man’s name, but he remembered what he said next: “Don’t let anyone mess with his mechanics.”

The family connected with Kaplan as Triston entered high school. In McKenzie, Kaplan found a voracious worker with a precocious presence on the mound. He credited Stainton for sharpening Triston’s instincts. The kid could spin a breaking ball and he could manipulate a changeup. He could spot his fastball where he wanted. What he could not do was generate notable velocity.

“He had learned how to work backwards, pitch backwards and around guys,” Kaplan said. “The one thing he would shy away from was challenging guys with his fastball. So we just got in the mindset of ‘Look, we’re going to attack guys like we’re already throwing 95.’”

If McKenzie gave up a homer on a fastball, Kaplan told him not to fret. “We’re working on bigger things,” he counseled. McKenzie gained strength in his legs and gained miles per hour on his fastball — even if he did not gain much weight. His velocity jumped from the mid-80s into the low 90s. He caught the eye of Juan Alvarez, an area scout for Cleveland who had spent some time in the majors as a reliever.

Alvarez dreamed about what McKenzie might look like if he added 20 or 30 pounds. He also appreciated the teenager’s intellect. Once he asked McKenzie what he might do if he weren’t playing baseball.

“And he tells me he wanted to be a cardiologist,” Alvarez said. “You knew that you were getting a special kid if you drafted him.”

The weight scared some teams off. Alvarez recalled a game during McKenzie’s senior year at Royal Palm Beach High when the general manager from another team, who Alvarez declined to name, showed up with his scouts. McKenzie was facing a bad team. Alvarez knew from their conversations that McKenzie might conserve energy. For the first few innings, with his fastball sitting around 86-87 mph, McKenzie “just looked like a very generic high school pitcher,” Alvarez said.

“And sure enough after three innings, that GM and his people get up,” Alvarez said. “They leave the game. In the fourth inning, Triston’s 94, 95, 93. And we’re like ‘Wow, this is the guy we’ve gotten to know.’”

Cleveland paid McKenzie $2.3 million to forgo a scholarship to Vanderbilt. His ascent through the minors was steady. When McKenzie arrived at Class-A Lake County in the summer of 2016, manager Tony Mansolino called him into his office. He wanted to gauge the prospect’s readiness for the rigors of the professional game.

“He kind of blew my mind, man,” said Mansolino, who now coaches third base for Baltimore. “Just how polished his answers were and how he handled himself in those situations. And then you’d see him pitch and give up a run, and he would act like an 18-year-old and not handle the failure like a 22-year-old does.”

The failures were still rare. McKenzie grappled less with the challenges of opposing hitters than he did with the limitations of his body. In high school, his father insisted, “Triston was never sore, his entire life.” His workouts with Kaplan kept him strong and the soft-tissue work prescribed by his parents kept him fresh. But his arm started to bark in the minors. McKenzie missed the first few months of 2018 with a forearm issue. A year later, as the 2019 season approached, he strained a muscle in his upper back. Then he experienced a setback as his return date got closer. The year was lost.

“It really sucked,” McKenzie said. “It just put things into perspective as how hard you need to work.”

McKenzie spent the early portion of the 2020 season at Cleveland’s alternate site. His readiness magnified after the team sent down starters Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac for violating the sport’s health and safety protocols. McKenzie debuted as team officials debated what to do with Clevinger and Plesac. McKenzie stayed in the rotation when Cleveland traded Clevinger to San Diego. McKenzie made six starts before transitioning to a bullpen role to prepare for the playoffs. He finished with a 3.24 ERA and 11.34 strikeouts per nine innings.

The combination of those statistics and Cleveland’s reputation for developing pitchers should classify McKenzie as a future star. Yet the questions about his durability will linger. He has never thrown more than the 143 innings he logged in Double A in 2017. Cleveland is expected to handle him with caution at the outset of 2021. He is trying to bulk up, even if his metabolism won’t cooperate.

“If I can go out there and I can be healthy, regardless of what people say about my weight, it doesn’t really matter much to me,” he said.

When Triston told his parents about his promotion to the majors last summer, his father said he screamed. Stainton did not dwell on his inability to attend the game at the empty ballpark. He thought back to when Triston was a boy and they were working on his pitching. Triston seemed disinterested, so Stainton stopped the workout. He told his son that if he wanted to play the piano, Stainton would study the keys to help him. If Triston wanted to play chess, Stainton would learn the game to tutor him. But whatever he chose as an outlet, he needed to work.

“And from that day forward, he was a different person,” Stainton said. He recalled that moment as he watched his son dominate Detroit. “I don’t feel like it robbed me of anything,” he said. “Because I know how hard he worked. I know how much he wanted it. Just to know he was going to be there, that was enough for me.”

That said, did the father plan to be there for his son’s debut in front of fans in 2021?

“Most definitely.”

What I’m hearing from Goodyear: Amed Rosario to Bobby Bradley to Emmanuel Clase – Terry’s Talkin’ Tribe
Updated 6:04 AM; Today 6:04 AM

By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Tribe is only two weeks away from opening the season, and some decisions have to be made.

1. It’s significant the Indians will begin playing Amed Rosario in center field. The Indians didn’t say “outfield.” Nor did they say “utility role.” Manager Terry Francona said center and explained, “We haven’t asked him to move around anywhere else.”

2. Francona stressed Amed Rosario “is a shortstop,” but it’s clear Andres Gimenez has impressed there. Last weekend, I wrote Gimenez would open at that position. I expect that to happen because of his defense. He’s also hitting well this spring.


3. President Chris Antonetti has said a few times that Rosario is a terrific athlete. Shortstops often are the best athletes on their teams. I first heard this from former Tribe GM’s Phil Seghi and Hank Peters. You can take a shortstop and move him to center because it’s the easiest position to learn in the outfield – assuming you can run.

4. The Indians signed Rick Manning as a shortstop and moved him to center after a year in the minors. He won a Gold Glove. Later in his career, Milwaukee moved Robin Yount from short to center when Yount had some problems making a throw from deep in the hole.

5. I’m hearing the Indians don’t plan to open with Rosario in center. It’s a lot to ask for a guy who has played exactly one pro game in the outfield. But they are intrigued with the idea. Rosario is extremely open to being in center. He wants to play as much as possible.

6. Rosario came to the majors at 21. He was the Mets’ regular shortstop in 2018-19. In those two seasons, he batted .272 (.725 OPS), averaging 12 HRs, 21 steals, 28 doubles and 62 RBI in 156 games. In 2020, he dipped to .252 (.643 OPS) with four HRs and 15 RBI in 46 games.

7. In 2017, Rosario was ranked among the top eight MLB prospects by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com. Often, teams can give up too soon on a prospect because he doesn’t seem to be reaching his potential. Rosario is 25. Time remains on his side.

8. The Indians aren’t saying it, but the Rosario to center tryout is a hint they are concerned about Oscar Mercado. He is 4-for-16 this spring with one extra-base hit. He isn’t hitting the ball that hard. Bradley Zimmer is having a good spring, batting .429 (6-for-14). He is superb defensively. Perhaps there is a Zimmer/Rosario platoon at some point in 2021.

Cleveland Indians vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Bobby Bradley is making better contact this spring for the Indians. AP


9. Jake Bauers or Bobby Bradley at first base? It’s hard to believe both make the team. Bradley is having a monster spring, 6-for-16 with a pair of HRs and four doubles. He has fanned only twice.

10. Francona on Bradley: “He’s leaning right into the competition ... really swinging the bat well. ... (Bauers) is the better defender. Bobby continues to work ... he’s willing to listen and work.”

11. Bradley is 24. His only big-league exposure was 2019, when he was 8-for-45 (.178) with a homer, five doubles and 20 strikeouts. He hammered 33 HR in Class AAA in 2019, but fanned 153 times in 402 at-bats. The strikeouts are a concern.

12. Francona mentioned Bauers being out of options, while Bradley has some remaining. Bauers is 25. He’s had 213 MLB games (2018-19), batting .214 (.691 OPS) with 23 HR and 61 RBI. The Indians didn’t bring him up from the minor-league camp in 2020. My guess is Bauers will receive the call to open at first base partly due to the lack of options. The Indians want to see if Bauers (ranked among MLB’s top 100 prospects in 2017-18) can prove he belongs.

Emmanuel Clase
Emmanuel Clase throws to first base during a spring training practice in Goodyear. AP


13. Emmanuel Clase threw two innings earlier in the week. That could be significant because the Tribe appears to be looking at him as an impact reliever, pitching the seventh and eighth innings. Just guessing, but sort of how they used Andrew Miller a few years ago. Clase was throwing 96-99 mph in a recent outing.

14. Because Clase was suspended last season for failing a PED test, he fell off the radar screen for many of us. But he was a huge part of the Corey Kluber deal with Texas. The front office loves this guy. In 2019, Clase came to the majors at 21. He had a 2.31 ERA in 23 innings and struck out 21 for the Rangers.

15. I talked to someone who watched Bryan Shaw the other day and he said the veteran reliever “still has it.” I heard from another source that Shaw will probably make the team, unless he has a miserable end to spring training.

16. One of the pitchers sent to the minors Friday was Eli Morgan, who has a career 21-15 record and 3.08 ERA in the minors. Morgan doesn’t throw hard, but struck out 360 hitters in 319 innings. Francona on the 24-year-old Morgan: “He has one of the best changeups you’ll ever see. I don’t care at what level.”

Clasee was a huge part of the Corey Kluber deal with Texas

Well the only other part was DeShields, Jr.

2021 MLB breakout candidates: Keith Law picks seven players ready to take a step forward


By Keith Law 2h ago 10
Each spring, I offer some candidates for breakout seasons, based on past scouting reports (including my own looks), something I see in their performances or Statcast data, or a combination thereof. This year’s list is a little different, with such a short 2020 season behind us, and I don’t feel as strongly about this batch of breakout candidates as I have in most past years. (It’s also worth acknowledging that I’ve been far better at predicting breakouts a year too early than predicting breakouts, but I’ve had some hits, like predicting a Blake Snell breakout the year he won his Cy Young.) But the show must go on, so here are a few players who could take significant steps forward this year with more playing time, health, or other changes to their arsenals or swings.

Keston Hiura, 1B, Milwaukee Brewers
Hiura was the 9th overall pick in 2017 despite spending the entire spring at DH due to an elbow injury, and while he’s never had surgery on the joint, he’s also been a terrible defender at second, leading the Brewers to sign Kolten Wong this winter and move Hiura to first. One reason I’m bullish on Hiura’s bat is that he’ll no longer have the added burden of trying to play a defensive position that’s beyond his capabilities. The other is that despite high strikeout rates in the majors, Hiura continues to hit the ball hard when he does make contact, barreling the ball at exceptional rates the last two years and even hitting for surprising power (13 HR in 59 games in 2020). There are certainly reasons for concern; he swings and misses too often at fastballs up and sliders down and away, but he does damage on those pitch types when he connects with them, and he never struck out at rates approaching his major-league results. This is a bet that moving to first and gaining more experience gets his K rate under 30 percent, and that his batting average and OBP jump significantly as a result.

Trevor Rogers, LHP, Miami Marlins
I almost never include players who still qualify as rookies on these lists, but I’m making an exception in Rogers’ case because there’s already something different about him from last year. The main knock I had on Rogers before this season was the lack of an average breaking ball, but Rogers has changed his grip on his slider and so far this spring has shown a markedly higher spin rate on the pitch. I said in my writeup of him back in early February that he could be a league-average starter with just the fastball/changeup, given the extension in his delivery too. If the slider is even an average pitch for him now – it could be more, although with just two appearances so far this spring I don’t want to draw any strong conclusions – he could be league-average right away, and I’d bump up his ceiling too.

Kyle Tucker, OF, Houston Astros
Tucker sort of broke out in 2020, so this is a belief that what he did in the mini-season will continue. Tucker’s breakout was split, as he mashed against right-handed pitching (.293/.355/.550), which I absolutely believe he can continue over the course of a full season. He did nothing against lefties, with a .212 BABIP that led to a .217/.260/.435 line, although it was weak contact that was his downfall rather than an inability to hit any particular pitch – he put more breaking balls from left-handers in play than he whiffed on. Maybe he still shows some platoon split in 2021, but I expect more production against lefties than he showed last year, and I fully believe he’ll continue to hit right-handers as he did in 2020.

Josh Naylor, OF, Cleveland
Naylor has been traded twice, suspended for injuring a teammate, transformed his body, and still won’t turn 24 until late June, but so far he hasn’t replicated his minor-league success in the majors. He’s better able to use his athleticism now that he’s improved his conditioning, and he should have a regular job in right field to start the year. He rarely strikes out for a hitter with plus-plus raw power, but so far in limited major-league time, he hasn’t made enough hard contact for a hitter of his strength. He does have excellent patience and plate coverage, but some of this involves making better decisions on when to swing — laying off pitches low and away that he can reach but not hit hard, for example. And some may just be a matter of a small sample. He’s more than strong enough to make consistent hard contact, getting that BABIP well up over .300, with a batting average in the .270-280 range and 20 homers.

Scott Kingery, whatever, Philadelphia Phillies
Here’s hoping 2021 is the year when Scott Kingery gets to play one position, instead of moving all over the diamond, trying to play positions (notably shortstop) that are beyond his skill set. The positional difficulties and some inexplicable changes to his swing have taken him from a guy who hit .304/.359/.530 between Double A and Triple A in 2017 to a guy with two negative WARs in three seasons in the majors. He’s not likely to hit 26 bombs again, but he’s a plus runner with a natural line-drive swing to which he needs to return to become a hitter for average and doubles/triples power. Centerfield, Kingery’s position his first two years in college, seems like the most probable spot for him right now. But I’m hopeful he’ll eventually take over at second base, where he’s a potential 70 defender, and that his high-average ways will return with the adjustments the Phillies already seem to want him to make to his swing.

Adrian Houser, RHP, Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers have quietly developed a couple of aces or near-aces in Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff, bringing both guys along in relief roles first and then moving them to the rotation. Houser seemed like he was on that path for 2020, but when play resumed in July, he wasn’t very sharp, losing about a mile an hour off his fastball from 2019, and the Brewers’ porous defense let him down further – he had the 11th-highest BABIP of any pitcher with at least 50 IP last year. A normal offseason and a much better Milwaukee defense should help him become a league-average starter, and he certainly has the build and delivery to soak up some innings in that role.

Gregory Polanco, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates
Polanco could be a free agent after the season, with two option years left at $12.5 million and $13.5 million, so a breakout this year could determine where he’s playing in 2022. He was hurt for most of 2019, and never seemed right after contracting COVID-19 last July. Now he seems completely healthy and ready to produce at least as he did in 2018 – but even that didn’t show his full potential as a hitter. He was solid in 2018, even with his longer swing that puts the ball in the air, with launch angles averaging around 20 degrees, and that’s probably going to mean higher strikeout rates than his pre-2018 levels. The Pirates will surely take that, though, if he reaches 25-plus homers for the first time. Given his prodigious tools, his major-league career has really been underwhelming, but he’s been hurt enough that it’s possible he just has to get healthy to have a real breakout now at age 29. It feels like it’s now or never for him after so many years of underperformance.