Cleveland Indians: Grading the roster by position, post-trade deadline

Cleveland Indians Infield

The infield for Cleveland is a bit of a mix-and-match of good and bad right now. We’ll start with the good and there really isn’t a better place for that than Jose Ramirez. The starting third baseman for the Tribe has actually had a down season by his standards, but unfortunately that still has him as one of the club’s best players this year. He’s also historically better in the second half, so stay tuned.

Beyond Ramirez, there’s been bright spots. Perhaps the biggest surprise has been the rise of Amed Rosario at short. Rosario had a tough beginning to the season, but once he transitioned to his natural position at shortstop the rest of his game fell into place. He doesn’t have the best glove for short, but he’s still young.

In a similar fashion, Bobby Bradley has began to emerge lately. His slash line is a bit lower, but the power he brings to the lineup has been a huge plus, especially when batting near Franmil Reyes to protect him a little bit. As Bradley gets more experience in the majors hopefully the strikeouts will go down and the average up, but the power is a nice addition.

The hole in the infield is now clearly at second base. As we highlighted in our internal candidates to take over, basically no one has experience at second base. For that reason, this spot really brings the whole group down a bit.

Grade: B

Cleveland Indians Outfield

Since we just ran a story on how the Tribe will address the outfield – found here – we’re not going to do a deep dive back into essentially the same players. For the full analysis of the position, take a look there.

For the purpose of this, the jist is that the Cleveland outfield is just a question mark right now. There’s favorites, but no definitive answers just yet. Of all the positions, the second half will be the most important to this group.

Grade: D+

Cleveland Indians Starting Rotation

The starting rotation might be the hardest position group to analyze on Cleveland’s roster right now. Do you measure it off of what has been or what could be? Once Shane Bieber and Aaron Civale are back this unit will look totally different than how they are right now, but getting to that point has been, and will continue to be, nothing short of a nightmare.

Triston McKenzie and Cal Quantrill have shown potential, but consistency is still lacking. If they are the ones to round out the rotation once everyone is healthy, the team should be close to guaranteed at least four solid starts for every five games.

However, Bieber and Civale still are on the track back with both being on the 60-day injured list. That means the team will have to continue to try and scrap by with the other pitchers who have been trying their hand in the rotation.

With the being said, we’re going to issue two grades to the starting pitching. One with Bieber and Civale and one without. It’s too difficult to try and weigh everything together because it really is a tale of two totally different groups. Hopefully, the one with the two starting pitchers healthy is the one used more down the stretch.

Grade with Bieber, Civale: B+

Grade without: C-

Cleveland Indians Bullpen

The lifeblood of the Cleveland Indians this season has been the bullpen. When the starting pitching started to go down, they were the ones that were able to hold the fort for at least a little bit. While the unit has fallen flat more frequently recently, they’ve still been solid for most of the season.

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Despite moving Phil Maton at the deadline, the bullpen is still the strongest point of the team. Bryan Shaw, James Karinchak and Emmanuel Clase are able to lock down the last three innings more times than not, which has been able to take some of the stress off the starting rotation. Even arms like Blake Parker and Nick Sandlin have found a role.

Like the starting rotation, this unit should improve when Bieber and Civale return. We’ve already started to see the improvement as the current starters have been able to go deeper into games. Once the rotation gets a boost, less pressure will be on the bullpen to eat innings.

As a unit, the bullpen has a 3.63 ERA this year, nearly two full runs fewer than the starting pitching. The bullpen has also been averaging 10.8 strikeouts per nine, more than two strikeouts more than the rotation.

As I’ve said, this is the team’s best strength right now and should only get better as the rest of the roster comes around and the pressure decreases.

Grade: A-