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+