State of the Franchise
The Spiders are the best team in the league that nobody’s quite sure how to describe. 2 straight playoff trips, 2 Octobers that ended a round or 2 early — 86 wins and a quick exit in 2000, then 89-73 and a genuine run in 2001, a Wild Card series won over the increasingly hated Black Yankees before the Sea Lions swept them out of the AL Championship. No fatal flaw, no dominant edge. What Cleveland owns instead is optionality: a dozen paths to a win, room to absorb a bet that breaks wrong, and a roster deep enough that no single injury sinks the year (a thesis proven by the absence of controversial star Tris Speaker for all but 40 games of 2000).
The problem is that the same depth cuts the other way. Almost nobody on this roster is fully reliable, fully trusted. So, Do we believe in this guy? is a question Cleveland re-asks on every regular, every March. There is a cliché nature to some of it as well: like so many others, the Spiders are starved for pitching — either an ace to depend on or enough depth to not care. But Cleveland keeps making deals where they move around offensive players, not really addressing the clear bar between them and the elite teams.
Still, a perennial playoff team is nothing to sneeze at, and the talent is here to put it all together. Even if nobody is quite sure exactly how.
2001 Revisited
We spent last spring worried about one position: who plays third base? It was a question of pure scarcity — nobody had stepped up. It was answered very loudly by Evan Longoria: 36 homers, 96 RBI, a Silver Slugger, an AL All-Star nod, and superlative glovework to boot.
Our other big fear was Ron Blomberg collapsing. He most certainly did not collapse, but the cracks deepened. Overall, you cannot complain about his season — 276/348/640 with 54 homers and 143 RBI. But his platoon splits are getting more troubling. Against RHP he was fantastic as ever (321/403/771); against LHP he hit 206/251/432, essentially the same as 2000, but his walks plummeted and his strikeouts took off. Around him the up-years arrived in force: Tris Speaker recovered from injury to slash 312/397/631, Lance Berkman launched 57 homers with a 1.002 OPS in his first full season with the Spiders, Larry Doby hit 41 while seizing claim to the fulltime job in right, and Ed Bailey posted a .920 OPS at C, at 36 to boot.
Still, it ended up par for the course: the arms were fine, but no more than that, and the team couldn’t cross the final hurdle. It’s not a bad place to be — most teams would be envious of the Spiders’ track record. But it’s also not a championship.
Key Changes
In: Aroldis Chapman (NYY)
Out: Joe Sewell (NYY); Joe Smith (FA)
Opening Day Rookies: Jim H Manning; Chaz Roe
Best Case for 2002
Someone anchors the staff, with the most likely candidate being Bob Feller, who went 13-3 with a 4.30 ERA in 17 starts as a 21-year-old. And some still think Cy Young will be more than an innings eater. If 1 of those happens, Cleveland will do well, and if by some miracle both happen, perhaps that will get them over the hill.
The key players bounce back (Louis Santop‘s bat returns to his glove, Chuck Knoblauch looks like himself again), and the strong 2001 performances hold — Speaker, Berkman, Longoria, Doby, Arky Vaughan, Bailey. Finally, the Spiders shelled out some value for newly acquired Aroldis Chapman to solidify the bullpen. He has to deliver.
All of that comes together, and there could be celebrations by the lake come Fall.
Worst Case for 2002
It all breaks the other way, everything altogether all at once. Knoblauch’s 2001 wasn’t a dip but the start of a decline; Santop’s bat stays gone; Willie McCovey‘s 34-year-old legs give out, making his compelling late-career debut merely a mirage; Bailey acts his age; Blomberg collapses against more than just LHP; Berkman slides; and Speaker either gets hurt or just pisses everybody off too much. Feller’s elbow breaks, the rotation is again good-not-great, and in a division stacked with the Black Yankees, Tigers, Orioles, and a suddenly-well-armed Memphis, the Spiders plummet in the standings.
Key Questions
- Does Feller become the ace — and if he doesn’t, will Cleveland finally buy one? Watching Memphis wheel and deal for not 1 but 2 front line starters has to sting a bit, and raise the question of whether Cleveland’s unwillingness to do the same is warranted conviction about their internal talent or front-office timidity when it comes to betting on pitching.
- Bounce or decline — which is which? Cleveland’s core competency is reading talent on a roster where almost every regular swings 2-plus WAR a year in one direction or the other. It’s a tricky see-saw, and making the wrong call has repercussions. That’s part of what makes Knoblauch (a real sub-replacement collapse in 2001, discipline intact but the power gone) and Santop (a Gold Glove-caliber 21-year-old whose bat cratered) so important: if they fail, not only are there no clear replacements, but it means the org may be fundamentally misguided in how it judges the swings.
- What does this lineup do against left-handed pitching? Cleveland bats left-handed almost top to bottom — Speaker, Blomberg, Doby, Bates, and McCovey all swing from the left side, into a park built for left-handed power — which is a wonderful thing to be against right-handers and a real potential weakness against lefties. John Ellis, Longoria, and Knoblauch are the right-handed bats of consequence, with Ken Keltner behind them (Berkman and Sammy Strang switch-hit, so they step out of the tilt entirely). It’s an accident of construction more than a plan, and it hasn’t bit the team so far, but it is something to watch.
Roster Evaluation
Tier = the player’s 2001 positional grade (S best → F worst; color coded S A B C D F). Bold names carry a substantive WBL track; italic names are pure projection — a hope, not a grade — with no qualifying track to anchor them.
| Pos | Players |
|---|---|
| C | Bailey A · Santop F · Ellis F |
| 1B | Berkman A · Blomberg A · McCovey |
| 2B | Knoblauch D · Strang |
| SS | Vaughan A · Manning |
| 3B | Longoria A · Strang |
| LF | Bates C |
| CF | Speaker S · Doby B |
| RF | Doby B · Berkman A |
| DH | McCovey · Blomberg A |
| SP | Steen C · Young D · Feller D · Malone · Harder |
| RP | Adams C (CL) · Reed C · Chapman F · Gearrin C · Roe |
Speaker, the best player in the org at 24, is also its most difficult presence — the kind of star a proud city hasn’t decided how to love, a target of adoration while the club wins, but if the losses start to pile up, how long will his attitude towards his teammates be tolerated? At the other end of the scale sits McCovey — the 34-year-old who turned up and mashed a 1.107 OPS, a lovable late-bloomer a fanbase can wrap its arms around unreservedly.
Talent Ratings
| WBL | Minors | |
|---|---|---|
| Raw Power | CF Tris Speaker | 3B Bob Elliott |
| Batting Eye | 2B Sammy Strang | 3B Bob Elliott |
| Contact | CF Tris Speaker | 2B Steve Sax; CF Kenny Lofton |
| Running Speed | SS Jim H Manning | LF Pat Friel |
| Base Stealing | 2B Sammy Strang; LF Johnny Bates | SS Bill Dahlen; CF Kenny Lofton |
| IF Defense | 3B Evan Longoria | 2B Sean Rodriguez |
| OF Defense | CF Tris Speaker | RF Alexis Rios |
| Stuff | RP Aroldis Chapman | SP Balor Moore |
| Control | SP Chuck Porter | RP Edward Mujica |
| Velocity | RP Chaz Roe | RP Sergio Romo; RP Andrew Bailey |
Best In The Minors
| Rank | Age | Pos | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (63) | 24 | RF | Craig Wilson |
| 2 (75) | 23 | CF | Luis Olmo |
| 3 (96) | 23 | CF | Randy Winn |
Others: IF Todd Helton, IF Johnny Hodapp, IF Aubrey Huff, P José Lima, P Balor Moore.
Three ranked prospects, all outfielders, none inside the top 60 — a system a year ago we called one of the worst in the league is, well, still pretty barren. Longoria, Berkman, Vaughan, and Bailey all arrived by spending prospects, and the thin system is what’s left over.
Last year’s top names have turned over completely — Joe Sewell, No. 4 a year ago, was shipped to New York this spring for Chapman. There is some hope in Helton, Hodapp, and Huff, but the position concentration is an issue. Balor Moore is the one arm worth watching — 101 innings of 3.56 ball with 86 strikeouts at Penn Yan, then a 12-inning cameo at Rochester he came through unscored upon.
Kenny Lofton, the org’s Minor League Player of the Year, is a WBL talent stuck at Triple-A.
Superlatives
| Most | Least | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | Ed Bailey, 36 | Abraham Almonte, 17 |
| Height | Ron Reed, 6’6″ | Ned Cuthbert, 5’6″ |
| OPS | Tris Speaker, 1.028 | Matt Carpenter, .458 (A) |
| HR | Lance Berkman, 57 | Steve Sax, 1 (AA) |
| SB | Kenny Lofton, 85 (AAA) | – |
| WAR (bat) | Tris Speaker, 6.7 | Louis Santop, −1.5 |
| W | Cy Young, 15 | – |
| SV | Terry Adams, 23 | – |
| ERA | Balor Moore, 3.18 (A) | Yordano Ventura, 5.98 |
| WAR (pit) | Bill Steen, 4.9 | Howard Ehmke, −0.0 (A) |
Stats across all levels, 2001 season. 200 PA / 75 IP minimum. Non-WBL levels tagged in parentheses.