Over the past few years, the Cleveland Indians have been a regular-season juggernaut. Last year, they won 22 games in a row. This year, they became the first team in MLB history to have four pitchers finish with 200+ strikeouts. In the two seasons, they finished an average of 15 games up in their division.
And yet, as the dust collects from their three-game sweep at the hands of the Houston Astros, their second first-round exit in as many years, it seems time for some soul-searching in northeast Ohio. Cleveland is 2-9 over their past 11 playoff games, stretching back to the 2016 World Series when they blew a 3-1 lead against the Chicago Cubs.
One member of the Indians may have an answer to the postseason struggles: They’re not doing their homework.
Speaking privately to Jason Lloyd of The Athletic, the anonymous player said he believed the Astros were “far better prepared” for the series than the Indians were.
“He believed the scouting reports were more intricate and the attention to detail was more precise,” Lloyd wrote.
It showed. Houston’s offense exploded during the ALDS, scoring 21 runs over three games. Alex Bregman, Marwin Gonzalez and Tyler White all hit above .500 in the series. George Springer hit three home runs. Much of that damage came off the vaunted Indians pitching staff that struck out everyone during the regular season.
“Offensively, our hitters are uber-prepared,” Bregman said after Game 2. “We know which counts pitchers throw which pitches the most, the different percentages — there’s a bunch of stuff. Our organization does a good job of providing us with that information. But our team is a very focused team and we take pride in being prepared.”
The Astros are considered one of the most analytics-focused teams in the MLB, and GM Jeff Luhnow — who holds degrees from Penn and Northwestern — rewarded his team’s faith with a World Series ring in 2017. They were so forward-thinking that a Cardinals scout got arrested for hacking their computer system.
The Indians do plenty of things well, notably pitcher development and international scouting. But even their players admit their analytics arm is a bit behind the times.
“We were a little bit, I don’t know, kind of had our backs against the wall before this started when it came to the analytical side,” Cleveland pitcher Mike Clevinger told The Athletic.
There are certainly other reasons for the Indians’ baffling three-game sweep. Andrew Miller, who was unhittable in Cleveland’s 2016 World Series run, walked three of the five batters he faced in the series, getting only one of them out. Jose Ramirez, an MVP candidate for much of the regular season, went hitless in 11 at-bats. Midseason acquisition Josh Donaldson had just one hit over the same sample size. The Indians committed three errors in their series-clinching loss.
But after three years of postseason disappointments, Cleveland faces some hard questions. In the modern, data-driven MLB, it might be adapt-or-die time. Without a change in approach, they risk watching the rest of the league sail forward without them.
