How the Cleveland Indians crumbled: 33 thoughts on a season and finish that left plenty to be desired (2024)

CLEVELAND — As Melky Cabrera and Sandy Alomar Jr. trotted back to the dugout, the rest of the Indians retreated to the clubhouse to pack, to hug, to process how another promising season fizzled during the month of the calendar that matters most in Major League Baseball.

José Ramírez and Mike Clevinger stood on the far end of the dugout and stared out at the field as the Astros celebrated. Bench coach Brad Mills tapped Clevinger on the back, and the hurler ventured over to the other side and wrapped his arm around Jason Kipnis.

Some players stuffed their duffel bags with their gear, their gloves, the photos and keepsakes that adorned their lockers. Others will empty out their personal spaces on Tuesday, long before anyone on the roster anticipated commencing their winter break.

In the center of the clubhouse, atop a tall cabinet, stood an oversized Jobu figurine, flanked by two bottles of Jobu’s Rum, one barrel-aged and one silver. At Jobu’s bare feet sat a shot glass, about three-quarters full of the barrel-aged alcohol.

No magic elixir could vault the Indians past the Astros in the ALDS. For the first time since Bobby Avila led the club in hitting (1954), the Indians were swept out of the postseason.

On Thursday, the Indians’ championship drought will officially reach the 70-year mark. That number will swell to at least 71. And as Kipnis, holding two bats, exited the clubhouse in his red Tribe shirt and backward cap, the Indians were left to wonder: How did they get here?

1. One team converts the mound into a mosh pit. The other stares ahead as if they were reliving the time their high school crush rejected their prom proposal.

“You don’t really know what’s going through your head,” Josh Tomlin said. “It’s almost like you’re in a blank space. You’re just looking out at an abyss, trying to understand what just happened. I’m sure it’ll hit us more as time goes on and we’re watching games on TV. But right now, it’s a loss for words.”

2. Let’s back up, though. In fact, let’s rewind to May 18, 2016, when Clevinger — after a vomiting session that brought him to his knees in the visitors clubhouse bathroom at Great American Ball Park — made his major-league debut. A contingent of Clevinger’s relatives, who traveled from Jacksonville, sat about 20 rows behind the Indians’ dugout along the third-base line that night. They cheered him when he recorded each of his five strikeouts, and they laughed at him as he stood in the batter’s box.

3. Clevinger successfully harnessed his nervous energy Monday, as he delivered five strong innings to put the Indians in position to win, his only blemish being one of George Springer’s 782 home runs. Alas, Terry Francona’s lineup failed to rise to the occasion for the third consecutive game.

4. The Indians’ first order of business last winter was to exercise Michael Brantley’s option. He returned from ankle surgery and appeared in 143 games, posting an .832 OPS and earning his third career All-Star nod. That decision proved prescient. The rest of the outfield, on the other hand, was a disaster.

5. Bradley Zimmer struggled enough to be demoted to Class AAA Columbus before he underwent season-ending shoulder surgery. He could miss a decent chunk of next season as well. That left center field to Rajai Davis, Greg Allen and, for a minute, Leonys Martín, who, unfortunately, suffered a serious illness and missed the final eight weeks of the year.

In right field, Lonnie Chisenhall’s calves again derailed his season. Brandon Guyer never found his footing. So, the team took two chances on Cabrera, who had been lifting weights and soaking up the Florida sun. Edwin Encarnacion implored the Indians to give Cabrera a chance and, for a while in the second half, he performed admirably at the plate.

But that desperation move highlighted how the Indians’ roster was lacking in certain areas.

6. Just consider how the middle of the order fared against Houston.

José Ramírez: 0-for-11
Edwin Encarnacion: 1-for-10
Josh Donaldson: 1-for-11
Yonder Alonso: 0-for-6
Melky Cabrera: 1-for-8

That’s a combined 3-for-46 for those keeping score at home.

7. For Ramírez, it should sting worse, because the guy who could be an MVP finalist for the second consecutive year again disappeared on the grand stage (even though these games aired during brunch on Tru TV). Ramírez has totaled two hits in 31 at-bats the past two Octobers and, moving forward, that’s all anyone will care about. No one will be surprised by — or will concern themselves with — his gaudy regular-season numbers.

Ramírez seemed uninterested in speaking with the media after Game 3, but Encarnacion and a persistent reporter nudged the 26-year-old into holding court.

“We want to be successful, but I fell off,” Ramírez said through team interpreter Will Clements. “That’s all I can say. I didn’t perform how I wanted to.”

8. Encarnacion, meanwhile, will earn nearly $22 million next year. He’ll turn 36 on Jan. 7.

9. The Indians had a quiet winter last year. They signed Alonso, Davis and … Brandon Barnes? They delayed addressing the bullpen until midseason, so they cycled through Alexi Ogando, Jeff Beliveau, Ben Taylor, Matt Belisle, George Kontos, Oliver Drake, Marc Rzepczynski, Chris Traeger, Mark Brendanawicz, Ben Wyatt and Li’l Sebastian. (OK, the last four are “Parks and Recreation” characters. And the last one is a deceased mini horse.)

10. It made some sense. Looking at the AL Central standings should require a hazmat suit. The Indians didn’t need to rack up empty-calorie wins. They would punch their ticket to October with their third consecutive division crown, and that’s when they needed to capitalize. So, they waited until summer arrived, and they snagged Brad Hand and Adam Cimber from San Diego.

11. But there was no contingency plan for if Andrew Miller never rounded into form, or if Cody Allen’s arm stopped working properly — or both. Trevor Bauer deployed as a daily, multi-inning weapon? An interesting concept, but really, had he not been pelted with Jose Abreu’s line drive in mid-August, would he instead have started one of the first two games in Houston?

12. Bauer will have an MRI on his ankle this week to make sure it has healed properly. He’ll then throw a bullpen session, hang out with Shane Bieber in California and begin his offseason project. Last winter, he developed his slider. This year, he wants to perfect his changeup.

13. Oh, Bauer also said he has a plan to better his nutrition, and that he wants to be featured in ESPN’s The Body issue in the near future.

14. The Indians’ deal for Donaldson didn’t pan out as intended, though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth the gamble of parting with Julian Merryweather. The Indians’ defensive realignment ultimately made no difference in the ALDS. Then again, neither did Donaldson’s bat.

15. The lineup card Brad Mills handed the home-plate umpire for Games 1 and 2 in Houston included nine hitters who each had at least one All-Star nod to their name. Then, the group produced 13 hits in 90 at-bats in the series (.144 average). Lindor’s two solo homers accounted for two-thirds of the club’s extra-base hits.

16. Where does the blame fall? For the second consecutive postseason, the club’s stars flopped in the limelight. This wasn’t Francona’s finest hour, either. Any time a team falls completely flat at the wrong time — in any sport — the manager or coach deserves a spot under the microscope. The front office misjudged the roster’s ability to gear up at precisely the right time, too.

17. As players started to file out of the clubhouse and the media contingent decreased in size, a handful of veteran players gathered in the corner of the room. Kipnis sat at the base of his locker. Tomlin and Yan Gomes sat in leather chairs in front of him. Brantley sat at his adjacent locker, with Alonso sitting on the floor beside him.

18. Brantley, Allen, Miller and Tomlin are all eligible for free agency. Kipnis knows the Indians might try to unload his contract, which will earn him $14.7 million next year (plus a $2.5 million buyout or $16.5 million option for 2020).

19. Said Tomlin: “It’s something you try to keep in the back of your mind so you don’t have those negative thoughts where, ‘If we do lose this game, this is the last time we’ll play together.’ But it’s definitely something we’ve talked about. We’ve spent time communicating back and forth about how much we’ve enjoyed playing with each other. We’re heavy in the heart, but that’s the way it goes. We’ve been fortunate to be able to play with each other for this long, so we’ll take it for what it is, be grateful for it and move on.”

20. There will certainly be a changing of the guard next season. We have all winter to analyze and predict the state of the 2019 roster. But that core group never captured a World Series title in Cleveland, even after the trade for Miller. That surely stings. As time elapses, there’s an increasing sense that, perhaps the postseason opportunity in 2016 was the best the club will get to capture that elusive ring.

21. Brantley, recovering from a second shoulder surgery, stood on the sideline and watched the Indians march to within one victory of a parade in 2016. He played in the 2017 ALDS, but he was hobbled by an ankle that ultimately needed some knife work. Finally healthy, and perhaps appearing in his final stretch of games for the franchise that acquired him at the end of the 2008 season as the player to be named later in the CC Sabathia deal, Brantley only got to enjoy three playoff games. And there wasn’t much to enjoy.

22. Something felt off about the Indians all season. Some point to the 2017 club’s 22-game winning streak and say that team peaked too early. (I don’t buy into that theory, but that’s neither here nor there.) This team never peaked. It never revealed the sort of potential it should have possessed.

23. The Indians were always waiting for something: a trade to patch up the leaky bullpen, Miller to return to full health, a trade to fix the faulty outfield, Kipnis to heat up at the plate, Bauer’s ankle to heal, Donaldson’s calf to heal, Ramírez’s slump to cease.

Eventually, the sand all settles at the bottom of the hourglass.

24. Said Miller: “We never felt like we tapped our full potential, maybe because we didn’t have to. If we were in a pennant race, fighting in games in September, maybe that helps us. I don’t know. Unfortunately, there’s no way to go back and get a do-over and set things up the way you want. You have to show up when the games start.”

25. That’s easy to say after the fact, and the state of the division isn’t going to change any time soon, unless Derek Falvey bolsters the Twins’ roster in grand fashion during the offseason.

26. Also, given what they’ve meant to the franchise over the past few years, it’s incredible to think that maybe the Indians can stomach the losses of Allen and Miller. That would have seemed far-fetched in April or May, when the club was relying on Beliveau to secure a save. Sure, they’ll need to revamp their bullpen this winter, but it’s not as though those two are slam dunks to produce at a high level for their respective teams next season.

27. Some years, it seems as though randomness reigns supreme in October. A team catches fire at the right time and stuns the nation. But it requires a certain degree of talent to be able to pull off such a feat. A better team has a better chance of getting hot in the postseason.

28. On paper, it seemed as though the Indians could have followed that formula. They have four of the top starting pitchers in the AL. They have a couple of MVP candidates. But everything crumbled when the calendar flipped to October.

29. Said Tomlin: “You still have to go out there and you still have to execute and you still have to hit the ball and you still have to move runners and you still have to do the things that make up winning baseball. We didn’t do that very well. You don’t want to say wasted, but we did let an opportunity go that we all sure wish we could have back.”

30. What will stand out about this Indians season? Lindor’s momentous home run in Puerto Rico? Ramírez’s rising popularity on the field and on the dirt track at Moo Moo Farm? Bauer’s blossoming into the frontline starter he predicted he would become?

31. The overwhelming feeling about the 2018 Indians will be that anything the club achieves before October serves merely as a footnote. The Indians will be contenders next season, but they’ll be accompanied by a sentiment of “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

32. Mike Chernoff made the rounds in the clubhouse after the loss Monday. He chatted with players and coaches, shook hands and said goodbyes. The attention on the team now shifts to Chernoff and Chris Antonetti as the front office attempts to retool the roster and make the club more formidable entering next season.

33. The Indians will host the All-Star Game at Progressive Field in July. But 2019 will be all about snapping that soon-to-be 71-year drought. It’ll be all about twisting open those bottles of Jobu Rum and putting them to use in a manner other than filling an idle shot glass in the center of the clubhouse.

Thanks to all of you for following along this season, for reading and interacting. It’s been a blast chronicling this journey and attempting to take you behind the scenes, whether in the clubhouse, on the road or on the “Mario Kart” track. We have plenty of fun stuff in store to keep you entertained throughout the offseason.

(Top photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)