BAAAAAAHHHHH!!! Hello there should be Cleveland fans. It is your good friend Bruce Drennan, host of SportsTime Ohio's All Bets Are Off With Bruce Drennan Drennan Live. The greatest city and the greatest fans on Earth are preparing for what will be the greatest season with the greatest team in the history of the greatest city in the whole damn greatest universe. BAAAAAHHHHH!!! IIIIIIIIII LOVE YA CLEVELAND!
People call us the Mistake By the Lake because they're a bunch of stupid dicks that wouldn't know a good river fire if it hit them over the head with a brick. The Indians finished the season at 85-77, five games behind the Detroit Tigers and four games behind the American League Champion Kansas City Royals. The latter portion of that sentence literally made me vomit. It's all over my desk. BAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! IIIIIIII LOVE YA CLEVELAND!
There are three things in this world that I love the most. #1 not paying my taxes, #2 the Cleveland Indians, and #3 my mother. What I love the most about the Indians is when young players have breakout seasons. It brings me back to the years of Bob Feller, the 90's with all those great players whose names I have forgotten, and something about seeing Grady Sizemore naked. This year the Indians had Corey Kluber win the AL Cy Young, which is scary because it means the Indians will probably trade him. BAAAAHHHHHH!!! They'd probably trade him for Matt LaPorta. BAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! Michael Brantley finally played like we thought he could with a .327 batting average, 20 homeruns, 97 RBI, and 23 steals. There are other numbers there, but I don't know what they mean. BAAAAHHHHH!!! IIIIIIII LOVE YA CLEVELAND!
I met Pete Rose once. Actually, we were betting on games together. What a piece of shit. IT WAS AN ALLSTAR GAME, DAMNIT, AND HE RAN OVER FOSSE! I swear Fosse would have broken all of Bench's records. BAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! COLLUSION!!!! Did you know Pete Rose went to jail for not paying his taxes? What a cheat! Oh, wait. Getting back on track, the Indians' projected payroll budget is $80,000,000, and they had about $70,000,000 of that accounted for before the off season. The only moves the Indians made was signing SP Gavin Floyd (some dirty White Sox poop eater) and trading for 1B/OF/DH Brandon Moss who will probably hit 50 homeruns in The Jake. THE JAKE!!!! Sadly, we lost Jason Giambi this winter to old age. We'll mourn his passing everyday. BAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! IIIIIIIIII LOVE YA GIAMBINO!
The strength of the Cleveland Indians will be their starting pitching, and it should shake out like this. The numbers are their 2014 statistics. Apparently, these guys whipped something.
Projected Starting Rotation
Corey Kluber 34 GS, 18-9, 2.44 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 269 K, 235.2 IP
Carlos Carrasco 40 G, 14 GS, 8-7, 2.55 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, 140 K, 134 IP
Trevor Bauer 26 GS, 5-8, 4.18 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 143 K, 153 IP
Gavin Floyd 9 GS, 2-2, 2.65 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 45 K, 54.1 IP
Danny Salazar 20 GS, 6-8, 4.25 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 120 K, 110 IP
Kluber and Carrasco lead the group, but there is a lot of potential outside of Floyd.
In reality, the Indians bullpen was even better than their rotation. BAAAAHHHH!!! LOOK AT THOSE FIREBALLERS!!!!
Projected Bullpen
Closer Cody Allen 76 G, 24 SV, 6-4, 2.07 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 91 K, 69.2 IP
SU Scott Atchison 70 G, 2 SV, 6-0, 2.75 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 49 K, 72 IP
SU Bryan Shaw 80 G, 2 SV, 5-5, 2.59 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 64, 76.1 IP
MID Kyle Crockett 43 G, 0 SV, 4-1, 1.80 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 28 K, 30 IP
MID Nick Hagadone 35 G, 0 SV, 1-0, 2.70 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 27 K, 23.1 IP
MID Marc Rzepczynski 73 G, 1 SV, 0-3, 2.74 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 46 K, 46 IP
LR Zach McAllister 22 G, 15 GS, 4-7, 5.23 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 74 K, 86 IP
In 2014, the reason the Indians fell short of the playoffs was because of their lineup. There were key players such as NIck Swisher, Michael Bourn, and Jason Kipnis who missed significant time or were just bad. We're also paying them a lot of money. To improve for 2015, and finally win it all, the lineup has to get better as a whole. We can't rely entirely on Michael Brantley. Here is the projected 2015 lineup.
Projected Lineup
CF Michael Bourn (L) 106 G, .257/.314/.360, 17 2B, 3 HR, 28 RBI, 57 R
SS Jose Ramirez (S) 68 G, .262/.300/.346, 10 2B, 2 HR, 17 RBI, 27 R
CF Michael Brantley (L) 156, .327/.385/.506, 45 2B, 20 HR, 97 RBI, 94 R
1B Carlos Santana (S) 152 G, .231/.365/.427, 25 2B, 27 HR, 85 RBI, 68 R
RF Brandon Moss (L) 147 G, .234/.334/.438, 23 2B, 25 HR, 81 RBI, 70 R
C Yan Gomes (R) 135 G, .278/.313/.472, 25 2B, 21 HR, 74 RBI, 61 R
2B Jason Kipnis (L) 129 G, .240/.310/.330, 25 2B, 6 HR, 41 RBI, 61 R
DH Nick Swisher (S) 97 G, .208/.278/.331, 20 2B, 8 HR, 42 RBI, 33 R
3B Lonnie Chisenhall (L) 142 G, .280/.343/.427, 29 2B, 13 HR, 59 RBI, 62 R
BAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! THEM SOME WINNING NAMES!!!!!
Every year for the the City of Cleveland is basically sadness. THE FACTORY OF SADNESS. The Browns are on their 50th starting quarterback in ten years, LeBron lost all his hair, and the last time anyone was happy was in 1964. We aren't as desperate as Cub fans, but we might as well be, and WE DAMN RIGHT DESERVE IT! Every season is about as disappointing as the time I spent in the clink playing ping pong for 6 months. So, this is Bruce Drennan signing off from STO for the night and heading to the bar where I'll wish for a 130 win season.
BAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!! IIIIIIIII LOVE YA CLEVELAND!!!!!
*This is just to denote that I wrote this entirely in the voice of Bruce Drennan who is a sports personality for SportsTime Ohio. I basically spent my college years watching him almost everyday because my roommates watched him everyday. His voice is like nails on a chalkboard, he's boisterous, and he's exactly the type of guy you'd expect to talk about Cleveland sports. However, he loves the city of Cleveland and the fans love him. He's the worst. Like if Paul Daugherty was put on tv. Even with what I said here, I do kind of like the Indians and the city. GO BROWNS!