Are The Cleveland Indians This Season’s New York Mets?

Cheap, elite pitching to go with potent bats is making the Tribe look like a very dangerous October threat.

Is 2016 the year for Cleveland? After years of misery for “The Mistake on the Lake,” things are finally looking up. The city recently captured its first major sports championship in 52 years courtesy of LeBron James’s greatness, the Indians are leading the AL Central, and, oh, by the way, the Browns sent Johnny Manziel packing.

In the afterglow of the Cavaliers’ improbable comeback in the NBA Finals, attention has been stolen away from their neighbors at Progressive Field. The Indians’ record currently stands at 63–47, with a three-game cushion on the second-place Detroit Tigers. And make no mistake, this is no fluke. The Tribe are averaging the fourth-most runs per game (4.99) in the Majors, trailing only Baltimore, Colorado, and the Chicago Cubs. They have a run differential of plus-83 after 110 games.

When the Indians dominated the AL Central from 1995–2001, it was the offense led by the likes of Jim Thome, Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, and Kenny Lofton that guided them to six first-place finishes. Not to say Charles Nagy and an elder Orel Hershiser weren’t effective on the mound, but those Cleveland staffs were never among the American League’s elite.

That isn’t the case with the Indians of today.

When you look closely at the Cleveland rotation that is dominating American League hitters, there’s a similarity to another team that caught fire and rode that momentum all the way to the World Series: the 2015 New York Mets. Led by an arsenal of young power pitching, the Amazin’s won 37 of their final 59 games en route to capturing the NL Pennant. Is Chief Wahoo’s crew also destined to be playing baseball come late October?

Consider the chart below and note how similar the pitching numbers compiled by the 2015 Mets are to the 2016 Indians. (For the sake of this comparison, Jonathon Niese was replaced by Steven Matz and his statistics over 26 starts since last year since Matz’s pedigree aligns with Cleveland’s Trevor Bauer.)

The parallels between the two pitching staffs runs much deeper than just being supremely talented. They both have de facto aces, Harvey and Kluber, but you could make the case that the next two starters in the rotation are worthy of such distinction. In fact, each team’s third starter, Syndergaard and Salazar, were/are the most dominant in the rotation. Heck, even the outputs by each team’s back end of the rotation are virtually the same.

The price of such tremendous production also is a similarity. In today’s MLB, elite starting pitching is one the most expensive commodities. This past offseason alone saw Zack Greinke and David Price sign contracts that will pay them, on average, $34.4 million and $31 million per year, respectively. Now, consider the following chart, which omits Bartolo Colon but adds Zack Wheeler, who is working his way back from injury but has been viewed as another foundational piece of the Mets’ starting rotation.

Assembling a cost-effective pitching staff isn’t easy. There’s an element of luck when scouting and developing your homegrown talent: Harvey, Matz, and deGrom for the Mets; Salazar and Tomlin for the Indians. Luck also pertains to overcoming health obstacles, as Carrasco, Tomlin, Salazar, deGrom, Harvey, and Matz all had to work their way back from Tommy John surgeries.

Some of it comes from the payoff of previously being a seller. Remember Cliff Lee being dealt to Philadelphia? Well, that’s how Carrasco landed in Cleveland. Kluber was just a Double-A prospect from the Padres when Cleveland, St. Louis, and San Diego completed a three-team deal centered around Jake Westbrook and Ryan Ludwick. Wheeler isn’t in Queens if the Mets didn’t deal Carlos Beltran to San Francisco.

Then there’s being a shrewd trading partner. Cleveland nabbed Bauer, a highly touted prospect when Arizona grew tired of his antics and immaturity. The Mets essentially robbed Toronto when they flipped reigning Cy Young winner and one-hit wonder R.A. Dickey for Syndergaard (and Travis d’Arnoud).

The Indians’ surge has come earlier than the Mets’, which was launched after dealing for Yoenis Cespedes at the July 31 deadline last season. Since starting the season with a record of 17–17, the Indians have won nearly 62 percent of their games to catapult them into the upper echelon of the American League. Barring any major injuries or a monumental collapse, playoff baseball is a near lock for Northeast Ohio come this autumn, and the rest of the baseball will have a legitimate reason to be afraid. After all, power pitching tends to shut down power hitting. Just look how the Cubs’ hitters fared in the 2015 NLCS against those Mets.

The Indians have hit their stride without acquiring a middle of the lineup force like Cespedes, but you have to wonder if they did enough at the MLB non-waiver trading deadline to bolster their roster to make a deep playoff run. Certainly the acquisition of Andrew Miller fortified the bullpen, but there may be some legitimate questions at third base and in the outfield that weren’t addressed. The current starting outfield of Lonnie Chisenhall, Tyler Naquin, and Rajai Davis has been a pleasant surprise, but wouldn’t it have been wise to upgrade with the likes of Carlos Beltran or Jay Bruce, who were available on the trade market? As for third, Jose Ramirez recently replaced 37-year-old Juan Uribe in the starting lineup, but Ramirez lacks the power you hope to get from the hot corner. In nearly 400 plate appearances, he has only six home runs and 44 runs batted in.

Cleveland has benefitted greatly from Francisco Lindor’s breakout, Mike Napoli’s resurgence, and Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana entering what appears to be the prime of their careers. With the uncertainty of Michael Brantley’s shoulder and the inexperience of the aforementioned outfield, the Indians need to explore adding a legitimate offensive threat who will lengthen and provide protection the rest of the lineup.

There’s still a few more weeks until the non-waiver trade deadline and there should be names available who would help more so than Brandon Guyer, who the Tribe acquired recently from Tampa Bay. Yes, it may cost a prospect and would mean adding payroll, but with the pieces already in place, including one of the best managers in Terry Francona, the Indians need to go for it now in an attempt to bring home their first World Series since 1948.

As we learned with this year’s Mets, the future is uncertain no matter how promising it may appear. The notion of the Mets missing the 2016 postseason was ludicrous considering the level of talent expected to be toeing the rubber on a daily basis, but with Matz and Syndergaard dealing with bone spurs in their elbows, Harvey undergoing season-ending surgery on his shoulder, and Wheeler still rehabbing from his own Tommy John surgery, there’s a possibility the Mets will be on the outside looking in come October.

It’s important the Indians don’t take for granted how special this quartet of pitchers are. Good fortunes can change, and although he’s been a workhorse over the years, the reality is Corey Kluber has thrown 235 and 222 innings each of the last two seasons, and there has been a noticeable drop in his velocity this year. Meanwhile, Danny Salazar had to have a start skipped in early June due to shoulder fatigue, and was recently placed on the disabled list with right elbow inflammation.

For both the Mets and Indians, these pitchers ultimately will command hefty pay raises. When that time comes, odds are that many of them will be pitching elsewhere. So, with the stars aligning over Progressive Field just like how they were above Citi Field a season ago, Indians ownership owes it to itself and the team’s fans to adopt the Cavaliers’ battle cry of “All in 2016” and go for it now.

This article was originally published on The Cauldron.