Seth Stohs

The Cleveland Indians are in Minneapolis, ready for a four-game, season-ending series against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. The Twins watched the Oakland A's celebrate winning the AL West Division title last weekend. Last night, they watched the Detroit Tigers win the AL Central for the third straight year. It is possible that the Twins will also watch Cleveland celebrate a playoff berth this weekend. With four games to play, the Indians are currently one game ahead of the Texas Rangers for the second wild card position in the American League. [PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]They are one game behind Tampa Bay for the #1 wild card spot. While Cleveland gets to play the Twins, the Rangers will be hosting the Angels for four games. In 2012, Cleveland finished 68-94 after a massive second-half collapse. This year, they are 88-70 with four games to play and a playoff spot well within their grasp. I thought it would be interesting to check out the Cleveland roster to see how this team came together. It was quite interesting to see how they acquired their key 2013 contributors. DRAFTED: 2B Jason Kipnis - 2nd round in 2009 3B Lonnie Chisenhall - 1st round in 2008 RP Cody Allen - 23rd round in 2011 RP Vinny Pestano - 20th round in 2006 VIA TRADE: RF Drew Stubbs (12/11/12 - acquired from Cincinnati for Shin-Soo Choo in 3-team trade) IF Mike Aviles and C Yan Gomes (11/3/12 - acquired from Toronto for Esmil Rogers) SS Asdrubal Cabrera (7/30/06 - acquired from Seattle for Eduardo Perez) LF Michael Brantley (10/3/08 - acquires as the PTBNL from Milwaukee in the CC Sabathia trade) C Carlos Santana (7/26/08 - acquired from the Dodgers for Casey Blake) SP Justin Masterson and RP Nick Hagadone (7/31/09 - acquired from Boston for Victor Martinez) SP Ubaldo Jimenez (7/30/11 - acquired from Colorado for four players including Matt White and Drew Pomeranz) SP Corey Kluber (7/31/10 - acquired in 3-team trade from Padres. Cleveland sent Jake Westbrook to St. Louis) SP Zach McAllister (8/20/10 - acquired as PTBNL for Austin Kearns from Yankees) RP Chris Perez (6/27/09 - acquired with Jess Todd for Mark Derosa from Cardinals) RP Joe Smith (12/11/08 - acquired as part of 3-team deal from Mets) FREE AGENTS: 11/19/12 - signed former Twins OF Matt Carson to a minor league deal (OK, not a significant contributor throughout the year, but since his recall in late August, he is 7-10!) 1/4/13 - signed 1B Nick Swisher to a four-year deal 1/8/13 - signed SP Scott Kazmir to minor league contract 1/21/13 - signed IF Ryan Raburn to a minor league contract 2/15/13 - signed OF Michael Bourn to a four-year contract 12/18/12 - signed IF Mark Reynolds 1/1/13 - signed Brett Myers 2/19/13 - signed Jason Giambi STAT PACK: Here is where Cleveland ranks in the American League in the following statistics: Runs Scored - 6th (717) OPS - 8th (.734) ERA - 7th (3.84) Strikeouts - 2nd (1,331) Errors/Fielding Percentage - 11th (99, .983) The offense has just two players (with enough at-bats to qualify) with an OPS over .800. Carlos Santana's OPS is .824, and Jason Kipnis's OPS is .804. Nick Swisher (.758) and Michael Brantley (.730) are the only others with an OPS over .700. All five starters who have made at least 23 starts have ERAs between 3.38 and 4.14. Four of the five starters have struck out at least 8.3 batters per nine innings. Justin Masterson's 2012 ERA was 4.93, and it dropped to 3.52 in 2013. Ubaldo Jimenez's 3.38 this season is impressive, especially considering it was 5.10 in 2012. Scott Kazmir pitched in the independent leagues in 2012 after making just one big league appearance in 2011. He had a 5.94 ERA for the Angels in 2010. The last time he was a solid MLB pitcher for an extended period before this year was 2008. Corey Kluber posted a 5.14 ERA in 12 starts in 2012 before posting a 3.61 ERA this season. Zach McAllister dropped his ERA by nearly a half-point from 2012 to 2013. Bryan Shaw, Cody Allen, Joe Smith and Matt Albers did very well in extensive relief duties. So, if you're looking for the reason that Cleveland will win 20-plus more games in 2013 than in 2012, look no further than a pitching staff that went from worse-than-the-Twins to league-average. Oh, I nearly forgot... On September 27 of last year, Cleveland fired manager Manny Acta. Sandy Alomar finished the season, but in early October, Terry Francona left his ESPN gig to be the team's new manager. Mickey Callaway was named the team's new pitching coach. Ty Van Burkleo was named the hitting coach. Summary Cleveland made several changes to their roster from 2012 to 2013, but the most significant difference between the two seasons was the performance of their pitching staff. That can't be over-emphasized. They signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn to four-year contracts. Swisher has always been an on-base machine who provides power. He is an Ohio native who played his college ball at Ohio State. Bourn was a Boras client who didn't have as many teams interested in him as they had projected. He was available to Cleveland, in part, because the Twins traded Denard Span to the Nationals and Ben Revere to the Phillies. Mark Reynolds was a nice signing, for the season's first month, and Brett Myers was hurt most of the season. However, they got lucky with the minor league contracts of Scott Kazmir and Ryan Raburn. Jason Giambi provides value off of the bench. The team's core came via trade. Jimenez had a successful run in Colorado. Masterson had done well in the Red Sox bullpen. However, guys like Carlos Santana, Michael Brantley, Asdrubal Cabrera, Corey Kluber and Zach McAllister all came to the organization as minor leaguers. It will be a nice story if Cleveland is able to get to the playoffs in 2013. It's fun to see a team make that kind of improvement from one season to the next. The Twins will come from different direction with so many potentially high-impact minor leaguers on the horizon. Maybe in 2015 the Twins will be able to make a 20+ game improvement and contend for a playoff spot.

The Twins got a nice 4-3 win last night at Target Field in the first game of the final home stand of the season. Brian Dozier knocked his 18th home run of the season to send the game to extra innings. In the 11th inning, Josmil Pinto drove in the game-winning run for the Twins. As the season is winding down, it seems there are fewer people wanting to talk about the Twins, and understandably so. But here are several topics that are interesting, if nothing else: Last night's Twins win marked the 998th win in the Twins managerial career of Ron Gardenhire. Obviously a big talker over the next week will be whether or not the Twins will (or should) retain him as their manager for 2014 and beyond. No matter what you think of his style or his overall success, 998 wins is noteworthy. Consider, in the long history of Major League Baseball, only 59 managers have reached the 1,000 Win plateau. The most recent manager to attain the milestone was former Twins player Charlie Manuel who achieved it with the Phillies. Of course, once he reached 1,000 wins, the Phillies fired him and have now replaced him with Ryne Sandberg. Josmil Pinto had the big hit last night, and he has come up with many big hits over the course of his short time with the Twins. It caused me to got back a couple of seasons to look at another September call up who made a great first impression. In 2011, Chris Parmelee came up to the Twins following a solid second season in New Britain. He was 23 years old and played in 21 games. In 88 plate appearances, he hit .355/.443/.592 (1.035) with six doubles and four home runs. Josmil Pinto came up just a short stint in Rochester and debuted on September 1st. He was 24 years old and has played in 17 games so far. In 68 plate appearances, he is hitting .359/.397/.578 (.975) with five doubles and three home runs. That comparison is not meant as a knock to either player. Chris Parmelee will turn 26 next spring training, so there is no reason to give up on him as a big league hitter. And, this isn't to say that Pinto won't be a fixture on the Twins roster and in the lineup for years to come. Brian Dozier's still hitting just .248 on the season, but his .739 OPS is finally giving him a 102 OPS+, which is to say that it is better than league average. Considering that after a May 27th game, he was hitting just .197, he's put together a very solid season. Since that game (now 104 games, so not completely in the realm of small sample any longer), he has hit .266/.339/.479 (.817) with 30 doubles, two triples and 17 (of his 18) home runs. We know about his defense at second base. His 1.5 DWAR trails only Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler among MLB second basemen. His 705 total chances is tops among all second basemen. His overall WAR (according to ESPN) of 3.8 ranks seventh among second basemen, trailing Robinson Cano (7.4), Matt Carpenter (6.6), Dustin Pedroia (6.3), Jason Kipnis (5.3), Ben Zobrist (4.7), and Ian Kinsler (4.6). His 18 home runs are behind only Cano (27), Dan Uggla (22), and Jedd Gyorko (20). Long-time Twins infielder/outfielder/pitcher(?) Michael Cuddyer is about to win the National League batting title. Entering play today, Cuddyer is batting a robust .334. He is currently leading the Braves' Chris Johnson (.327) and the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter (.324). Couldn't happen to a better, most standout guy. If not for the frustrations of the 2011 season, I believe he would have loved to have stayed in Minnesota for his whole career. He represents all that a Minnesota Twins player should be. He was a starter for the National League in the All-Star game this year (his second All- Star game), and put on an impressive display in the Home Run Derby. Since joining the Pirates, Justin Morneau is hitting .254/.354/.299 (.653) with three doubles. Jamey Carroll has had three hits in 39 at bats for the Royals since they acquired him at the end of July. He is sitting on 999 career hits. Six games to go... The Twins will play three more against Detroit followed by three games against Cleveland. And then we will go almost four and a half months before spring training!