2013 in Review: The End of the Beginning

I was pretty drunk by the time the last out of the Wild Card game was recorded.  I couldn't even tell you who was batting.

The great agony of the 2013 Cleveland Indians is that there was always an equal chance that they'd be unbeatable or they'd be unbearable.  When the team was firing on all cylinders, they could beat anyone (except Detroit).  But when one or two players were having off games, it spread like a disease through the line-up.  This team excelled (and were likable) because of the chemistry they had; they seemed to fail for the same reason.

But what do we take away from a season where the team overachieved?  What do we take away from the first (of many) year that Jason Kipnis was an All-Star?  That McAllister and Kluber looked like solid, back of the rotation guys?  That Danny Salazar looked like a future ace and Justin Masterson looked like a current one?  When Bourne, Swisher, and Cabrera all disappointed at the plate, with our steady 8th and 9th inning guys both lost their jobs, and when Yan Gomes went from #3 catcher to #2 to starter?

First and foremost, we need to look at the core of this team, which is probably a group consisting of Kipnis, Swisher, Bourne, Brantley, Cabrera, Santana, and Gomes.  That's 7 guys right there that we can think of as forming the basis for this team for the next few years.  That's not a bad foundation to build on.

We should bask in what Terry Francona was able to do.  I know that he had a much better line-up to roll out every day than Manny Acta, but it's clear that Francona was able to keep the team even keel all season, something Acta seemed incapable of.  Every time it seemed like the Tribe was going to fall out of it completely, they just kept doing what they do, and eventually turned it around.  Too often over the last few years, that wasn't the case.  Francona did a lot for this team.

We should praise the deals that Chris Antonetti made in the off-season.  Signing Kazmir (and Giambi) to minor league deals was smart, but not above and beyond what most GMs would do.  No, the trade sending Esmil Rogers to Toronto for Mike Aviles and Yan Gomes was genius.  Gomes' offense went a long way towards filling in the gaps left by our under performing off season acquisitions.

And how about that deal for Scrabble?  He was dominant when he came over.

We should definitely make sure Mickey Calloway gets a bonus.  Not only did he turn around the quagmire that was Ubaldo Jimenez, but he helped resurrect Kazmir and turned Kluber and McAllister into reliable starters.  The unspoken upside of this is that if anyone can get Trevor Bauer to listen to him, it has to be Calloway, who's proven he has the magic touch.  I would love to see him work his magic on Nick Hagadone, too.

We should hope to god that Bourne and Swisher bounce back because we're paying them a lot of money.

More than anything, we should be thankful (and hopeful) that the city of Cleveland is beginning to believe in the Tribe again.  It's a simple matter of economics.  If the Tribe is going to compete, they're going to have to spend money, and they're only going to make the money they need to spend if people come to the games.  All of which is to say that the first month of next season should be really interesting.  You would expect to see an uptick in attendance, weather permitting.

In other words, there are an awful lot of reasons to look forward to the next few years of baseball in Cleveland.  The end of this season was the beginning of a new era.  Let's hope it's one that results in a World Championship.