MLB Season Preview: 2009 Cleveland Indians

The Cleveland Indians had a bad year last year, the kind of bad year that the Orioles, Royals, Pirates, and Reds haven't seen in years: They finished .500.

Sure, it's a big letdown to miss the playoffs after being one win away from the World Series in 2007, but they have a lot of hope and a lot of promise to back it up.

Is this the year to get back to October?

OFFENSE: C+

Without the catastrophic injuries to C Victor Martinez (torn hamstring, elbow bone chips) and DH Travis Hafner (right shoulder) and the combined 194 games they missed, who knows how much better this already potent lineup would've been? And, scarier still, could still be? CF Grady Sizemore (.268, 33 homers, 90 RBI, 38 steals) continues to be one of the top young talents in baseball, and he leads a parade of four Indians to hit at least 20 homers (SS Jhonny Peralta, 23, C Kelly Shoppach and newly acquired 3B Mark DeRosa, 21 each), and corner outfielders Ben Francisco and Shin-Soo Choo can only get better. When on a roll, a runaway boulder is easier to stop than this offense.

PROJECTED LINEUP: 1 Cabrera 2B 2 DeRosa 3B 3 Sizemore CF 4 Hafner DH 5 Martinez C 6 Peralta SS 7 Garko 1B 8 Choo RF 9 Francisco LF

STARTING PITCHING: C-

Cliff Lee came from being demoted to the minors for a spell in 2007 to the American League Cy Young Award in 2008 (22-3, 2.54 ERA in 223.1 innings), and if he can even come close to repeating that, every fifth game is basically in the bag. It's the other four spots that issues may arise. Fausto Carmona (8-7, 5.44) is coming off a rough season, and a left hip strain, after lighting up the league in '07. Carl Pavano (4-2, 5.77) leaves from his disastrous stint in pinstripes to try and resurrect his career, or at least make it through a full season. Anthony Reyes (4-2, 2.76) will get his first long look this year, and Aaron Laffey (5-7, 4.23) will try to prove again that he belongs. Following them is a motley crew trying to get in, like rookie David Huff, Zach Jackson (2-3, 5.55), Jeremy Sowers (4-9, 5.58), and Scott Lewis (4-0, 2.63). The starters will have a lot to say in this game of step up or step aside. Stay tuned.

PROJECTED ROTATION: Lee, Carmona, Pavano, Reyes, Laffey

BULLPEN: C-

The bullpen needed a massive overhaul. The unit finished 29th in ERA (5.13) and blew 20 saves last year, so the Indians had no choice but to reload. They went out and signed Kerry Wood, who closed out 34 of 40 last year as a Cub. Jensen Lewis will set him up, and did pretty well in that role last year, not to mention closing games as well (saved 13). Mashide Kobayashi (4-5, 4.53), a former closer in Japan, will see more of a workload this year. Cleveland also went out and got Matt Herges (3-4, 5.04) from Colorado and Vinnie Chulk (0-3, 4.83) from San Francisco to try and clear out the messes left by the starters. And to continue the near-clean sweep are two men who are basically rookies, John Meloan and Rich Rundles, to round things out.

No one can accuse the Tribe of standing still, that's for sure.

The question may wind up "What can they be accused of afterwards?"

CONCLUSION

The Indians go into this season with high hopes and perhaps rightfully so with players like Lee and Sizemore and the return of Hafner and Martinez. But the pitching is a huge question mark outside of Lee, and with the improvements that Minnesota made and the overall toughness of this division, any huge question mark can be a fatal flaw.

PREDICTION: 83-79, second in American League Central