Chapin: Indians waiting until next year

Even optimists have to admit defeat sometimes.

After Monday night’s loss to the Houston Astros, I have officially declared that the Cleveland Indians no longer have a chance to make the playoffs.

Many Indians fans had made that declaration some time ago but I have started my conversations about the Tribe in recent weeks with the phrase, “If they win the rest of their games ...”

Well, now even if they win the rest they still will wind up with just 89 victories which according to my estimation will not be enough.

On Sept. 1, as I do each season the Tribe is still in contention, I calculate how many wins it will take for the Indians to make the playoffs. I project each contender going .500 the rest of the way — a highly unlikely event — to see what the minimum final win total would be.

This year, with three teams — Seattle, Oakland and the Detroit/Kansas City non-division winner — I set the victory total at 90 wins. If you recall, the Indians won the first wild-card spot last year with 92 wins and Tampa Bay and Oakland tied for the second spot with 91 wins.

So, with the chances of postseason play out of the way, we can ask what went wrong.

To start with, in my opinion, this team still does not have the talent to contend for the playoffs. The fact the Indians made the playoffs last year and contended as long as they did this season can be laid at the feet of manager Terry Francona.

If and when the Tribe’s talent matches his ability to get the most out of each player individually and the group as a whole then the Indians will really have something.

Individually poor to below average seasons by Justin Masterson, Asdrubal Cabrera, Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn and Jason Kipnis, in particular, put Cleveland in too deep a hole by midseason from which to recover. An outstanding August — keyed by the new starting rotation — thrust the Indians back into the race, but too many holes in the lineup prevented a legitimate playoff push.

The disappointing seasons of Swisher, Bourn and Kipnis were due in part to injury. Masterson and Cabrera were mysteries. Both were in the walk year of their contracts, a time when many players increase their value by millions with a solid season.

Perhaps both were trying too hard, but whatever the reason neither played well and when both were traded in July, nary a peep was heard in protest from the Indians’ faithful.

There will be plenty of time between now and April to start thinking about the 2015 season. For now, we can look at 2014 as a season in which Corey Kluber established himself as a staff ace and pitchers Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar and T.J. House all showed they can be effective starters in the big leagues.

The bullpen was solid again, the defense improved with Jose Ramirez replacing Cabrera at shortstop but the offense, outside of Michael Brantley and Yan Gomes, remains inconsistent at best to downright weak at other times.

As the old saying goes, there’s always next year.

Doug Chapin is a sportswriter with The Vindicator. Write him at dchapin@vindy.com.