2017 Cleveland Indians

I guess it goes without saying that if the Yankees won 20 in a row it would be the biggest sports story of the year. Somehow the streak doesn't feel nearly as big as it should.

they should've done it before football season started

meh, variance in win distribution.

(I can't be a hypocrite, I thought the Moneyball movie's emphasis on the A's streak was straight-up pandering bullshit.)

I am impressed by 20 wins in a row

Like I said on Twitter yesterday, the talk here in town is less "Guys, the Indians are about to win their 21st game in a row" and more "DID THE BROWNS WIN A MORAL VICTORY IN THEIR LOSS TO PITTSBURGH?"

wow the indians radio guy is pretty annoying

which one? tom hamilton?

i thought Cleveland was 'a great baseball town'

it is!

hamilton is beloved here

not my style i guess. he just literally YEEELLLLLLLLED about ramirez taking a ball.

tbh i don't feel bad for the cleveland indians not getting coverage for their winning streak in baseball because their logo is still so fucking awful and no one in cleveland seems to give a shit about that, either.

it is bad

plenty of us here hate it though

it is still so weird to me though that so many people think it is acceptable. my neighbor across the street, an otherwise very nice old guy, just put a giant wahoo on the front of his house

i guess more Native ppl need to move there to shame 'em

I have so many "save the chief" friends and it makes me livid.

bray juce

It's such a weird ugly logo.

80 XBH in a season
CLE history

Averill (3x)
Manny (3x)
Belle (2x)
Trosky (2x)
Speaker (1x)
Sizemore (1x)
Morgan (1x)

And now: Jose Ramirez

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 13, 2017

One of our sports stations had an ESPN guy on this morning talking about MVP candidates, and he came up with the most obscure first for Ramirez: first guy ever with 40 games each at second and third with an OPS over .900. That's definitely a lot of value, although the combination is a little specious.

http://68.media.tumblr.com/740d23742441301fa9e05f67ada7034b/tumblr_n8kfkrIu5J1scl662o1_500.jpg

The day of "the Decision," a co-worker wore this shirt to work. As I walked past him, I said "Nice racist shirt," and then we had a long, loud discussion outside the office and he probably still hasn't forgiven me. Never saw him wear it again, though.

The last time Indians lost:

A stamp cost 49 cents.
Milk cost https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/907982955137695750.25.
Donald Trump was President.
Kids who are 22 days old weren't even born.

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 13, 2017

The Indians started their 21-game winning streak playing .552 baseball. The probability of such a team winning 21 straight is 1 in 263,000.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 13, 2017

#ycpb

LOL at Santana getting waved around and being thrown out 12 feet from home.

They've trailed after four innings.

i'm told that during the streak they have 39 homers and their opponents have scored 35 runs

james says the indians' pythagorean expected record during the streak is . . . 20-1

Pretenders

what is the RS/RA?

__/35, obviously

139/35 if my eyeball math is right

Watch Miller blow the streak the game he returns.

I have a bad feeling about tonight.

Tom Hamilton is the best radio guy ever!! "A SWING AND A DRIVE!!!!!"

i somehow missed this, so posting this because maybe some of you did too. i assumed the record winning streak was 26 (1916 giants) because i kept seeing that referred to in various articles and headlines, but that's not really the record. that 26 game winning streak was actually a 12-game winning streak, a tie, and then a 14-game winning streak. i guess MLB considers that to be a winning streak.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/indians-win-streak-facts/

so the indians are actually tied with the record of 21 right now (1935 cubs), and have a chance to break it tonight.

^The Indians play by play guy, Tom Hamilton, has brought that up every game for the past week. He's in utter disbelief and one step away from suing MLB.

i would join in on a class action suit. my understanding and appreciation of baseball has suffered because of MLB's damagingly erroneous interpretation of "winning streak"

Technically, Joe DiMaggio went 1-5 in his 37th game and was only awarded an infield hit because a tie goes to the runner.

THAT IS NOT THE SAME AND YOU KNOW IT CLEMENZA

Just sitting on a rooftop, fooling and pretending.

A Posnanski piece on the Giants' sort-of streak:

http://joeposnanski.com/the-1916-giants-winning-streak/

Anyway, after Schupp shut out the Pirates, New York and Pittsburgh played a second game. It was 1-1 after 8 1/2 innings — and the umpires called the game because of darkness and rain. McGraw just about lost his mind. His team did not get to bat in the ninth inning. He ranted and raved and got nowhere. The statistics were counted — and if you look on Baseball Reference, the game is listed as a tie. But it wasn’t a tie; the game was made up in a doubleheader the next day — the third consecutive doubleheader between the Pirates and Giants. The Giants won both game easily, and the winning streak was up to 14 games.

hmmmm...a new twist. this shit gets more strange the more i dig into it. maybe i should stop digging into shit. but ok, i didn't realize that the tie game was made-up in full the next day. why didn't they just resume it the next day at the bottom of the 9th?

But it wasn’t a tie; the game was made up in a doubleheader the next day

Tom Hamilton, strangely, doesn't mention this in his nightly diaTRIBE.

i'm considering suing tom hamilton as well. someone is going to lose here

Reprieve!

Oops...had the wrong game up!

(I got all excited because Baltimore closed to within 9 runs of the Yankees...)

Reprieve, the sequel!

wow. thought this one was over!

that is very cool, down to their last strike.

wish the nation was watching this instead of the bad football game.

Show Hey O'Tawny
Does mainstream media underrate the Indians pitching staff? Fangraphs is the only place I’ve seen call them the best pitching staff of all time, even though most of the WAR says so

Jeff Sullivan

I think, in general, people don't have a great mental grasp of how pitching has evolved. When you think about the best staffs ever, you tend to focus on the starting rotations. The other thing about the Indians is they're so deep they *never* give the ball to a bad pitcher

For the sake of argument, let's compare the Indians to the Braves from 1993 - 1999
That is, combining all those years

Braves starters had an ERA- of 77. The Indians starters have an ERA- of 79
But Braves relievers had an ERA- of 87. Indians relievers have an ERA- of 65
Maybe the Braves had more Hall-of-Famers. The Indians are better from top to bottom, because every pitcher on the staff counts

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/sports/baseball/cleveland-indians-chief-wahoo-logo.html

chief wahoo is going away! (in 2019) (and only from players uniforms, not from merch sold in the stadium) (and the team is still called the indians)

not good enough, obv

sounds like manfred has the right idea, though

But over the past year the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, has pressured Paul Dolan, Cleveland’s chairman and chief executive, to make a change.

Citing a goal of diversity and inclusion, Manfred said in a statement provided to The New York Times that the Indians organization “ultimately agreed with my position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and I appreciate Mr. Dolan’s acknowledgment that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”

not good enough, but better than nothing, or outright hostility (see the washington catheads)

not good enough obv but i'm relieved that they are finally doing something

it will take decades if not more though for wahoo to disappear from cleveland entirely. i'm convinced there will still be some dive bar in parma, oh in 2118 that will keep its giant wahoo light-up sign above the bar

them still being able to make money off of the logo is pretty gross

yea

Now we get to be met with the spectacle of idiots protesting a baseball team because it isn't sufficiently racist anymore.

Finally: The Indians Are Replacing Their Racist Mascot Chief Wahoo With A White Woman Wearing A Native American Halloween Costume https://t.co/HIzE3nkI50 pic.twitter.com/4WRfTDBbqQ

— ClickHole (@ClickHole) January 31, 2018

you wonder how some promo ppl function daily

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2018/04/16/mlb-pulls-chief-wahoo-jackie-robinson-caps/

Am I doing this right. pic.twitter.com/yAfvncQJx8

— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) April 19, 2018

BE SCARED, RED SOX AND YANKS FANS

Also, that play that just got overturned was some bullshit.

Encarnacion got this 30th home run for a seventh consecutive season the other night. Don't know how many times seven has been reached, but Wikipedia has a list of eight consecutive seasons and that's pretty rare: 18 players, most from the PED era. Most are either in the HOF or would be absent PEDs; the only clear non-HOF'er is Teixeira, Delgado (in that PEDs have nothing to do with him not being in--I'd call him borderline, not clearly not qualified), and (arguably) Sosa.

Unless he has some unforeseen Ortiz-like finish he's about to spring on us, Edwin will not be going into the HOF. (I bet there are some relatively ordinary names who also did it seven times...I'm not trying to diminish what he's done, and I remain a big fan.)

You what's pretty amazing? Encarnacion has stolen 61 career bases in 74 attempts, an 82% success rate. So he's a better base stealer than Rickey Henderson (81%), though not as good as Tim Raines (85%). I have to reconsider his HOF case.

Just as he was when he was traded from Cleveland to Boston, Victor Martinez was very emotional after the Indians honored him as he enters retirement. #Indians pic.twitter.com/hPUmvybmmZ

— Hayden Grove (@H_Grove) September 15, 2018

Kipnis' 1000th hit:

Getting your 1,000th career hit? Awesome.
Doing it on a walk-off grand slam? Even better.
(via @SportsTimeOhio)pic.twitter.com/yWRska8hUl

— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) September 20, 2018

If you'd asked me, I would have said "That's been done before" (and probably would have proceeded to name one of the '70s Mets teams).

http://www.mlb.com/news/indians-1st-club-with-4-starters-with-200-ks/c-295641546

https://www.mlb.com/news/indians-1st-club-with-4-starters-with-200-ks/c-295641546