5.) Domination
I believe the postseason exposed one of the Indians weird weaknesses. That is the lack of dominant arms in the backend of the bullpen. Looking at recent years, when the Royals made their run to back to back World Series they had a lot of big arms.
The Yankees who the Indians lost to in the ALDS this year had the same. Playoff baseball is much different than the regular season in that the bullpen will tend to go almost the same amount of length as a starter does in a game. When you have a bullpen going for five innings you need dominant arms.
Between Chad Green, Aroldis Chapman, Tommy Kahnle, and Dellin Betances to name a few, the Yankees had a variety of guys that can light up the radar gun and make it tough for hitters.
The Royals were the same with Kelvin Herrera, Luke Hochevar, Wade Davis, Greg Holland, and Ryan Madson. The Indians do not have that same type of bullpen.
Granted the Cleveland bullpen was no slouch by any means with Bryan Shaw, Andrew Miller, and Cody Allen but that is only three pitchers they relied heavily on and do not have the same power arm. Shaw was the only reliever to average over 95 mph in the 96 range while Allen and Miller hang around 94.
Shaw is now a free agent and no reliever in baseball gets used more than Shaw by Francona. I cannot imagine him not being resigned but it might be of interest to try and acquire another dominant back arm or start looking to draft and develop them with there not being a lot of those guys on the market this offseason.
That could also help protect the three. In 2017, Allen, Miller, and Shaw combined for 16 losses. All the starting pitchers combined for just 40. If they can get just one more power arm in there I think it will make a huge difference and put less strain on the big three if Shaw remains.
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