The decline of the Cleveland Indians over the past two years, from playoff contender in 2007, to league average in 2008, to cellar dweller in 2009, has been perhaps the most dramatic in the major leagues.
And it (mostly) came from a different source than I thought.
Indian batters tend to be among the better ones in the league on traditional metrics, even in 2009. But their contribution hovers around league average because they aren't very clutch.
That's because they exhibit a feast-or-famine pattern, that often causes the team to win or lose by a lot. A game like the 22-4 romp over the Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang does a lot more for raw stats than it does for win-loss percentage.
It's Indian PITCHERS that decide close games, the wins that (in most cases) determine whether the team will be in ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - MLB
Article written by Tom Au
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