The sting of the American League Championship Series loss is still fresh for Cleveland Guardians fans, and plenty of the conversation since then has focused on what went wrong. The offense went cold, the bullpen ran out of gas, and the Tampa Bay Rays won the final three games to end Cleveland’s season two wins short of the World Series. Those are fair criticisms, and the front office has a lot of work ahead this winter. Still, it is worth stepping back to remember just how unlikely this run was in the first place. Cleveland.com’s Terry Pluto did exactly that in his end-of-season column, and he came away with a clear verdict on the year.
“The Guardians overachieved this season. The other teams in the final four were Milwaukee (103 wins), the Dodgers (100 wins) and Tampa Bay (98). Cleveland consistently puts a winning/playoff-caliber product on the field. Overall, I really appreciate how they give us something worth watching nearly every season,” Pluto wrote.
Pluto pointed to the company Cleveland kept in the final four. The Milwaukee Brewers won 103 games, the Los Angeles Dodgers won 100, and the Rays won 98. The Guardians finished the regular season at 85-77, at least thirteen wins behind every other team left standing. Pluto also praised the organization for consistently putting a winning, playoff-caliber team on the field, and said he appreciates that Cleveland gives fans something worth watching nearly every year.
The payroll numbers make that point even stronger. Cleveland reached the ALCS with a payroll of roughly $75 million, among the lowest in baseball.
The path this year was especially difficult. The Guardians’ playoff odds sat at 24.4 percent in the middle of August, and they were 70-70 and three games behind the White Sox after a loss on Sept. 3. They responded by going 15-6 over their next 21 games to win a third straight AL Central title. In the division series, they lost the first two games at home before becoming the first team in franchise history to come back from a 2-0 deficit in a postseason series. Then they took a two games to one lead over a Rays team that had just swept the Yankees.
That consistency stretches well beyond this season. Cleveland has now reached the playoffs in eight of the last twelve years, and Stephen Vogt has won the division in all three of his seasons as manager. Very few organizations in baseball, regardless of payroll, can match that kind of track record.
None of that erases the frustration of another October that ended without a championship. The franchise has now made seventeen straight postseason trips without winning a World Series, the longest streak of its kind in major league history, and the title drought stands at 78 years. National analysts have argued that the Guardians need to spend more and add power to finally get over the hump.
Pluto’s point is still an important one. This team gave Cleveland fans a season full of memorable moments, from the September surge to the historic comeback against Chicago. Getting that close with this roster and this budget deserves credit, even as the organization looks for a way to finish the job next year.
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