Two reasons why the Indians are stuck in a rut, and why SportsLine projects them to turn things around

With their 3-2 loss to the Brewers on Tuesday (box score), the Indians slipped back below the .500 mark for the season. It's still relatively early, yes, but it's not that early -- we'll be at the quarter mark of the 2018 season in a matter of days. 

As the 2017 Cubs will surely attest (they were below .500 as late as July 14 of last year and wound up winning 92 games and the NL Central), it can take a while for fundamentally strong teams to level up. So the Indians will probably hit their stride at some point, especially given how weak the AL Central figures to be. That said, it's pretty easy to diagnose what's gone wrong with the Indians, and it comes down to two important aspects of the game at which they've failed pretty badly thus far. They've put up good power numbers, the rotation has mostly excelled and the defense has been one of the AL's best when it comes to converting batted balls into outs. On the other hand ...

They're not getting on base

Yep, the 2018 Indians aren't getting it done when it comes to OBP -- the most basic duty of an offense. The Indians in of course 2016 and 2017 won a combined 196 games, so let's have a look at how their OBP has degraded this season ... 

That's a steep drop, especially relative to the remainder of the league. As for the damnable specifics, lineup regulars Yonder Alonso, Jason Kipnis, Edwin Encarnacion and Bradley Zimmer are all lugging around sub-3.00 OBPs. As well, the three primary reserves -- Rajai Davis, Brandon Guyer, and Roberto Perez -- all have OBPs of .266 or worse. 

The matter at hand is whether the Indians figure to improve on this very vital front. To get an idea of their rest-of-season outlook, we'll turn to the SportsLine (@SportsLine on Twitter) Projection Model. Now let's compare the OBPs to date for their core hitters versus how SportsLine currently projects each player's OBP over the rest of the 2018 regular season ... 

So here's some good news for the Tribe. Of the 13 players listed above, 10 are projected to improve their OBPs the rest of the way. Of those 10 "improvers," four are projected to get better by more than 50 points of OBP. Meantime, none of the three projected to get worse in OBP figure to decline by anything close to such a margin. Obviously, projections -- even carefully crafted ones such as these -- aren't guarantees and can be wrong. They are, however, are best guides for near-term outlooks, and this is cause for optimism in Cleveland. Don't be surprised if the Indians' offense stops making outs at such a high rate the rest of the way. 

The bullpen has been terrible

As we did above with OBP, let's compare the Indians' bullpen numbers this season to those of the past two years ... 

(Note: FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, is scaled to look like ERA but reflects just those outcomes that have nothing to do with fielding -- i.e., strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed. As such, it can better measure of raw pitching skill than ERA is.)

So that's massive decline at both the runs-allowed level and the underlying-indicator level. The Cleveland bullpen, so dominant in 2016 and 2017, has been a massive liability this season. To be sure, part of that is fireman Andrew Miller being limited to just 10 innings so far in 2018 because of a hamstring injury. As well, the free-agent departure of Bryan Shaw -- who authored a 136 ERA+ across 154 appearances in 2016 and 2017 -- has probably played a role. Beyond that, the outright struggles of Dan Otero, Zach McAllister and Tyler Olson plus the relative struggles of Bryan Shaw have been the drivers. 

Again turning the SportsLine Projection System, let's how those four relievers project moving forward versus their 2018 results to date ... 

Again, some cause for hope. All four of these relievers are expected to improve by significant margins the rest of the way. McAllister and Olson don't project as optimal, obviously, but they're likely to be much better relative to the current baseline. 

Let's also circle back to those injuries, and it's not just Miller. Ryan Merritt, who recently began a minor-league rehab assignment, is projected for a 2.73 ERA the rest of the way. Nick Goody, who struggled badly in limited action before going on the disabled list with elbow inflammation, is tabbed to cut more than two-and-a-half runs off his ERA once he returns. There's also Danny Salazar. Salazar's recovery from a shoulder injury has been slower than expected, and it's not certain when he'll be back. If he does get back and the Indians decide to deploy him as a reliever -- his stuff has certainly played up in relief -- then he could be a real asset. 

So the Indians are very likely to improve their two biggest weak spots to date. Throw in the fact that the remaining schedule is highly accommodating -- 91 (!) of the Indians' remaining 127 games come against teams that are projected to finish the season with losing records -- and the overall outlook remains strong. Indeed, SportsLine forecasts that the Indians -- OBP problems, struggling bullpen, slow start and all -- will still win 95 games and prevail in the otherwise pitiful AL Central by 15 games. 

The 2018 season to date hasn't gone well in Cleveland, but underneath the middling record is a team that still has legitimate designs on the World Series.