MLB's Best Starting Rotation Could Come from Unlikely Source

Meet the Cleveland Indians, owners of the best starting rotation in baseball.

Wait, where are you going? 

OK, you're skeptical. Doesn't that title belong to the Washington Nationals, who just signed Max Scherzer and gilded the lily that is their stellar starting five?

Or how about the Clayton Kershaw-led Los Angeles Dodgers? Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners?

Good rotations all, and you can toss the Chicago White Sox, San Diego Padres and a handful of other pitching-rich contenders into the discussion.

Here's a number for you, though, courtesy of FanGraphs: 8.92. 

That's how many strikeouts per nine innings Cleveland starters averaged last season, the most since the 1884 Milwaukee Brewers. 

No, that's not a typo.

We're talking more than 130 years. In case it hasn't fully sunk in, the 1884 Brewers featured a left-hander named Lady Baldwin who, incidentally, sported a mean mustache. 

Mark Duncan/Associated Press/Associated Press

Is all this old-timey talk putting you to sleep? You like newfangled stats? 

Well, how about this: Cleveland's rotation led all of baseball with 11 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in the second half of 2014. 

As FanGraphs' Mike Petriello noted in November after naming the Indians his "Far Too Early Sleeper Team" of 2015, "While second-half performance is hardly a guarantee of future success...I'm also not certain that enough people noticed just how good the Cleveland rotation was down the stretch."

It's time to start taking notice.

You know about Corey Kluber, who beat out Seattle's King Felix for the American League Cy Young. Aw, what the heck, let's look at his stat line: 2.44 ERA, 235.2 IP, 3 CG, 269 SO.

But Kluber is far from the only stud in Cleveland's stable.

Carlos Carrasco made the rotation for good in August and was filthy in his final 10 starts, surrendering just 10 earned runs in 66.9 innings with 78 strikeouts and 11 walks.

Tony Dejak/Associated Press/Associated Press

After starting the season at Triple-A, Danny Salazar made 20 starts for the Tribe. His 4.66 ERA doesn't leap off the screen, but like Carrasco he finished with a flourish, tossing a complete game with nine strikeouts on Sept. 3 and punching out 47 hitters in his final seven games.

Rookie Trevor Bauer fanned 143 in 153 innings and earned the praise of skipper Terry Francona, who said of the 24-year-old right-hander, per Paul Hoynes of the Northeast Ohio Media Group, "I don't think we've even come close to what he can be."

T.J. House may not crack the rotation out of spring. But he had a nice rookie campaign, posting a 3.35 ERA in 102 innings, and he's the only southpaw in the mix.

The final rotation spot will likely belong to Gavin Floyd, whom the Tribe inked to a one-year deal.

Floyd has battled arm injuries and made just nine starts last year with the Atlanta Braves. If he's healthy, he could slot as high as the No. 2 spot in the rotation, Francona told MLB.com's Jordan Bastian, to take pressure off the younger guys. 

Which brings us to the biggest knock against this Cleveland staff: They're inexperienced, raw, inconsistent.

A scalding second half is nice for Indians fans whiling away the long, cold Ohio winter. But let's see these upstarts do it over a full season before we get carried away.

Fair enough. Outside of Kluber, this is mostly an untested bunch. They could just as easily regress as repeat their 2014 stretch-run success.

Again, though, we're talking about a rotation that struck out more big league hitters per nine innings than any club since the Chester A. Arthur administration. (President Arthur, incidentally, also sported a mean mustache.) 

Yes, it's a tad early to cement the Indians' arms among the MLB elite. But don't be surprised if this group is turning heads, and missing bats, well into the summer—and keeping the Tribe in the hunt.

Meet the Cleveland Indians, owners of a rotation worth buzzing about. 

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted.