3 Cleveland Indians takes: Jose Ramirez, making baseball fun again

The Cleveland Indians are doing their part this month, playing winning baseball against a favorable schedule that includes some of the bottom dwellers of MLB.

1. It’s a crime it didn’t happen sooner: Bobby Bradley’s already outproduced Jake Bauers at first base, which leaves you scraping your head over the Cleveland Indians decision to keep the former top 100 prospect over Bradley.

-Jake Bauers season in Cleveland: 113 plate appearances, .190 (.557 OPS), 3 doubles, 2 home runs.

-Bobby Bradley: In 31 plate appearances .393 (1.297 OPS) with three homers and two doubles.

No one should’ve expected Bauers to win a battling title, but his inability to hit for power was so puzzling. This is 2021. You can hit .220 if you hit bombs. Bauers did neither in a Tribe uniform.

Bauers is off to a decent start with his new club, Seattle, batting .333 with a homer and a double in 29 plate appearances, although I full expect him to produce the same type of stats we saw in Cleveland.

The Indians were obviously terrified they’d release Bauers and he’d go onto stardom elsewhere, so for two months, first base basically became an automatic out in the lineup.

Meanwhile, Bradley struggled greatly at Columbus. Some were surprised after such a terrific spring, but in hindsight, it wasn’t really all that strange. Bradley was playing the best ball of his life during spring training, with all the top brass watching, and it still wasn’t enough to get him to the big leagues.

Maybe the gray cloud that would hang over any human being after being passed over followed him to Columbus. Maybe, he was just really bad. We’ll never know, but it’s a theory.