Indians: 3 reasons why you shouldn’t give up on the 2021 Tribe
By Chad Porto
Second half success
The Indians are a second-half ball club. Always has been under Terry Francona. In his time with the Indians, pre-2021 season, he’s gone 673-521. That’s a winning percentage of 56%. If the first and second half of the season is designated by the All-Star break, then Francona’s first-half winning percentage is 54% and his second-half winning percentage is 59.2%.
Despite playing nearly a hundred games fewer over the course of his tenure with the Tribe in the second half, he nearly has as many career wins (360 to 313). Not only that but he’s never had a losing record in the second half of his Indians tenure, he’s never won less than 53% of his games in the second half in any given season, and only twice (2016 and 2020) have the Indians had a better winning percentage in the first half as opposed to the second half.
In 2016, it was 59% in the first half and 57% in the second, while 2020 had a 60% win rate in the first half and 60% in the second. For context’s sake, every season except 2020 saw the “first-half” have more games in it than the second, mostly due to how the All-Star Game is placed. In 2020, we just split the season schedule at 30, with games 1-30 being the first half and 31-60 being the second half. This was done due to 2020 not having an All-Star break.
The Tribe is 43-42 as of this writing. If the Indians continue with their pace of a winning percentage of 59%, then the Tribe should finish somewhere around 88-90 games depending on how the last few games of the pre-All Star break goes.
The Tribe could easily slide in with that as a final record, and that’s not taking into factor any massive steaks the Tribe may go on.