Cleveland Indians: Ryan Merritt Should Replace Josh Tomlin

The Cleveland Indians should turn to left-hander Ryan Merritt to replace the struggling Josh Tomlin as their 5th starter for the rest of the 2016 season.

The Cleveland Indians have announced that Josh Tomlin will have his next start skipped after he struggled yet again Tuesday night. After starting the year extremely well going 11-3 with a 3.43 ERA through the end of July, he’s seemingly hit a wall in August.

In five starts last month, Tomlin went 0-5 with a scary bad 11.43 ERA. Manager Terry Francona tried to stick with Tomlin but the most recent bad outing has caused him and the club to rethink their strategy with the crafty right-hander.

The Indians have not yet announced who will take Tomlin’s next start, which will be either Monday or Tuesday, but the player I would love to see the Indians choose is left-hander Ryan Merritt.

Why Ryan Merritt?

Merritt has been with the Indians for a few years and saw his first big league action earlier this season. He’s made just two appearances, both out of the bullpen, but looked very good each time. He’s thrown 5 1/3 scoreless innings including an eye-opening 4 1/3 inning relief outing in his debut back in May. In that outing, Merritt allowed no runs on just one hit. He walked none and struck out a pair against a very tough Texas Rangers club. His only other big league outing came a month ago when he pitched a perfect 1-2-3 inning of relief against the Minnesota Twins.

With the Triple-A Columbus Clippers, Merritt has been a model of consistency all year. He’s made 23 starts throwing 139 innings, an average of just over six innings a start. No other member of the Clippers staff has even reached 100 innings this season. He’s posted a very respectable 3.43 ERA, 3.60 FIP, and 1.22 WHIP. He doesn’t strike a lot of guys out (5.8 K/9) but also doesn’t walk many (1.4 BB/9).

Merritt has seemingly gotten better as the year has gone as well. In the first half of the year with the Clippers, Merritt went 5-7 with a 4.41 ERA and 1.28 WHIP. Solid, but hardly spectacular numbers. In the second half, though, Merritt has gone 6-0 in nine starts posting a 1.95 ERA and 1.12 WHIP.

He’s now at 144 1/3 innings on the season between Cleveland and Columbus, which sounds like a lot but Merritt threw 171 innings in 2015 and 160 1/3 innings in 2014. He’s no stranger to high inning loads so his arm would seemingly be fine to continue working deep into September. Even if he gets five starts in Cleveland (that’s pushing it), at six innings a start that puts him right around 175 innings on the year, right in line with last year.

Why Not Clevinger?

While most are probably on board with skipping, and ultimately replacing, Josh Tomlin in the rotation for the rest of the year, most are probably wondering why rookie right-hander Mike Clevinger wouldn’t be the first choice to replace him.  It’s a valid question as Clevinger has started for the Cleveland Indians this year and has been ranked as a top 100 prospect in all of baseball by Baseball America this summer. He’s been just as good (if not better) than Merritt at Triple-A as well, going 11-1 with a 3.00 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 1.22 WHIP with the Columbus Clippers in 17 starts. So why go Merritt over Clevinger in the rotation?

The big reason to start Merritt over Clevinger is based on the fact that come the playoffs, the Indians will only need four starters (at most), not five like they use in the regular season. It seems like a foregone conclusion that Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, and Danny Salazar will be the Tribe’s playoff rotation (should they make it).

Salazar has some health questions but seemed to quiet most of that with his most recent start. No matter how well Tomlin, Clevinger, Merritt, or whoever is the fifth starter, that pitcher would almost certainly be in the bullpen or off the playoff roster completely.

Clevinger has already started working out of the bullpen as well and has looked very good. Since moving to the bullpen a couple weeks ago, Clevinger has posted a 3.86 ERA in five outings. Even more impressive is his .194 batting average against in that time and his 12 strikeouts in just 9 1/3 innings. He’s also inherited three runners and stranded them all, which is exactly what you want to see from a reliever.

Clevinger’s ultimate future is almost certainly as a starter, but for the remainder of this season, maximizing his ability out of the bullpen may be just what this club needs come October. Adding Clevinger’s electric stuff to a bullpen that includes Andrew Miller, Cody Allen, Bryan Shaw, Dan Otero, etc could give opposing team’s nightmares all winter.

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Merritt meanwhile has averaged more innings a starter than Clevinger in Triple-A this season (6.0 vs 5.5) and giving him a look in the rotation can benefit the club now and in October. Starting Merritt allows the Tribe to maximize Clevinger, prepare him for postseason use out of the bullpen, AND gives them a lefty in the rotation that they haven’t had all year.

Ultimately the benefit of getting Clevinger acclimated to the bullpen for a title run just doesn’t outweigh the small different in performance this year between him and Merritt. Clevinger may be in the 2017 opening day rotation, but in 2016 Merritt should get the call.