Cleveland Indians: Waiting to determine Mickey Callaway’s true impact

Cleveland Indians fans are waiting to see how the pitching staff will do in 2018 now that Mickey Callaway has left to manage the New York Mets.

Cleveland Indians fans have seen greatness from the pitching staff since 2013, causing some to fear that the greatness may disappear now that Mickey Callaway has left to manage the New York Mets.

That is possible, but there is no need to panic.

The Indians led the league in ERA in 2017, finished seventh in 2016, eighth in 2015, 14th in 2014 and 15th in 2013, making it easy to see the improvement. ERA isn’t the sole way to judge a staff, but it does show some general improvement from year to year.

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Callaway helped players like Corey Kluber, Josh Tomlin, Trevor Bauer and even Ubaldo Jimenez soar to new heights, but his lessons won’t be lost now that he is in New York.

That is the hope, at least, as it is possible the staff does see a decline in production in 2018.

But these are professional pitchers we are talking about, and specifically a staff that will return in 2018 without any new faces, given the Indians retain Tomlin, who is up for a $3 million club option.

It would be hard to see the team not picking that up. If they do decide to let him go, Mike Clevinger would be ready to step in.

The benefit of coaching is that lessons stay with players for years. Callaway was able to fix problems he saw, but there isn’t any reason to expect anyone on the staff to resort to awful habits just because he is gone. Also, Carl Willis is no slouch as a coach either.

There is no reason to worry and think that any of the pitchers will falter just because Willis is the coach instead of Callaway. The team would not have brought him aboard if he wasn’t capable of managing a staff that was arguably the best in the league in 2017.

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We obviously have to wait to see what happens with the team now that Callaway is gone, but the feelings toward his departure shouldn’t lead to any feelings of doom. Coaches leave teams all the time and sometimes, good things happen with the new faces in town.