Cleveland Indians: Cody Allen potentially in his final year with the team

Cleveland Indians fans saw Cody Allen dominate once again in 2017, and another great year for the reliever may make him too expensive to keep in 2018.

The Cleveland Indians are poised to have another great season in 2018 as much of the core is returning. That may change in 2019.

It is way too early to be thinking about next year, as this year has only just begun. But the fact both Andrew Miller and Cody Allen are free agents after the season will not be forgotten throughout the year.

Allen is returning for his seventh season with the Indians, and his fifth as the closer, or whatever Terry Francona is calling the role now. He will be making $10.575 million, $1.575 more than Miller, and that price tag will only go up if he has another solid year. The same is true for Miller.

But like I said, it is too early to think about such doom.

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Allen returns this year after appearing in 69 games a season ago, logging 67.1 innings and recording 30 saves.

His ERA of 2.94 was not the best or worst of his career, but it didn’t deviate too much from his career ERA of 2.67.

His 21 walks allowed is a new career-best when you take out his shortened first season with the Indians in 2012, and his mark of 92 strikeouts was just behind his career-best of 99 in 2015.

There isn’t much to talk about with Allen because he has consistently done his job well and his name only comes up if he makes a mistake, which isn’t too often, although he was on the hook for seven losses in 2017.

Losses will happen for closers, even though seven isn’t too ideal.

Yet along with Miller, Allen returns to form arguably the most dominant bullpen duo in all of baseball. The fact both can leave after the season may lead to some extra pressure for both pitchers, and could lead to some trade rumors depending on how the team is performing.

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But given the way the two have been so good for so long, I doubt anything will be much different in 2018. The Indians would also have to be horrible for trade rumors surrounding Allen to pop up, and that would lead to a whole other slew of problems that we don’t need to get into in January.