Baseball, specifically pitching, fascinates Trevor Bauer. Trevor Bauer fascinates me. So does baseball, but that’s not what this is about. The 22-year-old Bauer was made available in trade talks this past offseason because the Arizona Diamondbacks turned what should have been fascination and inquisitiveness into contempt and a myriad of misconceptions. Without knowing what was said or how Bauer handled himself when questioned by the Diamondbacks front office, I’m perfectly happy to consider their loss our gain and welcome the chance to see Bauer pitching for the Indians for the next several seasons.

To call Bauer a student of the game seems like a monumental understatement. Studying the art of pitching consumes Bauer. He will stop during bullpen sessions to evaluate his mechanics on a high-speed camera. He looks disgusted with himself on the mound when a pitch winds up going where it shouldn’t. He challenges the conventional wisdom of pitching on a daily basis, from his long-toss routine to his beliefs on how to pitch.

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The Indians probably owe their very existence in this town to their die-hard fans.

In the decades of the mid-20^th Century, when losses outpaced wins on a yearly basis and postseason contention was a 35-year fantasy, someone had to form the small rind of humanity that barely clung to the dugout wall at Cleveland Stadium. Somebody had to be in that crowd of 3,000 on a chilly April night.

If you polled 100,000 people on who was at the Stadium to witness Len Barker’s perfect game 32 years ago, some percentage would actually pass a lie detector test. They were honestly there.

Various ownership groups at various points toyed with the idea of moving the franchise to Minneapolis and New Orleans. If the Gateway project had died on the vine in the early 1990s, the Tampa-St. Petersburg area would have likely made a play for the franchise.

But somehow, through all the strain that decades of losing, coupled with regional economic decay, put on the relationship between the Indians and the city of Cleveland, the franchise stayed put and hardy fans kept showing up in small, but passionate, numbers.

Then Jacobs Field opened in 1994, and the team started winning. Not just winning – winning with drama, brashness and arrogance. For a city that had, for so long, meekly submitted to its circumstances, it was a seven-year catharsis as the Indians made the walk-off home run a calling card, winning two pennants and six division titles in the process. Albert Belle might have departed in free agency after the 1996 season, but his pitcher-melting scowl was the team’s iconic image for the duration of the era.

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The universally-accepted time to evaluate Major League Baseball teams is now upon the Indians. Friday’s game against the Mariners will be Game #40 and the Indians will be over .500 at the 40-game mark for the third straight season. They were 26-14 in 2011 and 23-17 in 2012 right around the quarter pole. After the 40-game mark, the Indians went 54-68 in 2011 and 45-77 in 2012. This year’s team will not do that.

The Indians have won 14 out of 18 after an 8-13 start and sit in second place at 22-17. They’ve done that while dealing with trips to disabled list for leadoff hitter Michael Bourn, setup man Vinnie Pestano, veteran starter Brett Myers, and reclamation project Scott Kazmir. Nick Swisher missed games with a sore shoulder. Jason Kipnis not only slumped in April, but also missed a few days with a bad elbow. Asdrubal Cabrera hasn’t hit above .240 since Opening Day. Lonnie Chisenhall was sent back to Triple-A Columbus to fix his swing and give him some confidence after posting a .604 OPS in 26 games.

While dealing with their share of bad, the Indians have seen their share of good. (Author’s note: The following stats, courtesy of Fangraphs, are entering Thursday’s action.) The Indians lead the American League in wins above replacement player for position players and trail only the Giants overall. They lead all of baseball in wOBA, weighted on-base average, a sabermetric stat that uses run values tailored to how the batter reached base. The Indians lead in this category, in part, because they are tied atop the league rankings in home runs, rank fifth in doubles, and sixth in walks.

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Do you remember where the Cleveland Indians were on May 18th last year?

Do you want to remember?

Trust me, it isn't bad. It's actually quite good. It's what followed makes the memory a touchy subject. The Indians went 46-77 after May 18th. A steady slide down the standings. That record was the worst in the AL Central over the span of May 19th to the end of the year. If they had not caught fire to start the season, they might have made the Astros look good.

The losing streak, the implosion of the rotation, the left field mess, the injuries. There wasn't much good going on with the Tribe after May. 

Yet we sat here, with our Indians three games up on the Tigers in the division, thinking, hoping, and believing that perhaps, there would be a run made out of this start. We weren't sure how, but maybe this rag-tag bunch of players that were assembled had some sort of extra factor that helped over come the talent gap other teams had over the Indians.

Yeah about that.

That's the word there, talent. When it comes down to it all, you can do a lot with an "it factor" or intangibles, and leadership. But none of that means anything unless you have talent. No team goes to the playoffs without talent. They can win a World Series with the other stuff, but they can't get to that position without players.

We're talking major players.

And that's your separation. That makes this year's Cleveland Indians team much better than last year's team. Take a trip with me as I show the incredibly different Cleveland Indians teams that share the same record.

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