Quick: who’s the best left-handed hitter likely to appear in the American League playoffs this October? If you took more than three seconds to come up with an answer, don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal. The National League contenders have plenty of high-profile left-handed hitters: Charlie Blackmon, Cody Bellinger, Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy, and Anthony Rizzo immediately stand out. Not so in the American League.

Postseason roster construction can have a lot of consequences. Once rosters are set, there are only so many machinations that can or will surprise us, but in a lot of cases, series can be won or lost by the selection of the the last five guys on the roster. I focused on some interesting roster-construction decisions last week. In the meantime, the possible configurations of the Astros bullpen have remained with me. If Houston utilizes a tandem-starter approach, it will lessen their flexibility for their bullpen; as such, they might not have room for LOOGYs. Of course, a LOOGY is only necessary to the extent that there are dangerous left-handed batters to face. The potential absence of a LOOGY from the Houston bullpen led me to a larger question about the batters whom that pitcher might face — specifically, whether any of the AL teams need a LOOGY to navigate October?

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Even the Cleveland Indians, the best team in baseball by run differential and authors of an AL-record winning streak, aren’t without question marks.

Currently, they’ve got a significant one — namely, in center field. Just over a week ago, Chris Davis stepped on Bradley Zimmer’s left hand as the latter attempted a head-first slide into first base. The result: a broken fourth metacarpal. Zimmer, who had taken over the lion’s share of work in center field, is now probably out for the rest of the season, including the postseason.

In the absence of Zimmer, Cleveland was left with a void in center. To understand how they’ve decided to address that void, it’s necessary to know a little something about the infield.

The Indians like their infield alignment. Recently, the club shifted Jose Ramirez from third base to second — where he rates as a well above-average defender — and assigned third-base duties to fellow Fringe Five alum Yandy Diaz and his intriguing gifts. That pair is complemented by Giovanny Urshela — at the very least, an excellent late-inning defensive replacement who also possesses enough glove to back up Francisco Lindor at shortstop. This was the formula the club used during their 22-game win streak.

With the infield settled, the Indians found themselves wondering what to do with longtime second baseman Jason Kipnis, who has recently returned from another stint on the DL.

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With still roughly two weeks left in the regular season, the divisional races across the major leagues have sputtered and nearly died. Three divisions have already been clinched. The Los Angeles Dodgers have already guaranteed themselves a playoff berth and should secure the National League West in short order. Beyond the Wild Card races, then, the NL Central and AL East remain the only hope for meaningful baseball over the season’s closing weeks. The Cubs have a four-game lead in the former and 96.6% odds of taking the division. The Red Sox, meanwhile, possess a three-game lead in the latter and 89.6% odds.

The Cubs have four games this week with the Brewers in Milwaukee. That series has a chance to facilitate some of the season’s most consequential games, provided Milwaukee can remain within striking distance of Chicago in the meantime. As for the Red Sox, though, don’t play the second-place Yankees again, which will make it tougher for the latter club to make up ground.

The bright side of having these races more or less decided is that we can start to look at the potential rosters for the League Division Series a little sooner. I’ll begin today with the American League. For the purposes of this exercise, I’ll proceed by the odds and regard the Red Sox as the presumptive winners of the East. If that turns out not to be the case, feel free to come back here in October and squawk at me.

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There are five spots on a Cy Young ballot. This season, in the American League, only the first two are going to matter. Last year, Justin Verlander received the most first-place votes, with 14, but he was ranked second on just two ballots. Rick Porcello, meanwhile, received 18 second-place votes in addition to his eight at the top spot. Porcello ended up the winner.

This year, Chris Sale and Corey Kluber are likely to occupy the top two spots on every ballot, and whoever receives more first-place will probably take the award. The pair have produced very similar statistical records this year, so voters will have to split hairs to decide which of the two is more deserving. Let’s begin splitting some of those hairs right now, examining defense, contact quality, various sorts of WAR, and how they all influence each other when it comes to the two best pitchers in the American League.

To provide an initial tale of the tape of sorts, here are a few numbers with which most readers will be pretty familiar.

The strikeout and walk numbers are pretty equivalent. Sale has the edge in homers and innings, leading to a lower FIP and therefore WAR. Kluber has a much lower BABIP, which helps him lead in ERA. If you want to factor for league and park, we can do that. Sale’s FIP- is 50 to Kluber’s 57, and Sale’s ERA- is 61 to Kluber’s 54. Part of Kluber’s ERA advantage comes from that BABIP. He also has an 81.6% left-on-base percentage compared to Sale’s 76.7%, though, so part of the advantage is simply due to sequencing.

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After the Cubs ended their curse and title drought last fall, there was talk about a potential dynasty having arrived. There’s been less talk of that this season after the Cubs stumbled for much of the first half. While Chicago has one of the oldest pitching staffs (average age of 30.9 years) in the game, they’ve played at a higher level in the second half.

Elsewhere, a prominent magazine recently devoted its cover to the Dodgers, wondering if this year’s version of the club might be the “Best. Team. Ever?” And it’s a team, despite its recent skid, that remains six games ahead of its closest NL competitor, a team with a number of young, cornerstone stars.

Finally, it wouldn’t be surprising to observe the Yankees transform into a hegemonic power in the AL East. Their impressive young core has begun to arrive — and arrive ahead of schedule. And just about everyone expects them to be big players, and winners, in the historic 2018-19 free-agency class.

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While we at FanGraphs have tried to supply you with plenty of Indians-related content during their historic torrid streak — Cleveland matched the 2002 Oakland A’s for the American League record with a 20th straight win Monday night — it seems like the club’s run might be failing to receive the recognition, nationally, that it’s due.

Perhaps one reason is Major League Baseball’s criteria for what constitutes a “winning streak.” The 1916 New York Giants are credited with baseball’s longest winning streak, at 26 games. But that Giants club didn’t actually win 26 consecutive games. Over a 27-game span in September of that year, they sandwiched a 12- and 14-game winning streak around a tie.

A 26-game winning streak? Fake news!

To this author, it’s nonsensical that a “winning streak” would not feature an actual, uninterrupted, consecutive series of wins. A better way to characterize the Giants’ feat would to define it as baseball’s record non-losing streak. The “real” mark ought to belong to the 1935 Cubs, who won 21 straight and whose achievement Cleveland has the opportunity to match this afternoon against the Tigers.

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Tonight, the Indians will attempt to win their 20th consecutive game, one shy of the Major League record. They are playing the Tigers, who weren’t good before they got rid of their best players, and are especially not good right now. That not-good Tigers team will throw Matt Boyd, while the Indians will counter with Corey Kluber. Accordingly, our game odds have the Indians at 72% to win today’s contest.

Kluber, of course, is one of the main reasons the Indians haven’t lost since August 23rd. Cleveland has a few of the very best players in the game, and along with Kluber, the team’s core includes Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Carrasco, Carlos Santana, and Edwin Encarnacion, all of whom are performing at a high level. But the Indians had all these guys early in the season too, and for the most part, these guys were performing well before August 23rd too.

It might be stating the obvious, but you only win 19 in a row when you’re getting contributions from up and down the roster. So today, while waiting for Kluber to run through the Tigers depleted, let’s take a minute to talk about the other guys who have made the Indians unbeatable.

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Francisco Lindor is again one of the best players in the game. Following last night’s strong performance, he’s posted an even 5.0 WAR this year, the third straight in which he’s reached the four-win threshold.

The combination of youth and remaining years of team control certainly make him one of the most valuable assets in the game. He’s a significant reason why the Indians enter today with a franchise-record 19 consecutive wins. He’s slashed .365/.434/.770 during the streak.

But he’s arrived here in an unusual way. He’s a very different player than in the past. The 5-foot-11, 190-pound shortstop is tied with Bryce Harper for 26th on the sport’s home-run leaderboard with 29. He’s joined the air-ball revolution. He’s a slugger, but his defense is at career-worst levels in his age-23 season.

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Back after an intriguing May 30th start, I wondered if the talented enigma that is Trevor Bauer had found a road map to another level.

Entering that start — by the end of which he’d struck out a career-best 14 against the Oakland A’s — Bauer had an MLB-worst 6.30 ERA. He’d frustrated many in Cleveland with his unconventional training techniques and analytical approach. I documented earlier this year for The Athletic how Bauer is perhaps one of the more misunderstood and interesting players in the game.

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Sunday night, the Indians pushed their winning streak to 18 games. The next-longest active winning streak in baseball is five. Since this all began, the Indians, of course, have gone 18-0, and the next-best record in the American League has been 9-7. The goal is to win the World Series, and the Indians will be disappointed if they again come up short, but at a certain point, this will just become their legacy. Somebody wins the World Series every year. The Indians have one of the longest winning streaks that baseball’s ever seen. Doing something like this is more improbable, and it’s a reflection of how well the Indians have been built, from top to bottom.

A truth about baseball is that a winning team is never as good as it looks when it’s winning, and a losing team is never as bad as it looks when it’s losing. The Indians feel like they’re bulletproof, mostly because they’ve been bulletproof for about three weeks. Their odds of winning everything haven’t meaningfully changed. It’s useful to keep the Dodgers in mind. The change in perception has been abrupt, even though it’s more or less the same active roster. Invulnerability isn’t forever, as demonstrated by the reality that everything dies.

The Indians aren’t unbeatable. The chances are still that they won’t win it all. Upon eventual reflection, the team shouldn’t be judged only by how it performed when it didn’t lose a game. One should attempt to consider the whole of the picture. Let’s do that right now. Let’s talk about the Indians’ pitching.

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