Two months into the 2005 season, it’s beginning to look like the preseason enthusiasm for the Cleveland Indians, who many predicted would contend for the AL Central division title, is going the way of the Thomas Dewey victory party.

Led by an offense that produced great results last year, the Indians looked like a young team on the rise; indeed, of the 12 Baseball Prospectus authors surveyed this spring, four picked the Indians to win a rather weak AL Central and seven picked them to finish second behind the Minnesota Twins. But entering last night’s game against Minnesota, the Indians were mired in fourth place in the AL Central at 19-23, a whopping 11 games behind the surprising White Sox.

Armed with hindsight, we can ask three questions. First, what did analysts like about the 2004 Indians? Second, what has gone wrong? Third, is there still hope for 2005?

The 2004 Indians finished third in the AL Central at 80-82, 12 games behind the first-place Twins and nine behind the Chicago White Sox. They scored 858 runs, fifth in the AL and ahead of two playoff-bound teams. This was a legitimate, intimidating young offense.

What’s more, General Manager Mark Shapiro’s rebuilding program seemed to be paying dividends. Young switch-hitting backstop Victor Martinez put up a .283 AVG/.359 OBA/.492 SLG batting line in 2004; according to Value Over Replacement Player (a Baseball Prospectus metric that measures the runs a player is worth as compared to a freely available replacement, such as Bubba Crosby), Martinez was the sixth-best catcher in the majors with a 47.1 VORP.

DH Travis Hafner also had a monstrous season, hitting .311/.410/.583, good for a VORP of 70.9 that placed him second only to David Ortiz among designated hitters. Behind those two, the offense was a nice mix of solid veteran performances (third baseman Casey Blake hit 28 homers and second baseman Ronnie Belliard hit .282/.348/.426) and young breakout seasons (outfielder Coco Crisp had 15 homers and 20 steals, and first baseman Ben Broussard hit .275/.370/.488).

A year later, the Indians have completely forgotten how to score runs, ranking last in the AL in that department. Martinez, Blake, and new acquisition Aaron Boone have been terrible, Broussard has regressed, and departed All-Star right fielder Matt Lawton was replaced with rookie Grady Sizemore, a good prospect who’s gotten off to a slow start.

Baseball Prospectus’s Pecota projection system predicted that the Indians would score 841 runs this year and finish with an 85-77 record, a modest three-game improvement over last year. As things stand, they’ll have to go 66-54 the rest of this season to match that projection; they’re on pace to score a paltry 648 runs.

That’s unlikely to happen, since the players who aren’t performing will get benched and others will break out of their slumps. There’s very little reason to think, for instance, that Martinez’s final 133 at-bats will look like his first 133, during which he has hit .195/.270/.286. In more than 1,800 minor-league at bats, he put up a .316/.398/.474 line, making his 2005 performance way out of line with past accomplishments. Martinez is the biggest reason the Indians’ offense will likely improve.

Boone, meanwhile, has hit .158/.215/.271 out of the gate after missing all of 2004 with a knee injury; given his year away from the game and poor plate discipline even in the best of times, the .263/.322/.429 performance predicted by Pecota was overly optimistic. Between him and Martinez, the Indians have been essentially playing with two pitchers in their batting order, and the 32-year-old Boone is unlikely to keep his job for much longer.

Last year’s third baseman, Blake, who relocated to the outfield to accommodate Boone, will likely find himself back at the hot corner before long, though he barely qualifies as an improvement. Blake was signed to a now dubious looking two-year, $5.4 million contract in the off-season; at 31, hitting just .206/.312/.382, he’s unlikely to provide a good return on that investment. A 27-year-old DH in 2004, Hafner wasn’t likely to match last year’s sudden .311/.410/.583 outburst. But at .270/.391/.468, he’s still a valuable player.

Continuing on their current pace, the Indians would simultaneously have one of the worst offensive seasons in memory, and one of the best seasons pitching-wise. That’s a curious combination, one reminiscent of the 2003 Indians, whose offense ranked 13th in the AL (699 runs scored), and whose pitching was fifth-best (778 runs allowed). After allowing 795 runs in 2004, the Indians are on pace to give up 686 in 2005.

This year’s pitching staff has helped mask the offensive stagnation to some extent, but that won’t continue either – the bullpen, in particular, is likely to regress. Closer Bob Wickman, for example, has surrendered a .224 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). That’s well below his .333 figure from last year (the league average hovers around .300). Since Wickman also has an unacceptably low 3.52 K/9IP, the .224 average will climb if his fielders have to record the majority of his outs, and his 3.52 ERA has nowhere to go but up.

David Riske and Rafael Betancourt, though they sport excellent strikeout rates (7.45 and 7.08, respectively), also have unsustainable BABIP: Riske’s is .143 and Betancourt’s is a staggering .128. Last year, Betancourt’s was .352 and Riske’s was .291, which speaks volumes about how dependent a pitcher is on his defense and how much small sample sizes can be a factor one-quarter of the way into a season, especially for low-inning relievers.

The starting pitching is another mixed bag. The one-year signing of Kevin Millwood has proved a low-risk success, with Millwood leading the staff with a 13.4 VORP. Cliff Lee (9.4 VORP) and C.C. Sabathia (9.2 VORP) have also fared well. But the gains made by Jake Westbrook in his strong 2004 season (3.38 ERA) have tailed off this year: Sporting a 5.80 ERA, his elevated home-run rate makes him a question mark. Throw in the expected struggles by fifth starter Scott Elarton and the Indians are still a league-average starter or two away from elite status.

All told, the 2005 season is effectively over for the Tribe. The Indians aren’t getting much production from first base, third base, right field, or catcher. But if Martinez gets back on track behind the plate and lineup newcomers Sizemore and Jhonny Peralta continue to develop, 2006 could turn out to be the year many thought 2005 would be.

Mr. Erhardt writes for Baseball Prospectus. For more state-of-the-art content, visit BaseballProspectus.com.