CLEVELAND -- All things considered, the Cleveland Indians' 2018 season will be -- and probably should be -- considered a massive disappointment.
Despite winning a third straight American League Central Division championship and possessing an All-Star at every position -- and multiple ones in their starting rotation and bullpen -- the Indians' quest to end baseball's longest World Series drought lasted all of three days. On Monday, the Houston Astros completed their three-game sweep of the Tribe with a commanding 11-3 victory in Game 3 of the American League Division Series.
After playing in Game 7 of the World Series in 2016 and winning 22-straight regular season games a year ago, it would be tough to argue the Indians ever reached their potential in 2018. After all, their 91 wins were the fewest they've totaled in the past three seasons and a three-game sweep in which they were outscored 21-6 could hardly have been considered competitive.
So how did a team that spent all year preparing for the postseason fail to perform once it finally arrived? Perhaps because it wasn't quite as prepared as it thought it was.
"We tried," Miller said. "It's tough. You can't control who you play or how intense your games are down the stretch. I think maybe [more competitive games] would've been nice. I don't know. There's probably a million things you could point to as to why it was three-game series."
One of those things could be the competition -- or lack thereof -- that was found in the AL Central this season.
Despite entering the postseason with the least amount of wins of any American League playoff team -- wild cards included -- Cleveland still won the Central by 13 games, the widest margin of any division champion in baseball this season. In essence, the Indians hadn't played a truly meaningful game since May, with their lead in the Central only widening over the course of the summer.
Would a more competitive regular season had led to Cleveland being more equipped for the postseason? Who's to say. But after the fashion in which the Indians' season just ended, all theories are worth exploring.
"In hindsight, I think we wish it would have gone a different way because maybe that would have helped us out," Miller said. "You can't pick your division and in a lot of ways we didn't play as well as we thought we were capable of all year. Maybe it was a good thing we were able to get into the playoffs the way we did because we had guys hurt.
"We never felt like we tapped our full potential, maybe because we didn't have to."
Of course, that's not all that went wrong for the Tribe this October and it hardly explains a lineup that mustered just 13 hits in three games or the inconsistencies of the Indians' bullpen. In particular, manager Terry Francona never seemed to push the right buttons with the latter, and appeared overly reliant on Trevor Bauer, who appeared in all three games and earned the Game 3 loss.
Nevertheless, given the shocking fashion in which Cleveland's season just finished, it's hard to blame Miller -- or anybody else -- for wondering what could have been.
"If we were in a pennant race and fighting in games in September, maybe that helps us," Miller said. "Unfortunately, there's no way to go back and get a do-over."