It figures. He’d entered the two seasons prior amid expectations that he’d emerge as his club’s regular third baseman, but he failed to lock down the position. Lonnie Chisenhall didn’t have a regular place to play for the Cleveland Indians in this past campaign, however, so, naturally, he produced early on and, thus, elbowed his way into the lineup. He finished with a .280/.343/.427 slash line and 13 bombs in 533 plate appearances.
Did Chisenhall truly experience a breakthrough? After a hot start to the 2014 season, his output declined pretty steadily. As a left-handed batter, he wouldn’t need much good fortune in order to exceed expectations. But he also made some gains which suggest that he began to establish a new baseline performance level. The magnitudes of those gains should be pretty telling.
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