Coming into the 2020 season when anyone would mention the Cleveland Indians rotation you would have automatically thought of Mike Clevinger, Shane Bieber, Carlos Carrasco, and maybe even Aaron Civale. No one thought anything of Zach Plesac. Yet here we are two and a half months later and Zach Plesac had an ADP of pick 79 in the “2 early mocks.” Plesac balled out in this shortened season pitching 55.1 innings with a 2.28 ERA and 24.8% K-BB%.
With the first spring training workouts now just days away, it appears that Domingo Santana finally has a camp to report to. According to Paul Hoynes of cleveland.com, the Indians have reportedly come to an agreement with the free agent outfielder on a one-year deal. Should the parties finalize the deal, Cleveland should prove to be a good landing spot for Santana, as he would seem to have a good chance of winning an everyday role in one of the outfield corners.
So far, Santana has not caused much of a stir in early drafts. In NFBC leagues, he has a 350 ADP that puts him in 89th place among outfielders. That makes him marginal at best in 15-team mixed leagues, while Austin Riley, Austin Hays and Niko Goodrum have all managed to nestle themselves among the top 75 outfielders. Granted, Riley and Hays have upside potential, but while Santana is no longer in the pre-peak phase of his career (he turned 27 last August), he also has a high ceiling.
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When I recently wrote about players I took in my TGFBI draft whom I was far more bullish on than the consensus, one in particular drew a comment from a reader. Buhners Rocket Arm wanted to know the following.
Is there a write-up where you justify Bauers as the 88th overall player on your board? It’s likely you’re the high-man within the entire industry on him.
Well, now there is.
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For all of the talk of the increase in power in 2017, the number of 20-homer hitters among shortstops decreased from 13 to 10. Yet a few players at the position did have dramatic power surges, and none was more notable than Francisco Lindor’s. He led all shortstops with 33 home runs, besting Didi Gregorius and Paul DeJong by eight (though DeJong and Carlos Correa could have made it a contest if they had approached Lindor’s 723 plate appearances). Not only did he more than double his prior season’s total of 15 home runs, but Lindor increased his doubles from 30 to 44 and his Iso from .134 to .232.
There is not much mystery as to the source of Lindor’s newfound power. While his average exit velocity ticked slightly downward from 88.5 to 88.1 mph (per Baseball Savant), his average launch angle soared from 7.7 to 13.7 degrees. More airborne balls meant that Lindor was hitting for greater distance, but he also made more frequent outs on balls in play. After batting .313 and .301 in 2015 an 2016, respectively, his overall batting average dropped to .273, even though he struck out at the lowest rate of his career. His career BABIP trend reads as follows: .348, .324, 275.
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Regardless of the events that transpire on Wednesday night in Cleveland, the evening will conclude with a 2016 Champion of Major League Baseball being crowned. The elation that one club and its fans will experience with an extensive drought ending will only be matched in its intensity by the devastation felt by the club and the fans on the other side at seeing their own drought continue. As such, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on and reflect on the third base matchup that the evening will entail.
Game 7 will feature the overwhelming favorite for the National League Most Valuable Player award in Kris Bryant, while his counterpart, Jose Ramirez, has ridden a breakout regular season to a key role on this gritty Cleveland squad. Bryant represents the best of the best at the hot corner. He’s a member of the elite. Ramirez was mired in an obscure role until Michael Brantley’s injury allowed him an opportunity to crack the everyday lineup. He’s seized that opportunity by utilizing his high contact and baserunning abilities, as well as some clutch play.
While the overall skill set and season statistics obviously favor Bryant, in glaringly obvious fashion, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how each performs at the most strenuous point of the game’s brightest stage. Across a nine inning game, we’re talking about the most minuscule of sample sizes. But it’s still worth wondering what challenges each could present for his opponent, particularly in regard to their ability to make contact, their ability to make strong contact, and the threat that they represent on the bases.
Here’s a broader overview of their regular season performances.
| OBP | OPS | ISO | K% | BB% | wRC+ | Off | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kris Bryant | .385 | .939 | .262 | 22.0 | 10.7 | 149 | 49.1 | 8.4 |
| Jose Ramirez | .363 | .825 | .150 | 10.0 | 7.1 | 122 | 24.9 | 4.8 |
In some regards, they’re not quite as far apart as one might initially think. Both are able to reach base at a really nice clip, but what Ramirez has going for him is his ability to get on base and utilize that speed, while striking out a at a far lower rate. Whereas Bryant represents the significantly more impactful bat in the power game. Ramirez embodies that scrappy type of play that has become the Cleveland narrative. As such, he won’t be an easy out at any point for Kyle Hendricks, especially with his success against the changeup. It’ll be interesting to watch Bryant against Corey Kluber for a third time as well, with Bryant having found his groove at the plate over the last pair of games.
In terms of the ability and type of contact we’ve seen from both, refer to the graph below:
| Swing% | Contact% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | SwStr% | Soft% | Hard% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kris Bryant | 48.8 | 73.3 | 59.8 | 81.1 | 13.0 | 17.0 | 40.3 |
| Jose Ramirez | 43.9 | 88.8 | 84.4 | 91.2 | 4.9 | 14.4 | 26.8 |
Ramirez has been one of the higher contact guys throughout the season. He’s been aggressive in his approach, and he’s been able to utilize that speed effectively in notching a few extra hits because of it. Bryant may strike out more regularly, but his contact rate is also significantly improved from 2015 and his contact ends up being far harder and, subsequently farther, than that of Ramirez. If what we’ve seen thus far in the series is any indication, Ramirez will use that high contact and baserunning ability to be a thorn in the side of Chicago, and if there’s a big time hit to be made on the part of the Cubs, it could very likely come off the bat of Bryant.
It should be relatively well known at this point what each can do on the bases, as the pair rank 1-2 in BsR. Ramirez sports an 8.8 mark, while Bryant comes in not far behind, at 7.3. Ramirez is a legitimate threat to go, with 22 swipes on the season. This could prompt the Cubs to go with David Ross in order to try and slow he and the other Cleveland runners to an extent. While Bryant isn’t as active in the run game, with only eight steals, he’s still a capable baserunner who has been lauded for his intelligence on the basepaths.
As one-sided as it may seem based off of name recognition alone, it’s still a fun matchup that we’ve been able to watch at the hot corner. You have two players in the top eight in WAR at their position, with both bringing different skill sets to the table. While Bryant obviously represents the higher quality player in a variety of ways, the ways in which both could find a way to impact Game 7 in Cleveland on Wednesday night are countless. Bryant with the big power bat, Ramirez with the high contact ability. With perhaps only nine innings remaining in the 2016 Major League year, this will be one fun matchup in a multitude of things to watch in Wednesday’s final tilt.
We’ll get back into reviewing some of the performances at the hot corner next week. With the World Series currently underway, and myself having explored Kris Bryant extensively this season (and recently profiling Javier Baez), it’s the perfect opportunity to look at Jose Ramirez for the first time in a couple of months. While fans in Cleveland have become well aware of what he has brought to the table with a breakout 2016 campaign, the rest of the nation has really experienced their first exposure to Ramirez throughout this postseason. Not only has he broken out, but the numbers paint him as one of the more clutch players in baseball.
The Cleveland Indians have been among the best teams in baseball for the bulk of the year, which may or may not come as a surprise, depending on who you talk to. One of the more fascinating elements of their ballclub has been the recent emergence of Jose Ramirez. A team starved for offensive talent coming into the year has seen Ramirez serve as a catalyst in recent weeks, as they continue to separate themselves from the rest of the pack in the American League Central.
The total body of work paints a solid picture for the Indians’ third sacker, although not necessarily one that screams elite-level performance. He’s slashed .305/.359/.453/.812 for the year, with a 118 wRC+. He’s struck out less than 12% of the time and walks at a decent enough 7.3% clip. The power hasn’t necessarily been a large component of his game, with a .148 ISO that would rank him 20th among 24 qualifying third basemen. Speed is an element of his game that not many third basemen carry with them, as his 20 swipes rank second at the position. He’s certainly been an above average offensive player, in terms of his ability to reach and make things happen out on the basepaths, even if he doesn’t have the power stroke of some of his MLB counterparts.
It’s what he’s done in the past month, though, for a strong American League contender, that really makes him significant among a crowded 3B group.
Back in March, I made some bold predictions, as all RotoGraphs staff do. Some bold predictions I make simply for the sake of being bold. Or for the sake of making a prediction. One of the two. But I don’t have a vested interest in my predictions, mostly because (1) they typically suck and (2) I don’t own many, if any, shares of the subjects of my predictions (because, well, the predictions suck). It’s kind of like not putting your money where your mouth is.
In this case, I absolutely have a vested interest in Jose Ramirez. Chris Mitchell and I both hold a special place in our hearts for him. I’ve come to realize, in my years of watching and loving baseball, that I most appreciate the hitters who are (debatably) underappreciated contact hitters. Victor Martinez. Pre-breakout Daniel Murphy. Nick Markakis. Martin Prado. Reggie Willits???
Speaking of Prado, Ramirez looks like peak Prado right now, and in more ways than one:
Yesterday inaugurated what will likely several weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Cleveland Indians‘ position player situations.
As these keystrokes hit digital paper, FanGraphs and MLB.com list Giovanny Urshela as Cleveland’s primary third baseman. Outside of Rajai Davis, he projects to produce the least amount of value relative to his position; in absolute terms, second-least by a hair.
You would think the Indians have a better in-house solution, even if it’s merely a less-pathetic one. Lonnie Chisenhall, former third baseman of the future, looks to make playing right field a mostly full-time gig, with occasional spells from Colin Cowgill and others. This complicates things.
For nearly a decade Nick Swisher has been a beacon of consistency. From 2005 until 2013, he posted a 119 wRC+ mark, and averaged 25 home runs per year. He manged to swat 20 home runs again, but he wasn’t quite as good as he was in 2012. Which makes sense: He was a year older, and beginning to enter his decline phase. This season, though, has been a disaster. His walks are down, his strikeouts are up, and his power has evaporated into uncharted territory. Read the rest of this entry »
