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November 16, 2015We know the Browns aren’t great, but are the Cavaliers great? While We’re Waiting…
November 17, 2015Cleveland Indians starting shortstop Francisco Lindor finished behind Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa in the run to be the 2015 American League Rookie of the Year.
Despite Correa and Minnesota Twins outfielder Miguel Sano also having fantastic seasons, Francisco Lindor was the deserving AL ROY Award recipient, as WahoosOnFirst’s Matt Bretz detailed earlier on Monday. Lindor had an incredible year since his mid-June promotion to MLB and dominated in all phases of the game.
As expected, Lindor led with his defense. Lindor’s 18.9 UZR/150 was best among all MLB shortstops (minimum 500 innings) and his 10 DRS easily led AL shortstops despite his relatively limited playing time. His defense at short was certainly a breath of fresh air to a team which had started the season with historically horrific fielding. Evidence of Lindor’s brilliance in the field was quickly seen as national writers such as Jonah Keri noted the defensive transformation on the team as early as July. Such improvements continued as the team transitioned to Cleveland Indians 2.0 in August with Lindor as an established leader.
Lindor’s fine defense was expected as he rose up through the MiLB ranks. The bigger surprise was the immediate impact bat the switch-hitter provided, and how he continued to improve his offense each month. His final 128 wRC+1 wound up third on the Indians behind only a platooned Ryan Raburn and Michael Brantley. The incredible power Lindor exhibited in September might not be repeatable over a longer stretch, but it certainly demonstrated his potential while also showing he was unflappable during the critical month of the AL Wild Card race.
His offensive and defensive metrics combined left him just shy of Jason Kipnis for the team lead in fWAR (5.2 to 4.6) and tied in bWAR (4.6 each) despite playing 42 less games than Kipnis (WAR is an accumulating statistic).
Even more, Lindor demonstrated leadership on the field and off despite being a rookie. His energy was obvious on the field as his veteran-esque discourse was off. He was appreciative of the instruction Terry Francona gave him, playful with teammates such as Cody Anderson, and an absolute star on social media and in interviews for a sport and team that desperately needs more stars.
Francisco Lindor was certainly never afraid to flash his trademark smile, and he gave fans of the Indians plenty of reasons to smile this past season as well as thinking about seasons ahead.
- 100 being MLB average, so he was 28 percent better than average. [↩]
20 Comments
The final vote shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise and if you are an Indians fan so what. Lindor more then lived up to expectations. Lets be honest not a lot of people thought he’d do what he did. They hoped he would but were skeptical. Hopefully his rookie season is just the start. I loved the way he played and carried himself on and off the field. A couple more like him and look out!
We got jobbed so hard.
What do you mean, those smart execs knew exactly what he was capable of! Why do you think they held him out–how else were we supposed to have our traditional start? Remember, when preparing for a race, always start slowly or you might pull a muscle.
i don’t have a problem with it. This isn’t exactly Pat Listach or Bob Hamelin. Lindor was hurt by his earlier reputation for defense with no offense, by Correa’s hot start, and by Houston’s playoff status.
haha. yes!
Playoff status for sure, but I find it funny how many sportswriters will pine for all-around talents over big bombers, but then pick Correas over Lindors and Cabreras over Trouts.
Is this where the “He’ll make a great addition to the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers one day” comments go?
In all seriousness, the kid had a hell of a year. Deserving players being denied individual awards is nothing new to this team. Let’s just hope he shows up in April and May, and maybe brings some teammates with him.
I find it even funnier that, in this day and age of advanced metrics, and with so many other measurement tools available, we still have sportswriters deciding awards.
And, since there is no real definition of “MVP” or “ROY”, etc… there is always a stat or situation they can hide behind when their choices aren’t popular – or even justified. Not saying that happened here, but it happens often enough.
Look at Lindor in the image, just tip your cap, give ’em a smile, and say “Yeah, okay then”
(Lindor was actually much more gracious)
It was funny that Cleveland w/ Lindor (52-49) had a better record than Houston w/ Correa (52-52) and that in Sept/Oct when the playoff race was in full swing, Lindor had his best month and Correa his worst.
I absolutely agree. I didn’t miss those stats. As I said above, Correa got such a big head start (and all the talk was about him) that it was hard to undo that momentum. Again, this could have gone either way and I’d be fine with it. Since Lindor is a tribesman I was rooting for him.
We, uhh…havent had the greatest luck with Rookies of the year in the teams history. I know… Sandy, but had he not had such an extensive injury history, who knows what he truly was capable of? And then there’s Joe Charbonneau…
/pours 40 oz on curb
So, on balance, this may be one of those “blessing in disguise” type things. Lindor may not think so, if he had a ROY escalator in his contract, but I think not coming up until June is what hurt his case the most (I know, Correa only 1 month ahead…but it was quite a month). And, as we learned in the 90’s, people who dont watch the amazing defense of a SS every day often get hypnotized by big offensive numbers coming from other shortstops. I’m still waiting for a national writer to write the long form piece where they say, you know what? Given the PED history of most of those 90’s shortstops with the eye popping offensive numbers, Omar really was the best SS of the 90’s (Jeter had 4 good years to Omar’s 8, and I’m convinced Nomar was not clean)
Like it or not, I think this came down to HRs. Lindor led in pretty much every other
category.
Or CY winners
That whole production yesterday was terrible. Poorly done, tech-diffs, uninteresting interviews. Ugh.
Frankie had better offense too, we got jobbed.
To their credit though:
(1) It was available for free streaming on mlb.com
(2) The announcement was not leaked.
As Bretz noted, if it came down to power hitting, Sano should have won. I do think HRs mattered, but also Correa had the early hype and Houston made the playoffs. It baffles me that there are baseball writers who apparently allow it to influence their vote rather than digging just a tad deeper, but it is still that way.
On the other hand, Kenny Lofton and Manny Ramirez were ROY runner ups.
BINGO!