Tag: earl averill

The Cleveland Franchise Icon: Jose Ramirez

We have always looked wistfully at baseball teams that have a franchise icon. Kansas City has George Brett and Milwaukee has Robin Yount. Pittsburgh, of course, has Roberto Clemente. A fan of the Cleveland Indians/Guardians never had that.

When Jim Thome was elected to the Hall of Fame, the team erected a statue of him in Heritage Park at Progressive Field. But as we all know, Thome left Cleveland to sign with the Phillies as a free agent, then was traded to the White Sox, and played for several other teams, and did come back here for a cup of coffee in 2011.

There have been a lot of great players here especially in the Jacobs/Progressive Field years: Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton, C.C. Sabathia, Francisco Lindor. None of them stayed.

We think the last position player to play 10 years in Cleveland and never play for another team was Al Rosen. He retired in 1956.

That will change thanks to Jose Ramirez, who signed an extension with the Guardians over the weekend through the 2032 season. Unless something drastic happens, Ramirez will retire here and will never wear another big-league team’s uniform.

Everyone around baseball should be aware of Ramirez’ six top five finishes in the MVP voting, the most by any player who has never won the award. It will be difficult for him to win now because the voting seems to be based on WAR, and the nuance of how much impact he has in the clubhouse won’t be figured in.

By the time he retires, Ramirez will likely be the greatest position player in the history of the franchise. Soon after the season starts, he will take the field for his 1620th game, breaking Terry Turner’s franchise record.

He is just 65 at bats shy of breaking Napoleon Lajoie’s record for at bats. He is currently 7th in hits with 1668 and could be 4th behind Lajoie, Tris Speaker, and Earl Averill by the end of the season.

He is third in runs scored and will likely be second behind Averill by season’s end. He is 53 home runs away from passing Thome as the franchise home run leader and is second in RBIs and should pass Averill in that category in 2027 (if there is a season).

Oh yeah, he’s also second all-time in stolen bases behind Kenny Lofton.

And for the sabermetric crowd, Ramirez is 5th in WAR behind Lajoie, Speaker, Feller, and Lou Boudreau and it isn’t out of the realm of possibility he will pass all four by the time he is ready to hang up his #11 jersey, which we don’t think it is going out on a limb to suggest he will be the last player to wear that number with Cleveland.

And although we are frequent critics of the Dolan ownership, hats off to them for making sure Ramirez will not play someplace else. However, it also takes two to tango, and no doubt Ramirez’ desire to be in Cleveland is a huge factor in getting this extension done.

What would really be great is improving the current roster so Ramirez can continue to play for winning teams and what would even be better, have a chance to compete for a championship, which he had said he wants to bring to this city.

Perhaps the biggest testament to that is the number of intentional walks issued to Ramirez over the last four seasons. He been given over 20 free passes in three of those seasons, leading the American League in 2022 and 2023.

Hopefully, the front office can get him some help. He deserves that for all he has done for the Cleveland franchise.

What Lindor Could Be If Tribe Kept Him

While much has been written about Francisco Lindor and the willingness or feasibility of the Cleveland Indians signing him to a long term contract, we would like to look at the historical aspect of the Tribe’s shortstop in terms of statistics.

Our thought is if Lindor would play in Cleveland for 10 years, he would be considered the greatest position player in franchise history.

Let’s examine in terms of the numbers, saying the Indians and Lindor can come to an agreement to keep him here for five more years, although that seems to be a long shot.

Lindor has played with the Indians for five seasons already, although his first season consisted of only 99 games.

If he played an average of 150 games over the next five seasons, that would put him at 1467 games, just short of 10th place all time (Omar Vizquel played in 1478).

Doubling his current hit total of 835 (giving him 1670), would rank him 7th of the Tribe’s all-time list just behind Lou Boudreau’s 1706.

If we do the same thing with his other numbers, which probably isn’t fair to Lindor considering he is just 26 and entering the prime of his career, here is where he falls on Cleveland’s all time record list.

He would have 356 doubles, which would rank 6th in club history, again behind Boudreau’s 367.  He would have 2866 total bases, 3rd all time behind Earl Averill and Tris Speaker.

His 260 home runs would rank #2 in team history, just behind Jim Thome’s 337, and his 768 RBI would put him 9th all time between Larry Doby and Albert Belle.

We probably aren’t being fair with the RBI stat because Lindor has spent much of the last two seasons hitting leadoff, and he may wind up hitting lower in the order, perhaps as early as this season.

He would have 956 runs scored, putting him 4th, in between Kenny Lofton and Charlie Jamieson, behind only Lofton, probably the greatest leadoff hitter in Indians’ history, and Hall of Famers Averill and Speaker.

Lindor’s stolen base total would be 7th, although if he hits lower in the order, our guess is he would be running less often.

From the advanced metrics standpoint, Lindor has accumulated a 28.6 WAR in his first five seasons, so doubling that would be 57.2, ranking him 4th behind a trio of Hall of Fame players in Nap Lajoie, Speaker, and Boudreau.

That total includes last year’s 4.7 WAR, the lowest since his rookie season.  In 2018, the shortstop put up a 7.9 WAR.  So, although he probably can’t catch Lajoie and Speaker, passing Boudreau is doable.

Again, we are probably figuring on the low side for Lindor based on the reduced games played in his rookie year, and that he still hasn’t reached his prime years.

However, at even this pace, we are talking about a Hall of Fame talent, provided he stays healthy, and if not the best Cleveland player ever, he’s in the top five.

So, when people say the management can’t or shouldn’t sign the shortstop long term, you are going to miss years of one of the greatest players ever to wear a uniform here.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to watch Kenny Lofton or Jim Thome here for his whole career.  To us, it’s galling we have to share Thome’s legacy with Philadelphia or Chicago.

The Cleveland front office should take that sort of thing into consideration, and so should the fan base.

MW