Andrés Giménez’s Breakout Has Softened the Blow of the Francisco Lindor Trade

A flourishing youth movement was the major reason why Cleveland went from sub-.500 also-rans in 2021 to runaway division winners in ’22. By Baseball-Reference’s measures, the Guardians were the youngest team in the majors, with a weighted average age of 25.9 years old for their position players and 26.3 years old for their pitchers. But while rookies Steven Kwan and Oscar Gonzalez played significant roles in their turnaround, the biggest surprise on the team was second baseman Andrés Giménez, who after a rough 2021 season broke out and became an All-Star. He not only edged out José Ramírez for the team lead with a 140 wRC+ but also finished a whisker behind him with 6.1 WAR, good for fifth in the AL.

The 24-year-old Giménez was one of four players acquired from the Mets in the January 2021 blockbuster that sent Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco to the Big Apple, along with current shortstop Amed Rosario (who himself had a very solid season), and two lower-level prospects (outfielder Isaiah Greene and righty Josh Wolf). Even for a franchise that had endured the departures of All-Stars such as Michael Brantley (free agency in October 2018), Trevor Bauer (traded to Cincinnati in July 2019), and two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber (traded to Texas in December 2019) as ownership slashed payroll, the Lindor trade was a bitter pill to swallow. He had been drafted and developed by the team, becoming a perennial All-Star who was already laying tracks toward Cooperstown.

Lindor, who would have been a free agent following the 2021 season, agreed to a 10-year, $341 million extension with the Mets just before Opening Day, but followed up with a modest-by-his-high-standards 4.2-WAR season, during which he was limited to 125 games by injuries. If that was a bit disappointing — and in the context of the Mets’ 77–85 season, it was, particularly when paired with Carrasco’s 12-start, 6.04 ERA slog — then the other side of the deal wasn’t much to write home about, either.

Rosario, then 25 years old, hit a respectable .282/.321/.409 (99 wRC+) in his first year with Cleveland, playing a decent shortstop en route to 2.1 WAR, a very solid bounceback after a disappointing 2020 (76 wRC+, 0.1 WAR). Giménez, however, struggled, playing just 68 games and spending nearly three months at Triple-A Columbus. To be fair, his results improved significantly after returning from his mid-May demotion:

That said, Giménez wasn’t hitting the ball any harder when he returned, and his approach at the plate left plenty to be desired. Via the Akron Beacon Journal’s Ryan Lewis:

Manager Terry Francona said earlier this year that Giménez’s 2021 was derailed in part due to a lack of consistent approach. Whenever Giménez had a poor series, or even just a bad night, he’d alter something in his swing, hoping it would work out better the next day. In reality, it was only making it more difficult to find any rhythm.

One aspect of Giménez’ struggles was his use of a leg kick as he loaded his swing, something that the Mets encouraged, believing it would help him produce more power. You can see it here in 2020:

The kick was still there in early 2021, before his demotion:

And it was there for this September 18, 2021 homer…

…but either toned down into more of a toe tap or absent at times shortly before and after that homer. These are all from September 2021:

“Last year he’d deviate after like a bad game,” Francona told Lewis in May. “You’d have different stance, you have a leg kick you didn’t have, you get a toe-tap.”

This season, hitting coaches Chris Valaika and Victor Rodriguez helped Giménez adopt a more consistent approach, one that included the elimination of his leg kick, which the coaches believed was hindering his pitch recognition and his timing. From the September 30 Lewis piece:

“Some guys can hit with the leg kick, some guys it’s maybe not the most efficient for them,” Valaika said. “I think for him, having that big leg kick was kind of hindering some of the strike zone awareness, having to maintain that move. Eliminating that has helped him let the ball travel and allowed him to stay behind the ball more constantly.”

…Ditching the leg kick allowed Giménez to be in the best position to look for the fastball first, which in turn allowed him to better react to off-speed pitches, which in turn led to improved strike zone discipline.

“He’s been fastball first the whole year and he’s been able to recognize and make adjustments on the breaking ball, and him being in the ground more allows him to ride out those pitches,” Valaika said. “You see him pull spin and hit fastballs the other way.”

Giménez now uses a more subtle toe tap for timing:

With his new mechanics, the Statcast numbers show that he improved in one area or another against every major pitch type relative to last year:

Overall, Giménez hit .297/.371/.466 with 17 homers and 20 steals; among second basemen, only Jose Altuve and Jeff McNeil had a higher wRC+. Giménez cut his chase rate (from 44.4% to a still-high 40.8%), his swinging-strike rate (from 16.2% to 12.9%), and his strikeout rate (from 25.1% to 20.1%) while walking slightly more often (from 5.2% to 6.1%). He hit the ball harder than before, and while his average exit velocity, barrel rate, and hard-hit rate still placed only in the 29th–36th percentile, his expected stats improved dramatically:

Giménez outdid those expected stats by a substantial margin, some of which probably owed to his 94th-percentile speed. He was one of the majors’ most productive hitters on groundballs, ranking among the top half-dozen in both batting average and wRC+:

This was a big deal for Giménez given that all major leaguers combined for a .235 AVG and 35 wRC+ on grounders. Over the course of 171 PA, his .333 average translated into 17 extra hits; remove those from his batting line, and he’d finish with a .263 AVG and .433 SLG, much closer to his expected numbers.

Defensively, Giménez turned in a standout year as well, with his 16 DRS, 9 RAA, and 6.5 UZR all ranking second among second basemen, behind the Rockies’ Brendan Rodgers in the first two categories and the Tigers’ Jonathan Schoop in the third. The combination of his improvements on both sides of the ball yielded the majors’ second-biggest year-to-year jump in WAR among position players, behind only Aaron Judge:

That’s some collection of players. Fourteen of the 16 are on teams that reached the postseason, and so far, only a few have gone home. Many of those players were better than Giménez to begin with, but the season he put together moved him into their orbit. Also worth noting is that by position player bWAR (which uses DRS as its defensive input), only Judge outdid his 7.2 WAR.

At the time of the Lindor trade, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection showed Giménez to be worth 8.4 WAR — a little over two wins a year — from 2022 to ’25, his age-23–25 seasons (he turned 24 on September 4). Having done what he’s done at this tender age, his projection is now that of an annual four-win player:

Note that 2026 is now included here, as Giménez spent enough time in the minors last year to delay his free agency by a year. Via Szymborski, that kind of production would be worth a four-year, $126 million deal as a free agent. Giménez won’t even be eligible for arbitration until after next winter, though; that production is discounted to $65 million.

The sting of the Lindor trade is undeniable, particularly as the shortstop regained his MVP-caliber form this year in helping the Mets to 101 wins. Still, Giménez’s development and his team’s success illustrates that even if Rosario doesn’t advance beyond being a two-win player (next year’s ZiPS forecast for his final year before free agency is for a 97 wRC+ and 2.2 WAR) and if the other two prospects in the trade don’t develop, the Guardians secured a cornerstone in an otherwise painful trade.