The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2017 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A savant in the batter’s box, Manny Ramirez could be an idiot just about everywhere else — sometimes amusingly, sometimes much less so. The Dominican-born slugger, who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of upper Manhattan, stands as one of the greatest hitters of all time, a power-hitting right-handed slugger who spent the better part of his 19 seasons (1993–2011) terrorizing pitchers. A 12-time All-Star, Ramirez bashed 555 home runs and helped the Indians and the Red Sox reach two World Series apiece, adding a record 29 postseason homers along the way. He was the World Series MVP for Boston in 2004, when the club won its first championship in 86 years.

For all of his prowess with the bat, Ramirez’s lapses — Manny Being Manny — both on and off the field are legendary. There was the time in 1997 that he “stole” first base, returning to the bag after a successful steal of second because he thought Jim Thome had fouled off a pitch… the time in 2004 that he inexplicably cut off center fielder Johnny Damon’s relay throw from about 30 feet away, leading to an inside-the-park home run… the time in 2005 when he disappeared mid-inning to relieve himself inside Fenway Park’s Green Monster… the time in 2008 that he high-fived a fan mid-play between catching a fly ball and doubling a runner off first… and so much more. Read the rest of this entry »

Please note this posting contains two positions.

Position Title: Analyst

Department: Baseball Research & Development
Employment Type: Full-Time

Primary Purpose
The Cleveland Indians are seeking an analyst to join the team’s Baseball Research and Development group. The position will use the team’s proprietary data to build tools and resources that help the team across all facets of baseball operations. The ideal candidate will possess a strong foundation in statistics and/or data science, the ability to effectively communicate findings to colleagues in non-technical roles, and a passion for learning more about baseball. Strong applicants will demonstrate curiosity, creativity, and a drive to learn new concepts. The Indians are open to a remote role for the right candidate, but relocation to Cleveland, OH is preferred.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

• Analyze and interpret baseball data.
• Research, build, test, and deploy statistical and/or machine learning models to support Baseball Operations.
• Visualize data in concise, readable formats for non-technical staff members.
• Communicate research findings to key stakeholders across the organization.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for nine years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cleveland Indians.

Batters

Even after seeing the public relations fiasco that resulted from the Red Sox trading their franchise player last winter, Cleveland is preparing to do the same, making it abundantly clear that Francisco Lindor will most likely start the 2021 season wearing another uniform. Lindor’s short 2020 wasn’t a triumph, but he’s at that level of superstar where it takes a lot more than 60 games moonlighting as a mortal to change expectations by a significant margin. Now, it’s very possible that the players sent in return for Lindor will add more future wins overall than the star shortstop’s 2021 season will, but with the Indians in a three-way divisional dogfight, we know that they’re giving away high-leverage wins in the short-term. Lindor is on a Hall of Fame trajectory and should he reach Cooperstown, it seems likely that he’ll be more closely associated with his next team than his current one. The logo on Joe Morgan’s Hall plaque is that of the Reds, not the Astros, after all.

While there’s not a lot of good news concerning the lineup, José Ramírez further demonstrating that his late 2018/early 2019 struggles aren’t the new normal falls in that category. Ramírez hit .292/.386/.607 in 2020, leading the AL in WAR. If I had been an AL MVP voter, he would have easily had my first-place vote. He’s no longer a clearly above-average third baseman defensively and the days when it made sense to consider him an option at second on the right roster have probably passed, but his bat is good enough that it’s not really a troubling issue. Read the rest of this entry »

I have the honor of casting a Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. Jay Jaffe does as well, each of us having joined the BBWAA in 2010 while colleagues at Baseball Prospectus. A decade later — and in Jay’s case, countless words written on the subject at hand — we are the first FanGraphs writers to be granted voting privileges.

I’m sharing my ballot in this column, but before doing so, it’s only appropriate that I tip my hat to my fellow first-time voter. As most everyone reading this knows, Jay’s JAWS system is invaluable when assessing Hall of Fame credentials, as is his must-read Cooperstown Casebook. Given his extensive research and analysis, there may not be a greater authority on the subject.

That being said, the question of what defines a Hall of Famer is inherently subjective. Following Ryan Thibodaux’s Ballot Tracker will tell you as much. With barely over a dozen made public, we’ve already seen ballots with 10 checkmarks, while others have been left blank. As a “Big Hall” guy, I’m clearly not in accord with the latter camp.

Jay and I disagree on at least one player. Barring an earth-shaking surprise, Omar Vizquel won’t get his vote. Conversely, the iconic-yet-polarizing shortstop was a no-brainer for me. The first names I checked on my ballot were Vizquel and Scott Rolen. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2018 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
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In the eyes of many, Omar Vizquel was the successor to Ozzie Smith when it came to dazzling defense. Thanks to the increased prevalence of highlight footage on the internet and on cable shows such as ESPN’s SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight, the diminutive Venezuelan shortstop’s barehanded grabs, diving stops, and daily acrobatics were seen by far more viewers than Smith’s ever were. Vizquel made up for having a less-than-prototypically-strong arm with incredibly soft hands and a knack for advantageous positioning. Such was the perception of his prowess at the position that he took home 11 Gold Gloves, more than any shortstop this side of Smith, who won 13.

Vizquel’s offense was at least superficially akin to Smith’s: He was a singles-slapping switch-hitter in lineups full of bigger bats and, at his best, a capable table-setter who got on base often enough to score 80, 90, or even 100 runs in some seasons. His ability to move the runner over with a sacrifice bunt or a productive out delighted purists, and he could steal a base, too. While he lacked power, he dealt in volume, piling up more hits (2,877) than all but four players who spent the majority of their careers at shortstop and are now in the Hall of Fame: Derek Jeter (3,465), Honus Wagner (3,420), Cal Ripken (3,184), and Robin Yount (3,142). Vizquel is second only to Jeter using the strict as-shortstop splits, which we don’t have for Wagner (though we do know the Flying Dutchman spent 31% of his defensive innings at other positions). During his 11-year run in Cleveland (1994–2004), Vizquel helped the Indians to six playoff appearances and two pennants.

To some, that makes Vizquel an easy call for the Hall of Fame, and as his candidacy heads into its fourth year, he looks as though he’s on his way. In his 2018 ballot debut, he received 37.0% of the vote, a level of support that doesn’t indicate a fast track to Cooperstown but more often than not suggests eventual enshrinement. In the two cycles since, he’s climbed to 42.8% and then 52.6%, the last of those particularly significant; current candidates aside, every player who’s reached 50% except for Gil Hodges has eventually been elected, either by the writers or by a small committee.

These eyes aren’t so sure Vizquel’s election is merited. By WAR and JAWS, Vizquel’s case isn’t nearly as strong as it is on the traditional merits. His candidacy quickly became a point of friction between old-school and new-school thinkers and only promises to be more of the same, as though he were this generation’s Jack Morris. [Update: As if his case needed another polarizing factor, shortly after this article was published, it came to light that in October, Vizquel’s second wife, Blanca García, accused him of domestic violence via an Instagram live post. Further updates below.]

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I had the honor of voting for this year’s American League Rookie of the Year award, and the biggest challenge was — not unpredictably — how to weigh performances over a 60-game season. Adding a layer of difficulty was the fact that some of the best numbers were put up by players who weren’t with their team for the duration of the campaign.

Willi Castro and Ryan Mountcastle excelled with the bat — especially Castro — but each had only 140 plate appearances. Sean Murphy, who augmented his solid offense with strong defense behind the plate, had exactly that same number. Are 140 plate appearances enough in a truncated campaign? Following a fair bit of deliberation, I decided that they aren’t. As a result, all three players fell off my consideration list.

And then there were the pitchers. Not a single rookie in the junior circuit threw as many as 65 innings, and the most dominant of the bunch totaled just 27 frames. This made for an especially difficult dilemma. Would it be reasonable to give one of my three votes to a lights-out pitcher whose relative workload was akin to that of the position players I’d chosen to discount? Moreover, had any of the higher-innings hurlers done enough to preclude me from making what amounts to a contradictory choice? We’ll get to that in a moment. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I noted that Marcus Semien was the highest-ranked player from our Top 50 Free Agents list who did not receive a qualifying offer. He heads what projects to be the strongest free-agent class at any position this year, but for teams willing to shop for a shortstop via trade, Francisco Lindor presents a tantalizing alternative. The Indians have reportedly informed teams of their intent to trade the four-time All-Star, who would be at the top of an even stronger crop of free-agent shortstops next year and who almost certainly isn’t going to receive a competitive offer to stay in Cleveland.

Lindor, who turns 27 on November 14, had the weakest season of his career on the offensive side in 2020, hitting just .258/.335/.415 with eight homers and six steals; his 100 wRC+ represented a 14-point dip from 2019 and a 19-point drop relative to his previous career rate. He did overcome a slow start to finish strong, batting .212/.264/.353 (60 wRC+) through his first 21 games and then .285/.371/.450 (122 wRC+) over his final 39. That’s a rather arbitrarily chosen point of inflection, but it’s not far removed from acting manager Sandy Alomar Jr.’s suggestion that Lindor was pressing at the plate early in the season. Even while shedding 1.1 mph of average exit velocity, Lindor wound up underperforming his Statcast expected batting average and slugging percentage (.278 and .441, respectively), though that kind of variance is unremarkable.

Beyond the bat, Lindor was a career-worst 2.5 runs below average via his baserunning, his second year in a row in the red. Thanks to his 5.8 UZR, he still finished with 1.7 WAR, ranking eighth among shortstops and prorating to 4.6 WAR over the course of a full season. His two-year total of 6.1 WAR places him fifth at the position (Semien is first at 8.8), and his three-year total of 13.7 WAR is tops. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a scene Cleveland baseball fans are familiar with. At the height of the team’s contention window — when Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer and Mike Clevinger all led the pitching staff, LeBron James could visit the luxury boxes from down the road, and Francisco Lindor and José Ramírez were a couple of dazzling kids to dream on — this kind of drama had unfolded many times. The starter would get himself into trouble earlier than the team had hoped, and force manager Terry Francona to call on the bullpen to either sustain or revive the season. Many times, it worked out. Andrew Miller or some power right-hander would take the mound and coolly stop the opposition in its tracks, and everything would turn out OK.

Relieving starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco with the bases loaded against the New York Yankees on Wednesday, however, James Karinchak couldn’t provide a heroic moment. Nor could rookie Triston McKenzie in the sixth, or veteran Brad Hand in the ninth. There were simply too many good takes, too many well-timed swings, too many damn good hitters in that damn Yankees lineup, pummeling Cleveland’s world-renowned pitching staff for a second-straight night to win Game 2 of the best-of-three AL Wild Card series. New York advances to face No. 1 seed Tampa Bay in the ALDS, which begins on Monday.

Karinchak’s difficult bases-loaded, no-outs assignment came in the fourth inning, with Cleveland ahead 4-1. Carrasco had flummoxed Yankee hitters his first time through the lineup, striking out six while allowing just one walk and a solo dinger to Giancarlo Stanton. But his effectiveness abruptly vanished in the fourth. Aaron Hicks led off with a shot up the middle that was woefully misread by Cleveland center fielder Delino DeShields, who initially charged in on the ball only to panic as he saw it soar over his head. Hicks legged out a triple, after which Carrasco issued back-to-back walks to Luke Voit and Stanton to load the bases. Read the rest of this entry »

By the time Shane Bieber recorded his first out in Tuesday night’s American League Wild Card Series opener, the Yankees had already done what teams failed to do in seven of the 25-year-old righty’s 12 starts in 2020: score two runs. With a DJ LeMahieu bloop and an Aaron Judge blast, the Yankees staked themselves to an instant lead, and they continued to beat up on the presumptive AL Cy Young winner, cuffing him for seven runs before chasing him in the fifth inning. The marquee matchup between Bieber and Yankees ace Gerrit Cole turned into a one-sided rout, with the Yankees rolling to a 12-3 win in Cleveland.

Bieber, for as otherworldly as he was this year — he not only won the AL pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, but also led in FIP, WAR, K%, and K-BB% — did allow seven home runs, as if to hint that he was merely human. Two of those were on fastballs, one in the center of the strike zone, hit by the Reds’ Eugenio Suárez on August 4. In fact, that was the only hit out of the 28 fastballs Bieber threw down Broadway, just 11 of which were put into play. Judge didn’t have to know how rare it was for Bieber to leave one there to do business with it:

The home run — 108 mph off the bat, with an estimated distance of 399 feet — was Judge’s first since August 11, the same day on which he strained his right calf muscle. To that point, he led the majors in homers, but he landed on the Injured List a few days later, and re-injured the calf in his first game back on August 26. Since the initial injury, he hit just .205/.326/.231 in 46 plate appearances spread out over 47 days. While his exit velocity remained respectable, he didn’t elevate the ball with the same consistency, or come close to doing the same kind of damage:

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As the final day of the season dawned, there were no fewer than six possible matchups for this series, with the Twins, White Sox, and Indians all having paths to second place in the AL Central and the number four seed, and likewise for the Yankees and Blue Jays in the AL East and the number five seed. The Yankees fell to the Marlins, 5-0, their sixth loss in the past eight games, but because the Blue Jays blew a 4-1 lead and lost to the Orioles, New York finished 33-27, barely holding onto second. Meanwhile the Indians dug their way out of a 6-2 hole against the Pirates, and only when the White Sox’s comeback from a 10-1 deficit stalled at 10-8, with the tying run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth on a questionable called strike was this matchup set.

The Indians finished with the better record, going 35-25, but a slightly worse run differential (+39 versus +45), but how the two teams got there is very different. The Yankees led the AL in scoring (5.25 runs per game) and wRC+ (116) while ranking sixth in run prevention (4.50 runs per game). The Indians, on the other hand, tied for second-to-last in the AL in scoring (4.13 runs per game) and were second-to-last in wRC+ (86), but they were the stingiest team in the AL, allowing just 3.48 runs per game. As this series will be played entirely at Progressive Field, the Yankees’ offensive advantage may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Worth noting: Indians manager Terry Francona has been sidelined by gastrointestinal and blood clot issues for most of the season, managing just 14 games, during which his team went 8-6. First base coach Sandy Alomar Jr. has been serving as acting manager since mid-August and will likely remain in that capacity through the postseason, though Francona has entered the bubble to keep that option in play. The team has gone 28-18 on Alomar’s watch.

Rotations

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