Lots of Lindor for your Liking

We already did a top 10 defensive plays list for the Indians this year, but that in and of itself did not feature quite enough Francisco. For the sake of it being the middle of Winter, here are the top ten plays by Francisco Lindor alone from his rookie season with some interspersed facts and stats.

The First One – June 22nd vs Detroit

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Lindor’s first impressive play in the Major Leagues was on June 22nd, his eighth game for the Indians. While many defensive stats are generalized, not paying attention to specific situations, plays like this show a direct correlation between plays made and runs prevented. With the bases loaded and two outs, everyone was running and had Lindor’s range been a little less, one run would have definitely scored and another probably would have from second as well. Even then, the inning would have continued with runners on first and second or third. Instead, the inning was over and Trevor Bauer was saved two earned runs. Considering his entire season, this play alone saved Bauer 0.10 off his ERA.

Getting Shifty – June 28th vs Baltimore

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All teams in baseball utilize shifts these days, but having intelligent players with great range can make them much more effective. In this case, the ball was hit directly to Lindor, but it is his range that allows him to play so far to the right side of second and still cover the middle of the field. On this play in particular, his awareness to tag the runner first before throwing to first saved another literal run.

UZR is a way of looking at runs saved in a less literal sense, essentially looking at how many runs a player should have saved based on his range, double play ability and errors avoided. In his 865.1 innings, Lindor saved 10 runs more than the average short stop due to range, 0.7 due to double plays turned and cost 0.1 more due to his errors. This equated to 10.5 more runs saved on the year than the average short stop and 18.9 when extended out to a full slate of 150 games.

Lindor’s Limits – June 30th vs Tampa Bay

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Much like another great defensive short stop, Omar Vizquel, Lindor often adjusts his level of effort to the needs of the play. This play, however, has to be near his maximum ability as he dove completely, just barely snagging the ball before a hard throw all the way in the air to first just robbed Evan Longoria by a step.

Looking at his maximum range, FanGraphs has a fun little stat called Inside Edge Fielding which categorizes each ball hit to a position by it’s difficulty level. Since he made none of the 22 ‘Impossible’ or ‘Remote’ plays (should be made between 0-10% of the time), this one must have been considered ‘Unlikely’ (should be made 10-40% of the time) and was one of the six that he made of nine opportunities.

Rookies Robbing Rookies – July 7th vs Houston

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Lindor was the Indians best defender this year as well as the third best hitter behind Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley, but he may have had the toughest rookie class in baseball history. Here he made another extended stop, sliding to his left before firing to first. While he was called safe initially, replay ultimately ruled him out.

Lindor could have used an instant replay in the Rookie of the Year voting as well. Despite leading all AL rookies in WAR (third in MLB) and batting average he came in second in the Rookie of the Year voting to Carlos Correa, who he retired in the clip above. Thanks mostly to superior power numbers, Correa received 17 first place votes and 124 total vote points compared to Lindor’s 13 and 109. Miguel Sano, who could easily have won the award in some previous seasons, only earned 20 vote points as the voters were split almost completely by the two short stops.

Francisco Plays All Fields – August 13th vs New York

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While it seems like there would never be a situation where Lindor would need to play second base for the Indians, it’s nice to know that he could. On another play with a heavy shift to the right, Lindor made this long running play with a glove flip to finish it off. While generally his great plays made this year involved him ranging to the left or right, this showed that he could come straight in as his forward momentum ended up helping him out, providing some extra power behind the glove flip.

Turning Two – August 15th vs Minnesota

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After making this full dive about as far away from first as is possible for a short stop, Lindor may have had some difficulty catching the runner at first, but was lucky enough that there was a runner at first already. This was one of 33 double plays started for Lindor, 27th most in baseball and most among players with less than 115 games played (he only made it into 98 at SS). Not only was the 33 double plays started the most for the Indians in 2015, it was the most by any Indians fielder since Kipnis in 2013 (45).

The Bounce Pass – August 31st vs Toronto

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A similar play to the last one, only this time Lindor had the benefit of Russell Martin running. As mentioned earlier, he has had the tendency to take his time when he has it to make sure the throw is online. In this case and many others, the throw bounced a little further than half way to first. This is not a problem area, however, as by bouncing it early, the first baseman has more time to react to the play. While it may not look as impressive as a Hanley Ramirez or Alexei Ramirez rocket across the infield, baseball is not a challenge of who can throw harder, but who can record outs without allowing runs to score in between.

Again, With More Oomph – September 16th vs Kansas City

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Further illustrating that point, Lindor bounced this throw as well after diving to his left. With Alex Rios running, Lindor didn’t have as much time for the throw to first, but because he was diving up the middle, he had a shorter distance to throw as well. As with many other plays throughout the year, Lindor had the perfect timing to beat Rios by a step.

A Dive & A Laser – September 17th vs Kansas City

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Just to make sure you were thinking that Lindor doesn’t have the arm strength necessary to burn it to first when necessary, here’s a reminder. At this point, these dives may be getting gratuitous.

The Last One – September 22nd vs Minnesota

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Lindor’s last great play of the year combined a little bit of everything. There were two runners on and two outs and although the ball looked to be headed straight to Brantley in left, one run probably would have scored had Lindor not stopped it with a tremendous dive. Yet again, he jumped up and launched the ball with a throw that bounced in the grass in front of second base, yet had enough on it that it made it almost all the way to Carlos Santana at first on one hop.

To Trevor Plouffe and all others robbed by Lindor this year, get used to it. The superstar rookie just turned 22 last month and will be in Cleveland at least through 2021. That’s going to be a lot of dives and many more base runners shaking their heads while returning to the dugout.