Francisco Lindor and The Greatest Indians Rookies Ever

All around baseball, the 2015 season will likely be remembered as the year of the rookie. Already 20 rookies across the league have been worth at least two wins above replacement and at least half these will be very disappointed when they don’t win the Rookie of the Year. While that will be a very interesting discussion, it should wait until the season is officially over. Instead, let’s look at how Francisco Lindor, the leader in rookie WAR in the American League (although behind Matt Duffy and Kris Bryant in the NL) compares to the greatest Cleveland Indians rookies ever.

To start, the Indians have already had four Rookie of the Year winners; Sandy Alomar, Jr. in 1990, Chris Chambliss in 1971, Herb Score in 1955 and Super Joe Charboneau in 1980. These were obviously great seasons and in three of four cases, were the precursor to an impressive career. What is interesting, however, is that these weren’t the best seasons by a Tribe rookie as winning that particular award has as much to do with the talent in the rest of the rookie class as well as the individual who wins the award. The chart below with the top ten Indians rookie hitters according to WAR is a slightly more representative sample of the best of the best.

In general, this is a very impressive list. Larry Doby, Joe Sewell and Earl Averill all are in the Hall of Fame as Indians and two have their numbers retired. Al Rosen was the team’s last MVP and Hal Trosky was the team’s first power hitter and home run king for decades. Shoeless Joe Jackson would be in the Hall of Fame had he not been involved in the Chicago Black Sox scandal in 1919 and Kenny Lofton arguably should be. Of the list, only Ian Fleming didn’t see major success with the team.

Number nine on that list is Francisco Lindor, a fact made more incredible by the fact that every other player in the top 21 played at least 100 games, something Lindor cannot do this year. There has already been plenty of questioning of the choice to keep him in AAA as long as they did, so this is mentioned simply to acknowledge how incredible he has been in such a short period.

Advancing him further is the fact that Lindor was a true rookie this year, never playing a Major League level game before in his career. The top player on the list, Shoeless Joe, played parts of three seasons before 1911 including a great finish to the 1910 season. Rosen didn’t have as much success, but also played 35 games across three seasons before 1950. Fleming and Heath each played in parts of two seasons before their rookie campaigns and Lofton, Trosky and Sewell all played in one. The player with the most experience before being considered a rookie in the top ten was Doby, who played five seasons on the Major League quality Newark Eagles and half a year in Cleveland before his ‘rookie’ season of 1948.

As for true rookies, only Lindor at nine and Averill at ten qualify and that is some good company to be in. After that 1929 season, Averill continued with two more with an average above .330 and a slugging percent above .530 before playing 11 total seasons for the Indians in his Hall of Fame career.

This is not to say anything about Lindor’s future, especially considering the large amount of failures to go with a number of success stories, but he certainly deserves considering among the best for this season. While his cumulative stats, like WAR, home runs, RBI, steals and doubles are impressive, they are hard to compare to decades of rookies with more playing time. Comparing rate stats, however, he comes out very favorably.

Among all Indians rookies with at least 300 plate appearances Lindor ranks eighth in average (highest since 1938, first over .300 since 1948), 22nd in OBP (highest since Lofton in 1992) and 16th in slugging percent. Showing how truly impressive this is, compared to all Major Leaguers now, Lindor ranks 7th in average behind such names as Miguel Cabrera and Bryce Harper and ahead of, among others, all his Indians teammates.

In most discussions of top rookies, the primary focus is on offense or pitching (if you are interested in the latter, the top three in WAR are Score, Jim Bagby, Sr and Willis Hudlin), but in Lindor’s case, his glove is his greatest asset. Despite his limited time in the league, his 11.2 defensive runs saved are ninth among MLB short stops this year and fourth in the American League. Since 1901, only 20 Indians short stops have saved 11 or more runs in their entire career and Lindor did it in just over 90 games.

Since Omar Vizquel left Cleveland after the 2004 season, Lindor’s 11.2 is the best for any Indians shortstop, more than double the runs saved by the second best, Jhonny Peralta in 2008. Among rookie short stops, only John Gochnaur (1902), Terry Turner (1904) and Frank Duffy (1972) have surpassed that number and all did it without performing exceptionally well offensively and in more than 110 games.

Considering all rookie hitters, Lindor ranks 8th in defensive runs saved in Indians history with Lofton, Wayne Kirby, Rube Lutzke and Ray Mack joining the short stops listed above. Going back to that original list, only Lofton, Doby and Rosen were particularly known for their defense and only Lofton was better than Lindor. In any event, Lindor should be considered the equal of these incredible players for his rookie year and considering players in their first Major League season, he should be included alongside Averill as the greatest ever in Indians history.