Lindor Wasn’t Ready

From last September on through early June, the constant refrain from the Indians upper management was that Francisco Lindor wasn’t quite ready for the Major Leagues. It wasn’t, they maintained, because keeping in the minors into May would give him an extra year of team control and it wasn’t because keeping him down until mid June would ensure he avoided Super 2 status. While most every other team around the league promoted their rookies early on including Kris Bryant of Chicago, Joey Gallo in Texas and even Byron Buxton, straight from AA, for the Twins.

He wasn’t ready after hitting .276/.338/.389 in AA last year and he wasn’t ready after batting .273/.307/.388 in Columbus to end the season. He still wasn’t ready when he hit .302/.380/.409 through April 26th this year or after he recovered from a short slump and brought his slash line back to .280/.354/.399 for the Clippers by May 17th. On an almost daily basis we would hear how he still had things to work on in AAA before he would be Major League ready. While these things he had to work on were not made known, we can assume that the video below shows one of those things.

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In an alarming coincidence, Lindor became Major League ready just days after the expected Super 2 deadline passed. Since his promotion, he has been everything Indians fans have expected since he was drafted in 2011. In addition to the spectacular, Lindor has also been pretty good on simply difficult plays, making all three plays considered that were considered equal or likely to be made (between 40% and 90% of short stops should make these plays) and 97.5% of routine plays according to FanGraphs (all stats as of 7/1).

By making both the difficult and routine, Lindor has already saved a run over the average short stop in just 15 games, good for a 18.5 UZR/150, almost all derived from his huge range. This number would place him second in baseball if he qualified, behind only Asdrubal Cabrera (oh, the irony). Of course, we will likely see this number fluctuate much as the season progresses, possibly even increasing as he becomes more comfortable at the Major League level.

He has already made three errors this year, but each have provided lessons for him to learn from. The most recent of which was a play he rushed late in the game that allowed an earned run to score. This play (which can be seen below) actually featured two mistakes by Lindor. The first mistake was the bobble and was something that can happen to any player at any moment, no matter how talented he is. The second was the more serious of the two. Lindor panicked. If he had just picked up the ball and held it, it may have been called an error or a fielder’s choice and the run wouldn’t have scored. If he had gathered himself, then thrown to first, he probably would have still got the out and the run wouldn’t have scored.

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While some may say this is proof that Lindor isn’t ready for the Major Leagues, that is a poor case. Every single player makes these type of rookie mistakes in the Majors no matter how long they spend in AAA. The earlier they are brought up (once legitimately ready), the earlier they will make these mistakes and learn from them. He has yet to get another opportunity to do so, but I would highly doubt that he will make the same mistake twice. Once he learns the average running speed of different Major Leaguers (he was likely overestimating that of catcher Curt Casali), Lindor should be more confident that he can still get the out even with a slight bobble.

Of course, there are more parts to baseball than just defense, even if that is where Lindor looks to be the greatest value. Offensively, speed is Lindor’s game and while he has made mistakes here as well, they should also be good learning material. Probably the biggest single problem he has made was when he turned a sacrifice bunt into an RBI thanks to his speed, then turned it back into a sacrifice bunt by running on the wrong side of the first baseline (video below). This should be a mistake that only has to be made once at the Major League level.

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Outside of being in the wrong place, the idea behind the play and it’s execution were perfect with Lindor attempting to move Jason Kipnis from second to third with none out for Michael Brantley and forcing the pitcher to make a wild throw due to his speed. In general, Lindor’s preparation for his plate work has been fantastic and his peripherals are fantastic, even if his traditional results lag a bit behind. With his speed, his goal should be to keep the ball low, either with a line drive or ground ball and he has done so more than any other Indians outside of his rookie partner Giovanny Urshela. Of his balls in play 78% have been on the ground or a line drive with 27% being line drives, second to only Kipnis.

While many of the Indians regulars have an infield fly ball rate above 10%, including Carlos Santana (16%), Mike Aviles (15%) and Yan Gomes (14%), Lindor has yet to get out this way, one of two Indians to maintain that claim along with Ryan Raburn. This is a result of limited play, but also of a good approach. Further evidence of this approach comes from his pull stats. Almost completely even, Lindor has pulled 33% of his balls in play, hit 36% to center and 31% to the opposite field. This is the perfect type of distribution for a hitter like Lindor as it will keep fielders from taking advantage of his tendencies with an outright shift.

Lindor is an incredible fielder, a great hitter and a good base runner. While he has made mistakes in all three parts of his game, it is fairly safe to say that this is the worst Francisco Lindor we will see. This is the “unready” Lindor who is awestruck being around Major Leaguers. The future is only looking up for the Tribe rookie and it already looks pretty good.