Francisco Lindor compares favorably to Grady Sizemore, says Fangraphs

When the Cleveland Indians Francisco Lindor made his MLB debut on Sunday and his first MLB start on Tuesday, it was only a matter of time before the statistical projection writers stated their case for what they believed was a proper outlook for the switch-hitting shortstop’s future.

While such projections are not absolute indicators of what will come to pass, the odds are certainly more in favor of a prospect succeeding when their statistical models demonstrate markers for achievement.

On Wednesday, Chris Mitchell at Fangraphs had some glowing things to say about these projections of Francisco Lindor:

Lindor pairs his excellent bat-to-ball ability with plus speed, which enabled him to run BABIPs well over .300 in the minors. His speed also shows up in his baserunning numbers. Although he went an unspectacular 9-for-16 on the base paths this year, he has a total of 93 steals to his name since he was drafted in 2011.

The one thing Lindor doesn’t do is hit for power.

One of the more fun exercises once statistical modeling was created is that Fangraphs (and others) can determine historical profiles that most similarly match the current prospect. For Francisco Lindor, the comparisons are especially intriguing as three of the four most similar profiles match those of All Star players.¹

The fact that the Indians former player Grady Sizemore is at the top of the list makes it all the more intriguing as Sizemore had the speed and power combination that made him a lethal offensive force. Even if Lindor never develops the same 30-30 power² , it is encouraging that his profile is on a similar track thus far in his development. Perhaps, as mentioned in this space previously, Grady Sizemore is his offensive ceiling.

Regardless, Cleveland Indians fans are not the only ones getting excited by the prospect of Francisco Lindor.

Despite the lack of power, KATOH’s³ buying what Lindor’s selling. His 2015 stats yield a projection of 9.6 WAR through age-28, which would have put him 13th overall on KATOH’s preseason top-200 list. This is a touch better than his 2014 numbers, which resulted in a similar projection of 8.8 WAR. Although his power is limited, Lindor’s combination of age, contact ability and speed makes him someone worth getting excited about.

1. “Mah Distance” stands for Mahalanobis distance, an estimate of how many standard deviations a point is from the mean. In this case, a smaller number means greater similarity between the players and Lindor. [↩]
2. In 2008 Sizemore had 33 home runs and 38 stolen bases. [↩]
3. KATOH is the name of the projection model used here [↩]