Francisco Lindor is underappreciated

I swore I would not let it happen again. I swore I would not become conditioned to watching a transcendent athlete.

When LeBron James left, and even more when LeBron returned, I promised myself that I would partake in the brilliance, bask in the aesthetic. I failed. I failed again with Francisco Lindor. No, Francisco Lindor is not and never will be in the same stratosphere as LeBron James but the problem is the same.

Lindor is twenty-two years old, dripping in a charisma that promises to make him one of the faces of baseball, and a Top 10 talent. But, we have become conditioned to his brilliance.

No one is writing “Francisco Lindor is elite” or “Francisco Lindor is brilliant” or “Francisco Lindor is the human embodiment of perfection.” Nobody wants to write those because they are obvious, a bit too on the nose. Yet, they must be written because we must push ourselves to chronicle the excellence we see in front of us before it fades from our memory.

In this vein, WFNY’s Jeff Nomina and I are going to have a back and forth conversation about how historically and contextually outstanding Lindor has been in his brief MLB career.

Hattery: Alright Nomina, how special is Lindor? Is it tangible or have I been bewitched by that infectious smile?

Nomina: He’s so good I feel watching him is going to somehow make me fat. He needs to be signed to a lifetime contract. My grandchildren should be watching Francisco Lindor in a Cleveland jersey.

And one of my favorite things about Lindor is that he’s so undeniably great. He can be appreciated by traditional stats (leading the team in batting average), advanced stats (leads team in oWAR and dWAR), and even things that don’t end up in the stat sheet (twice as many sac flies as the next closest Indian.) AND HE’S 22 YEARS OLD.

But there’s a weird phenomenon with Lindor where everyone seems to understand his greatness, but he doesn’t receive the same amount of fanfare as past favorites. You don’t see a stadium full of Lindor jerseys like we did for, say, Grady Sizemore. He’s not going to get a home run porch named after him. Even online, he doesn’t drive nearly the conversations as guys like Tyler Naquin and Mike Napoli.

Somehow, he’s so good that it’s boring?

Hattery: Why don’t we appreciate him like we did Sizemore? I have to think part of the apathy about Lindor’s exceptionalism is that Lindor derives a large portion of his value from his defense. I think defense, especially rangy elite defenders like Lindor are often underappreciated. This is because we only remember defensive highlights. We don’t remember when he uses his athleticism and instincts to make a difficult play look routine. Lindor’s historical standing in Indians lore is particularly impressive yet we seem to gloss over the contextual brilliance we witness.

This is the Cleveland Indians All-Time leader board in WAR accrued through Age-22.¹

Courtesy of Fangraphs

There are three Indians pitchers who cleared the 10 WAR threshold through age 22: Bob Feller, Sam McDowell, and Dennis Eckersley. So, in terms of the Indians franchise, we are witnessing a historically gifted young player, who is likely the most charismatic Indian since Omar Vizquel departed. How is his popularity seemingly limited?

Lindor is not Brantley or Kluber, gifted players who put it together in the middle of their careers and have the charisma of Richard Nixon. Lindor is a franchise player with larger than life personality, if he was in New York or Boston, would he be the most marketable player in baseball?

Nomina: If Francisco Lindor played for the Yankees, ESPN would do live cut-ins for his at-bats. He’d probably be polling six points ahead of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in national polls. Lindor GIFs would become our new currency.

I hope we see the Indians-and MLB as a whole- capitalize on Lindor. It’s so rare to see the personality match the talent. When Bryce Harper started the “Make Baseball Fun Again” movement, it’s hard not to think of Francisco Lindor.

We’ve seen the Indians do “Pronkville” and “Brohio” in the past. I wonder if we see something similar with Lindor.  Even with guys like Corey Kluber and Michael Brantley, we’re getting to the point where it’s pretty clearly Francisco Lindor and the Cleveland Indians.  He’s the Hootie to their Blowfish.²

Is this all sustainable? Obviously the defense is, but he never projected to be this sort of offensive player. Can we really expect this year in and year out?

Hattery: Sustainable is always a fun question. Yes, it is sustainable. Lindor much like Brantley has phenomenal barrel skills making consistent quality contact, using the whole field and using his speed to run an above average BABIP. I love how Lindor picks his spots to lengthen his swing or get aggressive, it is like watching a ten year veteran. Finally, one of the things that we should expect to improve his walk rate. Francisco Lindor above league average offensive player is here to stay for a long time.

Courtesy of Fangraphs. Top shortstop value through age 22 since 1986.

Here is an even more interesting comparison:

Jeter through age 23: .300 AVG, .783 OPS, 8.7% BB%, 16.4% K%, .115 ISO(favorable park)

Lindor through age 22: .313 AVG, .817 OPS,  6.6% BB%, 14.1% K%, .148 ISO

Oh, and I think we know who the better defender is. This is not to say Lindor will have Jeter’s longstanding success, but we can say without hesitation that only Alex Rodriguez had a more elite start to his shortstop career in the last 30 years. Francisco Lindor is that special.

In world where Lindor GIFs are currency, I’ll let him close.

Courtesy of LetsGoTribe

1. WAR is an imperfect value estimator but for creating rough historical comparisons I find it useful. [↩]
2. I particularly enjoy this reference because Hootie and the Blowfish were named after two guys, one nicknamed Hootie and the other nicknamed The Blowfish. So The Blowfish was never supposed to be taken as a plural representation of the band with Hootie being Darius Rucker. But everyone does that, so now they have to live with it. This was History of Hootie and the Blowfish 101. Editor’s Note: This is what happens when we let a Miami Dolphin’s fan write for this site. [↩]