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How does the Cleveland Indians infield stack up with the rest of the AL Central?

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So now that we have completed just over half of the positions, let’s see how the Tribe stacks up amongst the other AL Central Rivals.

By talonk
/ new
The dynamic Tribe middle infield
The dynamic Tribe middle infield
Jason Miller/Getty Images

Most of the off-season was spent wish casting for major improvements in the lineup. Whether the Cleveland Indians front office did the right thing by basically standing pat, or if they should have improved even more is definitely still up for debate.

But let's total up the five positions so far, which is essentially the infield and the backup catcher, with the top spot getting five and the bottom spot one.

3B

SS

2B

1B

C

Total

CLE

Uribe/Lindor/Kipnis/Napoli/Gomes/R Perez

1

5

5

1

5

17

CHW

Frazier/Saladino/Lawrie/

Abreu/Avila/Navarro

4

1

2

4

1

12

DET

Castellanos/Iglesius/Kinsler/Cabrera/McCann/

Saltalamacchia

2

4

4

5

3

18

KC

Moustakas/

A Escobar/Infante/Hosmer/

S Perez/Butera

5

3

1

3

4

16

MIN

Plouffe/E Escobar/Dozier/

Mauer/Suzuki/Murphy

3

2

3

2

2

12

But just a 5-1 ranking can be a bit misleading. Let's just use the Steamer projections (and remember, these are just projections).

WAR (Steamer)

3B

SS

2B

1B

C

Total

CLE

Uribe/Lindor/Kipnis/Napoli/Gomes/R Perez

1.1

3.5

2.6

0.7

3.0

10.9

CHW

Frazier/Saladino/Lawrie/

Abreu/Avila/Navarro

3.4

0.1

1.4

2.8

2.0

9.6

DET

Castellanos/Iglesius/Kinsler/Cabrera/McCann/

Saltalamacchia

0.9

2.0

2.9

4.2

2.4

12.4

KC

Moustakas/

A Escobar/Infante/Hosmer/

S Perez/Butera

3.0

1.6

0.1

2.5

3.0

10.2

MIN

Plouffe/E Escobar/Dozier/

Mauer/Suzuki/Murphy

1.5

1.0

2.6

1.3

2.0

8.4

The Tribe is far from the worst infield. The Tigers look to be the top infield, but that is really all tied to Miguel Cabrera being the MVP candidate he perpetually is. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Also, note that these WAR totals are definitely skewed a bit by the defensive numbers used by fWAR.

If Uribe and Napoli can both see a slight improvement over their projected totals, the Tribe could have a shot at the best infield as a whole.

But as we have yet to delve through the outfield, we have a long ways to go to see how this team lines up as a whole.

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