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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.