Francisco Lindor's first year with the Cleveland Indians was historically good

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Francisco Lindor's MLB debut. He singled and tripped coming around first base that day. That debut had been awaited by many Tribe fans for years, as he was the team's best prospect in quite some time, but in the year since it happened, he's been even better than we had any right to hope for.

He appeared in 161 games during his first 366 (leap day!) days in the Majors, and put up these offensive numbers:

• 308/.355/.468
• .822 OPS
• 195 hits
• 34 doubles
• 19 home runs
• 22 stolen bases
• 90 runs
• 84 RBI

As I often do, I found myself wondering where those results put him, historically speaking. I decided to research the Indians' franchise leaders in various offensive categories during a player's first year after his debut.

I hope you will take a moment to appreciate what a pain this was. It's easy to look up a player's first season, or a player's first X number of games, but looking things up by days spent in the Majors, there's no database I know of that makes that easy. Instead I had to look at every player whose first 165 games came with the Indians (figuring 165 was the highest number someone could possibly have played during a year-long stretch, what with doubleheaders, etc.), then scan the list (created at Baseball-Reference) for guys whose numbers gave them a chance of cracking any of the category lists I'd be putting together, then click on each of those players to see how many games they actually played in their debut, and in most cases then combine numbers from two different seasons. This was hours of work, which only served any purpose beyond sating my own curiosity if anyone else on the planet cares about this. Fingers crossed.

What follows are the all-time leaders during the first year in the Majors for players who debuted with the Indians...

Hits

• 1) Earl Averill: 198
• 2) Francisco Lindor: 195
• 3) Hal Trosky: 193
• 4) Carl Lind: 187
• 5) Joe Sewell: 182
• 6) Rick Manning: 173
• t7) Dale Mitchell: 170
• t7) Joe Vismik: 170
• 9) Max Alvis: 164

Doubles

• 1) Earl Averill: 43
• 2) Hal Trosky: 41
• t3) Jody Gerut: 38
• t3) Carl Lind: 38
• t5) Joe Sewell: 36
• t5) Joe Vosmik: 36
• 7) Francisco Lindor: 34
• 8) Max Alvis: 33
• t9) Ken Keltner: 31
• t9) Roy Weatherly: 31

Home Runs

• 1) Cory Snyder: 36
• 2) Hal Trosky: 33
• 3) Ken Keltner: 26
• 4) Jody Gerut: 25
• t5) Joe Charboneau: 23
• t5) Roy Foster: 23
• t7) Max Alvis: 21
• t7) Luke Easter: 21
• t9) Francisco Lindor
• t9) Manny Ramirez

Stolen Bases

• 1) Alex Cole: 52
• 2) Ray Chapman: 35
• t3) Rick Manning: 26
• t3) Jim Norris: 26
• 5) Jason Kipnis: 25
• 6) Dave Nelson: 23
• 7) Francisco Lindor: 22
• 8) Ivy Olson: 20

Runs

• 1) Hal Trosky: 111
• 2) Earl Averill: 110
• 3) Carl Lind: 100
• 4) Joe Sewell: 99
• 5) Francisco Lindor: 90
• 6) Ivy Olson: 89
• t7) Ray Chapman: 88
• t7) Rick Manning: 88
• 9) Cory Snyder: 87
• 10) Ken Kletner: 85

RBI

• 1) Hal Trosky: 135
• 2) Ken Keltner: 114
• 3) Joe Vosmik: 108
• 4) Cory Snyder: 97
• 5) Earl Averill: 96
• 6) Joe Sewell: 95
• 7) Joe Charboneau: 87
• 8) Jody Gerut: 86
• 9) Francisco Lindor: 84
• 10) Bob Chance: 79

OPS (min. 100 games played)

• 1) Hal Trosky (146 games): .326/.385/.593, .978 OPS
• 2) Earl Averill (152 games): .332/.398/.538, .936 OPS
• 3) Luke Easter (115 games): .274/.390/.490, .880 OPS
• 4) Joe Sewell (155 games): .324/.412/.448, .860 OPS
• 5) Joe Charboneau (131 games): .289/.358/.488, .846 OPS
• 6) Jody Gerut (144 games): .278/.340/.490, .830 OPS
• t7) Bob Chance (117 games): .294/.356/.470, .826 OPS
• t7) Roy Foster (140 games): .268/.356/.470, .826 OPS
• t9) Francisco Lindor (161 games): .308/.355/.468, .822 OPS
• t9) Manny Ramirez (113 games): .254/.335/.487, .822 OPS
• t9) Roy Weatherly (113 games): .313/.343/.479, .822 OPS
• 12) Ken Keltner (149 games): .279/.321/.500, .821 OPS
• 13) Carlos Santana (103 games): .245/.382/.431, .813 OPS
• 14) Joe Vosmik (140 games): .310/.351/.457, .808 OPS
• 15) Al Smith (104 games): .266/.387/.417, .804 OPS

As you may have noticed, Lindor is among the top ten in every one of those categories. (He's tied with Manny Ramirez in home runs and OPS, which is a fun coincidence.) Accounting for eras and playing time (Lindor put up his batting line in 161 games, as compared to just 117 for Bob Chance, for example), there's a reasonable case that Lindor's first year in the Majors should rank fourth or fifth in franchise history in terms of offense. Add in the fact that he's a plus defender at shortstop, and he leaps well ahead of any other position player in franchise history.

WAR is available for partial seasons very far back, but for Lindor we don't need to worry about that because his career WAR is also his first-full-year WAR. He's currently at 7.3 (at both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs). Even if you give those players whose first full year came during two different seasons their full WAR for those two seasons, the only position player in franchise history with more than 7.3 WAR in his first two seasons is Grady Sizemore, who had 7.7. If you prorate Sizemore's 2005 to try and just give him credit for the portion that came during his first year in the Majors, his number is ~5.5 WAR, well behind Lindor.

It's clear that Francisco Lindor's first full year in the Majors was the best ever by a position player with the Indians.

What about beyond the Indians? I looked at MLB shortstops, and pro-rating WAR the same way I did, no one else had even 6 WAR in their first year in the Majors.

Even if you forget about it being his first year spent in the Majors, looking at full seasons at any age, only 28 shortstops in ever had one worth 7.3 WAR or more, and the only ones who had such a season when as young as Lindor is (he was 21 at the time of his debut) were Rogers Hornsby (before he moved to second base) and Alex Rodriguez (before he moved to third base).

Rogers Hornsby and Alex Rodriguez are two of the 20-25 greatest players in baseball history. That's the company Lindor is keeping.