The Cleveland Indians star short stop, Francisco Lindor, has had a tough start to the season, but there is reason to believe that he should still be in store for a productive season.
Francisco Lindor has gotten off to a pretty mediocre start at the plate for the Cleveland Indians. Through tax day, Lindor has slashed .241/.302/.379 good for just a 90 wRC+. If this level of production were to continue it would easily be the worst season of his career.
With that being said he has actually been probably the best hitter in the Indians lineup this year, but that’s already been addressed here. So what is wrong with the Indians’ superstar? The short answer is just luck.
Lindor has been one of the most unlucky hitters in baseball so far this season. Statcast has a metric called hit probability which is based on launch angle and exit velocity. The hit probability numbers can then be used to predict performance in a stat called expected weighted on base average or xwOBA.
There is already a weighted on base average determined by actual results, but the expected version is more of what the player should have done. Francisco Lindor has a xwOBA of .438, which is incredible, but just a .296 actual wOBA. Lindor has the second biggest discrepancy of any player in baseball with at least 50 at-bats only behind his former teammate, Carlos Santana.
Advanced numbers aren’t your thing? There’s a batting average version of this as well. Lindor has an expected batting average of .330 while he is actually only hitting .241. That 89 point difference ranks him fourth in all of baseball.
So what does all of this mean? Lindor should be in store for some positive regression. His expected numbers should come back down to earth soon as he has never had an expected batting average near .330 nor a xwOBA north of .400 for a full season.
However, he has also never had huge discrepancies in his expected versus his actual numbers, so fans should expect for his surface numbers to improve as well. All of these numbers should eventually meet near the middle around his career norms.
There is one thing to be slightly worried about as it pertains to Lindor. His strikeout rate has skyrocketed in the early going this year. Lindor has raised his strikeout rate by 7.4 points this season which is a big jump from one year to the next, even in a small sample size.
Among players who had at least 500 plate appearances last season and 50 so far this year, Lindor’s 7.4% jump ranks 11th in baseball. His wOBA and xwOBA numbers take his strikeouts into account so there should still be optimism. However, if his batted ball profile regresses then this strikeout issue could become a bit of a concern.
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Of course much of Francisco Lindor’s value is usually going to be propped up by his defense. As a prospect Lindor was touted as one of the better defenders in baseball, and that has played out.
Since 2016, Lindor’s first full season, Lindor has had the third highest defensive value according to Fangraphs, only behind fellow shortstops, Andrelton Simmons and Brandon Crawford. As long as his defense remains at this level, his bat doesn’t have to be incredible for him to be a great player.
The pitching staff is always going to be the focal point of this Cleveland Indians team, but Francisco Lindor is definitely one of the anchors of the offense.
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In order for the Cleveland Indians to get where they want to be, the offense is going to have to carry some of the weight and Lindor has to be a big part of that. Most of the underlying numbers point toward him being a very good player this season, he just needs the ball to bounce the right way a little more.