History in the Making: Reaching The Cleveland Indians All-Time Top 20

Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Kipnis lost a lot of ground with that horrid 2014 but still finds himself only 18.9 short. Much like Brantley, he needs to be everything he was this year or his previous healthy one, 2013, to make it. Luckily for Kipnis, he has an extra year to play with. If we toss out 2014, which I’m all for since he was never 100%, and he ends up being something like what we saw in either ‘13 or ‘15 the rest of his contract, that’s four years of 5-ish win ball, and that’s right where he needs to be The question is whether his defense will hang around whether the bat will keep spraying, whether he’ll have another insane BABIP run for two or three months, and whether the power shows back up.

So it’s totally possible, is what I’m saying. Kipnis is stupendously hard to figure out since we’ve never seen the same thing, whether slugging second baseman or leadoff man extraordinaire, but the optimist in me says we’ll see that 5+ WAR guy the next few years. He’s just hitting his prime. It’s probably the second most likely guy on this list after Lindor simply because he has time and health on his side, unlike Brantley or Carrasco.

Next: In closing..

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