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

Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

These five are about it on the big league roster. Carlos Santana is decent but not good enough and just hasn’t produced enough to this point, and Yan Gomes, while wonderful, is likely to be a 4ish win player at his best. The farm system has young bats instilling a trickle in hope of prospect heads, but Clint Frazier and Bradley Zimmer need to actually play major league baseball before they deserve any consideration. And those young arms are just too unknown. Brady Aiken might blow up for all we know. And is Rob Kaminsky even real? Who will emerge as a surprise prospect next, ala Kluber or Danny Salazar?

Having two or three players that have a decent shot to get on the club top 20 all-time WAR list, and an outside shot at five, playing together at the same time is an amazing situation to find oneself in. That’s a recipe for a legendary run, it’s where the Royals find themselves right now with Gordon already there, Hosmer and Cain(Who actually got on the list this year, now at 19.6 and good for 20th) edging their way there and Salvador Perez only 5 WAR away from their list. Now it’s the Tribe’s turn. Sure it’s not the Yankees or Giants and their guys with 100+ WAR, but the Indians have a great history of some very good players. If not for that dark 30 or so years between Rocky Colavito and Jim Thome, perhaps there’d be more. But that can’t be helped. We could be watching local history in the making.