Should the Cleveland Indians Sign Edwin Encarnacion?
By Adam Klepzig
2. Durability
A key component to any successful season in baseball is health. Exceptionally deep teams can overcome key injuries, but, for the most part, staying healthy is a major component to success in baseball.
The Indians have been the victim of key players getting injured over the past decade. Indians fans have watched talents such as Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, and Vinnie Pestano get their careers derailed by injuries. This is probably why many Indians fans are nervous about how Michael Brantley is going to perform coming off of injuries that kept him out of most of the 2016 campaign.
It’s never fun to watch as a fan, let alone as a general manager. You can bet that Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff will be considering health when looking at the free agent market. This is another area in which Edwin Encarnacion cleans up. He has played in over 125 games in every season since 2011. He only has two full seasons in the MLB where he has played in less than 100 games.
In 2015 and 2016, he played in 146 and 160 games, respectively. This definitely makes him a more attractive option, since you can be fairly confident that he will be on the field and out of the trainer’s room.