Cleveland Indians: Can Francisco Lindor become the face of MLB?

Major League Baseball needs a superstar player to step up and become the face of the sport. Can Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor be that guy?

Francisco Lindor is one of the best players in baseball and is the face of the Cleveland Indians. He’s the complete package: talent, personality, and marketability. Could those attributes take Lindor high enough that he could find himself as the face of all of MLB?

It would be tough. Bleacher Report recently ranked the Top 10 stars in MLB, and put Lindor at number 10. The difference between being first and last on a list like this is small, though, and Lindor has an advantage. Lindor is the youngest player on this list by more than a year. However, there’s a lot of talent for him to overcome.

This is an amazing era for young players, with guys like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Kris Bryant all still ahead of their prime years. All three men are 25 or younger, and they have all been named MVP in their short careers.

Even at his own position of shortstop, Lindor’s got stiff competition. Carlos Correa is a rising star for the up-and-coming Houston Astros, and Dansby Swanson is a highly-touted prospect that only took a little over a year to go from No. 1 draft pick to starting shortstop for the Atlanta Braves. Lindor can overcome that, though.

Lindor arrived in the big leagues in June of 2015. That same year, he finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting, falling to Correa. In 2016, his first full season, he was named to the All-Star Game, he won a Gold Glove, and he finished ninth in AL MVP voting.

That’s what happens when you hit .301, with 30 doubles and 15 home runs for a team that goes to the World Series. All of that happened before his 23rd birthday, last November.

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Possibly even more important for Lindor is that he suddenly has a lot of big game experience at his young age. He hit .310 in the 2016 postseason (.296 in the World Series) with two home runs and six RBI. They’re not huge numbers, but a lot of experienced players shrink in big moments, while the then-22-year-old Lindor stayed strong and consistent when the games counted the most.

Though he was on the losing side, the World Series was a coming out party for Lindor to casual baseball fans. The 2016 World Series was the highest rated Series, and Game 7 was the highest rated Series game, in 15 years, according to Forbes.

That’s what a player needs to become a household name. Players like Lindor and Bryant came out of that Series with more mainstream notoriety than Trout because he’s never played in a big game, even though Trout’s probably the best player in the game.

It’s not just the Series though. Lindor was a standout for a star-studded Puerto Rico team that made it to the finals of the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Before this year, the WBC had been an exhibition, but the 2017 edition was that and much more.

MLB is looking to grow the game, both domestically and abroad, and while Team USA’s success certainly coincided with the WBC’s success in 2017, there was a little something extra going on inside the game. That something extra was the emotion shown by the players.

MLB players are the most old school of any sport, and they will go by any means necessary to keep emotion out of the game. That did not exist in the WBC, and emotions were pouring out of the TV, no matter what two teams were playing. When Puerto Rico took the field, it was impossible not to notice Lindor. He backed that up too, going 10-for-27 with two home runs.

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Lindor is a star. He’s got talent, he’s got charisma, he plays on a good team and, after last October and this March, he’s certainly received plenty of exposure. With all that behind him, there’s no reason that Lindor can’t become the face of MLB in the next five years.