Cleveland Indians: Another take on the MVP and Cy Young races

The Cleveland Indians have some of the league’s best players on the roster who will be competing for postseason awards once again in 2018.

The Cleveland Indians went through a stretch of time a few years back when getting one or two All Stars was the norm. Now there are consistently two or more players in serious consideration for both the AL MVP and Cy Young awards.

Bradford Doolittle of ESPN went through and looked at the award races for both leagues in what is a fantastic read. It even includes a short interview with Terry Francona near the end.

But back to the awards. Doolittle currently projects Jose Ramirez second in the MVP race right behind Mookie Betts. Francisco Lindor is tied for fifth with Alex Bregman. The author uses a statistical index to gather his rankings.

It is easy to forget that Lindor is right up there in the MVP race with how great Ramirez has been all season. But Lindor is the one who may end up receiving the record contract here in Cleveland.

As for the Cy Young race, Doolittle has Trevor Bauer second behind Chris Sale, while Corey Kluber shows up fourth.

The interesting thing with this race is that both Sale and Bauer are currently on the disabled list. That may allow Kluber to shoot up the rankings. The same goes for Justin Verlander. An interesting note in this race is that Doolittle has two relievers, Blake Treinen and Edwin Diaz, in the top six. The former shows up third behind Sale and Bauer.

Perhaps Kluber’s chances of winning increase, given Sale and Bauer miss significant time, if voters aren’t willing to go with a reliever. We all know how unpredictable MLB award voters can be.

I’m not sure any Indians player will end up with an award this season, but they will remain near the top of the voting regardless. I also realize things can change because there is over one month of regular season baseball left.

Kluber can go full Klubot and Ramirez can go on a heroic run as well. It will be exciting to watch for sure.