Believeland Ball’s Top 25 Players of 2018: Number 9

We continue our list of counting the Top 25 Cleveland Indians players of 2018. Today we cover another slugger who is no longer on the team… shocker.

It’s becoming tedious and sad to have to continue to write about players who are no longer around after this winter. The Cleveland Indians should make shirts saying “I survived the Indians 2018/19 Offseason purge.” Edwin Encarnacion would not get one of these shirts, as he was part of the great Indians purge of the last two weeks.

While his time in Cleveland was short, he earned a stop on our top 10 list for his play in 2018. His slash line did go down from 2017. but Edwin still provided some of that coveted power. 32 home runs and 107 RBI’s felt almost automatic when you have Edwin on your team.

Where Edwin would giveth with his RBI, he would taketh away with his 130+ strikeouts. That led the time by 9, with Yonder Alonso as a close second. His .810 OPS was also a downward trend from his 2017 season, and a lot of the 2018 season felt that way with Encarnacion.

Edwin isn’t past his prime so-to-speak, but you can slowly start to see him going over that hill, just two years removed from leading the MLB in RBI. What I will say about Encarnacion is that he didn’t really have that “defining moment” in 2018. In ’17 he was part of the double-grand-slam game alongside Bradley Zimmer.

But still, his absence will make things interesting. The DH spot is not locked down without Edwin there for the Tribe. The loss of Encarnacion and Alonso makes the DH spot one of the many holes this team still has.

Edwin was a lock for 30+ homers, 100+ RBI, and 50+ walks (although he had a substantial drop in walks) but all good things must come to an end. It was fun to see Edwin in a Tribe uniform. He was also a lock to be a Top 10 player in Cleveland. For more about the deal that sent Edwin packing, look no further than the story from our own Steven Kubitza.