Cleveland Indians: Tribe winning the Francisco Lindor trade

The Cleveland Indians are currently winning the Francisco Lindor trade

With 33 games completed in the 2021 campaign, the Cleveland Indians have reached the 20% mark for the season. At this point in the year we’re gaining a pretty solid grasp for the strengths and weaknesses of both the club and the players on the roster. With that comes the chance to start taking in all aspects of the Francisco Lindor trade.

A little over a month ago I wrote about how trading Lindor was the right decision by the Cleveland Indians. Given the landscape of the organization and Lindor’s asking price, a trade was the clear route to take. However, when the deal originally happened I also stated that I thought the Tribe lost a sell-low deal based on the market and what the Red Sox received the year prior for Mookie Betts. Now, early returns from both sides of the trade are saying otherwise.

The year is still young, but the initial showings from all players involved are indicating that the deal was much more even than most originally thought. In the end, it might even be Cleveland that is considered the winner. And in terms of immediate production, the Tribe are running away with the deal at this point in the season.

When talking about allocating resources, it’s hard to say that Cleveland isn’t winning. Lindor’s $34 million a year contract is more than half of Cleveland’s entire payroll on the books this season. However, even the product on the field is now starting to lean towards the Tribe.

With Carlos Carrasco out with an injury, we’ll go through the other five players that are playing this season from the deal, taking a look at how the Francisco Lindor trade is panning out for both the New York Mets and the Cleveland Indians after 20% of the 2021 season.

Francisco Lindor

The star of the deal, Francisco Lindor has fallen far short of expectations for the New York Mets so far this season. Since inking his big contract, Lindor has struggled both at the plate and in the field. Over the course of his career in Cleveland it was rare to see him struggle at one and almost non-existent for him to do so in both aspects of the game.

In the field, Lindor has already committed two errors this season after having just one over the duration of the entire 2020 season. His fielding percentage is still .981, which is just below his career mark of .982, but that’s still a bit lower than what you would expect from a player that’s considered one of the best shortstops in the game.

At the plate, he hasn’t been any better. Through the first 30 games of the season, Lindor is slashing just .202/.321/.275 with only two doubles and two home runs. For comparison, his career numbers in Cleveland were .283/.345/.480 while he averaged about seven doubles and five home runs over a 30 game stretch.

Now the sample size is still small in New York, but with such low numbers and only two multiple-hit games, Lindor is setting the bar rather low for the Tribe to be considered the winners of the deal up to this point.

Andres Gimenez

One of the more exciting players to come to Cleveland in the Lindor trade was the 22-year old shortstop Andres Gimenez. Gimenez showed a decent amount of potential with the Mets during the 2020 season and won the shortstop job out of Spring Training. Early hardships for Gimenez has witnessed his time get cut back a bit, but he’s still proving to be an important piece to the big league club.

Being so young, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Gimenez has gone through some growing pains in Cleveland. Over two professional seasons, he’s still totaled less than 80 games in the majors. in Cleveland, his slash line has dipped a bit, but the rest of his stat line actually looks improved.

Gimenez isn’t hitting the ball as often, seeing his average go from .263 in 2020 to .171 in 2021, but what he does when he does make contact is trending in the right direction. In just over half the games, Gimenez has already surpassed his doubles mark from last season and is only one home run away from matching that number as well.

Time will tell what will come of Gimenez, but at this point the other players in the deal are just icing on the cake with Rosario outplaying Lindor alone.

Josh Wolf & Isaiah Greene

With the minor league season only about a week old, it’s rather difficult to tell what will come of the prospects that the Cleveland Indians received in the trade. According to MLB.com’s prospect list, the two players are both in the top 20 prospects for the club with Josh Wolf at No. 10 and Isaiah Greene at No. 20.

So far this season, Wolf has made one appearance for the Lynchburg Hillcats. In the outing, Wolf went four innings and gave up just one run on three hits while walking just one and striking out seven. It’s only one start, but seven strikeouts in four innings is impressive. That puts his strikeouts per nine mark at 15.8, which is higher than Shane Bieber’s. Odds are that won’t continue, but it’s a strong start.

As for Greene, he is set to start the season at rookie ball and hasn’t played yet this year.

All-in-all, the hope is that Wolf or Greene, if not both, can catch on long-term for the organization. While Rosario is currently outplaying Lindor and Gimenez has potential, these two players could be what makes or breaks the deal for Cleveland in the long-run. There’s still a lot of time to see what they can do, considering Wolf is 20-years old and Greene is 19.