2020 Cleveland Indians Mid-Season Player Awards
By Chad Porto
Tyler Naquin, Franmil Reyes, Roberto Perez, Shane Bieber, and Zach Plesac are just some of the names up for the Cleveland Indians mid-season player awards.
When you have names like Tyler Naquin, Franmil Reyes, Roberto Perez, Shane Bieber, and Zach Plesac on the Cleveland Indians, you’re going to have some candidates for some awards. That’s why we’re taking a look at the mid-year award winners for the 2020 Cleveland Indians. Now with the team being officially half-way through the year, it’s time to look at who has stood out the most. You’ll recognize the award categories for most, as a way to stay in line with the MLB way of awarding the best of the best. For the mid-year team awards, your most valuable player is the MVP, the best pitcher on the team will win the “Cy Young”, while the best defender gets the Gold Glove award.
Yes, there are more than one possible players to win these awards, we’re just handing out one team-centric version of the award to one player. Players aren’t prohibited from winning more than one award either. No one won two or more awards, but there was no rule against it.
So with that being said, let’s take a look at who the 2020 Cleveland Indians Mid-Year Award winners are.
Indians Mid-Year MVP: Franmil Reyes
Franmil Reyes started off slow, with Jose Rameriz taking on most of the workload for the offense in the early games of the season. At the same point in time, guys like Reyes, Francisco Lindor, Carlos Santana, and most of the team had failed to get off on the right foot. That’s where Rameriz came in originally
Yet, as the season road on, Rameriz started to step back some, which then saw Reyes picking up the heavy lifting in recent weeks. Reyes is tied for the team lead in home runs (6), has the second-most RBI’s (18) and is the team-leader in batting average (.291) among hitters that have currently qualified for post-season awards.
Indians Mid-Year Breakout Player: Tyler Naquin
Tyler Naquin doesn’t get the respect he deserves. During Terry Francona’s time with the club, his mishandling and lack of opportunities given to Naquin is arguably Francona’s biggest issue. Francona has been great and has had few complaints levied against him, but Naquin’s handling is arguably the biggest issue that Francona has allowed to keep opping up.
An obvious starter, now that the outfield is a wreck and no one is hitting Naquin has finally been called upon to actually play consistently during the shortened season. While Naquin missed some time to start the season, he’s played well since coming off the DL. Naquin is hitting over .300 as the mid-way point of the season comes to an end. While he may not stay at .300 throughout the year, the fact he has come into the lineup when he did and become such a steady and consistent hitter shows what he’s capable of doing across a full season.