Cleveland Indians: Jose Ramirez’s MVP candidacy off and running
Cleveland Indians slugger Jose Ramirez reminded the baseball world that he’s an MVP caliber player after he socked an eighth-inning, game-tying homer against the Royals Wednesday night.
The homer helped deliver Cleveland its third straight win over the Royals while elevating the Tribe into a tie for first place with Kansas City and the White Sox (16-13).
Ramirez is batting .279 (.971 OPS) with nine homers and 18 RBIs this season. In his last 15 games, he’s batting .327 and slugging an astonishing .769. Six of his nine home runs have come in this span.
His 1.6 fWAR ranks seventh among non-pitchers and he trails just Mike Trout (2.5), Byron Buxton (2.4) and J.D. Martinez (1.8) in the American League. Of course, none of that matters. J-Ram was the WAR leader last season and the writers still gave Jose Abreu the hardware.
Trout is the WAR leader, but his Angels are 13-16 and in the cellar of the AL West. Former Tribe slugger Albert Belle isn’t shy about cracking on Trout for strikeout out too much while playing for the Angels where he’s confronted with zero pressure.
Speaking of Belle, he and Ramirez are the closest things the Indians have had to an MVP since Al Rosen was the last member of the Tribe to win the award in 1953. Belle, after collecting 102 extra-base hits in a 144-game schedule, was laughably overlooked for Mo Vaughn by the baseball writers.
It was s surprising there wasn’t more of an uproar from the Tribe fan base when Ramirez was overlooked for Abreu. The latter had a great season, but it was Ramirez who single-candidly lifted last year’s offense into the postseason.
At this rate, Ramirez figures to be in the MVP conversation again. He’s finished in the top three of voting in 2017, 2018 and 2020. Perhaps it’s because we root for the Indians and we have a “Cleveland against the World” mentality, but it still seems that Ramirez gets overlooked nationally.
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We won’t let that happen here, as long as Ramirez keeps mashing, and there’s no signs of him slowing down.