These are five players who should be in the 2021 All-Star Game.
The Indians are defying the odds and are in the hunt for a playoff birth; despite their starting rotation and hitting lineups looking more like a Flex Seal patched boat than a Major League club. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been players who are worth an All-Star Game appearance, however.
The Indians have five, arguably six players who have done the work to warrant an All-Star spot, with four of them likely going for sure. These are those five players and the one who should absolutely be up for a spot considering his contributions.
Honorable Mention: Bryan Shaw
Bryan Shaw is having the best year of his career so far in 2021. He’s got an ERA of 1.90 through 23.2 innings, even better than his rookie year a decade ago when he had an ERA of 2.54 through just 28.1 innings. Shaw’s only given up 10 hits, just five runs, and only two home runs in his 25 appearances.
The thing holding Shaw back will be his lack of “sexy” stats, like saves. So far through 2021, he’s only registered one save.
Shaw has never been to an All-Star Game before, even at the height of his run with Cleveland from 2013 to 2017. Shaw is currently on pace to appear in over 70 games this year, which would make it the fifth time in his career he’s hit that mark.
Shane Bieber
While his ERA is up from 2020, (1.63 to 3.08), Shane Beiber is still cruising to appear in the All-Star Game and is a front runner for the AL Cy Young Award. He’s given up just 65 hits, nine home runs, and has only walked 29 batters. That number is a bit up from past years but not outlandishly so.
He’s already amassed 117 strikeouts in just 12 games, which is setting him at a pace of nearly 300 strikeouts for the season. It’s still up to him to get to that figure but he’s surely capable of it.
Bieber has been the team’s best pitcher all year and has easily been their MVP as well. While Jose Ramirez and Franmil Reyes were doing some good work at the plate, the rest of the lineup has suffered from poor starts and call-up’s not going the way they were expected to.
Not only that but the rotation has largely been a mess. With injuries and poor pitching performances, the once perceived strength of the Indians is now anything but. Making what Bieber is doing all the more impressive. Bieber should be on his way to the 2021 All-Star Game, a feat he achieved in 2019 and would’ve again in 2020 had the game been held, or just a symbolic award given out like the NFL did.
Jose Ramirez
Jose Ramirez isn’t hitting near .300 like he did last year, but his .262 batting average is fine enough to make the 2021 MLB All-Star Game, especially considering how the entire league’s batting average is down this year. Ramirez is tied for 15th in the majors with 13 home runs and is tied for 41st with runs batted in, all while carrying the Tribe on his back this summer.
While those aren’t the best numbers he’s ever put up, as far as AL third basemen go, he’s sitting fourth with RBI’s, second in home runs, sixth in batting average, and second in OPS. Those are All-Star figures for sure and it’s only the start of June. If Ramirez can get some help from people around him, then it’s entirely possible that he gets more than enough RBI’s over the next four weeks and that alone should help propel him to the mid-summer classic.
That or hitting 20+ home runs by July. Either or.
With Franmil Reyes out for at least another few weeks, it’ll be interesting to see if someone else in the lineup steps up. Ramirez needs help producing runs, and the Indians need to find someone else who can. Even if that means making a trade for someone.
Franmil Reyes
It seems unlikely now, but if Franmil Reyes can return before the end of the voting period, then maybe he can make enough noise to get in. It does, however, seem like a long shot for him to get voted in after he injured his oblique.
Before the injury, Reyes was doing some big work. Sure, he was hitting just .257, but on this team, he might as well have been Ted Williams with a stat like that. He also had 11 home runs, with 29 RBI’s as well, with a modest .893 OPS. His strikeouts and lack of walks are a problem but one the team can live with.
Though correcting that isn’t a bad idea.
Reyes is someone the team desperately needs healthy and while guys like Owen Miller, Bobby Bradley, and Bradley Zimmer have been called up already so far no one has been able to replace Reyes’ stats. The big man has a waiting spot for him in the lineup regardless of who’s hitting in the designated hitter slot. He just needs to get healthy first of all.
Despite all the callups, no trade or signing has been made just yet. Nor has a substitute DH been utilized just yet. It’s a position by committee at the moment.
Emmanuel Clase
Acquired in the trade with Texas for Core Kluber, most Indians fans went batty when they found out Emmanuel Clase was the big “get” in the trade. Then he got suspended shortly after being acquired and everyone lost their minds, talking about how they gave up Corey Kluber for nothing. Now Kluber isn’t even a Ranger anymore and is trying to revive his career with the New York Yankees.
A move that isn’t going well, as he’s on the 60 days DL. He was plugging along well before the injury, posting a 3.04 ERA in 10 games.
Clase, however, has become the most feared reliever with not just the Indians but maybe in the entire AL.
He’s posting a ridiculous ERA of 1.09, he’s leading the league with the most 100+ MPH pitches while racking up 25 strikeouts in just 24 innings. He’s also shown to have a knack for working out of jams, as he’s walked 12 batters but only has given up three runs in 24.2 innings.
Clase is young, at just 23 years old, he has a lot of time left in that arm of his. Who knows if he’ll age gracefully, as his accuracy is good but it’s the change in velocities that have been netting him a lot of his success.
Still, he’s shown enough success in 2021 to be an All-Star, even if he’s got nine saves for the season so far.
James Karinchak
Part of the reason why Emmanuel Clase only has nine saves is that James Karinchak has seven saves of his own. While his ERA is nearly two full points higher than Clase’s, that’s not a sign that Karinchak is bad, only an example of how otherworldly Clase has been.
Karinchak’s 2.88 ERA out of the pen is a really good stat. He’s also shown to be quite the prolific strike-out artist, following in the steps of Shane Bieber. Karinchack has 44 strikeouts in just 25 innings.
That means his strikeouts per nine innings are higher than Biebers. Bieber is third among starters at 13.3 but Karinchak is at 15.8. Now, granted, that’s not a stat that would actually hold up against one another as Bieber has much better endurance in his arm, and Karinchak is a reliever for a reason. Bieber could actually pitch nine innings and strike out 13 if he had to. Karinchak, maybe not but who knows?
That doesn’t take away from Karinchak’s abilities, however. He’s one of the three best pitchers in the Tribe‘s bullpen and is a needed part of the team. The team has been wildly inconsistent at points this year but the bullpen has been able to bail them out of just about any situation they may find themselves in.
Karinchak is a big reason for that.