Indians: Jose Ramirez has quietly had an impressive season

Jose Ramirez has quietly had a great season for the Indians.

The Cleveland Indians are fighting for .500 and hopefully a winning record. Besieged by injuries all year, it’s the best the team can hope for. It’s rather unfortunate, considering that guys like Cal Quantrill and Emmanuel Clase have been absolute studs for the team this year. It feels like they wasted a great season fighting for mediocre but that’s the nature of the game sometimes. They both played well and while they’re not going for the pendent, their own individual success is enough to take solace in. Yet, no player performed better in this lost season than Jose Ramirez.

With a dozen games left on the schedule as of this writing, Ramirez’s splits are solid, .265/.357/.547, and is sitting nicely at a .905 slugging. In 506 at-bats, he’s registered 134 hits, 30 doubles, four triples, 35 home runs, 96 RBI, 24 stolen bases, 68 walks, and only 78 strikeouts. He’s also managed to score 104 runs.

He’ll likely hit 100 RBIs and while it’s not likely 40 home runs is not out of the question. This shouldn’t be surprising, however, as Ramirez has always been one of the better and more productive hitters on the team.

Jose Ramirez will be key to a 2022 revival

Ramirez hasn’t really fluctuated much since 2017. His average is down noticeably but his home runs and RBI’s are up. It’s fair to say that Ramirez is who he is at the plate and who he is can be relied upon. There’s a reason he’s been a two-time second-runner up and a one-time runner-up for the AL MVP award.

With his stats for 2021, he’ll likely finish outside of the top five for this year’s voting but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him slightly higher.

All of this said, it bolds well for his production in 2022 and how he’ll affect the team’s seasonal performance. The pitching staff is going to be there. Shane Bieber has finally been cleared to return to action, Aaron Civale looks like he hasn’t missed a step, and the team’s best starter for 2021, Quantrill, is going to be competing with Bieber for Cy Young votes next year. Assuming 2021 wasn’t a one-year fluke.

That’s not to discredit the bullpen which will have some fine arms still. All that needs to happen is having a healthy lineup and making sure that the guys who struggled in 2021 improve to the point that they’re actually contributing in 2022.

Ramirez continues to be excellent. That’s a good thing.