Jose Ramirez is on pace to break a long-held Guardians single season record

Jose Ramirez is on pace to break Manny Ramirez’s single-season record.

Remember way back when, during the early 2010s, when Jose Ramirez wasn’t even on the club’s radar as a shortstop? He was maybe the fifth-best shortstop in the minor leagues behind Francisco Lindor, Dorssys Paulino, Tony Walters, and Ronny Rodriguez. He played some second base in the minors, as well as a lot of shortstops, but he was just a prospect. Nothing more. In fact, he was once said to be a player who would never develop power at the plate.

Now Ramirez is fifth in the Majors in home runs (12), first in the Majors with RBIs (48), third in the league in slugging (.646), and third in the league in OPS (1.037). He’s having a pretty good year, even if he had a bit of a slump going before Saturday’s five-run RBI game against the Tigers.

If that wasn’t enough, Ramirez is on pace to break Manny Ramirez’s single-season record for RBIs in club history. Manny had 165 RBI in 147 games or 640 at-bats. However you want to split it is fine by me. Manny averaged 0.257 RBIs per plate appearance in 1999. Ramirez is currently at 184 plate appearances, and has 48 RBIs, for a rate of .260. That’s basically one RBI per game, assuming Jose sees the plate four times.

Can Jose Ramirez really surpass Manny Ramirez’s Cleveland Guardians record?

It’s almost fitting that if anyone were to surpass Manny Ramirez it would be another Ramirez. Can Jose really beat Manny’s record though? That’s hard to say for sure. There’s a shot, sure. The real question is can Jose keep the pace going that he’s on.

Right now Jose is set for 167 RBIs this season at his current pace. That’s rounded up from 166.9. The problem is that Ramirez has not been a big volume RBI guy in his career. Jose is in his sixth full season with the Guardians and only hit the century mark twice. Manny was in his fifth full season with the Guardians back in 1999 (then the Indians), and had already had three 100 RBI seasons prior to his record-setting season.

If I’m being honest, my gut tells me Jose falls short and way short of Manny’s record. I think Jose Ramirez will finish in the 120-140 range for the season. Manny was just a better hitter than Jose. During his time in Cleveland, Manny had a higher batting average, a better slugging percentage, a better on-base percentage, and a better OPS.

Jose is going to be in the AL MVP discussion against his year, but I wouldn’t think for one second that his pace of RBIs will be sustained all year long. Not with how inconsistent the offense has been.

That was an issue Manny didn’t have to worry about in 1999, as he played with Kenny Lofton, Robbie Alomar, Jim Thome, Omar Vizquel, and David Justice. All in their prime or not far removed from it.

Jose just doesn’t have the same talent around him. Then again, not many teams in history had that type of talent in one lineup. So it’s just not fair to expect Jose to do better than Manny when Manny had so much help.