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AL Rookie of the Year: Francisco Lindor

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Will Lindor be selected as the AL Rookie of the Year?

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JFT

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Will he get selected?

Francisco Lindor's journey from Puerto Rico to AL Rookie of the Year favorite

On the side of a house in Caguas, Puerto Rico, a hill descended about 100 yards into a swath of bushes. At the top stood Miguel Lindor, and he would instruct his son Francisco to move about halfway down. Miguel would grab one of those bouncy, yellow rubber balls and whack it toward Francisco, again and again, every chance fraught with peril.

“If I missed a groundball,” Francisco Lindor said, “I had to chase the ball.” He did everything he could to stop the ball from getting past him. Throw his glove at it. Try to knock it toward a tree and get a kind ricochet. Or, best of all, hoover it and fling it back to Miguel so he could tempt fate one more time.

What Francisco Lindor is today – 5-foot-11, 190 pounds of instinct draped in a Cleveland Indians uniform, doing things at the shortstop position not seen there since Omar Vizquel last patrolled the infield at Progressive Field, and sneaking up to position himself as the leading candidate for American League Rookie of the Year because his bat is every bit as precocious as his glove – comes directly from those afternoons in Caguas and the lessons he learned before moving to Florida as a teenager.

Miguel uprooted Francisco because he saw something in his son worth cultivating, and with it not even in full bloom, the returns are staggering. Since his June call-up, Lindor is hitting .319/.356/.488 with 11 home runs and playing the sort of defense for which he should clear his mantelpiece come future seasons. Of particular note is Lindor’s second half, in which his line jumps to .356/.393/.557. Considering the paucity of shortstops in the American League coming into the season, the prospect of him dueling with fellow Puerto Rican Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts for supremacy at the position brings to mind the late ’90s with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra one-upping one another.

Though all three are pedigreed, Lindor looks more the classic shortstop than the oversized versions Correa and Bogaerts play. And it’s why his manager, his teammates and scouts who watch him gravitate not toward the pleasant surprise of his bat as what stands out but the way that a 21-year-old navigates a complicated game with such ease.

“His instincts are second to none,” Indians teammate Mike Aviles said. “It’s pretty impressive. His range, his anticipation is really good. It’s like he reads the swings of the hitter.”

Actually, yeah, he more or less does. The education of Lindor wasn’t just limited to Miguel making him chase balls or demanding he hit pitches strictly to the opposite field. (Francisco complied, because the reward was that he got to swing left-handed, and he’s now a switch hitter equally dangerous from both sides.) Advice also came from his older brother, Miguel, and his cousin Christian, who, when Lindor was in eighth grade, gave him a mandate for fielding that seemed impossible: “Move with the pitch.”

“I was 13, 14,” Lindor said. “Thought this guy was crazy. Move with the pitch? So I tried to do it. I had no idea, and I told him. I moved where I think he’s going to hit it. It didn’t work.”

Lindor soon came to understand the game’s tiny intricacies. He peered in for the signs thrown down by the catcher. For a changeup he positioned himself more in the hole because of hitters’ propensity to swing early. On cut fastballs, he takes a step in because of their tendency to saw off hitters’ bats. For however manic Lindor’s movements on the field look, they’re not random, and he credits his positioning with much of his success at getting to balls that off the bat look like sure hits.

“When you see me getting mad at myself at a groundball I dove and missed or a line drive I missed,” Lindor said, “it’s because I anticipated wrong. You want to make every play.”

When the Indians chose Lindor with the eight pick of the 2011 draft out of Monteverde Academy, the Orlando-area school at which he would arrive 45 minutes early every day to learn English when he first moved to the U.S., they expected a blend of talent and precociousness. They got that and “this desire to learn,” Aviles said. “He’s open. Open to change, which is good. It could be really easy for him to be closed-minded, to say he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t know how good he is. And that’s what makes him really scary.”

Cleveland came into the season ready for a deep playoff run because of its plethora of starting pitching. What it lacked, outside of Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis and Yan Gomes, were foundational position players. Lindor is just that. “And because he’s been willing to listen,” Indians manager Terry Francona said, “it’s been a lot of fun.”

Lindor seeks out advice from Brantley and Aviles in particular, one an All-Star and the other a bilingual veteran whose presence enriches every clubhouse into which he steps. Aviles sees Lindor as an Andrew McCutchen/Mookie Betts type, wiry strong, with the ability to hit more home runs than his frame might suggest. And that body, Aviles tells Lindor, is the key to everything, so if it means a daily bath in a cold tub when he gets a little older and the soreness comes, such is the price of health.

For now, Lindor is spry and springy, even in September, even after one of the best half-seasons from a shortstop this decade. He often thinks about how he got here, how Miguel drilled into him the value of repetition leading to mastery. “My foundation comes from him,” Lindor said. “My base comes from him. And after that, it was working on my craft to be successful.”

He’ll keep working, diligently and gladly. Just no chasing yellow balls down hills, please.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/franci...al-rookie-of-the-year-favorite-173458641.html
 
He deserves it, but I can see Correra getting it over him because "team success" or some bullshit.
 
Yeah, sure, what the hell. He is finishing blistering hot while Cortes has cooled while resting for the playoffs. A huge chunk of his damage has been against the Twins, too, hitting close to .500 against them I think. Just depends on how many writers got to see him, really.
 
I think it's Lindor.

These two are so close offensively with Correa obviously providing a ton of pop while Lindor gets on base - a lot.

That said, Lindor would have been the likely choice for the Gold Glove had he been up the entire year.

That gives him the edge and I think that is widely recognized.
 

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