Cleveland Indians Roundtable: Next Indians Hall of Famer

Cleveland Indians fans will see Jim Thome in Cooperstown this summer, bringing up the question of which former Indians great will be inducted next.

The Cleveland Indians had about four decades of bad baseball until the 1990s.

Then came the magical years that Indians fans will never forget, even though a title was never won. All that great play saw some franchise legends suit up in an Indians uniform, meaning it was only a matter of time before some of those legends were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Jim Thome fulfilled that prophecy this year by being inducted into the Hall of Fame, while Omar Vizquel remains on the ballot.

And now that the Indians are in another golden age in team history, fans may be wondering which next franchise great will be forever enshrined in Cooperstown.

Our team weighed in.

Brandon Kring

I am going with the easy choice here and saying Omar Vizquel will be the next Indians player inducted. He does not have amazing offensive stats but they are good enough when coupled with his elite defensive stats.

Vizquel won 11 Gold Gloves in his career at shortstop, second most by a shortstop, including nine straight seasons from 1993-2001. He was a defensive phenom and was amazing to watch.

To go with his 11 Gold Gloves, he is number one all-time in career fielding percentage for shortstops at .985 in his 24-year career. He is also tied for number 10 all-time in defensive WAR at 28.4. Everyone ahead of him is in the Hall of Fame aside from Mark Belanger at number two.

Vizquel carried a career .272 batting average in his career which is not great but also nothing to scoff at. His offensive numbers were only a supplement to his defensive genius over his 24-year career.

Omar garnered 37-percent of the vote in his first year on the ballot. Voters need to focus on his exceptional defensive career first and use his offensive numbers as a supplement to put him in, not a reason to keep him out. He will be in the Hall of Fame before his ballot eligibility is up.

Carson Ferrell

The obvious choice for me here is Corey Kluber. Kluber is the team’s only two-time Cy Young winner and is among some elite company. By winning his second Cy Young award he joins the likes of Gaylord Perry, Roy Halladay, Tom Glavine, Bob Gibson and many other elite pitchers.

In Kluber’s two Cy Young winning seasons he led the AL in WAR and he has only gotten better with age. In the last two seasons he has led the league in adjusted ERA. He is also currently seventh in all-time strikeouts per nine innings.

Kluber led the team to the World Series in 2016 in a postseason where he went 4-1. The ace has become a fan favorite in recent years and has become synonymous with the team. He has solidified himself as a true ace, something that is a bit of a rarity in today’s game.

Kluber has an uncanny ability to go the distance with eight complete games in the last two years, another thing that is difficult to do in the modern bullpen age.

If nothing else, Kluber still has a fairly young career by baseball standards. He could go another 10+ years before he calls it a career. On his current career path, that could mean another Cy Young award. He also has a good amount of time left in Cleveland where they will likely keep him should he continue how he plays. As dominant as he is now, if he continues to play that way he will have a spot in Cooperstown for sure.

David Gasper

Both Omar and Corey are very good choices. Omar Vizquel was an amazing shortstop for many years, but my choice is another amazing shortstop. Francisco Lindor is my choice for the next Cleveland Indians Hall of Famer.

Lindor is still very young but everything he’s shown so far screams Hall of Fame if he keeps it up. Over three seasons, he has a .293/.349/.474 slash line with 60 homers and 218 RBIs. He already has a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger to his name and there’s going to be more where that came from.

More from Away Back Gone

Lindor finished in the top 5 in MVP voting last year and it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see him win one or two of those at some point. Although it will be hard with Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson all in the AL now.

Last year, Lindor found some power, smashing 33 homers while still hitting for a relatively high average. If he can keep that power surge and knock 30-plus homers a season with a .290-.300 average, and providing Gold Glove defense, that’s a surefire way to find yourself in the Hall of Fame.

He can do it all both offensively and defensively, which buys yourself a trip to Cooperstown.

He is the face of the franchise, and he will need an extension to keep his potentially Hall of Fame career in Cleveland for the long-term.

Everything is trending up for the young shortstop who is only 24 years old. Lindor has a very long and successful career ahead of him, and it will be a pleasure to watch him play his way into Cooperstown over the next 12-15 years.

Steven Kubitza

I really wanted to follow David’s lead on this one and go with Lindor. However, I have this dark fear that he won’t spend his career in an Indians uniform.

I’ll take the easy road on this and say Omar will be the next inductee. I am on the fence about whether he is worthy or not, but I do believe the voters will give him the necessary 75-percent of the votes sometime in the next decade.

Hall of Fame voting is weird and a player isn’t necessarily more worthy of induction as time goes on, but so it goes.

Vizquel’s 11 Gold Gloves and longevity will ultimately get him elected, as those two feats still carry a lot of weight with the current set of voters. The fact he will have to wait to get in is annoying as voters continually don’t use all ten of their votes. Perhaps we need a new electorate.

I will say that if Lindor stays with the Indians, he is on the right track toward becoming a Hall of Famer. But if he leaves before signing an extension, his best years will be elsewhere.

Next: How the starting catcher role could play out in 2018

That doom can be discussed at a later date, and for now we can all celebrate the fact the Indians have a team legend heading to Cooperstown this summer. That is something worth smiling about.

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