AP Photo/David J. Phillip
Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning during the regular season you’ll get a fresh, topical story to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
The toughest hitter to strike out is the same guy who is on track to drive in more runs than anybody in the past 84 years. The switch-hitting third baseman is the best fastball hitter in baseball, the best pull hitter, one of the best baserunners, a superlative fielder and, if WAR is your bag, over a five-year period ranks with Mookie Betts and Mike Trout as the best players in baseball.
José Ramírez of the Guardians is the most underappreciated elite player in baseball. Now that he is better than he’s ever been—especially in a swing-and-miss era—and because the Guardians are winning with a fun, old-school style, it’s time to appreciate the uniqueness and greatness of Ramírez. There is nobody like him.
“I don’t think people realize how intelligent he is,” Cleveland manager Terry Francona says. “Look at what’s around him. Look at the way he gets pitched. For him to do what he’s doing, you’ve got to be not just talented, you’ve got to be intelligent. He’s not getting three fastballs down the middle.
“It’s amazing. His baseball clock is amazing. He’s the best in our league I think at gaining an extra 90 feet on the bases. He just sees the field so well.”
Ramírez has hit 16 home runs. Nobody else on the team has more than seven. The Guardians have the youngest team in baseball, the sixth lowest payroll, the fewest All-Stars (two, tied with the Orioles) and the third lowest attendance … and yet they are winning because they put the ball in play, are the best team with runners in scoring position and they have Ramírez. Despite ranking 26th in home runs, the Guardians rank eighth in runs per game.
With more than a third of the season played, Ramírez is putting up historic numbers:
• He is on pace for 171 RBIs, the most since 1938 and seventh most all time.
• He is on track to hit more than 40 homers with less than 50 strikeouts. Nobody has done that since Albert Pujols in 2006.
• He is on pace for 46 homers and 26 stolen bases. No infielder has ever done that.
• He has struck out swinging on a pitch in the zone only five times all season.
• He has swung and missed at only 14 of the 487 fastballs he has seen this year.
• The average major league hitter sees a fastball in the zone 30% of the time. Ramirez sees one only 25% of the time. He slugs .959 against them.
• Thirteen of his 16 home runs this season have been hit off fastballs, and 100 of his 131 homers over the past five seasons have come against fastballs (76%).
• He has hit 120 of those 131 home runs to the pull field. He has not hit an opposite-field home run since 2017.
AP Photo/David Dermer
At 29 years old, Ramírez is having a career season. Why? He’s swinging more than ever, he’s hitting fewer ground balls than ever and, while his pull-side power remains extraordinary, he is pulling the ball less than in any of his seven seasons as an everyday player.
Says Francona, “What he’s doing better this year is … see, he’s always made solid contact. But when he was going through tough times he was flipping everything foul. He might be 2-for-4 that night, but both [would-be] ‘hits’ would be foul. He’s using the whole field more and when he’s pulling the ball he’s keeping it fair. So he’s not losing his hits.”
Ramírez is one of only 19 players to reach 160 homers and 160 steals before turning 30. But what makes him unique is that he is the smallest player to combine such power and baserunning (5’ 9”) and he is the best contact hitter with that combination.
160 HR, 160 Steals Before Age 30 (Fewest Ks)
As the Guardians took three of four games from the A’s this weekend, Ramírez rapped six more hits, including two home runs, and drove in five runs. He has been such an RBI machine that Myles Straw, the Cleveland leadoff hitter, has scored an astonishing 53% of the time he gets on base. That Ramírez prospers amid the youngest lineup in baseball is just another testament to his skills—and the job done by Francona and his staff.
“Yeah, we’ve had to be way more attentive to details,” Francona says when asked about the difference in managing a young team. “Because guys are going through stuff for the first time. If you’re a veteran teammate and you point things out, you’re a good teammate. If you’re a manager or a coach and you do it too much you’re panicking or you’re over-managing.
“We’re trying to pick our spots and not beat on them, but remind them, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to play.’
“I think [hitting coach] Chris Valaika has done an outstanding job getting guys to understand productive hitting and who we are and not be who we aren’t. We have preached from day one if we run the bases the way we can it’s going to help our offense and help our hitting.
“[Andrés] Giménez, if he doesn’t hustle to second base [Friday] we lose, and nobody says anything. Truth be told, it’s hard to play like that every day because you have to push yourself. But that’s how we have to play. I remember days in Boston when [David] Ortiz or Manny [Ramírez] would hit a three-run homer. We’d overthrow the cutoff man three times and still win. That’s not going to happen here with this team. We have to realize that and know that.”
Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports
The Guardians are an unusual contender. They are zigging while the rest of baseball zags. They are on pace for just 133 home runs. In the wild card era, only two AL teams have hit so few home runs in a full season and made the postseason: the 2014 Royals and the ‘07 Angels.
They have been buoyed by a favorable schedule. Cleveland has won only six games against winning teams, the fewest in baseball. Starting Friday, the Guardians play 17 straight games against the Dodgers, Twins, Red Sox and Yankees. That stretch will better define just how good is this young, contact-hitting team. With Ramírez on their side chasing historic numbers, don’t underestimate them.
