Edwin Encarnacion Hit A Game-Tying Homer In The 8th Inning Of His Indians Debut
Often times, we see top free agents switch teams and struggle in their first year, especially if they’re signing with a team that has high expectations, much like the Cleveland Indians do this year. It even happens when the expectations for their new team aren’t that high at all. Zack Greinke is a name that comes to mind.
But for Edwin Encarnacion, it was a pretty unpredictable free agent process. At the end of the 2016 season, my understanding was that he preferred to stay in Toronto, as he had talked about wanting to finish his career there and eventually have his number retired by the Blue Jays, but the idea was that the Red Sox were going to outbid the rest of the suitors and sign Encarnacion to replace David Ortiz at DH.
Well, things went downhill pretty fast between Encarnacion and Toronto, because they moved on pretty quickly by signing Kendrys Morales and Steve Pearce. The most surprising part about all of this was that Morales, Encarnacion’s replacement as a first baseman/DH, signed with Toronto less than three weeks into the offseason. The Blue Jays apparently didn’t give a reunion with Encarnacion much of a chance after he turned down an $80 million offer from them, which is fair on the team’s side of things. They had a number they didn’t want to go over, and walked away when it sounded like they would have to, although Enarnacion ended up signing with the Indians for $20 million less than he would’ve gotten had he accepted Toronto’s offer. You know, his first preference.
But, what’s done is done, and Encarnacion is in Cleveland now, joining one of the best teams in baseball, and the best team in the American League, in my opinion. That should be your opinion, too, by the way. You don’t get to extra innings of Game 7 of the World Series against the wire-to-wire favorite to win the whole thing, come into the next season with an even better team, and not be considered the best team in your league. Pretty simple logic, actually.
As we saw last night in Texas, he’s gonna fit in just fine in that Tribe lineup. That top half of the lineup comes at you HARD. You’ve got Carlos Santana leading off, a dude that just hit 34 bombs last year, followed by Francisco Lindor, one of the best young shortstops in the game who’s hit .306 with an .810 OPS in his first two big league seasons coming into this year. And then we have the return of Michael Brantley in the three-hole, Cleveland’s best offensive player in 2015, leading the league in doubles (45), and hit .310 with an .859 OPS, who missed pretty much all of 2016. He’s back, and he’s got some protection in the lineup with Encarnacion hitting behind him, and last year’s breakout star Jose Ramirez hitting fifth behind EE. Oh, and then the lineup gets even better when Jason Kipnis returns from the disabled list.
The Indians are a scary, scary team, folks. Last year, they were a good team that had some things fall into place for them that worked out in their favor, but this year? All eyes are on them to not only repeat what they did last season, but be even better. On paper, that’s exactly what they should do.