What Cleveland Indians Players - Current and All-Time

They are players who just don't get the credit that they truly deserve. Players who put in the work, put up the numbers, but for whatever the fans and media don't hold them in as high regard as others on the roster.

Call them "underrated," "unappreciated," or just "undervalued." Whatever the case may be, today we will take a look at a number of those players from the Cleveland Indians, both past and present.

We first give you a current player on the roster who does not get the credit that he deserves for what he has done, and then give you an all-time player who might have gone unnoticed by fans or the media for the most part during their run with the Tribe.

As always feel free to leave us a comment with your favorite selections or if there's a player you think that we missed on from the selections below.

Mark Warmuth

Current: Carlos Carrasco

Since Cookie returned from Tommy John surgery in 2013, he has been one of the best starters in all of baseball. He led the AL in wins in 2017 with 18, and followed that up with 17 more wins in 2018.

From 2014 through 2018, his ERA was no higher than 3.63, and he finished 4th in the Cy Young Award voting in '17.

He ranks 8th on the Tribe's all time strikeout list and with 60 K's this season, he will move to 4th behind Bob Feller, Sam McDowell, and Corey Kluber, three of the best pitchers ever to hurl for the Indians.

He was overshadowed by Kluber over the past five years, and now is overshadowed by Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger. Meanwhile, he just keeps on doing his job.

All-Time: Larry Doby

First, he gets overlooked at the first African American to play in the American League, and he did it just months, not years, after Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers.

Second, he was a helluva ballplayer. He led the AL in home runs twice (1952 and 1954), RBI's once in 1954, and runs scored in '52. And for the new age stat people, he led the AL in OPS+ twice as well (1950 and 1952).

In a pennant winning year, 1954, Doby hit .272 with 32 HR and 126 RBI, yet didn't win the AL MVP, which went to Yogi Berra.

Career wise with the Tribe, Doby ranks 6th all time in HR, 9th in RBI, and 8th in WAR.

He also hit .318 (7 for 22) with a homer in the 1948 World Series, the last one won by the Tribe.

Chris Coon

Current: Roberto Perez

Though he more or less had a coming-out party in 2019, Perez still seems vastly underrated. Defensively he’s one of the games best, as he led the league in blocked runs last season with 8.8 and was third in runs saved by throwing with 1.5, according to Baseball Prospectus.

Most importantly, Perez is an elite pitch framer and proved that last year, ranking third in Major League Baseball, as Baseball Prospectus had him with 15.5 runs in 6,841 framing chances.

Perez also did okay at the plate, slashing .239/.321/.452 with 24 home runs and 63 RBI in 119 games, while recording a 4.0 WAR.

All-Time: Charles Nagy

This might be a bit of a surprise and a stretch, but Nagy was a bit under the radar during the Indians' run in the 90s. For starters, Nagy was a three-time All-Star and finished in the Top-eight three times for the AL Cy Young Award.

Nagy also put together a season in 1992 where he went 17-10 with a 2.96 ERA and 169 strikeouts in 252 innings. Nagy also had a 6.0 WAR with a 1.198 WHIP and a 2.71 FIP on a team that finished 76-86 in 1992.

Nagy also put together solid seasons in 1991, 1994 and 1996, despite what some of the traditional numbers might say about those years. For example, Nagy in 1991 and 1994 had a WHIP of 1.391 and 1.317 respectively while posting FIP’s of 3.77 and 3.95.

The 1996 season was probably one of Nagy’s best, as he posted career-high, 6.6 WAR while going 17-5 with a 3.41. ERA and a 1.252 WHIP and 3.76 FIP. Nagy that season also finished fourth for the AL Cy Young, behind Pat Hentgen, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera.

T.J. Zuppe

Current: Roberto Perez

When you see nothing but above-average defensive catching over the past six or seven years, maybe it becomes less and less noticeable on a nightly basis.

But watching others struggle to keep pitches from reaching the backstop, control the running game and give their hurlers an extra inch or two off the plate should offer an appreciation for Roberto Perez.

Despite receiving a Gold Glove and earning some attention in 2019, it still feels a little like we undervalue his worth. Perez, after all, finished with the fourth-highest WAR among Indians position players last year, according to FanGraphs, but there is still some segment of the fanbase that would give him less attention than a long-forgotten office plant during quarantine.

Catchers are already tasked with executing the pitcher’s blueprint for success — they serve as their pitching-coach-slash-personal-valet-slash-mental-consultant-slash-cheerleader — but we complete the impossible ask by expecting them to contribute a little offensively.

Last year, Perez finally broke through enough in that department to make him more than just some defense-first catcher, slugging 24 homers and posting a near league average run-creation rate. He also finished with the sixth-highest WAR among MLB backstops.

If anything like that continues, when paired with Perez’s elite defensive ability, it will be impossible to underrate his worth.

All-Time: Shin-Soo Choo

OK, is Shin-Soo Choo the most underrated Indians player of all time? Probably not. Recently, I’ve made the case for Grady Sizemore, but knowing that others would likely select him, this might be a good time to -- in a totally underrated move -- shift the spotlight.

The second part of this — What constitutes underrated? — means that you need to have some knowledge of how people felt about that player in the era in which he played. Personally, that extends into the early 90s. And when focusing on the past 25 years of Tribe baseball, the name that lands surprisingly high on the team’s wins above replacement list is Choo.

It’s not because he was ever viewed as a poor player during his time in Cleveland. But his production wasn’t flashy. In fact, it typically drew little attention at all.

Despite never reaching an All-Star Game as a member of the Indians or generating fan outrage when the team opted to trade him instead of extend him, Choo ranks 10th on the franchise’s WAR leaderboard dating to 1995, sandwiched between Travis Hafner and Michael Brantley.

His 133 wRC+ (100 is league average) with the Tribe ranks him seventh over the past 25 years, ahead of guys like David Justice, Brian Giles, Carlos Santana and Victor Martinez.

He put together a three-year period between 2008-2010 where the left-handed hitter was 42 percent better than a league average hitter. He got on base, he demonstrated a little pop and swiped more than 20 bases three times in Cleveland.

Matt Loede

Current: Carlos Santana

Last season when the Indians dealt to get Santana back, it was a mostly negative response from Tribe fans that they would bother to bring the 34-year-old back to the roster.

All Santana did in 2019 was carry the team through what was an ugly offensive slump to start the season, and by July Indians fans were in love with him again as he took part in the Home Run Derby at Progressive Field and also was a part of the AL All-Star team.

The Tribe first basemen last season hit .281 with 34 homers and 108 runs batted in. He also continued to play a solid first for the team, and drew as many strikeouts as walks (108). Now fans are hopeful that he can put up similar numbers when the team eventually takes the field again.

All-Time: Brook Jacoby

For nine seasons from 1984 to 1991, Brook Jacoby was one of the few bright spots on the Tribe roster for teams that mostly played in empty stadiums and finished last in the AL East.

He was a two-time All-Star who hit .273 with 120 homers during his time with the Indians, and also was a solid defensive third basemen.

His best season was 1987 when he hit .300 with 32 homers and 69 RBI in 155 games. Oddly enough, this was not one of the two years he was an All-Star.

Alex Hooper

Current: Roberto Perez

I truly believe that Roberto Perez is, at worst, the 4th-best catcher in Major League Baseball. I don't think people value him enough, but such is the life of a catcher.

When you are a subpar hitter, you often get overlooked, and that had been Perez until he got his big break last year. In 2019, he was about a league-average hitter, with more pop than average.

There is absolutely no argument to be made against Perez being the best defensive catcher in the game. His pitch framing has been elite for four years running, he keeps runners close, and is solid when attempting to throw them out.

If Perez's 2019 at the dish was the real thing, only Yasmani Grandal comes close to Perez's overall mix of offense, defense and pitch framing, with J.T. Realmuto and Christian Vazquez trailing.

You still have to account for how much the Indians' pitching staff matters to the team's success, and Perez is a key cog in that machine.

All-Time: Kenny Lofton

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Kenny Lofton is a Hall of Famer.

Hello:

Kenny Lofton is 10th among CFs in JAWS, just below future HOF Carlos Beltran, and ahead of HOFs Richie Ashburn, Andre Dawson and Slidin' Billy Hamilton. Also ahead of Andruw Jones, who I think is a HOFer. https://t.co/xFmrZuam87
— Alex Hooper (@lexhooper) May 31, 2019

Since Bob Feller retired in 1956, no one has posted more bWAR in an Indians uniform than Lofton.

It is a shame that the advanced defensive metrics were not around for Kenny's heyday, as I believe they would paint Lofton as an all-timer at a high-value position. Add in a career .800 OPS over 16 years and that is a surefire ticket to Cooperstown.

Casey Drottar

Current: Jordan Luplow

Most fans only see Luplow as a platoon player, for reasons obvious. He just so happens to be a platoon player who led the team in OPS (.923), wOBA (.383) and wRC+ (137) last season.

Yes, Luplow generates most of his success against southpaw pitching. That said, the size of said success in 2019 (1.181 OPS, 198 wRC+) was just absurd.

If he can improve his numbers against big-league righties, Luplow could become far more valuable for the Indians moving forward.

All-Time: Grady Sizemore

Don’t get me wrong, Sizemore was very properly rated at his peak. We’re talking about a guy who graced the cover of SI next to the quote “He’s without a doubt one of the greatest players in our generation.”

At the time, that wasn’t an outlandish thing to say. Unfortunately, said peak remains tough for fans to recall considering all of the surgeries which completely unraveled his career.

Sizemore is underrated because he was on a path to Cooperstown, and his numbers from 2005-08 just hammer that home further.

Instead, he logged four phenomenal seasons before spending the rest of his career struggling to stay on the field.