Jose Ramirez To Win The Triple Crown? Projecting Stats For Cleveland's All-Star

The American League MVP race has been centered on the slugging outfielder Aaron Judge and the two-way sensation Shohei Ohtani. However, a Triple Crown from Jose Ramirez would push those other candidates to the side.

Ramirez has a case for MVP as it is. The All-Star third baseman has carried the Cleveland Guardians to playoff contention and a possible division crown. And he’s putting up ridiculously good numbers to boot.

MLB has only experienced 12 Triple Crown winners, with Miguel Cabrera in 2012 serving as the only instance in 55 years. Does Ramirez have a realistic chance to join that elusive club, or will he fall just short of making history?

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Batting Average

Hitting .300 or better is becoming increasingly rare in today’s game. Entering Tuesday, just nine American League players are hitting at least .300. Unfortunately, Ramirez isn’t on that list.

J-Ram is currently hitting .287, placing him 16th in the AL. The leader is Luis Arraez of the Minnesota Twins at a whopping .348, 21 points ahead of the next-best player. 

Ramirez, who’s a career .279 hitter, hasn’t been above .300 since June 28. While there’s a chance he gets back there, there are a lot of players still preventing him from securing his first batting title.

We’ve seen Ramirez go on massive hot streaks before, but it’s going to take a historic effort to vault him into the .340 range. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him finish around .300, however.

Home Runs

Guardians fans know all about Ramirez’s pop. The 29-year-old belted 36 home runs and is up to 17 this year. However, he has a ways to go in order to lead the league in long balls.

Ramirez is 13 home runs behind the league-leader Judge. Others like Yordan Alvarez, Mike Trout, and Byron Buxton are all in the 20s as well. Surprisingly, Ramirez has more at-bats than each of those three players and just 11 fewer ABs than Judge.

With 17 homers through 81 games, Ramirez is on pace to hit around 34 homers for the year. Is it impressive? Yes. Will it ultimately be enough to overtake Judge by season’s end? Don’t count on it.

RBI

Of all three Triple Crown categories, Ramirez has the best chance of driving in more runs than any of his competitors.

Ramirez has been an RBI machine all season, leading the league with 66 RBI. However, his once-steady lead has shrunken significantly, with Judge up to 65 and Alvarez at 60. Both sluggers also have better lineups than Cleveland, allowing them more opportunities to drive home runners.

Ramirez is on pace to hit over 120 RBI, which would demolish his career-high of 105 from 2018. Finishing in that 120+ range could very well be enough to lead the league, so long as Judge cools off as well.

Can Ramirez Win the Triple Crown?

There’s no doubting Ramirez’s capabilities as a hitter. The third baseman is on track to lead the league in RBI and doubles and finish with more walks than strikeouts. By all accounts, he is every bit deserving of his fourth All-Star appearance next week in Los Angeles.

However, it’s currently difficult to see a realistic path to a Triple Crown.

With players like Arraez and Judge surging above the field in their respective categories, it’s hard to see Ramirez catching up. Especially considering that he’s currently outside the top ten in both batting average and home runs.