The Indians are going to be a team with a lot of holes entering 2011, but one of them will not be at shortstop where Asdrubal Cabrera has cemented himself for the foreseeable future. The Indians have agreed to sign him for 2.025m in his first arbitration season, about half a million more than my 1.5m projection.
Despite a down year in 2011 where he struggled with injuries posted the worst offensive numbers of his career, Cabrera remains a solid shortstop. At just 25 years old, Cabrera is likely to rebound offensively to his previous level of production as he returns from a broken forearm that knocked him out in mid-May. I'll have my exact projections out as the season nears, but just as a ballpark guess I'd say he's good for a .750 OPS - 60 points above the MLB average for shortstops.
Cabrera isn't the rangiest of shortstops and according to most defensive metrics, Cabrera has always been below average defensively at short. UZR/150 has him pegged at an ugly 9.3 runs below average for his career while other metrics metrics like like Dewan's Plus/Minus system have him at just 4 runs below average for his career. In an ideal world the Indians would like to see that performance improve, but even if it doesn't, his bat should be enough to keep him right around league average.
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