Cleveland Guardians’ rookie Jhonkensy Noel has hit six home runs, with 11 RBI in his last 11 games … [+] and 12 home runs in his first 41 major league games. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Christmas came early for the Cleveland Guardians this year, and they are glad it did.
Jhonkensy Noel, who is built like Santa and has North Pole power, arrived just in time.
The 6-3, 250-pound, 23-year-old right-handed hitting rocket launcher, whose towering blasts are measured not in feet, but in time zones, could potentially become the most impactful, crucial, and timely addition to a Guardians lineup that has lacked so menacing a slugger since the heyday of Albert Belle.
When Noel hits home runs, they stay hit, and they travel a long way. They also tend to come in dramatic moments, and for many major leaguers, there is no more dramatic moment than their first major league at bat.
Noel’s came earlier this year, on June 26th, in Baltimore, at Camden Yards, on the third pitch of his first major league at bat. When the ball, with an exit velocity of 106.5 mph, finally landed, it did so over the centerfield wall, 413 feet from home plate.
That was Jhonkensy Noel introducing himself to his teammates and opposing pitchers. He has had their attention ever since.
For a Guardians team that has finished last, or second-last in home runs in three of the last four American League seasons, the arrival of Noel, and his bats, could not have come at a better time.
He has hit 12 home runs in his first 40 major league games. Only four Guardians players have hit more than that for the season so far. Noel’s home run rate computes to almost one home run every third game. The Guardians can live with that.
“My mindset is to just put the ball in play and see what happens,” said Noel, who was signed by the Indians as an international amateur free agent in 2015. In 2016 he hit 10 home runs as a 16-year-old in the Dominican Summer League.
In three minor league levels in 2021 he hit 19 home runs. In 2022 he hit a combined 32 home runs at three levels. Then followed that up with 27 homers at Triple-A Columbus in 2023. When he got the call to Cleveland earlier this season he had already hit 18 homers at Columbus.
So counting his time at Columbus this year, and everything he has done with the Guardians since being promoted to the big-league club, Noel in 2024 has hit 30 home runs, with roughly five weeks left in the big-league season.
Noel is not strictly an offense player. With Cleveland he has played right field, and played it well, with surprising athleticism. He has made multiple diving catches, and has exhibited a decent and accurate arm.
In a phrase that former Guardians’ manager Terry Francona frequently used when describing a player with a surprisingly versatile skill set, “there is a lot to like” about Noel.
So much so that his summons to the big-league club earlier this season seems, in hindsight, long overdue, especially given that Noel’s best tool, his power, has been Cleveland’s biggest weakness the last few years.
That Noel also appears to be a plus defender begs the question of how a full-season of him on the roster would have translated to the Guardians’ won-loss record, and runs scored column.
Not to mention exploiting the commercial possibilities of a popular, charismatic, feel-good, fan favorite home run hitter, with Casey at the Bat potential. Indeed, in Noel, the Guardians’ marketing department wizards now have a slugger to build a dream on.
Noel’s teammates, undoubtedly seeing and sensing a great story when they see one, nicknamed him La Belleza – “The Beauty.”
That moniker, however, never had a chance. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt made sure of that.
It was Vogt who ended all the discussion and debating over what Jhonkensy Noel’s nickname should be. Vogt’s logic was sound, entertaining, and, everything considered, spot on for a slugger who can both deck and wreck the halls:
“Big Christmas.”
