What Guardians Should Do With The Rest Of The Games.

The Cleveland Guardians’ struggles since the All-Star break, they’ve gone 9-18, makes it pretty clear to most fans that it is time to look toward 2027 (or maybe 2028). We say that because it would not be a shock if labor issues caused Major League Baseball not to be played next year.

It remains to be seen how long the organization continues to look at salvaging this season, because the players and Steven Vogt will want to keep trying to win games until they are mathematically eliminated, which with the three wild card spots available, may not occur until mid-September.

However, among those who don’t kid themselves on a daily basis, it is time to look towards the next season, and what moves should be made with that in mind.

The Guardians made a move yesterday, bringing back southpaw Logan Allen, most likely because the relief corps has been used a lot and the pitcher he replaced, Franco Aleman, pitched in the last two games and wouldn’t have been available.

One thing we would like to see is playing Angel Genao at shortstop. The 22-year-old switch-hitter looks very mature at the plate, starting his big-league career with a four hit game, and overall has gone 10 for 34 with a home run and just three strikeouts to date. He uses the whole field, which is a good sign, but it is time for him to get an extended look at his natural position.

We like Brayan Rocchio, and we understand that this move is not fair to him, but that’s baseball. Does Rocchio fit in as a utility man next year or can he be used as trade bait? He’s shown he’s more than capable defensively, but he’s blocked at second base unless Travis Bazzana changes positions.

And that might be on the table. We wouldn’t be shocked if the former first overall draft pick went back to the minors where a transition might be started. Since June 1st, Bazzana has hit just .208 with 60 strikeouts in 256 plate appearances. He seems very susceptible to the high fastball. He just can’t lay off.

Somehow, the Guardians need to get another look at Cooper Ingle, who is terrorizing the International League with an OPS of 999. Yes, we know what he looked like in his brief time with the big club, but he only had 24 plate appearances.

At AAA, he’s batting .306 with 18 homers and has drawn 63 walks. Where to play him might be an issue because the organization obviously doesn’t view him as a catcher, and he struggled in LF in the bigs. However, he could get some at bats at DH, since the Guardians seem to need guys who can hit.

It’s also probably time to see more of Daniel Espino, who has had control issues at AAA (20 walks in 30 innings), but he’s stuck out 39 hitters and has electric stuff. We would also bring Aleman back as soon as possible.

The Allen recall also made us think that Parker Messick’s innings should be limited the rest of the way. He’s already pitched more innings than ever in his career, and with the team falling out of it, there is no reason to overextend him.

These are just a couple of things to do as the season winds down. And if the Guardians go on a winning streak, that’s great. We just don’t see that taking place.

Have The Guardians Gotten A Bit Stale?

There is no question that the time since Jacobs/Progressive Field opened in 1994 has been the golden age of Cleveland baseball. Yes, there was that period of when Bill Veeck owned the team and the GM tenure of Hank Greenberg from 1947-1959 where the Indians went to two World Series and won the last one for the franchise in 1948.

Since 1991, the franchise has basically had three men in charge of the baseball operations. John Hart was hired by Hank Peters in 1989 as a scout and assumed the GM duties in 1991 and remained in that spot until 2001. Mark Shapiro took over and was in that spot until 2010, when he moved to team president and promoted Chris Antonetti.

Antonetti became the president of baseball operations in 2015, and Mike Chernoff was promoted to the GM spot then. Really, the franchise has had three people running the baseball team on the field since ’91. That’s 35 years.

Going further, the promotions all came from within. Shapiro was hired by Hart in ’91, became Director of Player Development, and then assistant GM before taking over in ’01. Antonetti has worked for the team since 1999 and was named Shapiro’s successor in 2010.

Chernoff was hired as an intern in 2003 while still enrolled at Princeton, and rose through the organization becoming assistant GM under Antonetti in ’10.

There have been people hired from outside in various positions, but really, the franchise hasn’t hired anyone outside of the organization in a top leadership position in the front office in 37 years. An era where they have won three American League pennants, the same number they won from 1901-1994.

Stability is a good thing. That’s one way to look at it.

Another way to look at it has it become stale.

We know about the recent success of the franchise. Since Antonetti was put in charge, the Guardians have made eight playoff appearances and went to the World Series in 2016. Unfortunately, they haven’t built on that success, winning just one playoff series (the 2024 Division Series) since.

Look, we understand the executives, particularly Antonetti and Chernoff, have been hampered by the lack of financial support by the ownership, but that is a story for another time. The biggest move from outside the organization was the hiring of Terry Francona as skipper following the 2012 season.

Francona brought some outside thoughts to the organization, and he might be the last person to do that with this group.

After the World Series appearance in ’16, the ownership ponied up some cash (perhaps carried away with the excitement) and signed slugger Edwin Encarnacion as a free agent. That’s the last large signing of a player from outside.

Last season, the team finished with one of the worst offenses in the sport and still made the playoffs. The front office didn’t go out and get any bats in trades or free agency, instead saying they wanted to give their young hitters a chance. The Guardians still rank among the worst teams in baseball in scoring.

They seem to be unable to make judgments on their own prospects, holding on to some of them until all the value is sapped from them and thus, have no value to other teams on the trade market.

They seem to overvalue defense, sacrificing offense at times, when the minor leagues are full of players who have good gloves but cannot hit.

Even their production on television is worn, seemingly turned into a group of “yes men” continually telling viewers how great everything is, which is an insult to the people who understand the game a bit.

Maybe the Guardians will duplicate last year and go on a run to make the playoffs again, but it doesn’t seem likely. And maybe the current organization will not have to make any tough decisions until 2028 because of an impending lockout next year.

Maybe you don’t have to have a catcher who cannot contribute offensively because defense and handling the pitching staff is ultra important.

This era of Cleveland baseball has been great for a long time, and it can continue, but it seems to need a jolt, some fresh ideas. Perhaps the last two months are a blip on the radar, but it could also be the same old ideas are lost in a world of change.

Just When A Hole Might Be Plugged, Another Crops Up For Guardians

Fourth place. That’s where the Cleveland Guardians sit as of this morning, four games behind the surprising Chicago White Sox in the AL Central Division race.

On Friday, May 22nd, the Guardians beat the Phillies 1-0 on Kyle Manzardo’s home run in the 9th to raise the team’s record to 31-22. They had a 3.5 game lead over the Pale Hose and the second-best record in the American League. They were fourth in the league in runs scored, so the offense was generating runs.

Since then, Steven Vogt’s crew has gone 27-39 and the offense has plummeted to third last in the major leagues in scoring. And now the bullpen is collapsing, with only Cade Smith being reliable for Cleveland last in games.

By the way, that’s a 66-game span, which is 40% of the regular season. That’s not a slump, that record over that span shows a bad baseball team.

Cleveland’s front office said they wanted to lean on the organization’s young hitters to provide offense in 2026 after the Guards made the playoffs a year ago despite the 29th ranking offense in the game. That sounds like a good thing, right? But depending on all young players is tough because they tend to have many more ups and downs than a veteran.

And that’s why a priority should have been to get a veteran bat or two to help ease the transition.

Offensively, the Guardians did get two bats at the trade deadline in Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe, and the pair would seem to be the perfect platoon. However, it appears the organization thinks of Adell as an everyday player, and he isn’t very good vs. right-handed pitchers.

The problem is still not enough good hitters in the lineup. The league average OPS is 719. The Guardians have four players above the threshold and one of them is Austin Hedges, which is a complete surprise.

Steven Kwan (.364) and Chase DeLauter (.354) are the only Cleveland players with an on base percentage over .350, and the latter’s slugging percentage of .433 leads the team, which tells you there is no one on the Guardians who can drive the ball.

The organization sent Kyle Manzardo to AAA and his slugging average is 8th on the team, slightly behind Travis Bazzana, Rhys Hoskins, and the recently released Gabriel Arias. Our question here is why does Hoskins stay, while Manzardo, who is tied with him for the team home run lead, get sent back to the minors?

Let us be clear, Manzardo’s swing is messed up, as he is trying to pull everything this season. We wonder who told him to change his approach?

Speaking of approaches, let’s look at Brayan Rocchio, who had a good start to the season. On May 31st, he was hitting .293 with a 789 OPS, hitting mostly in the #9 spot in the order. He had fanned 26 times with 20 walks as of that date and had 4 homers with 27 RBI.

Since then, he’s batted .208 with 39 strikeouts and just 11 bases on balls, and five dingers with 23 RBIs. Did he feel more pressure to provide pop after the injuries to DeLauter, Jose Ramirez, and Angel Martinez? Or was it because the team started hitting him in the middle of the lineup?

He’s batted .232 with a K/BB ratio of 19:4 when batting in the #3, #4, and #5 spots in the order.

Yes, the bullpen is in shambles and frankly, the options to improve it aren’t really there. But don’t think the Guardians’ offense has been saved with the trades made at the deadline. They still don’t have enough good bats.

Guardians Need Bullpen To Get Back To Form Quickly.

Early in the season, Guardians’ starter Joey Cantillo was being brought along slowly. He made 91 pitches in his first start of the season on March 28th in Seattle and then didn’t hit the 90 mark again until May 11th.

There were games when he was doing quite well too. We are thinking particularly of a start against the Royals on May 6th when he allowed just one run in five innings and was removed despite throwing only 70 pitches. Cantillo has not thrown more than 98 pitches in a gane this season.

Slade Cecconi, just put on the injured list, but who has been in the rotation all year, has hit the century mark for a pitch count just once. Parker Messick has done it four times, once because Steven Vogt let him start the ninth inning (and rightly so) because he had a no-hitter. He threw 112 that night.

Tanner Bibee, now in his fourth year in the big leagues has hit 100 pitches, which by the way in an arbitrary mark set by organizations to supposedly limit injuries, only three times this year, and we pulled once while throwing a shutout for eight innings at just 83 tosses.

Only Gavin Williams, who is a large man at 6’6″ and 250 pounds has been given some rope by Vogt and pitching coach Carl Willis, going over the 100 mark six times.

This is probably one reason the Guardians have used only seven starting pitches this season, and went to the All-Star break using just five.

However, for every action there is a reaction. Cleveland has put a lot of burden on the bullpen to win games and right now, the relief corps is leaking a bit of oil.

For example, Hunter Gaddis, who has pitched in over 70 games each of the last two seasons and has been in 45 this year, has allowed six runs in eight innings over the last month.

Lefty Erik Sabrowski was dominant early on, pitching in 25 games by the end of May allowing just four runs in 21 innings (1.71 ERA). He then went on the IL with some elbow tenderness, and since he’s returned has allowed 9 runs in 10.2 innings, and prior to his stint on the IL had fanned 38 with 13 walks.

After coming back, it’s 14 Ks and 9 walks.

The ‘pen’s other southpaw, Tim Herrin has had problem throwing strikes in each of the last two years, Since his tremendous 2024 campaign, where he had a 1.92 ERA with 68 strikeouts and just 25 walks in 65 innings, Herrin has 76 Ks and has issued 53 free passes in 80.1 frames.

And even Cade Smith has shown a bit of wear. Although he hasn’t allowed an earned run in seven appearances since being in the Midsummer Classic, he has walked seven in those outings. Before that, he had walked just 11 hitters.

Only Colin Holderman (45 appearances, 2,22 ERA) has been reliable until last night’s debacle and if the Guardians want to make another playoff run, they need a solid relief group. The struggles made the front office go out and get Craig Yoho from Milwaukee, and he did a good job in two of his three appearances.

Perhaps they can get a boost down the stretch from Franco Aleman or Daniel Espino. The Guardians also just signed veteran lefty Ryan Borucki, who has held left-handed hitters to a 530 OPS in his career.

Maybe Vogt will give the starters a little longer leash over the next two months, but in reality, the Guardians are going to need the bullpen to start putting up some zeroes at the end of games if they want another playoff appearance.

The Patience Vs. Stubbornness Argument And The Cleveland Guardians

One of our sports beliefs is that there is a fine line between patience and stubbornness. We also understand front offices of professional sports teams have to error on the side of the latter. Fans want players replace after they have two poor weeks. Front offices have to make sure before cutting ties with a player.

And players who have put up with good numbers for a long time deserve and get a longer leash. For example, Jose Ramirez hasn’t had a good season, although his OPS is still over league average. And even though he is now 33, you have to think he will get to being the player he has always been, with maybe a bit of a regression to age.

We are trying to ascertain how the Cleveland Guardians approach this process and make no doubt we believe they skirt the line of stubbornness. We ask this because of the recent move to cut bait on Juan Brito and earlier this year with George Valera.

The question comes because both players seem to have had patient approaches while hitting. In AAA, Brito fanned 192 times and drew 163 walks in 1151 plate appearances. Valera’s ratio wasn’t as good, but he still walked 164 times in over 1200 plate appearances at the AAA level.

Let’s take a look at Daniel Schneemann. He got off to a great start, putting up a 955 OPS in April. However, in May he struggled going 11 for 74 (417 OPS). Steven Vogt and the organization gave him 63 more plate appearances in June, and the results were much the same (11 for 63, 498 OPS).

We are talking about someone with a career 632 OPS, so it’s not like he has a long track record of success. Despite that, Schneemann got 40 more at bats in July, producing just five hits and a 362 OPS. At some point, perhaps in the middle of June, someone should have said even though he’s a great defensive player, maybe we shouldn’t be giving him semi-regular at bats?

Look at the way the team uses Rhys Hoskins. He is used mostly as a platoon bat against southpaws. Over his career, he’s been great against them, compiling an 855 OPS. This season, in 113 PA, he’s batting .143. Now 33, you have to wonder if he’s about done. On the other hand, as a veteran, he should get more of the benefit of the doubt.

The unfortunate thing with Hoskins is the Guardians keep hitting him in the middle of the lineup against lefties, and as we said, the .143 average doesn’t help. If we were a fading veteran, we’d sign with the Guardians and be a leader in the clubhouse. We’d get every benefit of the doubt.

Look at how long it took to make a decision on Gabriel Arias, he of the career 635 OPS. Let us remind you, the average OPS hovers around 710 most seasons, so you can see, Arias is a below average bat.

Yet, he now has almost 1200 plate appearances in the bigs and has fanned in over 1/3rd of those times at the dish, and hardly ever draws a walk, meaning he makes an out 72.5% of the times he goes to the plate.

He is what is known as “toolsy”. He has a cannon for an arm and occasionally can hit the ball a long way. However, he is wildly inconsistent and doesn’t seem to have a good feel for the game. Despite his pop, he has never had a slugging percentage over .400.

All of these weaknesses have been on display for at least three years, but it took this long for the Guardians to cut bait.

Meanwhile, a guy like Brito, a switch-hitter gets 56 at bats and is cut loose. We understand Brito is borderline terrible with a glove but deserved more of a chance in the majors in our opinion.

It will be interesting to see if the Guardians’ impatience with him is merited.

The Guardians’ Front Office Swings Into Action.

Well, the Guardians certainly did not stand pat at the trade deadline this season. And that is good to see.

For us, the biggest move was trading four players, one of whom saw time in the bigs this season in Will Dion, to the Washington Nationals for 30-year-old left-hander Foster Griffin, an All-Star with a 12-3 record and a 3.06 ERA with 116 Ks in 129 innings this season.

He will slide into Slade Cecconi’s spot in the rotation giving the Guardians a solid starter in every game in which they take the field. The southpaw spent the last three seasons in Japan winning 18 games with a 2.57 ERA.

We also think getting Griffin helps manage Parker Messick’s innings. He’s already at 129.2 IP just four short of his career high. So, he may get skipped a bit to keep him fresh for the stretch drive.

This move comes after the front office dealt for Craig Yoho from Milwaukee to bolster a sagging bullpen.

Yoho is the guy Cleveland wanted, he had a 3.15 ERA with the Brewers in 20 innings, despite a strikeout to walk ratio of 13 Ks vs. eight walks. Last year, in limited action (8.2 innings) he walked nine. But in his minor league career, he fanned 193 hitters in 131 innings, including 29 in 23 frames at AAA Nashville this season.

As for the offense, when several reactions to a trade, particularly in baseball, are something like “well, at least we didn’t give up much”, that’s not a good thing. That’s the reaction of several people when the Cleveland Guardians acquired OF Jo Adell from the Los Angeles Angels for minor league catcher Zack Cozart.

First, the good news. Adell has some power. Since the beginning of the ’24 season, he’s hammered 73 home runs, His 19 dingers this year would easily lead the Guardians this season, as Kyle Manzardo has hit just 13 HRs.

As we said, that’s the good news.

The bad news is Adell has an obscene strikeout to walk ratio. This year, he has fanned 108 times against just 16 walks. For a comparison, Gabriel Arias has whiffed 55 times vs. seven walks. More good news, Adell has like three times the plate appearances.

The good news is Adell does have a career 793 OPS against southpaws, and this year, has killed lefties, hitting .303 with a 910 OPS. However, against right-handers, his career mark is just 654 and just 593 this season. Which means he should be taking the Brandon Guyer role.

It is doubtful the Guardians will use him that way though. Our guess is he will be in the lineup most days and will madden fans by whiffing in key situations.

A better move, in our opinion, was getting 1B/DH Nathaniel Lowe from Cincinnati. A left-handed bat, he has a career 775 OPS and a 798 figure vs. righties. Lowe will replace Kyle Manzardo, who was sent to Columbus along with David Fry.

Manzardo has been lost at the plate most of the year, and his strikeout rate soared from 25% to 32% this season. We have advocated for him to go down and rediscover his swing, because right now, Lowe figures to platoon with Rhys Hoskins, who frankly has been terrible vs. lefties.

Getting Manzardo right would allow Steven Vogt (and the organization) to platoon Lowe and Adell, which would seem to be a productive pairing.

The Guardians will probably stop there, but we would still like to see Angel Genao and Cooper Ingle with the big club to improve the attack. There is still some dead weight on the roster. Angel Martinez is really struggling, and we continue to maintain Petey Halpin is not a big-league bat.

However, we wanted the Guardians to get better at the deadline and no question, they look to be improved for the stretch drive.

QB Decision For Browns Shows A Clear Lack Of Direction

The Cleveland Browns continue to be a weird organization. It seems they are set up with a bunch of department heads all trying to show the boss who is the best and worthy of promotion, but in reality, they have no true leader, not true direction.

They have a new head coach in Todd Monken, who is 60 years old and getting his first chance to be the top guy of an NFL team. He, of course, wants to win now and show he deserved to have this job sooner in his career.

That means he is going to start the best players at each position, which is the way it should be, but the question is, what does the front office think about certain players?

We are of course talking about the starting quarterback spot where the Browns are leaking through the media that Deshaun Watson has a leg up on Shedeur Sanders for the job.

This is something we just don’t understand.

The entire organization should be saying this is Sanders’ opportunity to see if he can claim the job. If he shows he can be an above average NFL QB, then the Browns are in a good spot with two first round picks in next year’s draft.

As for Watson, we keep hearing from certain members of the media about his “body of work”. We will simply say the last time he was an effective NFL quarterback was six years ago. We can’t think of anyone in league history who played at a high level, was largely ineffective or not available for that long of a time period and then returned to play at that same tier of performance.

Basically, the Browns are asking Watson to do something that has never been done before. Seems plausible.

How should the Browns be handling this? A few different scenarios come to mind.

First, don’t hire a 60-year-old first time head coach who wants to win immediately. If you hire a younger guy than you can tell him the plan is to not have Watson play again and let him leave the team at the end of the season quietly.

Or you could have told Monken that was the plan all along and he should devote all of his time getting the best of Sanders, and if it doesn’t work, he will be part of the development on whoever the Browns draft in the first round in 2027.

Many national pundits can’t believe Cleveland is even considering starting Watson. After all, his contract ends after this season, and as we have pointed out before, if you are going with him, you have to make the playoffs, correct? Going 7-10 or 8-9 with him aces the team out of a high draft pick and also, they didn’t find out if Sanders can play.

Note we’ve only mentioned Sanders, but remember the Browns used a top 100 pick a year ago on another quarterback in Dillon Gabriel who is barely talked about and probably is a longshot to make the roster.

That pick was another example of not having a singular direction, a lone voice, making decisions.

We fear until that is fixed, the Browns will continue to run around in circles, never making progress.

As The Offense Plummets, The Front Office Plays The Fiddle

The Cleveland Guardians haven’t exactly taken off following the all-star break, going 3-7 and generally not playing good baseball. And the hitting hasn’t been good either, as they’ve scored either zero or one run in half of these games.

And of course, the spector of the trade deadline looms, now less than a week away.

This recent stretch has led a few people to suggest that the front office should be selling a week from now, but really, what do the Guardians have to sell? First, Cleveland is still one of the 10 youngest teams in baseball.

Do you really want the Guards’ front office to shop Gavin Williams or even Tanner Bibee? Cade Smith? They aren’t going to move Jose Ramirez obviously, and with the offense already challenged, do people want them to deal Chase DeLauter or Travis Bazzana? That would be ridiculous.

The Guardians have won the AL Central the past two seasons and if the season were to end today (we know, it doesn’t) they would be in the playoffs. Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff should be looking for ways to punch their ticket to the post-season for the third straight year.

And as an added bonus, with the way the AL West is shaking out right now, winning the Central would mean skipping the Wild Card Series and put the Guardians right into the Divison Series.

But they simply have to be better offensively.

As they were last season, Cleveland ranks near the bottom in the majors in runs scored. This has now been the case for a season and a half. Yet it doesn’t seem like any changes in terms of coaching are on the horizon, and we don’t like calling for people’s jobs, but whatever message Grant Fink is sending to his troops, it is not getting through.

But it shouldn’t just fall on Fink. Look at the roster the front office has put together. They have 13 position players on the big-league squad and how many of them are just not even decent hitters? We aren’t going to ignore Austin Hedges resurgence this season, but neither he nor Patrick Bailey are serious offensive threats.

Kyle Manzardo looks lost. David Fry hasn’t been effective since the post-season in 2024, some of that due to injury, but it is what it is. We liked the signing of Rhys Hoskins during training camp, but he was brought in to hit lefties, and he’s batted .129 vs. southpaws.

Petey Halpin simply doesn’t look like a major league hitter, and Gabriel Arias, despite being on a bit of a good streak right now, still has fanned 51 times in 117 plate appearances this season.

And although Angel Martinez has shown some pop, since May 1st, he’s hit .203 with just 12 extra base hits and a strikeout to walk ratio of 35:4.

What this means is out of the 13 position players on the current roster, eight of them simply aren’t even competent big-league hitters as of now. It is tough to put Manzardo in that group right now, but he looks like he could use the same thing the Guardians did with Rocchio a year ago. That is, send him back to AAA for a reset and see what happens.

Let’s see what Kody Huff can do. He’s batting .275 with a .388 on base percentage and a 912 OPS at Columbus. And he’s thriving away from the hitters’ park that is Huntington Bank Field. What about one of the Guards’ top prospects in Angel Genao, hitting .305 with a .389 OBP? We’d also bring back Cooper Ingle.

Could they be any worse than what is currently on the roster? That’s doubtful. But it makes you wonder why moves haven’t been made.

The Clock Is Ticking For The Cavaliers

LeBron James made his decision where to play in 2026-27 and it wasn’t Cleveland. We aren’t one of those Cavaliers’ fans who are upset with James, who is still a good NBA player at 41, turning 42 in late December.

He averaged 20.9 points, 7.2 assists and six rebounds per game last year, and would have been an improvement over analytics darling Dean Wade in the Cleveland starting lineup. But that’s here, nor there.

Our problem is with the Cavs’ front office, notably president of basketball operations Koby Altman, who hasn’t done anything to improve the team that did go to the Eastern Conference Finals last season.

That’s not entirely fair, he did resign journeyman big man Thomas Bryant, who couldn’t get on the floor in the playoffs, and let guard Keon Ellis and Wade depart via free agency. So, as it has most times since Altman has been in charge, the Cleveland bench has a collection of 6’3″ to 6’6″ players, making it impossible for coach Kenny Atkinson to get them all enough minutes.

There’s Max Strus, Sam Merrill, Dennis Schroder (who everyone believes will be dealt soon), Jaylon Tyson (who should be the starter at small forward in our opinion), Craig Porter Jr., Tyrese Proctor, and he drafted another one in Meleek Thomas.

There are still no bigger wings, although Atkinson has alluded that last year’s second round pick, Saliou Niang, who is 6’8″ will likely be on the team and of course, Nae’Qwan Tomlin also 6’8″ returns and hopefully will have a more meaningful role, as he was largely ignored after the moves around the trade deadline.

There are rumors about the Cavs being very interested in 6’7″ forward Jonathan Kuminga, the 7th overall pick in 2021 and a player in this third year averaged 16 points a game for Golden State. However, he was in Steve Kerr’s doghouse for the past two seasons, was traded to Atlanta, and the Hawks declined to bring him back.

He played in 36 games last season and averaged 12.2 points per game. We’ve liked him, and just because Kerr didn’t play him isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Coaches may not like something about a player’s game, but that doesn’t mean he can’t play.

There are also rumors Cleveland is interested in Mario Hezonja, a former first round pick of Orlando, who has played overseas the last six seasons. Now 31, he averaged 7 points per game in five NBA seasons with the Magic, Knicks, and Trailblazers. He’s 6’8″.

We will keep harping on this, but as currently constituted, the Cleveland Cavaliers don’t have enough size. They need bigger, athletic wings, the “3 and D” guys talked about frequently. They need more big men than just having Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley.

And preferably, they need someone inside who has some girth. Allen and Mobley are tall, but in NBA standards, slender. A “bruiser” would be very welcome in Cleveland.

So, Altman is on the clock. Several teams in the East look to have passed the Cavaliers. Certainly, James’ new team, the 76ers, but also the Raptors if they work out the Kawhi Leonard trade. Also, the Pacers get Tyrese Halliburton back, the Pistons had a better regular season record, and Atlanta keeps getting more experience.

From where we are sitting, maybe the Cavs should have promoted Mike Gansey. There is still time to improve the team, but we are worried the wine and gold are now in the rut where a chance for a title might be out of reach.

If You Have No QB, Why Not Run The Ball More?

Recently, we mused on social media about what team in what sport would be the first team to go with an “old school” approach in building a team and in terms of style of play.

One of the reasons behind the thought was the Cleveland Browns and their constant search for a quarterback and using that need as the reason they cannot put together a winning team.

If you don’t have a “franchise QB”, why not just become highly proficient at running the football? We understand that would present its own set of challenges, such as what do you do if you fall behind, especially in the second half. That’s when a team needs to throw the ball and if you can’t do it, the team is essentially screwed.

Last year, the Baltimore Ravens threw the least number of passes in the NFL at 422, 24.8 per game, and they actually ran more than they threw, averaging 29.8 running attempts per game. That figure was almost three passes fewer than the next team, the Washington Commanders. The Ravens also ranked second in the league in rushing yards.

Buffalo and the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks also run more than they threw, but again, that might be a product of being ahead late in games and running the ball to keep the clock moving.

They did have Derrick Henry, who was second in the league in rushing behind Buffalo’s James Cook. The Bills led the NFL in rushing yards as a team.

Buffalo finished the season 12-5 while the Ravens were 8-9.

We thought back to when the Browns had Nick Chubb and in their playoff season of 2020, they ranked third in the league in rushing. In that year, they still threw the ball over 30 times per game. They also had Kareem Hunt on the roster, who led the league in rushing his rookie season for Kansas City. So, they had two great runners and threw the ball as much as they ran.

They were fourth in running the ball the following season and QB Baker Mayfield was battling a shoulder injury for most of the year.

They threw the ball 30.6 times per game that season and ran it just 28.5 times.

We get that it is never been easier to throw the ball in football than it is today. When the Miami Dolphins went undefeated in 1972, they ran the football 617 times and threw just 259 passes. For the season. Of course, wide receivers were allowed to be held up by cornerbacks at the line of scrimmage. And the Dolphins had two 1000 yards rushers in Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris.

In 1985, just 13 years later, the Browns had two 1000 yards runners in Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner and ran the ball 533 times. But that was in a 16-game schedule. Miami was running it 44 times per game. Cleveland ran it 33 times per contest and threw it 25.8 times.

We guess our question is if you don’t have a solid quarterback, why do NFL teams keep throwing the ball all over the place? The answer is they probably can’t help themselves. That’s how the game is played today, much like basketball players who keep firing up three pointers even though their team is ahead late in games.

That’s how they played coming up and they can’t change it.

You would think if you don’t have a good QB, you would put less emphasis on the position. Maybe that’s just using logic.