Following the 2021 season, the Cleveland Guardians had five prospects who were consensus top 100 players, and three were middle infielders: Tyler Freeman, Brayan Rocchio, and Gabriel Arias.
At that time, Cleveland had Amed Rosario as the starting shortstop and also had 22-year-old Andres Gimenez, the biggest piece the organization received in the Francisco Lindor trade. Gimenez hit .218 with 5 homers and 18 RBIs (633 OPS) in 188 at bats that season, so he hadn’t established himself as of yet.
Two years later, and the three highly rated prospects are still kind of in limbo.
Arias was given the starting shortstop job after Rosario was moved at this year’s trading deadline, after spending the first part of the year playing first base and right field.
Since assuming the position on August 1st, Arias has batted .218 (29 for 133) with 5 HR and 15 runs batted in, a 632 OPS.
Freeman has received sporadic playing time all year, hitting .240 with a 631 OPS, and Rocchio has spent most of the season in Columbus, hitting .284 with a 796 OPS, but in 70 plate appearances in the big leagues, he hit .242 with a 574 OPS, striking out 22 times.
The point here is not to criticize the players, but rather question the organization for kind of mangling the entire situation.
The purpose of having prospects is to keep the talent flow going through the organization or to use them to get players who are needed at the big-league level. And if you have someone blocking that player and you believe in them, you can move them to another position.
A good example is Jose Ramirez. Ramirez played primarily second base in the minor leagues, but when he was coming up the then Indians had Jason Kipnis, a solid player at his position. So, they moved Ramirez to third base, where he has become a perennial all-star.
So, with the situation for Cleveland after the ’21 season, a decision should have been made to either trade Rosario, making room for Arias, Freeman, or Rocchio, trade one or two of the trio, or moving them to another position.
You could say they tried the latter for Arias, and is his case, he also had some injuries during last year, but again, we are saying this decision should have been made prior to last season.
It is very likely that all three’s value has been diminished since the lack of decision after the 2021 season. They are no longer prospects, so now they are simply young players who have never proven anything at the major league level.
Rocchio might have the highest trade value right now, because he’s had a pretty solid year at AAA.
And compounding this situation is that the Guardians have Jose Tena, who is currently on the big-league roster and Juan Brito, who came over in the trade for Nolan Jones this off-season.
By the way, we have advocated for position changes for Freeman and Brito about a month ago.
It seems like the front office seems reticent to make a mistake, trading the wrong player. But you also have to strike while the iron is hot. We aren’t saying it is easy, but trading a prospect at the right time is an art.
However, what the Guardians have done is not taken advantage of the number of high prospect middle infielders they’ve had and converting them into players they could use.
Instead, they’ve become marginal big leaguers who they can’t find at bats for.
Much like telling a pitcher to “trust his stuff”, the Guardians’ front office needs to trust their judgment. Two years later, they still have a lot of middle infield prospects who are ranked highly.
Let’s see if they have learned from their mistake.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 