We don’t think anyone could debate this has been a weird season for the Cleveland Guardians. They were coming off a 92 win season and a playoff appearance, and the front office even signed free agents to fill holes.
It just didn’t work out. The Guardians’ longest win streak all season has been four games, which coincidentally is also their longest losing streak. They just couldn’t build any momentum, either positive or negative all season long.
It was a season filled with weirdness and here were some of the strangest things we saw this year.
1). They carried three catchers most of the season, but started the season with Meibrys Viloria as the third backstop. He was on the roster for the first 35 games of the season, playing in 10 games, accumulating four plate appearances.
Talk about a waste of a roster spot.
2). After years of dominating the AL Central, the Guardians had a terrible time in the division this season, pretty much an explanation for their below .500 record. They won the series vs. Minnesota, ironically, but are just 15-21 against the other three teams who have a combined record of 181-278 (.394).
Weirdly enough, they’ve held their own against the teams likely to play in the post-season in the American League, going 27-24 vs. Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Minnesota, Houston, Seattle and Texas.
3). How about Zach Plesac’s fall from grace. Yes, he didn’t have a good year in 2022, but he still had a 4.31 ERA and allowed 136 hits in 131.1 innings.
This year, he simply imploded, allowing 18 earned runs in 21 innings and was sent to the minors by early May after just five starts, and designated for assignment later on. And to support the organization’s decision, he compiled a 6.08 ERA in AAA.
A far cry from his first two years in the bigs in 2019 and 2020.
4). The 1968 World Champion Detroit Tigers’ had a shortstop named Ray Oyler, who hit .135 for the season in 247 plate appearances. Cam Gallagher only has 142 times at bat, but he’s hitting .130 as the Guardians’ back up catcher, and somehow made it through the season on the big league roster.
He survived even though David Fry came up from AAA and demonstrated the ability to do a solid job behind the plate, and can swing the bat a bit.
5). How many times did Myles Straw, one of the league’s worst hitters with an OPS of 575 with a single home run on the year, bat in the late innings with the game on the line? In high leverage situations, Straw hit .198 with a 500 OPS.
And Terry Francona appeared irritated when asked why he didn’t pinch hit for Straw in these situations.
6). Speaking of Fry, he pitched more innings for the Guardians this season than August 31st waiver pick up Matt Moore. Fry went four innings on a Labor Day blowout loss against Minnesota, and Moore pitched in five games totaling 4.2 innings before being put on waivers again and being claimed by Miami.
7). Emmanuel Clase leads the AL in saves, and likely will do so for the second straight year. He also became the first Cleveland pitcher to have 40+ saves in consecutive seasons.
He also blew 12 save opportunities. He did that despite allowing just 2 home runs on the season. It seemed every softly hit ball against him found a hole, or the team played bad defense behind him.
It didn’t help that Cleveland had so many close games.
We didn’t even go into the voodoo that left-handed pitchers do to the team.
Hopefully, the Guardians don’t add to the strange doings on in the last week of this disappointing season.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 