The Cleveland Guardians just keep pushing forward. Last week, they started a very difficult stretch playing ten straight games against three of baseball’s best/hottest teams.
One of the games in Minnesota was rained out, but the Guards split there and then went to Detroit and took three of four from the first place Tigers. They had dropped to fourth place after losing the first game in the Twin Cities and fell six games out of first.
Now, they are in second place, five off the pace set by Detroit. They held the Tigers, the second highest scoring team in the American League to just 11 runs in the four-game set, allowing just one run in the first two contests.
Manager Steven Vogt is doing it with a roster that contains very little depth. Using WAR (wins above replacement), the Guardians have three positions, shortstop, centerfield, and rightfield that rank in the bottom two among all AL teams.
And for the mathematically challenged, that’s one-third of your daily lineup.
To be fair, they also have three spots (LF, 2B, and 3B) that rank in the top four of all teams in the Junior Circuit but imagine if Vogt was getting any kind of production from short and two of the outfield spots. No doubt, his job would be much easier.
The league average OPS is 705. Currently, the Guardians have five players on the roster with figures 100 points less than that: Nolan Jones (552), Jhonkensy Noel (408), Lane Thomas (305), Austin Hedges (538), and Will Wilson (564).
Thomas is just coming back off the injured list and his figure should get better with more at bats, but the problem with this it has to be difficult for Vogt to give players a day off.
We know this wasn’t intended by the skipper to phone in Sunday’s game against the Tigers, but the Guardians did win the first three games of the series and Tarik Skubal, the reigning Cy Young Award winner was going for Detroit.
Vogt used that game to give many of his veteran players, save for Jose Ramirez, a needed day off.
The result was a 2-hit shutout with 13 whiffs for Skubal against a lineup that had just two hitters over league average in OPS–Ramirez and Kyle Manzardo.
You could have predicted the outcome before the game and in fact, many on social media did just that.
We would guess very soon that David Fry will be activated from his rehab assignment, and we would guess he would replace Noel on the 26-man roster. However, Fry can only DH right now, which paints Vogt into another corner. His current DH, Manzardo, leads the Guards in homers (10) and RBIs (28).
He’s also second on the team in walks with 21.
If you play Manzardo at first base, then you have to sit Carlos Santana, who leads the team in walks. Either way, you are sitting one of the productive hitters you have.
Could you put one of them in the outfield? Well, Manzardo has never played the outfield since turning professional and the last time Santana played there was 2022 when he played an inning in RF for Seattle.
Again, this situation shines a spotlight on the weird off-season by the Guardians’ front office. There were veteran free agent outfielders on the market, but the team wasn’t interested. Apparently, they felt what they had in the minors would take care of the problem.
Remember, they also traded for Nolan Jones right before the season opened. How has that worked out?
Vogt is operating with no bench right now. He’s done a solid job getting his regulars some rest and spotting at bats for the non-producing players. You have to wonder, how long can he do that?
Cleveland Sports Perspective 