Being Consistent Is So Important In Pro Sports, Especially Baseball

The thing about professional sports (or all sports for that matter) is they are all about consistency. The best players do it almost every game. Think about it, at the professional level, the players are the best in that sport. That means all of them are capable on a certain day or night.

Unfortunately, in today world of social media, people glom onto these players who are sporadic and show flashes of brilliance. But those guys aren’t great players.

In northeast Ohio, we have several players who fit that description. For the Guardians, the player who stands out most is Gabriel Arias.

Arias has skills. He has a tremendous throwing arm and has hit some mammoth home runs. But when you look at the whole, it isn’t pretty. He has an OPS well below the league average at 638 in 2025. He struck out 162 times last season, walking just 27.

Last season, we kept track of games where Guardians’ players did not get a hit, walk, sacrifice (fly or bunt) or got hit by a pitch. Meaning, they did nothing to contribute to the offense. Arias led the team in that category, followed closely by Angel Martinez and Daniel Schneemann.

If you visit this site, you know how important we think walking is to an offense. Why? Because it’s contributing to the offense and it’s not making an out. In today’s baseball world of exit velocity and launch angle, being patient takes a back seat for a lot of people who analyze the sport.

Looking at the MLB leaders in walks, there isn’t a bad hitter in that list. It is populated by players like Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Rafael Devers. We think at times people forget that half of OPS is on base percentage.

One of the reasons the Guardians’ offense struggled in 2025 was because they ranked last in the American League in getting on base. The list of players who couldn’t reach base 30% of their plate appearances seems endless.

Besides the trio mentioned before, you can add Brayan Rocchio, Nolan Jones, and any catcher the Guardians employ. And the 30% threshold isn’t overwhelming either. If a hitter goes 2 for 9 with a walk, they will accomplish that.

And with the ridiculous velocity and spin rates being used by today’s pitchers, we think it makes sense to make hurlers show they can get in the strike zone. If you watch games, think about how many times a batter could literally go to home plate without a bat and draw a walk?

But we digress.

Players in all sports need to be judged on what they do on an everyday basis, not picking out individual game highlights and hoping they can do that every day.

We are privileged in this area to watch a future Hall of Famer, Jose Ramirez, on a daily basis. And when Ramirez has a slump, let’s say he goes hitless in three straight games, it is shocking. Why? Because generally, he does something good with a bat in his hand in most contests.

That’s the mark of a good professional athlete. We are surprised when they don’t do something rather than being shocked when they do.

Series Sweep Points Out Guardians’ Warts

When you are in a race for a post-season spot, the prevailing wisdom is that if you just keep winning series, you will be just fine. And from the middle of July until last week, the Cleveland Guardians did just that, winning nine of the previous ten series they played.

It’s unlikely any team can continue to win each series, so occasionally losing two of three to an opponent isn’t a killer. However, getting swept by a team that is clearly out of the race, at home no less, is a blow to your playoff hopes.

Can it be overcome? Of course, there are still 39 games to play and frankly, if Steven Vogt’s squad rips off six or seven wins in a row, this past weekend’s performance against the Atlanta Braves will be forgotten.

But for right now, it felt like every weakness this ballclub has showed up over the weekend.

The offense didn’t show up with the Guardians scoring just five runs in the three games. On Friday, only two players, Steven Kwan who had two hits and Kyle Manzardo, who walked twice reached base.

Saturday, the Braves started lefty Joey Wentz, already on his third team this season, and allowed just three hits in six innings. The struggles vs. southpaws returned at an inopportune time. Brayan Rocchio homered to provide the only run, while the pure right-handed hitters went 0 for 11 in the contest.

And in Sunday’s finale, the defense played a part. Angel Martinez played second base for the first time since July 24th and made two errors and Manzardo lost a pop up in the sun.

The starting pitching was shaky. Joey Cantillo, who sent to AAA prior to Sunday’s game, went five innings Friday night and allowed just one run, but he walked it in. No Cleveland pitcher has completed six innings in a start since Gavin Williams’ almost no-hitter vs. the Mets.

That was on August 6th. That’s a week and a half ago.

As we said, Cantillo walked in a run and had four free passes in his five innings. Logan Allen walked three in his 4.2 innings on Sunday. Tanner Bibee has walked four hitters in each of his last two outings.

Besides putting men on base, the walks drive up pitch counts and increases the toll on a bullpen that is leaking oil.

Nic Enright, who has pitched well, gave up a game winning home run in the series finale. Kolby Allard has given up runs in his last two relief stints. Carlos Hernandez came into a 1-0 game on Friday in the ninth and allowed an insurance run.

He also got battered in the 13-4 loss to Miami last Wednesday.

And weirdly, despite the starters not going deep in games and some of the relievers not getting the job done, one pitcher, Jakob Junis has appeared in just one game over the last ten days.

It appears Vogt is going to have to pull another rabbit of his hat to put together another run.

It doesn’t help that the front office has dealt him a shorthand. Think about how many players currently on the 26-man roster, who probably aren’t major league caliber players.

We think about players like Santana, Nolan Jones, Hernandez, perhaps Matt Festa. Talk about replacement level.

But does the organization have anyone ready in AAA to replace these guys? That’s the sad commentary.

Guardians’ Front Office Needs To Be Honest. With Themselves

The worst thing any business can do is lie to themselves. The world is constantly changing, and smart people learn to adapt and change. If you don’t it’s a matter of time before you get stuck in the mud and your competition passes you by.

Professional sports is no exception, and the front office of the Cleveland Guardians have a chance to reexamine their evaluation of certain players before the trade deadline this week. We hope they have not started this process today.

We trust that they haven’t, but we also hope they are taking an honest look at the current roster.

If they do, then they will see a position player roster made up of two all-star caliber players in Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan, a player with some pop and promise in Kyle Manzardo, and seemingly a bunch of journeyman players.

Their job would be to figure if any of that latter group can become everyday players.

We think the two players who could do this would be Angel Martinez and we also believe Brayan Rocchio could do that as well.

We have said before that Martinez, a switch-hitter, has a concerning strikeout to walk ratio, which is currently at 71:13. In AAA, it was a much more manageable 85:35 and in AA it was 101:49. Perhaps he is giving too much credit to big league pitchers.

He’s also fourth on the team in extra base hits, behind Ramirez, Kwan, and Manzardo. If he can walk more often, he will be a solid everyday player.

As for Rocchio, we realize we are going out on a limb here. Last year, he had a 614 OPS and this year, it’s even worse at 559. We think the approach Rocchio has taken at the plate since returning to the big leagues can be sustainable, and that’s a 735 OPS.

And if he doesn’t work out, you have Angel Genao, who is hitting .272 at Akron and is one of the top 100 prospects in the sport.

Moreso, they need to take an honest look at players like Nolan Jones, Daniel Schneemann, and Johnathan Rodriguez.

Schneemann looks like a solid utility man. He can play 2B, 3B, and SS (serviceable, but he scares us) and the OF. He has a little pop too, with 14 HR in 489 plate appearances. But he’s not really a good hitter (679 OPS) and his on base percentage is around .300.

Jones’ fans still point to the 20 home runs he hit with Colorado in 2023. His critics point to his almost 600 plate appearances since with six long balls. We jokingly referred to him as Will Brennan who walks more.

Brennan’s issue is he’s a singles hitter who doesn’t walk, which makes him kind of a useless offensive player. But Jones doesn’t get on base enough to offset the lack of pop. He has just 15 extra base hits on the year. Rocchio has 14 in 115 less times at the dish.

Rodriguez has received the least chances of the trio with just 106 plate appearances over two years, but has just a .161 batting average, a 533 OPS and 33 whiffs. He hits the ball on the ground a lot, 68.3% of the time. It’s hard to get extra base hits doing that.

He’s been great at the AAA level, with a 925 OPS, 47 homers and a decent K/BB ratio. But he has to start hitting the ball on a line or in the air more often.

And we’ve already addressed the issue with Carlos Santana. He’s been an excellent player over the years for the Guardians, but right now, he’s blocking a lot of players, including Rodriguez.

We are sure the offices on the corner of Ontario and Carnegie are very busy this week. Hopefully, the folks still think a playoff spot is attainable this year.

Re-Examining The Middle Infielders Of The Recent Past

Over the past few seasons, the Cleveland Guardians’ organization has been accused of collecting middle infielders. Several of these players have dotted the teams’ Top 10 Prospects lists since the 2020 season.

We are using Baseball America‘s lists and focusing on the SS and 2B positions.

Starting with 2020, here are the middle infielders ranked in the organization’s Top 10:

2020: Tyler Freeman (2nd), Brayan Rocchio (5th), Aaron Brocho (9th), Gabriel Rodriguez (10th)
2021: Andres Gimenez (3rd), Freeman (4th), Gabriel Arias (7th), Rocchio (8th)
2022: Freeman (1st), Rocchio (3rd), Arias (5th), Angel Martinez (10th)
2023: Rocchio (5th), Martinez (8th)
2024: Rocchio (2nd), Juan Brito (5th), Martinez (6th)
2025: Travis Bazzana (1st), Angel Genao (2nd), Welbyn Francisca (7th), Brito (10th)

We aren’t going to talk about the last group here because Bazzana and Genao been hurt much of this season and are still at the AAA level, while Francisca is only at the low-Class A level.

As for Brocho and Rodriguez, they haven’t played in the major leagues, so for purposes of this discussion, we are overlooking them.

We also looked at the offensive production of the players at the AAA/AA levels only. We feel that’s fair because top prospects have a tendency to dominate the lower levels at times and can skew the total minor league stats.

One more thing, the renowned Bill James said if you have an on base percentage of .350 and a slugging percentage of .450 you are a good offensive player. That’s where the magic 800 OPS came from. We are using that as the line of demarcation as to what makes a good offensive player.

If you are over one of those figures, that’s still a good thing, it demonstrates you can contribute to a major league lineup.

For what it’s worth, the league average OPS is around 700.

Using those numbers, the best offensive players among these prospects are Juan Brito and Tyler Freeman.

Brito has an 809 OPS in AAA coupled with an 817 OPS in AA. He gets on base regularly (.366 and .373 respectively) and his slugging percentage is very close to the .450 mark. He’s fought injuries this season, but the front office was not wrong in trading for him from Colorado.

Brito is more of a second baseman, and has already been moved around because if Bazzana gets to the bigs, 2B is likely his spot.

Freeman is also a big on base guy, putting together a .398 OBP in AAA and .372 in AA. He did slug .470 at the AA level but was at .399 in AAA to accumulate a 797 OPS at the highest rung in the minor leagues.

The only other player to have a number over the .350/.450 threshold is Rocchio who got on base at a .352 clip in both AAA and AA.

The Guardians seem enamored with the “pop” of Arias, but his slugging percentage at AAA was only .456. While that’s good, it’s not off the charts, especially when you remember the pitching at the big-league level is better than that of AAA.

Martinez hasn’t shown numbers above the .350/.450 plateau in the minors, although he did get close to both in AAA.

One thing we did notice was Ernie Clement’s AAA numbers. He went .362/.490/852 at that level.

To be fair, Jose Ramirez did not have great numbers at these levels either. At AAA, he had a .358 on base average and slugged .427. We do know his power developed later.

We do continue to question how important on base percentage is for this organization. Remember, Yandy Diaz had a .361 OBP with Cleveland, and he was dealt away pretty quickly.

Also, let us remind you the game is measured by outs. You get 27 of them, and if you get on base, you aren’t making an out.

Guardians Without Alternatives With Bats At AAA

The good news is the Cleveland Guardians are sitting at 21-15 and have the third best record in the American League, behind only Detroit and Seattle.

The bad news is based on the number of runs they’ve scored and allowed, their record should be 16-20.

The good news is their offense is right at the league average, scoring 4.14 runs per game.

The bad news is they still have only four hitters in their lineup with OPS over 750.

The good news is the performance of Daniel Schneemann to date. The second-year big leaguer, who got off to a terrible start going 1 for his first 19, is currently red hot. He’s hitting .383 over his last 49 at bats and has a 956 OPS with five homers and 10 extra base hits.

Couple this with Angel Martinez, who also didn’t make the team out of spring training, but since his call up has batted .316 (724 OPS) and has handled centerfield for the most part very well.

On the flip side, there are a number of players struggling mightily. Brayan Rocchio, who looked like he turned a corner in the playoffs last season, is in a dreadful slump and hasn’t had a hit since April 26th and his OPS has slipped to 452.

Another post-season hero, Jhonkensy Noel, had a big pinch hit in the doubleheader Tuesday, but overall is batting just .174 with a 484 OPS and has fanned 21 times in 72 plate appearances and has walked just twice.

Rookie Will Wilson is another Guardians’ bench guy and frankly, we wonder why he’s in the major leagues. He’s hit .235 during his time in AAA, and that includes his hot start in Columbus where he started 22 for 68.

Outside of his time in the capital city, there is nothing to suggest he can hit, let alone big-league pitching. Since his call up to the big club, he’s 3 for 18 and the hits are all singles.

It is quite likely the only reason Rocchio, Noel, and Wilson are still on the 26-man roster is there are no alternatives to note in AAA.

We all know about Chase DeLauter’s injury at the beginning of training camp, but recently another top prospect, Juan Brito went down with a thumb injury that required surgery. He was batting .291 with an 891 OPS and more walks than strikeouts when he went down.

If Will Brennan was a right-handed hitter, he likely would be in Cleveland in place of Noel, but he’s not, and when he was here, he’s been shown to be a singles hitter who doesn’t walk. His slugging percentage is .442 in AAA but has walked just six times.

Perhaps another look at Johnathan Rodriguez should be in the cards, but this time with him getting Noel’s at bats. In both of his stints in the majors, he’s received very sporadic playing time, going 4 for 36.

C. J. Kayfus was just moved up to Columbus after starting the season at Akron and has played only five games at AAA. We doubt the front office will call him up any time soon.

Another problem with the roster construction is Steven Vogt’s reluctance to play Kyle Manzardo at 1B when he is DHing Steven Kwan or Jose Ramirez. Manzardo leads the team in RBIs and is third in OPS, ahead of Ramirez right now.

Yet, he’s not in the lineup when Kwan or Ramirez have a “half day” off. Why doesn’t Manzardo play and Carlos Santana, who is 39 years old, get a day off?

We say it all the time, front office people have to prepare for when things go wrong. The lack of organizational depth is telling for the Guardians.

How much longer than they overcome it? We hope until October.

First Check In For The Guardians

The Cleveland Guardians completed one sixth of their schedule over the weekend, playing game #27 in a dismal 12-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox. The Guards finished this portion of the slate at 15-12, a pace where they would end the year at 90-72, which would likely get them into the post-season.

Cleveland is 8th in the American League in runs scored, averaging 3.95 runs per game, a little below the 4.05 which is league average. Their OPS is at 694, slightly above the AL mark of 691.

All in all, the offense is average, about where it was when the 2024 season concluded.

The pitching staff has been an issue, with a staff ERA of 4.37, 12th in the junior circuit. The Cleveland hurlers have allowed the 5th most walks in the AL, and Tanner Bibee and Luis Ortiz both rank in the top ten in the league in issuing free passes.

And Guardians’ pitchers have also had problems keeping the ball in the yard, as they are tied for 3rd in allowing the most home runs. Giving opponents walks and allowing home runs in Exhibit A in giving up a lot of runs.

What has been particularly disappointing about this edition of the Guardians to date has been the defense. This organization has prided itself in this area, even overpaying for gloves in the recent past.

Brayan Rocchio, a finalist for a Gold Glove a year ago has made six errors and seemingly misplays one routine play per game. We understand gloves go into slumps as well, but the club needs Rocchio to come out of it. The usually reliable Jose Ramirez has also made four errors and has other misplays that haven’t shown up in the box score.

So, it’s not losing Andres Gimenez, okay!

Rocchio is clearly the best defensive shortstop the Guardians have, so they need him to start making the routine plays. We do wonder if the consistent shuffling players around to different positions on pretty much a daily basis hurts the overall defense though.

We doubt that is going to change though.

Back to the pitching, there is no question the team needs Bibee and Gavin Williams to pitch better. Both have been very inconsistent, although for the latter, that has been the norm in his career. Ortiz has to throw more strikes. In his two worst outings of the season, he’s walked four (in 4.2 innings) and five (4.1 frames).

When he throws strikes, he can be very effective.

The bullpen has been in a bit of flux because of Emmanuel Clase’s struggles, allowing 20 hits in 11.1 IP. He looked better in an outing on Saturday, so perhaps he’s turned a corner.

Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, and Tim Herrin have mostly been good, but we wonder how much of a burden they can continue to carry, especially after last season.

Offensively, it’s still the same story, but with a different name. Last year, it was about Ramirez, Steven Kwan, and Josh Naylor. Kyle Manzardo is off to a solid start, with an 840 OPS and team leading totals of 7 HR and 18 RBI. Unfortunately, the Guards dealt Naylor, so the offense still has just three solid bats.

Angel Martinez has provided a lift with a .365 OBP, but that’s based on hitting .360. He and Kwan are the only players with an OBP of .350 or higher.

They do have some pop as five players have slugging percentages over .450. Gabriel Arias has provided nine extra base hits, and a solid .272 batting average. His defense at 2B has been very good as well.

Considering the holes, Steven Vogt’s team is off to a solid start. No one can complain about 15-12 at this point. The starting pitching still needs to be better, meaning more consistent, and providing more outs.

A Different Opening Trip For Guardians Compared To 2024

It’s Opening Day in Cleveland and that’s a certain sign of spring, despite today’s weather forecast. However, the Guardians aren’t coming home with momentum like they did last season in manager Steven Vogt’s first season.

Because of the renovations to Progressive Field, the Guards spent the first nine contests on the road in 2024 and starting hot, arriving in town with a 7-2 record, in route to a 19-10 mark at the end of April.

This season hasn’t been the same. Cleveland won the season opening series at Kansas City, taking two of three, but the west coast was not kind to the team, as they dropped five out of six in San Diego and Los Angeles against the Angels.

Until Luis Ortiz went six innings in the last game of the trip, no starting pitcher completed that many innings on the sojourn. All in all, Cleveland pitching has the second worst ERA in the American League at 5.09 and is tied for second in allowing the most home runs, giving up 14 gopher balls.

The defense has also been a concern, leading the AL in errors to date. Jose Ramirez has made four errors, mostly not coming up with ground balls. Cleveland pitchers have already allowed eight unearned runs, so the mistakes have been costly.

The baserunning hasn’t been crisp either. The Guardians picked up their first stolen bases of the season on Sunday, their ninth game. They’ve been caught four times. And we’ve seen Gabriel Arias thrown out at third in San Diego with men on first and second and no one out, and Brayan Rocchio allowing himself to get tagged out on a double steal attempt with Steven Kwan at the plate.

The latter also should be filed in the curious managing file.

These kinds of mistakes make us wonder if training camp was a little less focused this season coming off winning the AL Central last year.

Offensively, the Guardians are ninth in runs scored, but averaging only 3.78 per game. To be fair, the league average of 4.37 is bloated by the Yankees and Red Sox’ figures, but outside of Kyle Manzardo, no relatively young player has stepped up.

Against the Royals, Guardians’ hitters fanned 18 times and drew 16 walks. In the last six games, Cleveland hitters have struck out 59 times with the same number of bases on balls in twice the amount of games.

Rightfield continues to be a problem as Nolan Jones and Jhonkensy Noel have combined to go 4 for 38 with 13 punchouts and just three walks and only two RBI, both coming on outs.

Lane Thomas has also struggled at the dish, getting off to a 5 for 29 start that includes just one extra base hit. The bench group of Daniel Schneemann, Johnathan Rodriguez, and Austin Hedges have combined to go 2 for 22 in the young season.

Having young players in part-time roles in tough on them, as it is hard to produce with sporadic at bats. That’s an excuse for Rodriguez. It is more than likely that Schneemann will be a utility guy for his career, so he needs to hit when he’s in the lineup.

Look, it is still early. In fact, it is very early. Our concern is we aren’t seeing the crisp baseball we saw a year ago. And we haven’t even talked about how the bullpen has struggled so far.

Prediction For Guardians? We Just Don’t Know…

Today is the real Opening Day for Major League Baseball, and the Cleveland Guardians open their defense of the AL Central Division title against Kansas City. Because of the renovations to Progressive Field, it will be a week and a half before the Guards play in Cleveland.

Can they defend the title and get back to the post-season in 2025? Much like many players on the roster, we say “we just don’t know”.

While the influencers will tell you the Guardians had a solid off-season, we disagree. Their biggest question marks following the season were an offense that was shaky, and ahead of only Detroit among playoff squads in the AL and a starting rotation that had only one proven starter in Tanner Bibee.

During the winter, they traded their second-best home run hitter in Josh Naylor and replaced him with a player who was not good vs. right-handed pitching. They did add a starting pitcher, although one who has just 34 starts at the major league level.

They say if you want to know about a player’s performance, most likely it is reflected on the back of their baseball card, meaning once a player is established, he will likely do what he usually does. And that’s our issue with the 2025 Cleveland Guardians.

We look around and simply have no idea what to expect about of several players projected to be starters for Cleveland.

We like the potential of Kyle Manzardo, Brayan Rocchio, Bo Naylor, and a rightfield platoon of Nolan Jones and Jhonkensy Noel, but if you asked us to place a substantial wager on how successful they will perform this season, we would decline.

Same goes for the rotation. We have confidence in Bibee, and Gavin Williams appears to be back to the guy he was in 2023 when he came up, but figuring out what Ben Lively, Logan Allen, and Ortiz will do?

The biggest strength Cleveland had a year ago was the bullpen, and veteran baseball people will tell anyone that listens it is the most volatile area on any team. Think about it, last year at this time, no one had any clue that Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith, and Tim Herrin would be as dominant as they were.

To think they will all repeat those seasons again is foolish. Maybe Paul Sewald regains his form and someone like Andrew Walters pitches great or Trevor Stephan returns during the year and picks up the slack.

Because of the way the Guardians do their business, it is likely this will be the case for the Guardians every year going forward, particularly under the Dolan ownership. What we mean is perhaps there will never be more than a couple of players who have track records.

However, on this basis, we don’t feel the Guardians will repeat as division champions. Of course, if three or four of the question marks turn out to be productive, Steven Vogt’s crew could win 90 games and make the post-season yet again.

So, what will the 2025 season hold for the Cleveland Guardians? We just don’t know. If we have to guess, let’s say 85 wins and second place in the AL Central.

Will Guards Be Active This Winter? History Says No

The hot stove league is under way in baseball and the Cleveland Guardians had to do some tweaking to the roster to prepare for the winter meetings, which will take place in two weeks.

The most notable moves were the trade of Eli Morgan to the Cubs and that the DFA’d former top prospect George Valera. Valera suffered a ruptured patella tendon near the end of the season and probably won’t be playing baseball until well into the 2025 season, and we were not surprised to see the Guardians sign him to a minor league contract yesterday.

The Morgan deal was a bit of a surprise, but the team did deal from strength. The relief corps is strong and will hopefully be getting Trevor Stephan back from elbow surgery.

And they added Franco Aleman (1.99 ERA in 22.2 innings at AAA) and Nic Enright (1.06 ERA and 31 Ks in 17 IP at Columbus) to the 40-man roster.

For Morgan, the Guardians dealt for a lottery ticket, a Class A outfielder with some pop in Alfonsin Rosario. The downside of Rosario is there is a lot of swing and miss, as he fanned 32% of his at bats at the low A level. He did hit 16 homers and is only 20 years old. But we aren’t as excited about the return as some of the prospect enjoyers.

What will the Guardians do this winter? Despite the crazy rumors on other sites, mostly figments of someone’s imagination (i.e. it would be a shock if the Guardians’ signed Max Scherzer as a free agent), based on past experience, it won’t be an active winter for the front office.

We still see a need to add an impact bat in the outfield, and the starting rotation is also short at least one starter, maybe two. Will the Guardians be willing to get involved in the free agent market? Unlikely, unless there are some bargains out there as spring training gets closer.

Should Cleveland increase their payroll? Of course, they rank in the bottom five of the sport with the Tigers, Reds, Pirates, and A’s. On the other hand, the Guardians and the Pirates rank as in the top five youngest teams in the game, and Detroit 7th youngest.

Cleveland is 20th in attendance this past season, right behind the Orioles, who spend $23 million more in payroll. And they outdraw the Royals by about a half million fans, and KC spends almost $30 million more.

But reality says something different, so we don’t expect any big deals.

However, we would still like to see the front office clean up the glut of middle infielders still on the 40-man roster. The keystone starters will likely be Andres Gimenez and Brayan Rocchio, but you still have Gabriel Arias, Tyler Freeman, Angel Martinez, and Juan Brito on the roster.

The Guards have used their versatility to make them useful, such as using Freeman and Martinez in the OF, and Brito started playing the outfield and first base at AAA this season.

Brito should be bidding for a big league gig this season, so you would think a couple of others need to be moved to make room for him.

And don’t forget the overall first pick in the ’24 draft, Travis Bazzana, will be involved in this mix sooner than later.

The winter meetings used to be exciting because of the wheeling and dealing, but it hasn’t been that way for years. In our opinion, that excitement is needed. It’s sad that some agents hold up the off-season process.

Guardians Still In This Series, But Need A Win Tonight

Former Browns’ coach Marty Schottenheimer used to say no game was “must win” unless if you lose you are eliminated from playoff consideration. On that basis, today’s game three of the American League Championship Series isn’t that, but it’s pretty darn close.

The Guardians are down two games to none in the series, but it’s a best-of-seven series, so they aren’t dead yet, but you can get out the shovels if they can’t win tonight at home.

The big weaknesses that plagued the regular season, starting pitching and the offensive are again the culprits in dropping the first two games of the series.

In the post-season, the Guardians are 3-0 when they scored four runs or more and 0-4 when they tally three runs or less. They’ve put up just five runs in the first two games of the ALCS.

As for the starters, we knew Steven Vogt would rely heavily on the bullpen throughout the playoffs, but in game one, Alex Cobb pitched just 2.2 innings and Tanner Bibee went just 1.1 in the second game. That has caused the skipper to use guys in higher leverage situations than he wanted too.

That has caused some hiccups. Rookie Joey Cantillo came in game one and threw four wild pitches. For those questioning Vogt for going to Cantillo that early (and we were one of those people) understand he likely would have had to bring Cantillo in at some point. He used his best four relievers to the max in the last two games of the Tigers’ series, and no doubt they needed an extra day off.

And in game two, the bullpen was forced to cover 6.2 frames, and it could’ve been 7.2 if the Guards had taken the lead. He correctly used Cade Smith with the bases loaded trailing by two in the second to get out of the jam, which he did allowing just one more run to score.

The point is if either starter could get through four innings, it’s a much better situation for the bullpen. It’s that simple.

As for the offense, Cleveland has just three players with more than one hit in the two games: Brayan Rocchio, who continues to have a tremendous playoff, Steven Kwan, and Josh Naylor. New York has five.

The Yankees have seven extra base hits, the Guardians have just two, the home runs by Rocchio and Jose Ramirez. Cleveland hitters have struck out 21 times, New York hitters just 16.

The Guardians have problems in right field, where Jhonkensy Noel and Will Brennan have combined to go 2 for 25 with one walk in the seven games. And at catcher, Bo Naylor and Austin Hedges have combined to go 0 for 23.

We know Bo Naylor is struggling but pinch hitting for him early in a game just means more at bats for Hedges, who is on the roster for defense and leadership, but is a terrible hitter.

It’s not that the offense hasn’t had opportunities, they were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on in game two. Someone, anyone, needs to come through with a big hit.

Let’s be clear. Right now, this series is not over. A win in game three put the Guardians right back in it. There is pressure on Matthew Boyd to provide some innings and with four days off, no doubt, Emmanuel Clase is prepared to get Vogt at least five outs.

The Guards need a spark offensively. Kwan and Rocchio have gotten on base. They need someone to step up and drive them in.