Tag: colin holderman

Spring Training Nears And Guardians Offense Is Still Subpar

As of today, spring training opens for the Cleveland Guardians in one month. The regular season is about nine weeks away. Yes, snow covers the ground in northeast Ohio, but in a few weeks, baseball will be in the news.

Actually, it is in the news for some franchises, as those teams have made moves to try to improve weaknesses from last season. Other franchises are making news by pushing the sport toward a work stoppage after the 2026 season. Yes, we are talking about you, the Los Angeles Dodgers.

After the season, Steven Vogt talked about improving the bullpen and the offense. The front office has signed some bullpen arms, the most notable being Shawn Armstrong, but it looks like basically they are trying solve that issue with quantity, signing Colin Holderman, Connor Brogdon, and most recently Yorman Gomez.

We don’t necessarily disagree with that because bullpens are arguably the most volatile part of any team, and it is quite possible that by the end of the season, one of the mainstays of the Cleveland bullpen will be someone who isn’t on the radar right now.

But perhaps the bullpen won’t matter because the Guardians had the worst offense in the American League last season, and third worst in all of Major League Baseball, and simply haven’t done anything about it.

Yes, team president Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff will tell you they are trying to provide a runway for the Guards’ top prospects, meaning Chase DeLauter, George Valera, and Travis Bazzana, and to a lesser point, C.J. Kayfus and Juan Brito.

And we will offer the usual opinion we have about this organization at times: Wishing and hoping is not a plan. It’s a great song by Dusty Springfield.

If the Guardians were a 90-loss team, going with the young players and giving them a long leash to see what they can do, should be the plan. But that’s not where they are, they are the two-time defending champions in the AL Central, and the goal, the plan, should be how do we go from being ousted in the League Championship Series in ’24 and in the Wild Card Series in ’25 to get to the World Series.

A particular area where the Guardians need help is right-handed hitting. As a team, they had a 647 OPS vs. left-handed pitching and their hitters from the right side against righties batted just .186 with a 545 OPS.

In short, they need a right-handed bat.

All of the young players mentioned earlier hit from the left side outside of Brito, who is a switch-hitter. The Guardians need someone to hit from the right side of the plate.

And what happens if DeLauter or Valera struggle when the season opens, if they even open the regular season with the team? The Guardians are notoriously conservative having young players open the year with the big club, choosing to keep them out of the cold weather.

So, as of right now, get ready to see the same group who struggled to score runs last season getting a lot of at bats.

Remember, the Guardians finished 88-74 last year. Based on their run differential, they should have been 80-82. They had luck on their side.

The best right-handed hitter Cleveland had a year ago was Gabriel Arias. Think about that and think about should the front office be satisfied with that.

Adding Relief Arms – Good. Still No Bats? Bad

After the season ended, Cleveland Guardians’ skipper Steven Vogt spoke about how the team needed to reconstruct its bullpen for 2026. We are sure part of that is knowing Emmanuel Clase will never throw a pitch for the team again.

Also, in today’s game, you can never have enough bullpen arms, and frankly, the Guardians had available spots on their 40-man roster, so they weren’t losing productive players by adding to the relief corps.

So, the additions of Peyton Pallette, Colin Holderman, Connor Brogdon, and Shawn Armstrong are fine. Sometimes, there is strength in numbers. Armstrong is a veteran, and has the biggest track record.

He probably had a career year last season with Texas with a 2.31 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 74 innings, but he has a lifetime ERA of 3.82 and more Ks than innings pitched over an 11-year career that began with Cleveland in 2015.

But if one or two of the other newcomers and another prospect from the farm system emerges, Vogt should have solid options at his disposal for the 2026 season.

Holderman was someone we looked at in 2024 when the Guards were marching to the AL Central Division title when he had a 3.16 ERA and 56 punchouts in 51.1 innings for Pittsburgh, but he had a terrible year in ’25 with an ERA over 7.00.

If he’s healthy, he’s a solid candidate to bounce back.

Brogdon, who will be 31 next season, has struggled since the 2023 season. He can strike people out, but has been vulnerable to the gopher ball recently, giving up 11 in 47 innings with the Angels last season.

While the bullpen has added depth, the hitting still hasn’t been addressed. Spring training is still two months away, so the front office still has time, but some bats that could have been useful have either come off the market or the rumors are the Guardians aren’t in play.

President Chris Antonetti has said the organization doesn’t want to block the progress of the club’s top prospects, but if the Guardians have designs on winning the Central Division for a third straight year, that cannot be the only plan.

Remember, the Guards had the third worst offense in baseball last season and the absolute worst in the American League. They simply cannot depend on players like Chase DeLauter, George Valera, and C.J. Kayfus, players who combined have less than 200 major league at bats.

What if none of them turn out to be good players? Before you think we are crazy, check most teams’ list of Top 10 Prospects from 4-5 years ago. Probably about half of those players don’t ever turn out to be solid MLB players.

So, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that none of the trio winds up being an everyday player, and for the record, we really like DeLauter, whose problem has been health more than anything else.

That’s why as a contending team; the front office has to plan for the worst-case scenario. And that’s why they have to get at least two proven hitters, in our opinion.

We are sure there will be plenty of disagreement here, but we would look at Luis Arraez as an option although the defensive positioning could be an issue.

The 28-year-old left-handed hitter had a down year last season, but that might make him very affordable. And he’s just a year away from a .346 on base percentage, and his career mark is .363.

We just imagine having Steven Kwan and Arraez at the top of the lineup hitting in front of Jose Ramirez. That ain’t bad.

As we said, there are still six weeks before spring training starts so there is still time. But Guardians’ fans would still like to see some offensive improvement.