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.