The Cleveland Guardians are not a team that makes a lot of trades, so it was certainly very surprising for them to announce they traded a compensatory draft pick and minor league pitcher Matt “Tugboat” Wilkerson to San Francisco for two-time Gold Glove winning catcher Patrick Bailey.

They also sent Bo Naylor back to AAA, although he is headed to the Goodyear facility before he reports to Columbus. More on that in a bit.

We have said for years in answering questions about the usual offensive ineptness of Cleveland catchers that the organization values defense first and foremost behind the plate. Blocking pitches and handling a pitching staff are the primary requirements of the job.

That’s why they have such a high regard for Austin Hedges, who they bring back year after year on one year deals. Getting Bailey is just another reminder of that.

Bailey can’t hit. His career OPS is 609 (keep in mind, the league average is usually around 700). His career batting average is .228, he gets on base only 28% of the time, and his career high in home runs is eight.

Again, the Guardians don’t care about that. However, we believe you need six or seven solid offensive players to have an effective major league offense and if you are punting on the catching position, that means pretty much everyone else in your lineup has to contribute offensively.

In Bailey’s debut with the Guards, he came up in a bases loaded, two out situation with Cleveland down 5-2 in the bottom of the fifth. He struck out.

The Guardians rank 10th in the AL in runs scored. Their starting pitching have struggled to provide Steven Vogt length in games. The bullpen has two, maybe three reliable arms right now.

The point is those are the areas that need help for the ’26 Guardians. Yet, the front office decided to make a deal for another defensive catcher who will likely provide nothing offensively.

As for Naylor, Vogt and the front office stressed how they haven’t given up on the former first round draft pick, but we would file that under the “BS” file. Where exactly would be the place for Naylor? The organization has pretty much handed the catching duties over to Bailey and Hedges, so where exactly does he fit in?

And at Columbus, they have one of their top ten prospects in Cooper Ingle, who is hitting .370 in AAA, albeit in 77 plate appearances. He’s a .287 hitter in four minor league seasons and is a Top 100 prospect according to MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus.

They also have Kody Huff down there, so it is difficult to see where Naylor is going to get at bats.

Perhaps they have something in the works to move Naylor pretty quick, so they didn’t want to disrupt the playing time in Columbus. We will see.

As for Ingle, we have read the reason he wasn’t a candidate to get called up is the organization wants him to work on things defensively. That’s organization speak for they just don’t want to call him up right now.

Remember when they told people James Karinchak, who was mowing down hitters in the minors, couldn’t get called up until he got better in his fielding? And that’s not the only time they discovered some weird reason for not calling someone up.

Hopefully, this works out for the Guardians. But making a deal where you use assets to improve something that wasn’t a glaring weakness seems like a waste.