Credit For The Ramirez Deal Should Go Only To Jose

They have been a lot of stories written about the negotiations between the Cleveland Guardians and Jose Ramirez as spring training was ending, and the resulting contract extension for the all-star third baseman, which will keep him in town through the 2028 season.

First, let us say we are thrilled Ramirez is staying. He is one of the top ten players in the game, with a trio of top three finishes in the AL MVP voting over the last five seasons. Baseball fans around northeast Ohio deserve to see someone play the majority of a great career in a Cleveland uniform.

We have brought this up before, but the last player to spend 10 seasons in the big leagues and only wear an Indians/Guardian jersey was Al Rosen, and he retired in 1956.

Other smaller market teams have their icons: Milwaukee has Robin Yount, Kansas City has George Brett. Colorado has Todd Helton.

Jose Ramirez can be that guy for northeast Ohio baseball fans.

And the credit for this is all on one person, and that is Jose Ramirez.

There is no question in our mind Ramirez could have received much more on the open market, figure between $25 and $30 million per year for seven or eight seasons. Texas gave Marcus Semien, who is two years older and not as good as a player, $175 million over seven years. You have to estimate Ramirez would have received over $200 million on the open market.

But he wanted to stay.

According to the stories by national writers, had Ramirez wanted to be paid commensurate with other players with his resume, he would have returned to Progressive Field this past week as a member of either the San Diego Padres or Toronto Blue Jays. The front office was fully prepared to trade him now in order to get the best return.

The Guardians management learned from the Francisco Lindor situation that moving a potential free agent prior to his walk year doesn’t yield the same market value.

However, Ramirez took a “discount” and wanted to remain in a Cleveland uniform, stating he wanted to retire here, go into the Hall of Fame as a Guardian, and win a World Series with the organization.

That’s the perfect news fans want to hear.

Mark Shapiro’s father, Ron Shapiro, who was an agent, said he told the athletes he represented there was a value in playing your entire career in one city. You become a part of that city and can tie yourself into that community.

Even though Bernie Kosar finished up in Dallas and Miami, look at how many local businesses want Bernie speaking on their behalf.

It seems like Ramirez felt the same, and we would bet we will start seeing Ramirez used in advertisements around this area soon.

Unfortunately, this signing isn’t going to make us feel any better about the ownership of the team. They simply did what any owner would do, keep a great player who made it very clear he wanted to stay, even taking less money to do so.

If you can’t do that as an owner, why are you even involved in professional sports.

Fans here should be thankful for Jose Ramirez. He is the reason this deal got done. No one else.

Early Season For Guards? You Have To Be Encouraged

It seems like yesterday that the Cleveland Guardians opened the delayed 2022 season in Kansas City, but after yesterday’s doubleheader against Toronto, the Guards have hit the 1/6th point in the ’22 campaign.

What have we learned? The biggest takeaway is what we knew going into the year. This is a very young team and therefore prone to streakiness, so a close to .500 record (13-14) makes sense. Our guess is that will stabilize as the year goes on.

The offensive has improved, or has it? Cleveland ranks 2nd in the AL in runs scored per game at 4.68, trailing only the Yankees. However, remember the streakiness we discussed? Terry Francona’s squad has been held to two runs or less in 11 of the 27 games, and have scored 17 runs, 11 runs, 10 runs twice as well.

They are 1-10 when they score two or fewer, so when they get to three, their record is 12-4. Pretty good, eh?

In the off-season, we said the ability to get on base had to improve for Cleveland, and to date it has. The Guardians are 3rd in the league in on base percentage.

Last year, only Jose Ramirez and Myles Straw had OBPs of over .350. So far this season, there are five players with over 50 plate appearances (beside Ramirez and Straw, Owen Miller, Steven Kwan, and Andres Gimenez) who are getting on base 35% of the time or more.

Miller has already walked more this season than he did in all of the 2021 season.

And though we doubt Miller can continue to hit .353 or Kwan can hit .319, we also don’t think Franmil Reyes will continue to hit .204 even though his strikeout to walk ratio is an unsightly 43 to 3.

To be fair, we also don’t think Andres Gimenez will stay over .340 and Josh Naylor won’t hit over .300 either, but both should be in the lineup everyday.

The organization has shifted from the big swing players to guys who can put the ball in play, and we think that is a great move in the right direction.

They started scouting players with good contact rates in amateur ball a few years ago, figuring they can develop power easier than teaching players to make contact.

Surprisingly, the Guards’ team ERA is third last in the American League at 4.03. They have held opponents to three runs or less 11 times, going 8-3 in those games.

Part of the problem has been the slow start of Aaron Civale, who has a 9.45 ERA, but did turn in his best outing of the year Thursday night against Toronto. Zach Plesac has also struggled in his last two starts, allowing 10 ER in 8-2/3 innings.

The bullpen has stabilized. Emmanuel Clase had a bit of a struggle early but has looked like himself in the last week or so. Trevor Stephan and Nick Sandlin have emerged as the bridges from the starter to Clase.

Lefty Sam Hentges, pretty terrible last year as a starter, has thrived as a reliever, pitching 13 innings and allowing just one run. Most of his outings have been in low leverage situations, but that could change soon.

This is a fun team to watch for the most part, and we are intrigued to watch these young players develop. Also, there is no curious veteran playing for the most part, unless you are not an Amed Rosario fan (and we aren’t, really).

Hanging around .500 will keep you in the mix for a playoff spot for a while, and that’s what you want from the squad.

So far, so good for the Guardians.

Guardians: Walks Down, So Is The Run Count

Heading into the 2022 baseball season, our biggest concern about the offense of the Cleveland Guardians was the inability to get on base.

It looked like this improved in the first six games of the year, when the Guardians drew four or more walks in five of the first half dozen contests.

And the team scored seven or more runs in four of those games.

However, since then, Guards’ hitters have drawn four or more bases on balls just once (Monday night in Anaheim, they were shutout anyway), and have only scored more than five runs twice.

And one of those games was an 11-1 win over the White Sox in which the opponents committed four charged errors, and it could have been more.

After the initial six games, Guardian hitters have had a game with 15 strikeouts and no walks, 12 punchouts and one walk, and 10 K’s with two walks.

Cleveland currently sits fifth in the AL in on base percentage, mostly because they have the second highest batting average in the league (.253, my how the game has changed).

They are 11th in drawing walks, so really not that much improvement.

Myles Straw leads the Guards in walks with 10, followed by Steven Kwan with nine, and Jose Ramirez with seven. This trio has a little more than half the free passes Cleveland has received through the first 17 games of the season (26 out of 50).

The best strikeout to walk ratios belong to these players:

Batting average OPS
Kwan 6:9 .341 956
Ramirez 7:7 .353 1.151
Straw 14:10 .261 .669
Owen Miller 8:5 .450 1.300

As you can see, if you know the strike zone, you can be a better hitter. Compare those figures to these–

Batting average OPS
Oscar Mercado 14:0 .185 655
Franmil Reyes 30:3 .161 430
Austin Hedges 13:3 .125 405
Andres Gimenez 11:1 .286 804

Gimenez is the only Guardians’ hitter with a poor strikeout to walk ratio that is putting up good numbers.

On Monday, Reyes came to the plate with runners on first and second and no one out, and actually had a 3-0 count, before swinging at two pitches out of the strike zone. That’s probably the worst at bat by a Cleveland hitter this season to date.

Certainly, with Straw, Kwan, and Ramirez at the top of the lineup, for the most part, they are making opposing pitchers work to get outs. They see a lot of pitches in most plate appearances.

The rest of the lineup save for Miller? Not so much.

It is odd that notorious hacker Amed Rosario, is tied with Miller at five bases on balls, but he is usually up there swinging if a pitch is close, and that causes him to get himself out at times.

Meanwhile, the three players who have poor numbers at judging a ball from a strike, Mercado, Bobby Bradley, and Yu Chang have combined to strikeout 22 times without drawing a walk. Again, most of that has been done by Mercado.

For the offense to pick up again, the Guardians’ hitters have to be more selective and stop swinging at bad pitches. We know, easier said than done.

And Reyes has to be better. We know he can be streaky, and part of the reason is his idea of the strike zone. Teams have already started to pitch around Ramirez. The opponents have to pay for doing that.

Guardians Get Patient, Start Scoring.

What a turn around for the Cleveland Guardians, right?

That’s if you can use a two game sample size as the basis for any discussion, which of course a rational human being would not do.

Still, it is eye opening. After the first two games of the 2022 season, in which the Guardians played 19 innings and scored a lone run, Sunday’s game against the Royals featured Kansas City starting Kris Bubic, a left-hander.

Terry Francona gave Bobby Bradley the day off vs. the southpaw and curiously also gave Yu Chang the day off after the pair went 0 for 10 in games one and two with five strikeouts, four of them from Chang.

It was probably a coincidence on that day, but the Guards scored six in the first inning on their way to a 17-3 win, their first of the season.

They scored 10 runs the next two games as well.

It would not be fair to put the blame on the first two games on Bradley and Chang, and if you visit this site often, you know how we feel about both players as hitters. We were never fans of them, or really, anyone with bad strikeout to walk ratios.

However, in moving contact master Steven Kwan up to the #2 spot in the batting order, the first three hitters in the Cleveland lineup all make the opposing pitcher get the ball in the strike zone.

Leadoff man Myles Straw had the second best on base percentage on the squad last season, and the guy he trailed, Jose Ramirez hits third. It sets the tone in the first inning with this trio grinding out at bats and taking walks.

When Franmil Reyes starts hitting, he will no doubt have a boatload of RBI opportunities.

Another young player, Owen Miller has started the 2022 season like he did in AAA last season, that is to say, raking. He has fanned just twice on the season while compiling seven extra base hits (5 doubles and two home runs).

Amed Rosario has dropped into the #5 hole, not a traditional spot for a guy with little power, but he’s also putting the ball in play, fanning just once on the season.

And Ernie Clement hasn’t played much, but he’s walked twice and been hit by two pitches. He’s another guy with a contact profile in the minor leagues, despite striking out three times yesterday.

Some fans have speculated that Bradley and Chang’s future with the team is coming to an end, but we think it’s just about Tito going with the hot bats. It isn’t the organizations style to end a player’s tenure (especially ones that came up through the system) after a couple of games.

On the other hand, if this team keeps hitting, it will be hard for those two to get bigger opportunities.

Look, the first two teams the Guardians have played aren’t known for their pitching, so is the offensive explosion sustainable? That remains to be seen, and the next two series are against the Giants and White Sox, a step up in competition.

But the shift from all or nothing at bats by most of the batting order to a patient, put the ball in place approach seems like it should help score more runs, and that was a problem last year for Cleveland.

The first two series have spurred some interest in Cleveland baseball fans. That’s the best result.

Kudos For Signing Jose, But It Looks Like 3rd For Guards in ’22

After a pretty dreary winter for baseball fans in northeast Ohio, the sun peaked out a little yesterday.

First, today is the beginning of the baseball season, another sign that warmer weather will be here soon, and the Guardians will be home next week after six games, four in Kansas City and two in Cincinnati.

Second was the news baseball fans wanted to hear for a long time. Jose Ramirez, one of the best players in the game, signed a five year extension, keeping with the franchise through the 2028 season.

Ramirez could be the first great player to finish his career in a Cleveland uniform while spending every day of it in that uniform since the 1950’s.

We aren’t going to go overboard in praise of the current ownership because they simply did what any owner interested in winning would do. It’s a shame they couldn’t do it with Francisco Lindor a year ago so we could watch the duo of Ramirez and Lindor reach their prime in Cleveland.

It’s a great step in the right direction, but the Guardians’ payroll is still among the lowest in the sport, and the owners continue to put large profits in their pocket. So, forgive us for not sharing a virtual hug with Paul Dolan.

With the games starting to count today, what does the 2022 season hold in store for the newly minted Guardians? We would love to be more optimistic, but we see a third place finish for Terry Francona’s squad, behind Chicago and Minnesota in the AL Central.

Besides Ramirez, the Guardians have one other big thing going for them, and that’s an excellent starting rotation, providing everyone stays healthy. Last year, that did not happen.

Because of the injuries the rotation is probably deeper with the emergence of Cal Quantrill and Triston McKenzie in the second half of 2021. The five starters, including Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, and Zach Plesac, give the Guards a chance to win every night.

In today’s game, that’s a big thing.

However, beyond that, your guess is as good as ours.

The offense looks like it will struggle. Francona can really write in one great offensive player (Ramirez) and two decent ones (Myles Straw and Franmil Reyes) every day.

We are interested in seeing how Andres Gimenez does this year, but the organization seems hell bent on finding out for sure on players like Bradley Zimmer, Oscar Mercado, and Bobby Bradley.

We are pretty sure we know how that movie ends.

The quicker we see more of Josh Naylor and Steven Kwan among others, the better. And the hitting might get better too.

The bullpen is another area that is up in the air. Who will be the primary set up men for Emmanuel Clase? We are sure Bryan Shaw will start in the role, but who else? We like Nick Sandlin, but he was hurt at the end of the season, and has pitched in just 34 games in the majors.

Besides Anthony Gose, the relief corps right now is filled with pitchers who will be providing length rather than one inning stints.

We will see how that plays out.

Our guess is the Guardians will look a lot different in June and July than they will this afternoon, but did they have to? Last year, the team was very much in the race until Bieber, Plesac, and Civale went down.

If the rotation can avoid the injury bug, the Guardians could stay in the race, but more than likely the lack of offense will be the reason this will be another year outside of the post-season, even with an extra spot available.

Just Five Years Ago, Cleveland Baseball Was Riding High

In 2017 the Cleveland Indians completed a season in which they won a club record 102 games, but lost in disappointing fashion to the Yankees in the AL Division Series in five games. That after taking a 2-0 lead in the series.

They had two of the best players in the game in Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez, and that duo was just 23 and 24 years old, respectively. The pitching staff was led by two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and another future Cy Young Award winner in Trevor Bauer.

The payroll for that season ranked 18th in all of baseball at $114 million (according to BaseballReference.com), and the Tribe drew slightly over 2 million fans, an increase from ’16. They were 3rd in the AL in runs scored.

Following a World Series appearance the year before, it certainly seemed like the franchise was headed for a long tenure at the top.

After that season, Carlos Santana, Jay Bruce (a late season pick up in ’17) and Bryan Shaw left via free agency, with Yonder Alonso signed to replace Santana. The payroll increased to $143 million, ranking 13th in baseball, and attendance dropped slightly to 1.9 million.

They remained 3rd in the AL in runs scored.

They did trade for former AL MVP Josh Donaldson to bolster the roster in September.

The team’s record fell to 91-71, understandable since they set a club record the year before. And they were swept in the ALDS by Houston.

After that season, many of the players well known to fans began to leave. Michael Brantley, Cody Allen, Andrew Miller, Josh Tomlin, and Brandon Guyer all were free agents.

Yan Gomes was traded for Daniel Johnson and Jefry Rodriguez. Edwin Encarnacion and Yandy Diaz were moved in a three way deal that brought back Santana and Jake Bauers.

The Gomes move hasn’t paid dividends, mostly because Johnson doesn’t seem to be in good favor with the front office. And while Diaz is a regular with Tampa, now a perennial contender, Bauers was a bust and was let go.

Santana did have a very good 2019, but then departed as a free agent after 2020.

In 2019, the team finished second in the AL Central with a 93-69 record, but missed the playoffs. The payroll ranked 11th at $151 million, but attendance dropped to 1.7 million. And they fell to 7th in scoring runs.

During the year, the front office moved Trevor Bauer in a three team deal which netted the Indians, Franmil Reyes and Yasiel Puig.

Reyes is a fixture in the shaky lineup today, providing power, but still isn’t a polished hitter, striking out a lot, but doesn’t get on base enough.

Kluber was moved after the season, but no one can complain about this one. Emmanuel Clase is the closer and last season had a tremendous year. Kluber is now on his fourth team since leaving Cleveland.

The 2020 season was shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Tribe did make the expanded playoffs, losing in a three game series to New York, 2-0, but the once potent offense dropped to 13th in the American League in scoring.

During that season, the front office dealt another mainstay in Mike Clevinger, and they hope that move sets the foundation of future success. They received starter Cal Quantrill, starting catcher Austin Hedges, and 1B/OF Josh Naylor, who is a regular, as well as prospects Gabriel Arias, Owen Miller, and LHP Joey Cantillo.

Even with the trades of Kluber, Bauer, and Clevinger, the starting pitching has still been solid. Shane Bieber won a Cy Young, and Quantrill and Triston McKenzie, a farm system product, show signs of being special.

And of course, Lindor was moved prior to last season (with another starting pitching mainstay, Carlos Carrasco) for four players, two of them deep in the minors, but also INF Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, who really don’t appear to be standouts for now.

It was only five years ago when the Cleveland baseball team had everything going for it. Right now, it seems like 50 years ago. If the Clevinger deal doesn’t work out like the front office thought, it could be awhile before the offense is good enough to contend.

Guardians Inactivity Is Mind Boggling

When baseball locked out its players, fans were left to think about all the transactions that could be made to strengthen their favorite baseball team.

Now that spring training camps are open, and have been that way for a couple of weeks, supporters of the Cleveland Guardians are still feeling the same way.

Since the labor agreement was reached, the Guardians’ front office has added one player, catcher Luke Maile, another defensive oriented catcher with a lifetime OPS of 568.

It is evident to us that one of two things are in play here: Either Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff are completely satisfied by the current roster or ownership isn’t giving them any money to spend.

And if the latter is true, that still doesn’t preclude the brass from making trades.

In case you missed it, the Guardians didn’t win the World Series last season. In fact, they finished under .500 for the season at 80-82.

Their current offense features one hitter with a slugging percentage of over .450 and also an on base percentage of .350 (Jose Ramirez) and two hitters who above those figures in just one of the categories (Myles Straw in OBP and Franmil Reyes in slugging).

Cleveland ranked in the middle of the pack in the AL in slugging a year ago, but were third from the bottom in getting on base. We have written about this ad nauseum all off-season, and suggested several available candidates, such as Andrew McCutchen, Anthony Rizzo, and Tommy Pham.

Only Pham is still available, as is Michael Conforto, who has a career .356 OBP. To date, the Guardians have not been linked with any of them.

Yes, there is still time to make a move, but the season opens two weeks from Thursday.

The Guards’ roster make up is very strange. They have 13 players on the current 40 man roster without any big league experience. They have a glut of middle infielders, including four of their top ten prospects.

The assumption was the front office would deal from strength to bolster the team’s holes, which would be the outfield and the bullpen.

Now, if the Guardians are going to make a commitment to play their young outfielders, such as Steven Kwan (.380 OBP in the minors), Richie Palacios (.409), or even Oscar Gonzalez (871 OPS at AAA/AA last season), then we can get on board with that.

However, our fear is they will trot Bradley Zimmer and Oscar Mercado out there for the first six weeks of the season, and wonder why they got off to a poor start.

Terry Francona has also said they are planning to use Amed Rosario at both LF and SS. This is another head scratcher. Shortstop is the key defensive position on the diamond, and Rosario is not very good at the position.

And it’s not as though Cleveland doesn’t need a left fielder. Just put Rosario out there and open up short for Andres Gimenez and/or Gabriel Arias.

Oh, and is Josh Naylor is ready for the opener, move him to first base and leave him there.

This organization seems to be terrified of making a mistake, and we believe that is why we continue to see Zimmer, Mercado, and even Bobby Bradley get chance after chance.

There is enough of a history with each of those players that most people can figure out what they will bring to a team. Unfortunately, the people in charge obviously cannot.

For years, people around the sport have praised the Guardians’ front office. Is it time to start judging them more harshly.

Baseball Is Back, Let’s Talk Some Guardians

Baseball is back, and the problems for individual franchises now shift from the meeting room to the playing field. The Cleveland Guardians are no exception.

The Guards have finished last season 13 games out of first place in the AL Central, and a dozen games out of the wild card spot. And the sixth best record in the league, and that will make the post-season this season, was Seattle and they won ten more contests than Terry Francona’s squad.

Cleveland finished ninth in the Junior Circuit in runs scored, and despite the strength of the organization being pitching, they were 10th in ERA, most due to a rash of injuries to the starting pitchers, mainly ace Shane Bieber, who made just 16 starts.

Still, with good health the rotation should be the backbone of the team. Cal Quantrill emerged to post a 2.89 ERA over 149-2/3 innings, and Triston McKenzie showed flashes, including a seven start stretch in the second half where he threw 46 innings and allowed just 9 runs, a 1.74 ERA.

And don’t forget that Aaron Civale was leading the league in wins when he went down with a finger injury, and although Zach Plesac, who also missed time, was spotty, he still allowed less hits than innings pitched.

Eli Morgan and Logan Allen will be available in Columbus to start the season if need by to provide depth.

The bullpen is another matter. Emmanuel Clase was tremendous and should have had more support for rookie of the year, posting a 1.29 ERA and 24 saves. Behind him are question marks.

James Karinchak struggled coming down the stretch and Nick Sandlin was injured at the end of last season. The hope is that Trevor Stephan and Anthony Gose can contribute, but if we know Francona, he will want some veteran experience in relief.

Offensively, this team needs a lot of help. There is really just one great offensive player, Jose Ramirez, and not much else.

If an excellent hitter is a guy with an on base percentage over .350 and a slugging percentage over .450, then Ramirez is it.

What’s worse is Myles Straw is the only other player with an OBP over .350 on the roster. And next best figure is Bradley Zimmer, who has huge holes in his swing, at .325 (he was hit by 15 pitches). Amed Rosario got on base at a .321 clip.

The number of players beside Ramirez who slugged better than .450 also numbers one–Franmil Reyes (.522). That leaves the Guardians one excellent bat, and two solid bats. That’s it. To be able to score enough runs, conventional wisdom says you need six good hitters.

That leaves the Guards about three short right now. So, the front office has some work to do before the regular season begins. The have to find some guys who can get on base and/or players who can accumulate some extra base hits.

And as of today, we would say there are only four positions written in stone: Ramirez at 3B, Straw in CF, Reyes at DH, and Austin Hedges behind the plate.

That’s an awful lot of uncertainty, particularly with a shortened spring training.

It is good to talk about the actual game and not labor issues. However, now we have to look at the holes on the Guardians’ roster. How quickly can these be resolved without some moves by president Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff.

If the Guards want to get in the playoff chase, they need to score a lot more runs.

Guardians Should Buck The Trend And Embrace The Stolen Base

In the past couple of years, Cleveland professional sports teams have gone against the grain in their respective sports.

Today’s NFL is largely a passing league, but the Browns’ offense is based around the running game, featuring one of the best running backs in the sport in Nick Chubb, and another former NFL rushing champion in Kareem Hunt.

The Cavaliers have gone away from the current trend of guard oriented attacks and three point shooting, and J.B. Bickerstaff starts three players 6’11” or more on a nightly basis.

For the most part, those teams have had success being different.

We would like to propose the third professional team in town, the Guardians do something other teams are not doing as well.

Bring back the stolen base.

Most of the teams around the major leagues are talking long ball. Scoring runs with a few base hits are rare now. The collective batting average in the American League last season was .245. When the Indians were the American League champions in 2016, the league average was .256.

The Guardians can hit home runs, they were 7th in the AL last season. But they were third worst in the circuit in on base percentage.

They did rank 2nd in the league in stolen bases though. Why not go against the grain and have an homage to the way the sport was played in the 70’s and 80’s?

Myles Straw stole 30 bases last season, but he gets on base at a .349 clip. Could Straw steal twice that many if encouraged to do so? We believe he could.

Jose Ramirez belted 36 dingers last season, but he is one of the best baserunners in the game. He stole 27 bases last year and surely could do the same this season.

Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez, one of whom will likely be the Guards’ starting shortstop in ’22, combined to steal 24 bases without being caught. Both have excellent speed and whoever gets the bulk of the playing time should be able to swipe 30 bases.

The prevailing thought today is the fear of getting caught stealing, thus ending a rally or taking the bat out of a player like Ramirez’ hands.

So, to embrace the speed game, you must eliminate fear. If Straw gets on base and steals second leaving first base open with Ramirez coming up, let the opponents put him on. Then do a double steal, putting the runners on second and third.

We aren’t big fans of Bradley Zimmer and/or Oscar Mercado, but if they earn spots in the lineup, it just adds another speedster to the batting order. Zimmer in particular can fly.

Richie Palacios, who could make the Opening Day roster with a good spring, stole 20 bases between AAA and AA last season. If he’s on the roster, let him run.

Using the running game would also help with the excitement factor at the ballpark and give the newly named Guardians a new identity. And you would put pressure on the defense and the opposing pitcher knowing the team would be uber-aggressive on the basepaths.

We wouldn’t ask a slugger like Franmil Reyes to be running wild, but when you think about it, how many “sluggers” do the Guardians have? The team’s personnel kind of lends itself to a speed game.

The Guardians are aggressive already trying to take extra bases on hits, and we love that. But why not extend it to stolen bases?

Bring back the steal! The Guardians are the team to do it.

It’s Time To Start Thinking Baseball, But…

Baseball’s international signing period started this week and is getting all kinds of attention, more than normal.

The signings are very important, to be sure. It’s how the Guardians signed Jose Ramirez, and more recently several of their top prospects, OF George Valera, SS Brayan Rocchio, INF Jose Tena, and power hitter Jhonkensy Noel joined the organization in the same manner.

But it’s getting more publicity this year because it’s the only baseball we can talk about with the lockout imposed by the owners still in place. It doesn’t help that the two sides have met once since the calendar flipped to 2022 either.

Spring training should be starting in less than a month, with the sentence baseball fans love to hear, “Pitchers and catchers report on either February 12th or 13th”. It seems very unlikely that will happen as of today.

The first exhibition game for the Guardians is supposed to be February 26th, but unless negotiations speed up drastically, that’s unlikely as well.

This is the time of year Guards’ fans should be talking about the various position battles around the diamond and do any of the hard throwing young arms out of the bullpen have a shot at making the Opening Day roster.

Instead, the ray of hope that gets fans of the grand ol’ pastime through the winter isn’t there. The hot stove season has been turned off.

Fans should be discussing the make-up of the Guardians’ current 40-man roster, which includes 14 players who have never played even one inning of a major league game. Teams can keep 26 players, so does that mean all of the men who have big league experience are a lock to be at Progressive Field to open the season? We doubt that it does.

What does Terry Francona do about the middle infield? Amed Rosario did very well with the bat last season, but defensively, he’s not an everyday shortstop. So, what does the organization do?

They could move Andres Gimenez back there, and he should be better defensively, or do they give rookie Gabriel Arias, who spent all year at AAA a shot? And then what happens at second base?

Does Rosario go there? Or does the team look at Owen Miller, Yu Chang, or even Ernie Clement, who appears to be more of a utility man at this point.

Or does Rosario get traded to open up the spot for Gimenez or Arias. Or do two of this trio get moved to make room for Rocchio in 2023?

This is the speculation and discussion that aren’t at the forefront right now because there is nothing going on in the game.

We should be talking about the Cleveland outfield, and who will play in the corner spots surrounding Myles Straw? Will Tito lean on the retreads of Bradley Zimmer and Oscar Mercado, or will he entrust the high on base percentages of rookies Steven Kwan and Richie Palacios. The latter had a strong Arizona Fall League season, and could figure in the mix at 2B too.

Will Josh Naylor be ready for Opening Day and will he return to the outfield, or will he move to first base and challenge Bobby Bradley and/or Chang?

Again, spring training is supposed to start very soon. Our guess is when (fingers crossed) an agreement is reached, a flurry of moves will be made by all teams. We don’t believe for a minute that discussions haven’t been going on.

Until then, all baseball fans can do is hope that some intelligence prevails, and baseball can start next month. For people who live in the northeast, it’s one way we use to get through the snow and cold of winter.