Tag: nathaniel lowe

Guardians Aren’t A Good Team, But Someone Has To Make The Playoffs

The race for the last wild card spot in the American League is like the island of misfit toys. The Guardians are tied for the top spot at 72-71 with Toronto, but Texas (70-73), Baltimore (69-74), and even Minnesota (68-74) are hanging around.

Of those teams, Cleveland and the Rangers have a second opportunity to play October baseball because both of still in their division races, the Guardians being 2.5 behind the White Sox and Texas being 3 behind Houston.

When we look at the local team, we see a team that simply isn’t very good. Despite the deadline acquisitions of Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe, the offense is still third last in the game in runs scored. They have had some big games, scoring eight or more runs five times since August 3rd, but they’ve also been shutout six times in that span.

As for the pitching, Gavin Williams and Parker Messick are consistent, and for the most part, newcomer Foster Griffin is going to give you a solid effort, but when Tanner Bibee and Joey Cantillo take the bump, no one can be confident in how they will pitch.

The baserunning, which has been a strength of the past several years, has been plagued by silly mistakes. After hitting two homers to win the first game on Friday, Brayan Rocchio led off the third with a shot up the gap and the Guardians’ trailing. He tried to go to third and was thrown out, apparently not briefed on the rule to never make the first or third out of an inning at third base.

The bullpen has been better of late but went through about a month stretch where the only reliable guy was Cade Smith.

The defense seems to make an error or a misplay once a game, costing Steven Vogt’s crew an out in a key situation. Angel Genao’s throwing error this past week against Toronto is a glaring example.

Our point is none of the teams mentioned earlier are good teams, yet one of them, maybe two, are going to qualify for the playoffs, and frankly, we would like nothing better than it being the Cleveland Guardians. It makes the fall and winter go faster.

Many of the ups and downs for this team are due to its youth. On most nights, they are playing three rookies, usually Chase DeLauter, Travis Bazzana, and lately Angel Genao or Angel Martinez. And with youth comes inconsistency and mistakes.

The organization sacrifices hitting at catcher in favor of having elite defenders at the spot. And we also think some of the defense issues come from the constant shuffling of positions for players. Genao seems to shuffle around the infield on a daily basis. It’s probably a credit to his talent that he plays as well as he does.

However, if baseball is to be played in 2027, the front office shouldn’t overrate this team. Yes, there will be improvement from the young players, but the trades for Adell and Lowe should demonstrate the needs for some experienced players on the roster.

The goal shouldn’t be to win the AL Central. It needs to be winning the World Series

The Guardians’ Front Office Swings Into Action.

Well, the Guardians certainly did not stand pat at the trade deadline this season. And that is good to see.

For us, the biggest move was trading four players, one of whom saw time in the bigs this season in Will Dion, to the Washington Nationals for 30-year-old left-hander Foster Griffin, an All-Star with a 12-3 record and a 3.06 ERA with 116 Ks in 129 innings this season.

He will slide into Slade Cecconi’s spot in the rotation giving the Guardians a solid starter in every game in which they take the field. The southpaw spent the last three seasons in Japan winning 18 games with a 2.57 ERA.

We also think getting Griffin helps manage Parker Messick’s innings. He’s already at 129.2 IP just four short of his career high. So, he may get skipped a bit to keep him fresh for the stretch drive.

This move comes after the front office dealt for Craig Yoho from Milwaukee to bolster a sagging bullpen.

Yoho is the guy Cleveland wanted, he had a 3.15 ERA with the Brewers in 20 innings, despite a strikeout to walk ratio of 13 Ks vs. eight walks. Last year, in limited action (8.2 innings) he walked nine. But in his minor league career, he fanned 193 hitters in 131 innings, including 29 in 23 frames at AAA Nashville this season.

As for the offense, when several reactions to a trade, particularly in baseball, are something like “well, at least we didn’t give up much”, that’s not a good thing. That’s the reaction of several people when the Cleveland Guardians acquired OF Jo Adell from the Los Angeles Angels for minor league catcher Zack Cozart.

First, the good news. Adell has some power. Since the beginning of the ’24 season, he’s hammered 73 home runs, His 19 dingers this year would easily lead the Guardians this season, as Kyle Manzardo has hit just 13 HRs.

As we said, that’s the good news.

The bad news is Adell has an obscene strikeout to walk ratio. This year, he has fanned 108 times against just 16 walks. For a comparison, Gabriel Arias has whiffed 55 times vs. seven walks. More good news, Adell has like three times the plate appearances.

The good news is Adell does have a career 793 OPS against southpaws, and this year, has killed lefties, hitting .303 with a 910 OPS. However, against right-handers, his career mark is just 654 and just 593 this season. Which means he should be taking the Brandon Guyer role.

It is doubtful the Guardians will use him that way though. Our guess is he will be in the lineup most days and will madden fans by whiffing in key situations.

A better move, in our opinion, was getting 1B/DH Nathaniel Lowe from Cincinnati. A left-handed bat, he has a career 775 OPS and a 798 figure vs. righties. Lowe will replace Kyle Manzardo, who was sent to Columbus along with David Fry.

Manzardo has been lost at the plate most of the year, and his strikeout rate soared from 25% to 32% this season. We have advocated for him to go down and rediscover his swing, because right now, Lowe figures to platoon with Rhys Hoskins, who frankly has been terrible vs. lefties.

Getting Manzardo right would allow Steven Vogt (and the organization) to platoon Lowe and Adell, which would seem to be a productive pairing.

The Guardians will probably stop there, but we would still like to see Angel Genao and Cooper Ingle with the big club to improve the attack. There is still some dead weight on the roster. Angel Martinez is really struggling, and we continue to maintain Petey Halpin is not a big-league bat.

However, we wanted the Guardians to get better at the deadline and no question, they look to be improved for the stretch drive.