Guardians At A Crossroads?

We have been thinking most of this baseball season that the Cleveland Guardians’ success was being done with smoke and mirrors.

Lately, we have been wondering if the mirror has a crack in it.

Yes, if the season ended today (it doesn’t), the Guardians would make the post-season via the wild card, but let’s see where they are after this 10-game stretch where they are on the road against the red-hot Twins and Tigers and then come home to take on the best team money can buy in the Dodgers.

What can Steven Vogt hang his hat on right now? The offense ranks 9th in the American League in runs scored, and in the last eight games, they have scored more than two runs just three times.

Right now, the batting order has four hitters producing: Steven Kwan, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Manzardo, and the surprise of the year to date, Daniel Schneemann. The league OPS is 702 and just two other batters, Angel Martinez and Gabriel Arias are around that figure.

Lane Thomas should be back soon, but while he’s really good against southpaws, whether he can help the Guardians against right-handers is a question.

Nolan Jones, the idol of the exit velocity crowd is still hitting just .181 with a 579 OPS. Will Brennan was given another shot and so far is 0 for 9.

Carlos Santana was brought back, and you have to wonder if he’s going to produce. He is now 39 after all. He’s still walking, leading the team with 23 free passes, but has just seven extra base hits on the year. His slugging percentage is just .320.

When David Fry is ready to return, and he can DH only this season, the front office will be forced to make a tough decision on Santana. Manzardo has to play and platooning him with Fry still doesn’t address the lack of production from Santana’s spot.

Cleveland thought they had shortstop solved after Brayan Rocchio’s breakout in the post-season, but it did not come to fruition. Arias has done okay, but the pop so many people envisioned hasn’t arrived. He’s slugging .393. He is drawing more walks, but his on base percentage is just .313.

The pitching staff, normally the cornerstone of the team, is also ninth in ERA and it’s a daily challenge to have a starting pitcher finish six innings. Here is the average length of a start for the Guards’ rotation–

Tanner Bibee 5.67
Luis Ortiz 5.37
Logan Allen 5.17 (prior to last night)
Ben Lively 4.96
Gavin Williams 4.67

No question this has taken a toll on the bullpen, which understandably isn’t performing as well as they did a year ago.

Cade Smith hasn’t been the fireman he was a year ago. Tim Herrin has allowed 10 walks and three homers, two things relievers cannot do, in 16 innings. Vogt has tried using Joey Cantillo out of the ‘pen, and he has had some success, but he’s also issued 12 free passes and four long balls in 22 innings.

And Jakob Junis has appeared in seven games this month and allowed runs in five of them.

The real problem is what is the alternative? C.J. Kayfus has hit well in the minors this year at both Akron and Columbus, but also has less than 400 plate appearances above Class A.

As for the rotation, with Lively down, we will see what Slade Cecconi, acquired from Arizona for Josh Naylor, can do. In the bullpen, it might be a matter of time before we see Andrew Walters, Nic Enright, or Franco Aleman.

We were surprised by the lack of activity by the Guardians after they got to the ALCS last season. It might be coming back to haunt them over the next week.

Despite A Lot Of Issues, Guardians Are Hanging Tough

The Cleveland Guardians have hit May on a bit of a hot streak. They came into Saturday night’s game against the Phillies having won eight of their last ten. We understand this doesn’t sound good, but to his credit, Steven Vogt seems to be doing it with smoke and mirrors.

Based on the number of runs they have scored and allowed, the Guardians’ record should be 19-22, which would put them fourth in the AL Central Division.

Their offense is below average, scoring 4.1 runs per game (the AL average is 4.2). Their pitching ranks 10th in the league in ERA at 4.13, higher than the average of 3.96.

This could mean two things. First, they could get much better pitching starting this week and stopping other teams from scoring would cause a continued streak of good play. Or a losing streak is in the balance.

Part of the problem with the pitching staff has been the inability of the starters to throw strikes. We were at the game Friday night when Gavin Williams labored through five innings, throwing 98 pitches. Yes, he held them off the scoreboard and that’s great, but it puts a strain on the bullpen.

Here are the walk rates per nine innings for the Guardians’ starters this season–

Williams 5.6
Logan Allen 4.8
Luis Ortiz 4.4
Tanner Bibee 3.2
Ben Lively 3.0

And Lively will likely miss some time after leaving last night’s start with forearm tightness.

The latter two are acceptable. The first three have had issues getting through five innings and again, that affects the relief corps. Last year, the bullpen was dominant. This year, we’ve already seen Emmanuel Clase and Cade Smith go through some struggles.

And the last two games against Philadelphia saw a pair of 1-0 games get expanded leads because the bullpen allowed runs.

The Guardians simply need Williams, Allen, and Ortiz to throw more strikes.

Offensively, the hitting has been buoyed by the recent hot streak of Daniel Schneemann, who has a .344 on base percentage and an 857 OPS. But mostly, the offense is overly reliant on Steven Kwan (.390/.453/843), Jose Ramirez (.356/.472/828) and Kyle Manzardo (.315/.476/791).

Reports are Lane Thomas should be back soon, and it will be interesting to see where he fits in. Angel Martinez has done a decent job in centerfield and rightfield continues to be a vortex of suck, so logically, putting Thomas in right should be the play.

We say this knowing the exit velocity police are championing Nolan Jones and Jhonkensy Noel, who are both hitting under .164 and have OPS under 600. Jones is out of options, and we know the Guardians’ front office goes to the end of the earth for those guys, but it has to be tough to keep putting him in the lineup.

Sunday night, Vogt pinch hit Will Wilson for Jones, and we have said this before, but whether or not Wilson should be on a big-league roster should be the question, not should he be pinch hitting in a close game in the late innings.

Brayan Rocchio was sent down yesterday with his .165 batting average and 433 OPS, and Will Brennan was called up. We know what Brennan is at this point, he’s a singles hitter who doesn’t walk and also doesn’t handle left-handed pitching. Such is the state of things as the upper level of the farm system.

Later this week, the Guards hit the road and take on the red-hot Twins and Tigers on the trip. Vogt needs some of these issues to have worked themselves out by then.

That they have the second-best record in the AL is kind of a minor miracle.

Call Us Names, But Talking Baseball Is Tough Now

We love baseball. It has been our favorite sport as long as we can remember. And one of the reasons are the statistics. As broadcaster Bob Costas has always said, those stats are part of the game.

Everyone knows “714” is the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit. The same with “755” which is Hank Aaron’s total. Pete Rose had 4256 hits, Cy Young 511 wins. These numbers have become part of the sport.

However, today the numbers seem to have become “exit velocity”, “horizontal break”, “hard hit rate”. All of them are interesting numbers and certainly can add some context to how a player may perform. However, none of them have any influence on winning or losing.

And as long as they are keeping score, that’s what the game is all about.

We are sure at least one person will refer to us as “get off my lawn” guy and a boomer but let us say that we were a voracious reader of Bill James’ Baseball Abstract when it came out, and it certainly changed the way we view the game.

A person currently on the radio in northeast Ohio once said the best use of analytics is as a justification for doing something, especially when it doesn’t work out. For example, asking a manager why he pinch hit a certain batter. It’s because he hits .382 vs. right-handers. The hitter might have popped up, but there was a reason for the decision.

That’s fair.

The hitting statistics do not take into account the number of times a hitter strikes out. For example, Hitter A, has an average exit velocity of 92.9 MPH and a hard hit rate of 50%, barreling the ball 13.7% of the time, currently 13th in baseball.

Hitter B’s average exit velo is 86.3 MPH, his hard-hit rate is 21.4% and the barrel rate is 2.9%.

Hitter A is Cal Raleigh of the Mariners, who is currently batting .203 (to be fair a 786 OPS) with 20 strikeouts in 73 plate appearances. The other is Steven Kwan, who is batting .333 with an 893 OPS and eight whiffs in 73 times at the dish.

So, when Raleigh hits it, he hits it hard a lot. The problem is he doesn’t make contact 27.3% of the time.

And yet, some people will tell me that Raleigh is a very good hitter, which he is, for a catcher, but there is a lot of swing and miss in his game.

As for the break on pitches, we sometimes wonder if a batter just stood there and didn’t swing, he might walk or at the least get ahead in the count. We see videos of ridiculous breaking action on pitches, but a lot of them don’t land in the strike zone.

There are people on social media thrilled that this information was put on the scoreboard at Progressive Field. Never have a watched a game and thought wow, how much did that break?

It’s fun to see after a game, but during? It doesn’t matter to us.

On Tuesday night, Bo Naylor was 0 for 1, with a walk, sacrifice fly, and sacrifice bunt. To us, he contributed to the offense. Games where a batter goes 0 for 4 and doesn’t walk? He has contributed nothing to the offense.

And hitters who do this on a regular basis are anchors in the batting order.

Look, these things are fun to look at for the newer fan. We get that, but let’s remember the game is about 27 outs and scoring more than the opponent. Simple numbers, correct?

A Good Homestand Buoys Some Concerns For The Guardians

When the Cleveland Guardians came home after their season opening nine game trip, it seemed like the team was running in quicksand a bit.

The defense was shaky, the offense only had four players (Steven Kwan, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana, and Kyle Manzardo) hitting, and the pitching, usually the hallmark of any Cleveland team was not very good.

Then they came back to Progressive Field, and the pitching found itself, allowing only 10 runs in a six-game span, although to be fair, the horrible Chicago White Sox were the first three games, and they only tallied three times in the trio of games.

This is not to say everything is fine and there are no worries, but the Guardians sit at 8-7 now after 15 games, sitting a game behind Detroit in the AL Central standings.

The starting pitching was much better, but the number of innings the rotation is providing is a problem. The farthest any starter went on the homestand was the six innings provided by Ben Lively on Sunday. Luis Ortiz went 5.2 on Saturday and was outstanding, striking out 10 Kansas City hitters.

The biggest issue is that the starters are throwing a lot of pitches to get through five innings. Friday night, Tanner Bibee held the Royals scoreless for 4.2 frames but had to come out after tossing almost 100 pitches.

The same was true with Gavin Williams last start. The opposition isn’t scoring, but the pitchers aren’t being economical about it.

Bibee has walked seven in 14.1 innings this year. Williams has six in 13 frames, and Logan Allen seven in 10 innings.

Of course, this puts an enormous load on the bullpen. Paul Sewald, Jakob Junis, and Cade Smith have already been in 8 of Cleveland’s 15 games to date, and Emmanuel Clase, Hunter Gaddis, and Tim Herrin have been in seven. We know the Guardians are very protective of these relievers, but they had to carry a huge load a year ago.

Something to keep an eye on as the season goes on.

We also think at times; Steven Vogt creates this issue. Allen was pulled after 83 pitches and two out in the fifth with a 3-1 lead. Yes, there were runners on second and third, but why not give the young pitcher a chance to get out of it?

The offense is still struggling, hitting just .222 as a team, but they received a boost this week from Angel Martinez, who was called up because Lane Thomas has a bruised wrist after getting hit by a pitch.

The switch-hitter went 5 for 10 in three starts, with a pair of doubles and three runs knocked in. Gabriel Arias had a solid week as well, getting 5 hits in 17 at-bats with a pair of home runs.

There are still too many players who are simply not contributing at the plate. Daniel Schneemann has started 2 for 22. Nolan Jones has drawn six walks, tied for third on the team, but is 5 for 35 with 16 Ks. Jhonkensy Noel is 6 for 32 and has only fanned six times but doesn’t have an extra base hit.

Still, Ramirez has not gotten hot, outside of his three dinger game against the Angels.

But the length of the lineup was a concern coming into the season, and it doesn’t look like it has gotten any longer. Cleveland still has a below average offense. The league is scoring 4.12 runs per game, the Guardians are at 3.93.

It’s a good sign the Guards have started out 7-2 vs. the Central, but they haven’t played Detroit or Minnesota. The Orioles should be a good test for the pitching over the next three days.

Hopefully, the starters can start going at least six innings on a regular basis.

A Different Opening Trip For Guardians Compared To 2024

It’s Opening Day in Cleveland and that’s a certain sign of spring, despite today’s weather forecast. However, the Guardians aren’t coming home with momentum like they did last season in manager Steven Vogt’s first season.

Because of the renovations to Progressive Field, the Guards spent the first nine contests on the road in 2024 and starting hot, arriving in town with a 7-2 record, in route to a 19-10 mark at the end of April.

This season hasn’t been the same. Cleveland won the season opening series at Kansas City, taking two of three, but the west coast was not kind to the team, as they dropped five out of six in San Diego and Los Angeles against the Angels.

Until Luis Ortiz went six innings in the last game of the trip, no starting pitcher completed that many innings on the sojourn. All in all, Cleveland pitching has the second worst ERA in the American League at 5.09 and is tied for second in allowing the most home runs, giving up 14 gopher balls.

The defense has also been a concern, leading the AL in errors to date. Jose Ramirez has made four errors, mostly not coming up with ground balls. Cleveland pitchers have already allowed eight unearned runs, so the mistakes have been costly.

The baserunning hasn’t been crisp either. The Guardians picked up their first stolen bases of the season on Sunday, their ninth game. They’ve been caught four times. And we’ve seen Gabriel Arias thrown out at third in San Diego with men on first and second and no one out, and Brayan Rocchio allowing himself to get tagged out on a double steal attempt with Steven Kwan at the plate.

The latter also should be filed in the curious managing file.

These kinds of mistakes make us wonder if training camp was a little less focused this season coming off winning the AL Central last year.

Offensively, the Guardians are ninth in runs scored, but averaging only 3.78 per game. To be fair, the league average of 4.37 is bloated by the Yankees and Red Sox’ figures, but outside of Kyle Manzardo, no relatively young player has stepped up.

Against the Royals, Guardians’ hitters fanned 18 times and drew 16 walks. In the last six games, Cleveland hitters have struck out 59 times with the same number of bases on balls in twice the amount of games.

Rightfield continues to be a problem as Nolan Jones and Jhonkensy Noel have combined to go 4 for 38 with 13 punchouts and just three walks and only two RBI, both coming on outs.

Lane Thomas has also struggled at the dish, getting off to a 5 for 29 start that includes just one extra base hit. The bench group of Daniel Schneemann, Johnathan Rodriguez, and Austin Hedges have combined to go 2 for 22 in the young season.

Having young players in part-time roles in tough on them, as it is hard to produce with sporadic at bats. That’s an excuse for Rodriguez. It is more than likely that Schneemann will be a utility guy for his career, so he needs to hit when he’s in the lineup.

Look, it is still early. In fact, it is very early. Our concern is we aren’t seeing the crisp baseball we saw a year ago. And we haven’t even talked about how the bullpen has struggled so far.

Starters Throwing Strikes, Hitters Striking Out. Two Early Problems For Guards

It’s early folks, it’s extremely early.

We know the MLB Network is already making projections on how many home runs the Yankees will hit this year with their new torpedo bats, and have also started the ridiculous MVP Ladder, but the reality is the Cleveland Guardians and most Major League teams have played just six games.

There are still 156 to go. Remember, one of the sport’s old adages: You can’t trust what you see in April or September.

However, since we wanted to have some discussions about the Cleveland Guardians’ start to the season, we have just those half dozen contests to go on.

Our impressions? Nothing that would differ with anything we thought going into the season.

The starting pitching, save for Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams, has been for lack of a better term, shaky.

Luis Ortiz, who came over for Pittsburgh in the three-way deal involving Andres Gimenez, had problems throwing strikes, walking four in 4.2 innings, and also allowed nine hits. The concern is Ortiz had the same issue in exhibition play. Logan Allen wasn’t bad in his first start holding San Diego scoreless for four innings, but he walked five in 5.1 innings, and eventually the free passes came back to haunt. He had control problems in 2024.

And the impenetrable bullpen been shaky, with Emmanuel Clase blowing a save in the season openers, and Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis had some issue in the loss in Kansas City.

Oh yeah, and Joey Cantillo, who probably should be in Columbus starting games for the Clippers, has had issues throwing strikes out of the bullpen.

Offensively, things looked good in KC with the Guards garnering almost as many walks as strikeouts.

But against the Padres, Cleveland hitters whiffed 33 times, including 16 in the middle game of the set, and walked just five times.

You aren’t going to score many runs with that ratio, and the Guardians didn’t, crossing the plate just four times in the three games.

The usual contributors offensively have been fine. Steven Kwan is off to an 8 for 23 start and a .400 on base percentage. He still hasn’t seemed to earn any respect for the men in blue, being called out on strikes on several questionable calls.

Jose Ramirez missed a game with an injured wrist but is 5 for 17 with a homer and two other extra base hits.

We were concerned about the production of the team against right-handed pitching, and a few of the players Steven Vogt needs to be solid vs. those arms have struggled.

Kyle Manzardo, who surprisingly has been a terror vs. southpaws is just 1 for 14 vs. righties. Bo Naylor is just 1 for 12 with seven whiffs, and Carlos Santana, who struggled from the left side last season is just 3 for 14 with just one walk.

And two of the three hitters we have contact concerns about, Gabriel Arias and Nolan Jones, have accumulated 13 Ks and two walks. Arias has had success though, getting off to a 6 for 19 start.

Cleveland travels Los Angeles this weekend for a series against the Angels, who are off to a surprising 4-1 start before finally getting home, and hopefully, the starting pitching does a better job, particularly in throwing strikes.

And they get to come home, which should help the team get comfortable.

Four Guys Who Need To Show For Guardians

Spring training numbers don’t matter if you are Jose Ramirez or Steven Kwan, or even someone like Lane Thomas, whose spot on the roster is assured.

But when you are trying to establish yourself as a Major League player, you probably need to put up some numbers to get big league at-bats when the season kicks off next week.

The Guardians have several players who are in that boat, they haven’t really proven anything at the big-league level, and some of those guys are struggling in Arizona.

Other guys have done well in exhibition play, but how they have performed thus far in the majors have a casting a jaundiced eye.

We have really like Tyler Freeman since he made his major league debut. His minor league pedigree says he should be a solid bat. His AAA numbers are .399/.403/802. Overall in the minors he has a .384 on base percentage.

But he’s had 637 plate appearances with Cleveland and has a .223 batting average with a .304 on base and 632 OPS. He’s been solid this spring going 10 for 32 with two homers and four walks.

How much does the brass trust him?

Then you have someone the front office is giving one last shot to, Gabriel Arias, who is out of options. Arias’ minor league numbers aren’t as impressive as Freeman’s (.337/.456/793 at AAA), but he has the metric the new age folks love–exit velocity. He hits the ball hard. When he hits it.

And that is Arias’ problem. His strikeout rate is 32.3%. The league average is 22.6%.

He hasn’t been strong in the spring training games either, going 8 for 35 with nine whiffs and a 707 OPS. However, most people feel he will open the season at second base.

Will Brennan is another player that needs to start showing something. Brennan came up during the stretch drive in 2022 going 15 for 42 with a HR. That followed a minor league season in which he hit .314 with an 850 OPS. That got people excited.

In the two years since, he’s had over 800 big league at-bats and put up numbers of .308/.377/685. That’s a below average OPS. He’s been solid during the spring, going 9 for 34 with a couple of homers and an 806 OPS.

What would we like to see from Brennan? More patience. He seems to swing at the first pitch a lot and if you don’t have a lot of pop you need to be able to draw walks. Singles’ hitters who don’t walk are very replaceable.

Bo Naylor doesn’t have to worry about making the team, he’ll be the primary catcher, but it remains to be seen what kind of hitter he will be in the bigs. In the second half of ’23, Naylor hit .252 with 10 home runs and an 893 OPS.

His strikeout to walk ratio was 35:25.

Last season, he hit .201 and that ratio was 122:29. Which hitter is he going to be? This spring he has gone 8 for 37 and has drawn three walks with seven punchouts.

For a team that seems to have offensive questions, it would be great if Naylor is a viable hitter. And it would be great for Naylor because 2023 draftee Cooper Ingle will start the year at Akron and is showing signs he can swing the bat.

These guys are on the spot both now and for the first month or two of the season. Can any of them emerge for the Guardians

Where Are Runs Coming From For Guardians?

The Cleveland Guardians’ will start their defense of the American League Central Division title in a few weeks when spring training starts and frankly, it’s difficult to see where the team has improved.

Several fans have pointed out to us that the Guardians’ front office moves stealthily, so maybe something will happen in the next few weeks. However, we think it is safe to say the ownership really doesn’t want to spend money, so maybe not.

Last season, the average Major League team scored 4.39 runs per game. Cleveland scored 4.40, ranking 14th in the majors. The average OPS was 711, the Guardians were 16th with a 703 mark.

Let’s look at the 711 figure, again which is what the average major league player does. Among players with 100 or more plate appearances, the Guardians had five: Jose Ramirez at 872, David Fry, who will miss the first half of the season, at 804, Steven Kwan (793), Josh Naylor, since traded, at 776, and Jhonkensy Noel at 774.

They added Carlos Santana to replace Naylor, and he had a 749 OPS.

So, a look at the Guardians’ opening day lineup, assuming a right-hander starts probably looks like this–

LF Kwan (793)
DH Kyle Manzardo (703)
3B Ramirez (872)
1B Santana (749)
CF Lane Thomas (709)
2B Juan Brito (no MLB at bats, but 807 at AAA)
RF Will Brennan (697)
C Bo Naylor (614)
SS Brayan Rocchio (614)

Remember, that Santana last year vs. RHP had a 676 OPS, not good. So what you have is two solid bats in Ramirez and Kwan, Thomas is average, but another player with an extreme platoon split (878 vs. lefties, 647 vs. righties), and a bunch of guys who really have no track record.

We like Manzardo’s potential, he had a 946 OPS in AAA last season, but he has less than 200 MLB plate appearances. Brito has never stepped into the box in a big league game. Brennan has over 800 plate appearances and a career 685 OPS.

He’s the worst combination as a hitter thus far, a singles hitter who doesn’t walk. If you are going to be that, you have to hit .330. Brennan does not.

Naylor has had two seasons with Cleveland, one good with the bat, last season, not so good. And also, Rocchio had a very good post-season, that 614 OPS isn’t good.

We have always maintained that although pitching is king in the playoffs, you have to score runs to get there. If you look at the teams who score the most in the regular season, more likely than not, those teams get to play in October.

Our question for the Guardians is where will the runs come from? Yes, yes, the people who believe in every prospect will tell me Manzardo and Brito are going to be productive, and things will be just fine.

But what’s the alternative? If Brito doesn’t hit, the Guardians have to go back to the likes of Gabriel Arias (608), Tyler Freeman (626), and Daniel Schneemann (671). And if Manzardo isn’t hitting like he did in September and October, then who? Chase DeLauter? Noel? Johnathan Rodriguez?

And by the way, we like DeLauter, but he’s had 23 at bats at AAA. And Noel? We aren’t warm and fuzzy about a guy with a 63:13 K/BB ratio.

A bigger question is what if Santana doesn’t recover his stroke vs. RHP and becomes dead weight against those pitchers?

Front offices have to build teams, contending teams, with an eye on what if things don’t go right? We ask this question…where are the runs coming from?

Guards’ Free Agent Signing Addresses A Strength?

The Cleveland Guardians dipped their toes into the free agent market this past week and suprisingly did not address what we consider to be their weaknesses.

Instead, they added to a strength, signing veteran reliever Paul Sewald, a right-hander to a deal. The Guardians have coveted Sewald for years. At one point while he was a young pitcher for the Mets, it was rumored Cleveland was interested in moving Jason Kipnis to get him.

That was probably around 2018 as Kipnis was starting to decline.

Sewald is solid, pitching in 42 games last season with a 4.31 ERA for Arizona, and he saved two games in the National League Championship Series for the Diamondbacks in ’23 as they went to the World Series.

He has saved 84 big league games, with his career high of 34 coming in that 2023 campaign.

He’s a proven solid reliever. But that’s the strength of the Guardians’ staff. They still need starting pitchers and unless the addition of Sewald means someone currently in the bullpen will be given a shot in the rotation (we would like to see Hunter Gaddis try it), it’s difficult to see where this makes sense.

On the other hand, there is an adage that if you can’t fix a weak spot, bolster your strength, so maybe that’s what the plan is here.

There are still plenty of starting pitchers out there who seemingly could be had on a one- or two-year contract. We say this because right now the Guards’ rotation consists of Tanner Bibee and a whole lot of ifs. Gavin Williams and newcomer Luis Ortiz should (should) fill two spots, but the rest of the starters are question marks.

Ben Lively has had one good season and is 33. Can Triston McKenzie find the strike zone?Can Logan Allen be effective? Signing a veteran who can soak up innings, like a Lance Lynn, Jose Quintana, or even Kyle Gibson would make us feel better about the starting staff.

And we haven’t even mentioned the offense, which struggled in the second half of the season and since then has traded their third best bat (and second-best power bat) in Josh Naylor.

Yes, we remembered Cleveland also signed 39-year-old Carlos Santana. Let’s just say that doesn’t have visions of October celebrations dancing in our heads.

There aren’t a lot of appealing bats still available in free agency, but we don’t feel real comfortable about a lineup that has two tough outs in Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan, and frankly little else that has proven anything at the major league level.

As it stands right now, the Guardians will have two players with less than one year experience in the bigs in their everyday lineup in Kyle Manzardo and Juan Brito. Brayan Rocchio has a solid post-season, but still had a 614 OPS in 2024.

Lane Thomas is better as a platoon piece but will probably be in there every day in centerfield. And of course, Santana will be playing, trying to find the fountain of youth.

Someone in the front office said the organization feels confident in their young players. We would guess most organizations do. However, the job of the executives should be to find alternatives in case something doesn’t work out. Because they never do.

Spring training starts in a few weeks. It’s hard to see the Guardians being better than they were when they were eliminated by the Yankees in the ALCS just three short months ago.

How Can Guards Score More Runs Next Year?

Before the season started, we felt the Guardians would be a .500 baseball team, but they got off to a tremendous start and won the AL Central with a 92-69 record and eventually lost in the Championship Series to the Yankees in five games.

When the 2025 season starts late next March in Kansas City, it will have been 77 years since the franchise has won the World Series. And yes, that’s the longest drought in the sport.

What can the Guardians do to defend their divisional title and also to get better in ’25? Today, we will focus on the offense.

Cleveland ranked 7th in the league in runs scored and the only playoff team that scored less was Detroit. Their team OPS was also 7th right at the league average at 703. They were slightly below average in getting on base and slightly above average in slugging.

All in all, they had an average offense.

By position, the Guardians were only above average at four spots: 1B (Josh Naylor), 3B (Jose Ramirez), LF (Steven Kwan), and DH.

We think the one thing the Guardians can focus on offensively is getting on base more often. The league average was .309 and only four players exceeded that: Kwan (.368), David Fry (.356), Ramirez (.335) and Josh Naylor (.320).

Last season, the Guardians made a concerted effort to hit with more power, and they did, hitting 61 more home runs, but it only raised the slugging percentage by 14 points.

How did that happen? They hit 49 less doubles and 11 less triples than they did in ’23.

Let’s look at Kwan, who people talked about his power increase because he went from five long balls to 14 in 2024.

What if we told you he actually had less extra base hits this season? He had 36 doubles, 7 triples last year. This year, just 16 doubles and three triples. Andres Gimenez dropped from 47 XBH to 32 in 2024.

Our point is the “be aggressive and try to drive the ball” approach worked in terms of hitting home runs, but it didn’t improve the extra base hit ability of the Guardians all that much.

The Yankees led the league in runs scored, but their offense is an anomaly because they have Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. They only had five regulars with OPS over 700, one more than Cleveland.

Baltimore was second in runs scored, and they had eight players over 700. Boston was third and they had seven players over that mark. Houston was next and they also had seven hitters over 700.

Can Lane Thomas provide enough offense to hold down a regular spot in the outfield? His combined OPS of 709 was about average. However, we liked his K rate and walk rate a lot better when he was with the Nationals.

At the very least, Fry and Kyle Manzardo should be fine at the DH spot, although the latter might deserve a shot at being an everyday player as the season progresses.

If Fry’s elbow issue isn’t something that requires surgery, getting him behind the plate more often would be a benefit because Austin Hedges doesn’t really help with a bat in his hands.

The tough decision could come up the middle where at least one of the regulars, Gimenez or Brayan Rocchio must do better offensively. Both were liabilities this year, although Rocchio had a solid post-season.

Simply put, the Guardians need better offense, and the best way would seem to be based on being more selective as hitters. Walks are good, when you walk, you aren’t making an out.

In the minor leagues, two top prospects stand out. Juan Brito walked 88 times (13.5% rate) in AAA last year, while Chase DeLauter also exceeded 10%. Brito could be a candidate to open the season with the big club, while DeLauter, who has battled injuries could arrive during the season.

The best way to add to the run total is to add more solid offensive players, not trading them.