Don’t Believe Everything The Guardians Tell You, And Stop Picking On Ramirez

In this new age of media coverage, the messenger is certainly controlling the narrative, and sports is no different. We watch the telecasts of the Cleveland Guardians and we and several others call it the “propagandcasts” because it you watch, you certainly get a skewed message.

The picture is rosier if Chris Gimenez is the game’s color analyst, but that’s another subject for another day.

One of the things the announcing team is pounding through our head is that the offense is much better since the trades for Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe were made. To an extent, it is true,

Cleveland has averaged 4.6 runs per game since August 1st, compared to 3.9 before that date. However, they still rank 27th in the sport in scoring ahead of just the Angels, Blue Jays, and Mariners. In addition, they’ve also been shutout six times since the trading deadline. So, the offense has become a bit “feast or famine”, in a sport where consistency is most important.

The major league average OPS is currently 718. Right now, the Guardians have two players over that figure and crazily they are both rookies, Chase DeLauter at 830 and Travis Bazzana at 721. Jo Adell has a 729 OPS with the Guardians, but including his time with the Angels, his figure is 696.

So, Steven Vogt gets to write just two better than average offensive players in his lineup every night. Keep in mind that before Bazzana’s big game on Tuesday, he was below average too. Steven Kwan, Jose Ramirez, and Angel Martinez are close, but still below the league average.

And of course, since the All-Star break, Kwan has a tremendous 856 OPS, a big number considering he doesn’t hit for power.

Certainly, Ramirez hasn’t had his usual great season, and we are sure he is not 100% healthy due to the surgery to remove the broken hamate bone. However, it’s not like he is dreadful and calls for him to be removed from the lineup and get ready for next year are just silly.

Even with him not being healthy, he is still one of the better hitters currently available. His 24 doubles are second on the team (DeLauter has 28) and his on base percentage is 5th best. In fact, we wish he would take more walks, particularly with his injured hand. He still goes out of the strike zone too often in our opinion to try to get runs home, although the home run pop isn’t there.

Meanwhile, the front office puts a guy like Petey Halpin or David Fry in the lineup and no one bats an eye. Neither is remotely close to being as productive as the seven-time all star, who also by the way, is fourth in the AL in stolen bases.

And note to the viewers of the telecasts, giving Halpin a nickname like “Speedy Petey” doesn’t make him a good hitter. It’s just another attempt to divert your attention that the team has given 173 plate appearances to someone with an OPS under 600.

For the season, the Guardians have given 689 plate appearances to hitters with an OPS under 600, Halpin actually doesn’t have the most, that honor (?) goes to Daniel Schneemann with 287.

We checked the Twins (at random), and they’ve given under 500 plate appearances to hitters in that category.

We guess our point is the offense is better for sure, but it’s a long way from being in the top half of the game.

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

What Guardians Should Do With The Rest Of The Games.

The Cleveland Guardians’ struggles since the All-Star break, they’ve gone 9-18, makes it pretty clear to most fans that it is time to look toward 2027 (or maybe 2028). We say that because it would not be a shock if labor issues caused Major League Baseball not to be played next year.

It remains to be seen how long the organization continues to look at salvaging this season, because the players and Steven Vogt will want to keep trying to win games until they are mathematically eliminated, which with the three wild card spots available, may not occur until mid-September.

However, among those who don’t kid themselves on a daily basis, it is time to look towards the next season, and what moves should be made with that in mind.

The Guardians made a move yesterday, bringing back southpaw Logan Allen, most likely because the relief corps has been used a lot and the pitcher he replaced, Franco Aleman, pitched in the last two games and wouldn’t have been available.

One thing we would like to see is playing Angel Genao at shortstop. The 22-year-old switch-hitter looks very mature at the plate, starting his big-league career with a four hit game, and overall has gone 10 for 34 with a home run and just three strikeouts to date. He uses the whole field, which is a good sign, but it is time for him to get an extended look at his natural position.

We like Brayan Rocchio, and we understand that this move is not fair to him, but that’s baseball. Does Rocchio fit in as a utility man next year or can he be used as trade bait? He’s shown he’s more than capable defensively, but he’s blocked at second base unless Travis Bazzana changes positions.

And that might be on the table. We wouldn’t be shocked if the former first overall draft pick went back to the minors where a transition might be started. Since June 1st, Bazzana has hit just .208 with 60 strikeouts in 256 plate appearances. He seems very susceptible to the high fastball. He just can’t lay off.

Somehow, the Guardians need to get another look at Cooper Ingle, who is terrorizing the International League with an OPS of 999. Yes, we know what he looked like in his brief time with the big club, but he only had 24 plate appearances.

At AAA, he’s batting .306 with 18 homers and has drawn 63 walks. Where to play him might be an issue because the organization obviously doesn’t view him as a catcher, and he struggled in LF in the bigs. However, he could get some at bats at DH, since the Guardians seem to need guys who can hit.

It’s also probably time to see more of Daniel Espino, who has had control issues at AAA (20 walks in 30 innings), but he’s stuck out 39 hitters and has electric stuff. We would also bring Aleman back as soon as possible.

The Allen recall also made us think that Parker Messick’s innings should be limited the rest of the way. He’s already pitched more innings than ever in his career, and with the team falling out of it, there is no reason to overextend him.

These are just a couple of things to do as the season winds down. And if the Guardians go on a winning streak, that’s great. We just don’t see that taking place.

Just When A Hole Might Be Plugged, Another Crops Up For Guardians

Fourth place. That’s where the Cleveland Guardians sit as of this morning, four games behind the surprising Chicago White Sox in the AL Central Division race.

On Friday, May 22nd, the Guardians beat the Phillies 1-0 on Kyle Manzardo’s home run in the 9th to raise the team’s record to 31-22. They had a 3.5 game lead over the Pale Hose and the second-best record in the American League. They were fourth in the league in runs scored, so the offense was generating runs.

Since then, Steven Vogt’s crew has gone 27-39 and the offense has plummeted to third last in the major leagues in scoring. And now the bullpen is collapsing, with only Cade Smith being reliable for Cleveland last in games.

By the way, that’s a 66-game span, which is 40% of the regular season. That’s not a slump, that record over that span shows a bad baseball team.

Cleveland’s front office said they wanted to lean on the organization’s young hitters to provide offense in 2026 after the Guards made the playoffs a year ago despite the 29th ranking offense in the game. That sounds like a good thing, right? But depending on all young players is tough because they tend to have many more ups and downs than a veteran.

And that’s why a priority should have been to get a veteran bat or two to help ease the transition.

Offensively, the Guardians did get two bats at the trade deadline in Jo Adell and Nathaniel Lowe, and the pair would seem to be the perfect platoon. However, it appears the organization thinks of Adell as an everyday player, and he isn’t very good vs. right-handed pitchers.

The problem is still not enough good hitters in the lineup. The league average OPS is 719. The Guardians have four players above the threshold and one of them is Austin Hedges, which is a complete surprise.

Steven Kwan (.364) and Chase DeLauter (.354) are the only Cleveland players with an on base percentage over .350, and the latter’s slugging percentage of .433 leads the team, which tells you there is no one on the Guardians who can drive the ball.

The organization sent Kyle Manzardo to AAA and his slugging average is 8th on the team, slightly behind Travis Bazzana, Rhys Hoskins, and the recently released Gabriel Arias. Our question here is why does Hoskins stay, while Manzardo, who is tied with him for the team home run lead, get sent back to the minors?

Let us be clear, Manzardo’s swing is messed up, as he is trying to pull everything this season. We wonder who told him to change his approach?

Speaking of approaches, let’s look at Brayan Rocchio, who had a good start to the season. On May 31st, he was hitting .293 with a 789 OPS, hitting mostly in the #9 spot in the order. He had fanned 26 times with 20 walks as of that date and had 4 homers with 27 RBI.

Since then, he’s batted .208 with 39 strikeouts and just 11 bases on balls, and five dingers with 23 RBIs. Did he feel more pressure to provide pop after the injuries to DeLauter, Jose Ramirez, and Angel Martinez? Or was it because the team started hitting him in the middle of the lineup?

He’s batted .232 with a K/BB ratio of 19:4 when batting in the #3, #4, and #5 spots in the order.

Yes, the bullpen is in shambles and frankly, the options to improve it aren’t really there. But don’t think the Guardians’ offense has been saved with the trades made at the deadline. They still don’t have enough good bats.

As The Offense Plummets, The Front Office Plays The Fiddle

The Cleveland Guardians haven’t exactly taken off following the all-star break, going 3-7 and generally not playing good baseball. And the hitting hasn’t been good either, as they’ve scored either zero or one run in half of these games.

And of course, the spector of the trade deadline looms, now less than a week away.

This recent stretch has led a few people to suggest that the front office should be selling a week from now, but really, what do the Guardians have to sell? First, Cleveland is still one of the 10 youngest teams in baseball.

Do you really want the Guards’ front office to shop Gavin Williams or even Tanner Bibee? Cade Smith? They aren’t going to move Jose Ramirez obviously, and with the offense already challenged, do people want them to deal Chase DeLauter or Travis Bazzana? That would be ridiculous.

The Guardians have won the AL Central the past two seasons and if the season were to end today (we know, it doesn’t) they would be in the playoffs. Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff should be looking for ways to punch their ticket to the post-season for the third straight year.

And as an added bonus, with the way the AL West is shaking out right now, winning the Central would mean skipping the Wild Card Series and put the Guardians right into the Divison Series.

But they simply have to be better offensively.

As they were last season, Cleveland ranks near the bottom in the majors in runs scored. This has now been the case for a season and a half. Yet it doesn’t seem like any changes in terms of coaching are on the horizon, and we don’t like calling for people’s jobs, but whatever message Grant Fink is sending to his troops, it is not getting through.

But it shouldn’t just fall on Fink. Look at the roster the front office has put together. They have 13 position players on the big-league squad and how many of them are just not even decent hitters? We aren’t going to ignore Austin Hedges resurgence this season, but neither he nor Patrick Bailey are serious offensive threats.

Kyle Manzardo looks lost. David Fry hasn’t been effective since the post-season in 2024, some of that due to injury, but it is what it is. We liked the signing of Rhys Hoskins during training camp, but he was brought in to hit lefties, and he’s batted .129 vs. southpaws.

Petey Halpin simply doesn’t look like a major league hitter, and Gabriel Arias, despite being on a bit of a good streak right now, still has fanned 51 times in 117 plate appearances this season.

And although Angel Martinez has shown some pop, since May 1st, he’s hit .203 with just 12 extra base hits and a strikeout to walk ratio of 35:4.

What this means is out of the 13 position players on the current roster, eight of them simply aren’t even competent big-league hitters as of now. It is tough to put Manzardo in that group right now, but he looks like he could use the same thing the Guardians did with Rocchio a year ago. That is, send him back to AAA for a reset and see what happens.

Let’s see what Kody Huff can do. He’s batting .275 with a .388 on base percentage and a 912 OPS at Columbus. And he’s thriving away from the hitters’ park that is Huntington Bank Field. What about one of the Guards’ top prospects in Angel Genao, hitting .305 with a .389 OBP? We’d also bring back Cooper Ingle.

Could they be any worse than what is currently on the roster? That’s doubtful. But it makes you wonder why moves haven’t been made.

Is Depth Becoming An Issue For Guardians?

The Major League Baseball season ebbs and flows as the marathon progresses. The Cleveland Guardians were riding high after a trip to Detroit and Philadelphia where they won six or seven. They had a 4.5 game lead in the AL Central Division.

Since then, Steven Vogt’s club has dropped 10 of 15 and have fallen out of first place for the first time since the end of April. It’s still way early, but the larger the advantage, the better. Injuries have hurt the team and since the Guards depend so much on rookies, players in their premier season in the big leagues tend to be inconsistent.

Of course, one of the things we wanted the front office to do in the off-season was to build some depth, but they didn’t and some weaknesses are starting to show.

One area we would have liked to see an addition is in the starting rotation. The Guardians have only used five starters all season, the only team in the big to do so. But recently, Joey Cantillo has not pitched well. In his last three starts, he went two innings (throwing 69 pitches), four innings, and five frames, and in the latter, he only went that far was because Vogt was saving his bullpen.

In those 11 innings, he’s allowed 15 earned runs, walking nine hitters in that span. Not only does it make it very difficult to win games that way, it also puts a lot of stress on the bullpen.

However, the only alternative the Guardians have is lefty Logan Allen who had a 4.25 ERA last season but struggled to throw strikes at times. And Cantillo does not have any options remaining, so the best the organization can do is move him to the bullpen temporarily.

Speaking of the bullpen, the elbow injury to Erik Sabrowski is also an issue. Sabrowski has been excellent, striking out 39 hitters in 21 innings and pitching to a 1.71 ERA. His absence puts Tim Herrin in that role, and he has problems throwing strikes (15 walks in 24 innings).

Will Dion is the other southpaw in the bullpen, and he is used more often than not by the skipper in a mop up role.

Offensively, as we said rookies can tend to be streaky, particularly early in their careers. Chase DeLauter is hitting just .208 over the last 28 days and has just two extra base hits, with only two walks in the last two weeks. DeLauter doesn’t have a lot of games where he doesn’t contribute to the offense though and we expect him to get hot again soon.

Travis Bazzana is also in a funk, going 9 for 49 in the last two weeks and drawing just three walks. He has seven extra base hits during that time,so again, we think he will start hitting again soon.

Thank goodness for Kyle Manzardo and Brayan Rocchio who have got hot, and for all of the talk of Jose Ramirez struggling, he has an 874 OPS over the last month and 878 OPS over the last two weeks.

What no one had in the cards was Steven Kwan’s struggles. It has to be difficult for someone who has been a centerpiece of the Cleveland offense for several years to be struggling. He has walked more than he has fanned, but his pop has disappeared, He slugged .374 last season is a somewhat down year, but this season that figure is down to .262.

We realize he has been struggling for close to a calendar year, but we don’t think sending him down would work. But perhaps he shouldn’t be a given to be written in the lineup everyday.

Hopefully, these issues will work themselves out quickly. A good place to start is with division rival Detroit coming to town tomorrow night.

Improved Offense A Huge Development For The Guardians

Memorial Day has always been a time for Major League Baseball teams to self-evaluate. Back in the day, the holiday meant about one quarter of the season had passed. Today, since the regular season starts at the end of March, a third of the regular season has been played.

The Cleveland Guardians are on a hot streak right now, winning seven of their last eight and 10 of their last 12 contests, sitting at 31-23. That puts them on a pace to win over 90 games and would seem likely to be playing some post-season baseball.

An improved offense has been a key component to their good start. After finishing in the bottom three in all of baseball in runs scored a year ago, they are 16th this season. A key factor in this improvement has to be patience.

We aren’t talking about the patience in developing players; we are discussing patience at the plate. Last season Cleveland hitters ranked 20th in drawing walks. This year, they are 3rd. They were 29th in on base percentage in 2025 and currently are 11th in the same category this season.

The improved offense plus a pitching staff that still ranks 7th in the majors in ERA equates to their 31-22 record, although a year ago at this time, the Guardians were at about the same place. They were 29-24.

We were skeptical about the Guardians’ success coming into the season because they did not really add a bat to the roster, outside of Rhys Hoskins, and depending on rookies to make big differences is always risky.

The current league average in OPS throughout MLB is 707. As of today, Steven Vogt’s squad have seven hitters over the league average. Last year? They had three, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Manzardo, and Steven Kwan.

Two of those three, Kwan and Manzardo, have gotten off to slow starts and currently sit below than number, although Manzardo is closing the gap.

The difference has been the rookies, Chase DeLauter stepped right into the lineup and because of his approach, very selective at the plate, he has been consistent. Right now, he has the over 800 OPS the best hitters have, over .350 on base and over .450 slugging.

Another rookie, Travis Bazzana, has also contributed nicely, getting on base at a ,391 clip.

Two other players who have been with the Guards the past couple seasons have also blossomed. We have long championed Brayan Rocchio as being the Cleveland shortstop of the future and he is showing that thus far.

Solid defensively as always, Rocchio has a .376 on base average and has mixed in 12 extra base hits, and sorry for the younger fans, also ranks second on the team in RBIs with 27 behind only DeLauter.

The other is Angel Martinez, who is just a little more plate discipline away from being an all-star player. Martinez is slugging .476 and is third on the team in extra base hits behind Ramirez and DeLauter. And he seems to be learning more and more from Ramirez.

His strikeout to walk ratio needs improvement, as he has fanned 35 times and his six walks are the lowest figure on the team. He has stolen eight bases and takes the extra base often, like Ramirez. He is earning the right to be in the lineup most days in Vogt’s everyone plays rotation.

Getting men on base is the opposite of making outs. Keep doing it, and the Guardians’ offense will continue to pick up. If it continues, it could be a fun summer at Progressive Field.

Guardians’ Patience Will Likely Lead To Better Offense

We love walks. We love baseball players that take walks rather than swinging at bad pitches. And better yet, we like teams that draw bases on balls because they make pitchers work hard to get outs.

Over the last few years, the Cleveland Guardians are heeding our advice (not really, we aren’t that egotistic). In 2023, they ranked 13th in the American League in drawing walks, moved up one spot in ’24, and last season were 9th.

Entering play on Wednesday, Steven Vogt’s crew sits second in the junior circuit in getting on base via the walk. That’s a good thing. A real good thing.

People ask us from time to time why we like walks, after all it is not a reason people go to baseball games. But if a player walks, he’s not making an out and each team gets 27 outs in every nine inning baseball contest. Let us say that again. They aren’t making outs.

Last season, the Guardians had no one who walked more than they fanned. The closest were Jose Ramirez who walked 66 times with 74 strikeouts and Steven Kwan (55 walks, 60 Ks). Kwan did accomplish the feat in ’24 when he whiffed 51 times, drawing 53 walks.

So far this year, and we know there is a lot of season still to be played, Cleveland has four batters in this situation: Ramirez (31 BB, 28 Ks), Kwan (22 BB, 21 K), rookie Chase DeLauter (20 BB, 16 K) and another rookie, Travis Bazzana (12 BB, 8 K). In addition, Brayan Rocchio (14 BB/14 K) is even.

In addition, newcomer Rhys Hoskins who is hitting just .185, but has drawn 24 walks, making his on base percentage a very respectable .353.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t translated to runs yet because the Guards still rank 12th in the AL in that category. But perhaps we need to be patient with that.

Last season in MLB, of the top five teams in runs scored, three of them were in the top five in walks, and all of them with in the top half of the sport in drawing bases on balls. In 2024, the same was true, meaning three of the top five in scoring also were in the top five in walks, and only Baltimore wasn’t in the top half of baseball in walking.

In 2023, two of the highest scoring teams (Dodgers and Rangers) also ranked in the top five in walks, and again, four of the five were in the top half of MLB.

So, more often than not, if you draw a lot of walks, you will score a lot of runs.

Why haven’t the Guardians converted more of the walks into runs yet this year? Our theory is once they have runners in scoring position, they revert to their old impatient ways, swinging early in the count and often trying to hit pitches that aren’t strikes.

We get it. They are trying to do too much. They need to keep the same approach, get good pitches to hit, and as David Fry did the other night, take a bases loaded walk. It gets a run across and keeps the opposing pitcher in trouble.

Usually in sports, aggressiveness is rewarded. In baseball, sometimes patience is a good way to go. And we think it will pay off in the long run.

Happy With Four Wins, Way Too Soon For Conclusions On Guardians

Looking at the schedule for the Cleveland Guardians before the season started, since they were opening the season against a team that played in the American League Championship Series last year in Seattle, and then were taking on the two-time World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, coming back to Progressive Field at 3-4 would be great.

They went 4-3. Even better.

And we were a big critic of the off-season by the front office, not adding enough hitting, so naturally, seeing Steven Vogt’s squad getting two hit twice in the first six games make us feel justified in that criticism, correct?

Not yet. It is still way too early.

The Guards are 13th in the AL in runs scored, but a game scoring 10 runs would boost them greatly in that ranking, because it is way too soon.

We know we live in a social media society where everyone voices an instantaneous opinion, but people do need to relax. For example, the Guardians though Bo Naylor would break out offensively and so far, he is 3 for 19 and looks pretty much like the same guy we’ve seen over the past couple of years. But a 3 for 4 day, would bring his batting average up to .261. That’s how volatile stats can be at this time of the season.

Readers of this site know we are bullish on strikeout to walk ratio, and right now Kyle Manzardo has fanned 11 times with just two walks. He came to the organization with a good knowledge of the strike zone but did whiff a lot in spring training.

In watching his at bats, it is not like he is striking out on four pitches a lot. There have been several at bats where he has battled with two strikes to get back in the count by fouling off pitches and goes down on the sixth or seventh pitch.

We wish he’d put the ball in play, but all in all, it’s a solid at bat.

And because Chase DeLauter is off to a solid start (we know, an understatement), the calls for Travis Bazzana have started too. People, he’s hitting .200 to start the year in Columbus (3 for 15, with a double, triple, and four walks!). He’s had just 139 plate appearances in AAA,

First, no one can assume Bazzana will be good because DeLauter started off hot. And DeLauter will have struggles at some point too. But let the Australian get some more at bats in the minors. We have no doubt if Gabriel Arias and Brayan Rocchio keep struggling, he will be in Cleveland soon enough.

There were some freaking out about Steven Kwan after the first couple of games. He took an 0 for 5 in the opener. Since then, he is 7 for 22.

Make no mistake, we would like to say “we told you so”, but it is way too early and as we said before they are coming home with three wins against two quality opponents. Have to be happy about that.

And even better, the Guardians will be home tomorrow and that’s always a great thing.

Spring Training Nears And Guardians Offense Is Still Subpar

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.