Thoughts On The Guardians And Platooning

Platooning. It’s kind of a buzz word right now for Cleveland Guardians’ fans. We get it, the team isn’t going well, so the lineup decisions made by skipper Steven Vogt come under intense scrutiny.

But it isn’t something that started in the last ten years. The 1950’s New York Yankees, managed by Casey Stengel famously platooned at several positions. Earl Weaver, the Hall of Fame manager used statistics to get favorable matchups all the time.

His most famous platoon in the late 70’s and early 80’s was in leftfield where he played former Indian John Lowenstein and Gary Roenicke to form a tremendously effective offensive duo.

However, not all players are built that way, meaning not all left-handed hitters kill right-handing pitching and vice-versa. Obviously, the better players don’t have a platoon advantage, they can hold their own against same side hurlers.

In more recent times for Cleveland, Brandon Guyer is a great example. A right-handed hitter, Guyer’s career numbers show a .250 batting average and a 727 OPS. However, during his time in the big leagues, he batted .274 vs. southpaws with an 824 OPS.

Even better, the year the Indians went to the World Series in 2016, Guyer batted .336 vs. lefties with an incredible 1021 OPS. He simply killed lefties.

This season, Vogt uses the platoon advantage more than any other manager, but should he? Against left-handed pitching, only three Guardians’ hitters have OPS over 800. Of course, one is Jose Ramirez at 922, and the other two are Angel Martinez, a switch hitter, and the third is a guy who swings from the left side in Kyle Manzardo.

However, Manzardo only has 45 at bats vs. southpaws, and yes, we know he has struggled lately, but he still has 4 home runs. And of course, this is really his first year in the majors.

The right-handed bats the skipper seems to use vs. lefties haven’t really done the job. Lane Thomas, who has solid career numbers against them is just 6 for 40. David Fry is 7 for 53, Johnathon Rodriguez is 6 for 36, and Will Wilson is 7 for 38.

Those aren’t exactly Guyer numbers.

Against right-handers, there are two players with OPS over 800: Ramirez and Steven Kwan. The players Vogt platoons aren’t doing the job.

Nolan Jones: .233/.312/.347/669
Daniel Schneemann: .218/.296/.400/696
Manzardo: .220/.292/.402/694

On the roster, right now, Martinez fits the platoon player bill. Against righties, he’s hitting just .206 with a 541 OPS. His at bats against these pitchers should be limited.

However, the object of platooning is to put a hitter who has a better chance of success at the plate. In Tuesday’s game, Vogt pinch hit Wilson for Jones, who has a career mark of .254 vs. LHP.

Later in that game, he pinch hit Rodriguez for Schneemann, who is his still young career has hit .270 vs. lefties.

Now, the lefty on the mound was Josh Hader, one of the best closers in the business, but we aren’t sure Wilson and/or Rodriguez are major league players, so was the skipper giving his team an advantage?

That’s the object of platooning. Creating an advantage. It seems right now, the Guardians are just doing it to do it.

Guardians Hanging In With The Lack Of A Bench

The Cleveland Guardians just keep pushing forward. Last week, they started a very difficult stretch playing ten straight games against three of baseball’s best/hottest teams.

One of the games in Minnesota was rained out, but the Guards split there and then went to Detroit and took three of four from the first place Tigers. They had dropped to fourth place after losing the first game in the Twin Cities and fell six games out of first.

Now, they are in second place, five off the pace set by Detroit. They held the Tigers, the second highest scoring team in the American League to just 11 runs in the four-game set, allowing just one run in the first two contests.

Manager Steven Vogt is doing it with a roster that contains very little depth. Using WAR (wins above replacement), the Guardians have three positions, shortstop, centerfield, and rightfield that rank in the bottom two among all AL teams.

And for the mathematically challenged, that’s one-third of your daily lineup.

To be fair, they also have three spots (LF, 2B, and 3B) that rank in the top four of all teams in the Junior Circuit but imagine if Vogt was getting any kind of production from short and two of the outfield spots. No doubt, his job would be much easier.

The league average OPS is 705. Currently, the Guardians have five players on the roster with figures 100 points less than that: Nolan Jones (552), Jhonkensy Noel (408), Lane Thomas (305), Austin Hedges (538), and Will Wilson (564).

Thomas is just coming back off the injured list and his figure should get better with more at bats, but the problem with this it has to be difficult for Vogt to give players a day off.

We know this wasn’t intended by the skipper to phone in Sunday’s game against the Tigers, but the Guardians did win the first three games of the series and Tarik Skubal, the reigning Cy Young Award winner was going for Detroit.

Vogt used that game to give many of his veteran players, save for Jose Ramirez, a needed day off.

The result was a 2-hit shutout with 13 whiffs for Skubal against a lineup that had just two hitters over league average in OPS–Ramirez and Kyle Manzardo.

You could have predicted the outcome before the game and in fact, many on social media did just that.

We would guess very soon that David Fry will be activated from his rehab assignment, and we would guess he would replace Noel on the 26-man roster. However, Fry can only DH right now, which paints Vogt into another corner. His current DH, Manzardo, leads the Guards in homers (10) and RBIs (28).

He’s also second on the team in walks with 21.

If you play Manzardo at first base, then you have to sit Carlos Santana, who leads the team in walks. Either way, you are sitting one of the productive hitters you have.

Could you put one of them in the outfield? Well, Manzardo has never played the outfield since turning professional and the last time Santana played there was 2022 when he played an inning in RF for Seattle.

Again, this situation shines a spotlight on the weird off-season by the Guardians’ front office. There were veteran free agent outfielders on the market, but the team wasn’t interested. Apparently, they felt what they had in the minors would take care of the problem.

Remember, they also traded for Nolan Jones right before the season opened. How has that worked out?

Vogt is operating with no bench right now. He’s done a solid job getting his regulars some rest and spotting at bats for the non-producing players. You have to wonder, how long can he do that?

Guardians Without Alternatives With Bats At AAA

The good news is the Cleveland Guardians are sitting at 21-15 and have the third best record in the American League, behind only Detroit and Seattle.

The bad news is based on the number of runs they’ve scored and allowed, their record should be 16-20.

The good news is their offense is right at the league average, scoring 4.14 runs per game.

The bad news is they still have only four hitters in their lineup with OPS over 750.

The good news is the performance of Daniel Schneemann to date. The second-year big leaguer, who got off to a terrible start going 1 for his first 19, is currently red hot. He’s hitting .383 over his last 49 at bats and has a 956 OPS with five homers and 10 extra base hits.

Couple this with Angel Martinez, who also didn’t make the team out of spring training, but since his call up has batted .316 (724 OPS) and has handled centerfield for the most part very well.

On the flip side, there are a number of players struggling mightily. Brayan Rocchio, who looked like he turned a corner in the playoffs last season, is in a dreadful slump and hasn’t had a hit since April 26th and his OPS has slipped to 452.

Another post-season hero, Jhonkensy Noel, had a big pinch hit in the doubleheader Tuesday, but overall is batting just .174 with a 484 OPS and has fanned 21 times in 72 plate appearances and has walked just twice.

Rookie Will Wilson is another Guardians’ bench guy and frankly, we wonder why he’s in the major leagues. He’s hit .235 during his time in AAA, and that includes his hot start in Columbus where he started 22 for 68.

Outside of his time in the capital city, there is nothing to suggest he can hit, let alone big-league pitching. Since his call up to the big club, he’s 3 for 18 and the hits are all singles.

It is quite likely the only reason Rocchio, Noel, and Wilson are still on the 26-man roster is there are no alternatives to note in AAA.

We all know about Chase DeLauter’s injury at the beginning of training camp, but recently another top prospect, Juan Brito went down with a thumb injury that required surgery. He was batting .291 with an 891 OPS and more walks than strikeouts when he went down.

If Will Brennan was a right-handed hitter, he likely would be in Cleveland in place of Noel, but he’s not, and when he was here, he’s been shown to be a singles hitter who doesn’t walk. His slugging percentage is .442 in AAA but has walked just six times.

Perhaps another look at Johnathan Rodriguez should be in the cards, but this time with him getting Noel’s at bats. In both of his stints in the majors, he’s received very sporadic playing time, going 4 for 36.

C. J. Kayfus was just moved up to Columbus after starting the season at Akron and has played only five games at AAA. We doubt the front office will call him up any time soon.

Another problem with the roster construction is Steven Vogt’s reluctance to play Kyle Manzardo at 1B when he is DHing Steven Kwan or Jose Ramirez. Manzardo leads the team in RBIs and is third in OPS, ahead of Ramirez right now.

Yet, he’s not in the lineup when Kwan or Ramirez have a “half day” off. Why doesn’t Manzardo play and Carlos Santana, who is 39 years old, get a day off?

We say it all the time, front office people have to prepare for when things go wrong. The lack of organizational depth is telling for the Guardians.

How much longer than they overcome it? We hope until October.