After 17 rookies helped take Cleveland to within one win of the ALCS in 2022, they entered this year as the team to beat in the AL Central. Veteran leadership and offensive upgrades were added to the starting lineup, where Josh Bell will fill a role that Franmil Reyes and a revolving door of others were unable to bolster at DH, and Mike Zunino gives Cleveland its first competent hitting catcher since the Yan Gomes era.
Rule changes for 2023 was supposed to favor Cleveland's aggressive two-baserunners-and-a-cloud-of-dust style of offense that doesn't focus on the three true outcomes... and they do the league in stolen bases while being the hardest team to strike out, but they've struggled to convert that into runners crossing the plate so far and rank 12th in the AL in scoring. They knew going in that Steven Kwan and Myles Straw would need to run to get beyond first base, but it's the lack of slugging from guys like Oscar Gonzalez, Josh Bell and Josh Naylor that's leaving too many guys stranded on base.
The team didn't plan on many personnel changes on the pitching staff, but injuries knocked both Tristan McKenzie (teres major strain) and Aaron Civale (oblique strain) out of the rotation early, so they've relied on rookies who were still supposed to be AAA to start over 30% of their games so far. That's come in the form of Hunter Gaddis, Peyton Battenfield and Logan Allen so far, with Xzavion Curry leading the team with 12 innings out of the bullpen.
Cleveland management routinely proves me wrong when I disagree with them (most notably with Steven Kwan and Sam Hentges on the current team), but I felt their biggest mistakes over the winter were moves they didn't make – not trading Amed Rosario and Zach Plesac. Rosario may have turned his season around today with a 4-hit, 4-run game in which he just missed hitting for the cycle by about 15 feet on a foul ball into the left field seats. He'd missed most of last week with back soreness and struggled at the plate until today. Regardless of how he performs the rest of the season though, Cleveland has invested much of their future in middle-infield prospects and Rosario is playing out his final arb season. Meanwhile, Cleveland locked up one middle-infielder long-term this spring with a 7yr/$106.5M extension. They signed Jose Ramirez to a 7yr/$141M at the start of last season. Even with Gimenez able to play stellar defense on either side of second base, they're left with at least a half-dozen legitimate prospects to fill one spot long-term or be used for trade value. It's possible Gabriel Arias could hit for enough power to shift to first base or right field, but Tyler Freeman, Brayan Rocchio, Angel Martinez, Jose Tena and Juan Brito are most likely going to be tripping over each other for one starting spot in Cleveland. If Rosario continues to hit and Cleveland finds themselves battling for a playoff spot midseason, it's going to be difficult to trade him, but it also makes no sense to extend him. I'd have preferred they give Arias and Freeman a good shot at securing the shortstop job during the first half, and then Rocchio could enter the equation this summer if neither did.
Plesac might look a little more necessary to the roster for now with the injuries to the starting staff, but Civale should be ready to return in early May (the question with him has become how long he can remain healthy) and McKenzie has started throwing again with the expectation of an early June return. Logan Allen, the team's 2nd round pick in 2020, looked great in his MLB debut today (6 ip, 1 er, 1 bb, 8 k) and is the most likely of the rookies to spend the rest of the year in the rotation. Cody Morris, who looked sharp in his late-season debut in 2022 is out with the same injury and same timeline as Dr. Sticks, although he's another who's struggled to stay on the field.
But wait, there's more... Even with fireballing starter Daniel Espino continuing to spend most of his minor league career on the IL, they could have another starter who hits triple-digits arrive in Cleveland this summer. 2021 1st rounder Gavin Williams is dominating AA right now (0.63 ERA, 12.6 K/9, taking a no-hitter into the 5th inning in two of his three starts). After reaching AA last year, he could be on the Shane Bieber track to the majors – Akron in April, Columbus in May, Cleveland in June. But wait, there's more... 2021 5th round pick Tanner Bibee, who's a consensus Top 100 MLB prospect, has continued pitching in AAA just as he did in Hi-A and AA last year. So far in his pro career, he's 10-2, 2.13, 2.1 bb/9, 11.3 k/9. There's no reason to pay Plesac millions to be a back-of-the-rotation starter with so many intriguing options on the verge of the show.
Some more thoughts and observations:
• Mike Zunino is fully recovered from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome and reaching base at a .400 clip through 15 games. However, he's also the worst catcher Cleveland has had behind the plate since the early days of Victor Martinez. He can't block pitches which has led to 15 wild pitches (2nd most in MLB).
• Josh Bell got off to a terrible start (3-for-38 to kick off his Cleveland career), but has been the Guardians' hottest hitter of late. With a 3-hit game today and his 2nd home run, he's up to an almost respectable .738 OPS.
• Steven Kwan is seeing more pitches than anyone else in the game, raising his walk rate this year, but his strikeout rate has jumped from 9.7% to 14.4%. He hasn't been elite at keeping at-bats alive the way he was last year (a drop in contact rate from 80% to 67% on pitches outside the zone).
• Gabriel Arias had a strong spring and won the utility infield spot over Tyler Freeman, who struggled. Since the start of the season, they have completely flipped, and they really can't have much more patience with Arias' .590 OPS, while Freeman has a 1.118 OPS in Columbus (and two nice games in Cleveland during doubleheaders). Freeman might not be the sexiest of the middle infield prospects, but he seems to be a finished product and should be in Cleveland regardless of where Arias is, because...
• Cleveland made the head-scratching decision to carry three catchers on the MLB roster from the start of the season. Since Zunino has been both good and healthy and the others have looked like dollar bin backups, there's really been no advantage to be had there. They want Bo Naylor playing every day in AAA, and he's continued to draw walks and hit for power (.850 OPS). It will be interesting to see when they decide that Naylor has the most to gain by working with the MLB staff, even if it means spending most of his time on the bench.
• Gaddis topped Curry for the last spot in the bullpen in spring training. They're both starters, so he also won the opportunity to fill McKenzie's spot in the rotation when he was injured a couple of days before opening day. Among Cleveland's upper level pitching prospects, Gaddis has one of the lowest ceilings, only looked good when facing Oakland and was demoted this week. Cleveland will need to decide later this week which two of Gaddis, Allen, Battenfield and Curry will get starts until the veterans get healthy. I think any future for Gaddis is in the pen and they should have given Curry the rotation spot from the start.
• Tim Herrin made the bullpen as Cleveland's only lefty in the absence of Sam Hentges (shoulder inflammation). He can impress with upper-90s heat and a swing-and-miss slider, but when he gets hit, he gets hit hard. Hentges is a couple of appearances into his rehab assignment and should be back in a week or two.
• The bullpen is still solid and settled, but don't be surprised if former failed prospect Touki Toussaint resurfaces in Cleveland. I love seeing the Guardians attempt these reclamation projects, and they can because they have enough homegrown depth in the major league bullpen they don't need to count on carrying base-level veterans in AAA. Toussaint is now in his fourth organization, but still only 26. His days of trying to make it as an MLB starter are over, but coming out of the pen, he's currently throwing strikes (4 walks, 8 hits allowing in 14.1 ip).
Rule changes for 2023 was supposed to favor Cleveland's aggressive two-baserunners-and-a-cloud-of-dust style of offense that doesn't focus on the three true outcomes... and they do the league in stolen bases while being the hardest team to strike out, but they've struggled to convert that into runners crossing the plate so far and rank 12th in the AL in scoring. They knew going in that Steven Kwan and Myles Straw would need to run to get beyond first base, but it's the lack of slugging from guys like Oscar Gonzalez, Josh Bell and Josh Naylor that's leaving too many guys stranded on base.
The team didn't plan on many personnel changes on the pitching staff, but injuries knocked both Tristan McKenzie (teres major strain) and Aaron Civale (oblique strain) out of the rotation early, so they've relied on rookies who were still supposed to be AAA to start over 30% of their games so far. That's come in the form of Hunter Gaddis, Peyton Battenfield and Logan Allen so far, with Xzavion Curry leading the team with 12 innings out of the bullpen.
Cleveland management routinely proves me wrong when I disagree with them (most notably with Steven Kwan and Sam Hentges on the current team), but I felt their biggest mistakes over the winter were moves they didn't make – not trading Amed Rosario and Zach Plesac. Rosario may have turned his season around today with a 4-hit, 4-run game in which he just missed hitting for the cycle by about 15 feet on a foul ball into the left field seats. He'd missed most of last week with back soreness and struggled at the plate until today. Regardless of how he performs the rest of the season though, Cleveland has invested much of their future in middle-infield prospects and Rosario is playing out his final arb season. Meanwhile, Cleveland locked up one middle-infielder long-term this spring with a 7yr/$106.5M extension. They signed Jose Ramirez to a 7yr/$141M at the start of last season. Even with Gimenez able to play stellar defense on either side of second base, they're left with at least a half-dozen legitimate prospects to fill one spot long-term or be used for trade value. It's possible Gabriel Arias could hit for enough power to shift to first base or right field, but Tyler Freeman, Brayan Rocchio, Angel Martinez, Jose Tena and Juan Brito are most likely going to be tripping over each other for one starting spot in Cleveland. If Rosario continues to hit and Cleveland finds themselves battling for a playoff spot midseason, it's going to be difficult to trade him, but it also makes no sense to extend him. I'd have preferred they give Arias and Freeman a good shot at securing the shortstop job during the first half, and then Rocchio could enter the equation this summer if neither did.
Plesac might look a little more necessary to the roster for now with the injuries to the starting staff, but Civale should be ready to return in early May (the question with him has become how long he can remain healthy) and McKenzie has started throwing again with the expectation of an early June return. Logan Allen, the team's 2nd round pick in 2020, looked great in his MLB debut today (6 ip, 1 er, 1 bb, 8 k) and is the most likely of the rookies to spend the rest of the year in the rotation. Cody Morris, who looked sharp in his late-season debut in 2022 is out with the same injury and same timeline as Dr. Sticks, although he's another who's struggled to stay on the field.
But wait, there's more... Even with fireballing starter Daniel Espino continuing to spend most of his minor league career on the IL, they could have another starter who hits triple-digits arrive in Cleveland this summer. 2021 1st rounder Gavin Williams is dominating AA right now (0.63 ERA, 12.6 K/9, taking a no-hitter into the 5th inning in two of his three starts). After reaching AA last year, he could be on the Shane Bieber track to the majors – Akron in April, Columbus in May, Cleveland in June. But wait, there's more... 2021 5th round pick Tanner Bibee, who's a consensus Top 100 MLB prospect, has continued pitching in AAA just as he did in Hi-A and AA last year. So far in his pro career, he's 10-2, 2.13, 2.1 bb/9, 11.3 k/9. There's no reason to pay Plesac millions to be a back-of-the-rotation starter with so many intriguing options on the verge of the show.
Some more thoughts and observations:
• Mike Zunino is fully recovered from surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome and reaching base at a .400 clip through 15 games. However, he's also the worst catcher Cleveland has had behind the plate since the early days of Victor Martinez. He can't block pitches which has led to 15 wild pitches (2nd most in MLB).
• Josh Bell got off to a terrible start (3-for-38 to kick off his Cleveland career), but has been the Guardians' hottest hitter of late. With a 3-hit game today and his 2nd home run, he's up to an almost respectable .738 OPS.
• Steven Kwan is seeing more pitches than anyone else in the game, raising his walk rate this year, but his strikeout rate has jumped from 9.7% to 14.4%. He hasn't been elite at keeping at-bats alive the way he was last year (a drop in contact rate from 80% to 67% on pitches outside the zone).
• Gabriel Arias had a strong spring and won the utility infield spot over Tyler Freeman, who struggled. Since the start of the season, they have completely flipped, and they really can't have much more patience with Arias' .590 OPS, while Freeman has a 1.118 OPS in Columbus (and two nice games in Cleveland during doubleheaders). Freeman might not be the sexiest of the middle infield prospects, but he seems to be a finished product and should be in Cleveland regardless of where Arias is, because...
• Cleveland made the head-scratching decision to carry three catchers on the MLB roster from the start of the season. Since Zunino has been both good and healthy and the others have looked like dollar bin backups, there's really been no advantage to be had there. They want Bo Naylor playing every day in AAA, and he's continued to draw walks and hit for power (.850 OPS). It will be interesting to see when they decide that Naylor has the most to gain by working with the MLB staff, even if it means spending most of his time on the bench.
• Gaddis topped Curry for the last spot in the bullpen in spring training. They're both starters, so he also won the opportunity to fill McKenzie's spot in the rotation when he was injured a couple of days before opening day. Among Cleveland's upper level pitching prospects, Gaddis has one of the lowest ceilings, only looked good when facing Oakland and was demoted this week. Cleveland will need to decide later this week which two of Gaddis, Allen, Battenfield and Curry will get starts until the veterans get healthy. I think any future for Gaddis is in the pen and they should have given Curry the rotation spot from the start.
• Tim Herrin made the bullpen as Cleveland's only lefty in the absence of Sam Hentges (shoulder inflammation). He can impress with upper-90s heat and a swing-and-miss slider, but when he gets hit, he gets hit hard. Hentges is a couple of appearances into his rehab assignment and should be back in a week or two.
• The bullpen is still solid and settled, but don't be surprised if former failed prospect Touki Toussaint resurfaces in Cleveland. I love seeing the Guardians attempt these reclamation projects, and they can because they have enough homegrown depth in the major league bullpen they don't need to count on carrying base-level veterans in AAA. Toussaint is now in his fourth organization, but still only 26. His days of trying to make it as an MLB starter are over, but coming out of the pen, he's currently throwing strikes (4 walks, 8 hits allowing in 14.1 ip).