It is easy to have a visceral reaction when your division-winning baseball team makes a trade, particularly one where they send off one of their established players. We witnessed this happen this week when the Guardians decided to send Gold Glove-winning second baseman Andres Gimenez to the Toronto Blue Jays.
I didn’t take an official poll or anything, but I think it is fair to say that immediate reactions were mixed at best. In sending Gimenez away, the Guardians traded a known entity. They traded someone who has been penciled into the lineup card at second base nearly every day for the last three seasons.
Gimenez was someone the team had committed to as part of their future. He had signed a seven-year, $106 million contract extension in the spring before the 2023 season. Gimenez was familiar. He had been on two playoff teams. He had moments- walk-off home runs vs. the rival Twins and game-saving defensive plays in the ALCS vs. the Yankees.
So, in the immediate, I can see why many Guardians fans showed some discontent. I got texts from friends that ranged from confused to concerned. Rumors around Gimenez hadn’t been circulating, at least not to the same extent as they had around Josh Naylor or Lane Thomas. This trade really was a surprise.
For all the reasons above, Gimenez was seen as part of the team’s core for the future. So, where did this trade come from? Is this a salary dump? Did Paul Dolan just decide he wanted to personally ruin every Guardians’ fans’ day? The initial reaction was bad enough that local sports talk radio actually forced itself to talk about the Guardians for a moment (since it got the opportunity to do it in a negative light, of course).
Did the “Roll-Out” Affect How We Perceived Gimenez Being Traded?
I’m being a little facetious, but these overall feelings were real and made worse by how the initial trade was disseminated. First, reports on X started by only saying Gimenez was traded- as though whatever the Guardians had received back was so inconsequential that it didn’t require reporting. Eventually, it was announced that in return the Guardians would receive infielder Spencer Horwitz. The full terms of the trade would ultimately have the Guardians trading Gimenez and reliever Nick Sandlin to the Blue Jays for Horwitz and minor league outfielder Nick Mitchell as information dripped out over time like it was coming from an IV bag.
This is nothing against Horwitz, but there was an element of “who’s that?” when we originally found out that he was what we got in return for our now-former second baseman who might literally be the best fielder in the sport. Horwitz is not exactly a name. He’s played in 112 Major League games over two seasons. If you don’t follow baseball closely, you very well may not have ever heard of him.
To be fair to Horwitz, he’s a guy who just turned 27 years old and was a low draft pick but has swung the bat well enough to probably earn himself a longer look in the Majors. He hit .265 last year with 12 home runs and 19 doubles in 97 games. Swinging from the left side of the plate, he was on pace for about 20 homers and 30 doubles if his numbers were stretched to 150 games. His bigger problem is he doesn’t really have a position. He’s probably best suited for first base or designated hitter.
But that problem would not be the Guardians’ problem for more than a few hours. While local fans may not be very aware of Horwitz, the front office of the Pittsburgh Pirates certainly is. The ink very well may not have dried on the paper work for the Cleveland-Toronto trade before Chris Antonetti and company had sent Horwitz away to the steel city.
Just a few hours later, it was announced that Horwitz would once again be on the move and in return the Guardians would receive three pitchers. Most notably, Major League starter Luis Ortiz would be a Guardian, while minor leaguers Michael Kennedy and Josh Hartle would also be added to the organization.
Parting with a perceived cornerstone player is hard, but I think that after flipping Horwitz things started to make a little bit more sense, albeit still with a decent dose of skepticism for most. While Ortiz and two mid-level prospects still weren’t the makings of a headlining blockbuster, people are aware that the Guardians need starting pitching. Anyone who even just watched a few playoff games this season could tell that. So, in getting Ortiz, this was a move to legitimately try to fill a void, admittedly it came at a cost that was higher than some would like, but the move is at least easier to rationalize.
However, everything I’ve talked about so far has come from the lens of public perception. I’ve talked about feelings and reactions and “vibes,” and in my opinion, those don’t always match reality. I’m by no means all-knowing, but let me try to now paint a picture of the reality of the situation. Let me try to summarize the motivations for the Guardians’ front office and where we are going from here.
Why Did Andres Gimenez Get Traded?
In 2022, Andres Gimenez looked like a legitimate cornerstone of a ballplayer. He slashed .297/.371/.466 with 26 doubles, 17 home runs and 20 stolen bases, all while earning his first Gold Glove award. He was an All-Star that year and finished 6th in American League Most Valuable Player voting. He was 12th among position players in all of baseball in Wins Above Replacement that year- better than Mookie Betts, Jose Ramirez and Alex Bregman. He also was just 23 years old.
Seeing an opportunity, the Guardians snapped him up with the seven-year extension I alluded to earlier. Hence all the good feelings I spoke about from the fan base. This, along with extensions for Jose Ramirez and Emmanuel Clase, were success stories. It was proof positive that the Guardians were serious about contending, building something and investing in their talent.
In the two seasons that have followed Gimenez’s extension, he has remained easily one of the best defensive players in baseball. Literally, no player between 2023 and 2024 has been worth more Outs Above Average. However, his hitting has gotten less and less potent with time. Since the start of 2023, he has hit .252, while his slugging percentage is nearly a full 100 points lower than it was in 2022.
2022: .297/.371/.466, 56 extra base hits
2023 and 2024: .252/.306/.368, 39 extra base hits per year
Being unable to find that same pop at the plate has been his downfall.
Interestingly, as I review his Statcast data, one other thing sticks out to me. Gimenez is admittedly a contact hitter. He doesn’t strike the ball with a high velocity that is going to generate a ton of home runs, but he is great at making contact. He profiles very similarly to Steven Kwan in this regard. However, Kwan was among the Guardians hitters this past year who made a point to be more selective when they swing and to try to swing for damage more often when they were ahead in the count. To this point, Kwan was in the top four percent of MLB in not chasing pitches outside of the zone in 2024. Gimenez, on the other hand, was in the worst six percent of the league in that same chase rate.
To put it more simply, Gimenez never got with the program this year on being more selective and using that selectivity to do damage. Instead, he kept chasing, which with his great ability to put bat on ball led to weak contact, which led to being in the bottom five percent of baseball in Hard Hits, which led to him being a below-average hitter for the second year in a row.
This presumably led to him not fulfilling the value of the seven-year extension that he and the Guardians had agreed to, which led to him now being a Toronto Blue Jay.
What About Nick Sandlin and the Return the Guardians Received?
In trading Sandlin, the Guardians did similar to what they did when Eli Morgan was traded away earlier this off-season. They used their surplus relief pitching to gather more young talent. There is some question as to whether this was necessary, Sandlin had an excellent start to the season (2.54 ERA before June 13th) before being injured and struggling in the second half badly enough to not make the playoff roster (4.91 ERA the rest of the way).
The Guardians must feel confident in the next crop of young relief pitchers- the Andrew Walters and Erik Sabrowskis of the world to be able to deal from a place of strength in order to continue to restock the shelves in getting Horwitz (who begat the Pittsburgh pitchers) and Mitchell.
I can get into Mitchell in a minute, but the Pittsburgh return and particularly Ortiz, is quite intriguing, so I’d like to go there instead.
Luis Ortiz is a right-handed pitcher in his second year of service time. He will be 26 years old for the 2025 season, meaning he can remain a Guardian through 2029 when he will be 30 years old. He started last season in a long relief role for the Pirates before eventually earning time in the starting rotation. Overall, he pitched to a very strong 3.32 ERA in 135 2/3 innings. His ERA was a slightly better 3.22 in his 15 starts.
Ortiz throws five pitches, including three different fastballs. Most notably, his four-seamer averages 96 mph. Batters hit only .187 against it last year. He also features a slider that was swung and missed at nearly one-third (31%) of the time in 2024. It was the pitch that hitters made the worst contact on within Ortiz’s pitch mix last season based on expected wOBA. Ortiz also increased his usage of a cutter in 2024 with success. Both his slider and cutter were aided by the fact that Ortiz changed his arm slot over the course of the winter between 2023 and 2024, dropping to throwing at a lower angle which helped generate better runs on both pitches, leading to such great results and making his cutter a viable MLB pitch.
At 26, Ortiz is still raw but definitely was starting to figure some things out for himself in Pittsburgh last season. Bringing him to an organization like the Guardians, who have one of the best reputations for pitching development in the sport could even take him to another level. Given the strong results he showed last year and the organizational support he should receive, I don’t think it’s unrealistic to see Ortiz as being as high as Cleveland’s number three starter in the coming season.
As for the other prospects that the Guards got from Pittsburgh, they are two lefty hurlers who should benefit from Cleveland’s pitching apparatus as well.
MLB.com is placing Kennedy as the Guardians’ #16 prospect. He has three pitches, headlined by a slider that generates swings and misses (a theme in what Cleveland targeted in this trade). He also pounds the strike zone, which tends to be a Cleveland point of emphasis. He pitched to a 4.32 ERA in Single-A last season but will be just 20 years old in 2025. It is hard to say at this point, but he currently projects as a 4th or 5th starter in the Majors with the potential to make the show as early as 2027. If things go well, he could spend time at AA Akron this year.
Meanwhile, Hartle is listed as the Guardians’ 18th prospect. He was selected in this past year’s draft a mere five months ago and has pitched only 1 2/3 pro innings. He is by no means going to blow hitters away as his fastball sits in the low 90s. He did have a strong slider and great control during his college career, but he has a reputation at this point as someone who regressed from a sure-fire first-round pick as a rookie at Wake Forest to dropping to the third round when he was taken after his junior year. In acquiring him, it’s clear that the Guards think they can reclaim him, but he does come off as a bit of a project at 22 years old. He will likely report to Single-A Lake County.
Lastly, I told you I would come back to the outfielder that the Guardians received from Toronto, Nick Mitchell. Mitchell is going to be 21 years old and was also just drafted five months ago in the 4th round of the Amateur Draft. He did get about 100 plate appearances at Single-A and slashed .289/.350/.467. Despite the decent early success in the minors, he does appear to be considered a lower-level prospect. At five foot nine, he shows high-level contact-hitting ability while seeming to have the potential to play corner outfield positions, making him sound like he is in a similar vein to someone like Steven Kwan as a high-end outcome for what he could be. Mitchell will likely join Hartle at Lake County and admittedly has the lowest likelihood of making the Majors of all three prospects that the Guards received.
Ortiz Sounds Good, But Who is Going to Play Second Base?
People do not want to hear this for the reasons I listed off at the beginning of this post about known entities, but the Guardians also dealt from a position of potential depth when they traded Gimenez. Cleveland continues to have an abundance of young middle infielders who can compete to fill Gimenez’s shoes in 2025. Many of these middle infielders started vying for playing time in the last couple of seasons, especially 2024. While I believe the organization remains fixated on Brayan Rocchio as its shortstop, Angel Martinez and Daniel Schneemann both received MLB experience last season and showed flashes of success. Juan Brito also remains ranked as a top 10 prospect in the organization. We very well may see Gabriel Arias get another opportunity as well.
Truthfully, I think the job will be Martinez’s to lose. There was a time last season when he showed a spark before pitchers started to adjust to him (.850 OPS in his first 13 games). If he can have an excellent spring last he did in 2024, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him next to Rocchio when the Guards open up play. I also think Schneemann should not be slept on as a potential option. Schneemann may not be as athletic as Gimenez or even Martinez, but he put up professional at-bats during his Major League time and did well enough to make the playoff roster. While neither Martinez or Schneemann provides the same heights defensively that Gimenez did, I genuinely think they can hit better than Gimenez did if they receive regular playing time.
And all of this goes without mentioning the Australian #1 overall draft pick looming in the background. I don’t think we will see Travis Bazzana in 2025, but he certainly could be poised for the Majors as soon as 2026. In reality, we are probably looking at someone bridging a gap at second base for a year, with the potential that we are pleasantly surprised and that bridge earns a spot on the field moving forward. Beyond that, I think Cleveland’s top prospect will be in the lineup in 2026.
What Else Could Come in the Aftermath of This Trade?
Ideally, the ripple effect from this trade hasn’t ended yet. Admittedly, the Guardians made a move that was cost-effective, and the phrase “cost-effective” sounds about as fun as “budget meeting” or “company policy” or “root canal.” I’m not going to lie. I have concerns this move, while having legitimate baseball reasons, was also motivated by the Guardians’ television broadcast situation, expecting a shrinking in revenue (another fun phrase).
However, the Guardians did remove about $11 million from their books for 2025 as well as probably about $14 million for 2026 and $22 million for 2027. If they are able to reallocate those funds somewhere else, it could make the off-season a resounding success.
For example, if this turns into a “Guess what?! We now have the money to extend Tanner Bibee” scenario, or a “Guess what?! We do have a second baseman of the future, we just came to terms for a long-term contract for Travis Bazzana.”, or a “Guess what?! We just pitched our low-stress media environment and pitching development department to Roki Sasaki and he loved it and is coming on board,” then we really have something cooking now. Any of these three options, as well as others, are within the bounds of reality.
So, Were These Moves a Good Thing?
I’m going to make an obvious statement. Baseball trades are calculated risks. We all know that the Guardians’ team-building strategy includes having to be smart with their money. The contract that Gimenez was committed to for the Guardians was one that required him to provide more offensive output than what he was providing, even with his exemplary defense. I think these issues were made worse by his inability to follow team philosophy at the plate.
The Guardians did their best to pivot. They understood that just because Gimenez wasn’t providing the value they were hoping for did not mean that he was valueless, even if he was no longer the right fit for them. While there were extra steps involved, they ultimately were able to shop Gimenez in such a way that they helped bolster the starting rotation, which was arguably the team’s biggest roadblock to success in 2024. Luis Ortiz has the ability to be a legitimate and significant contributor to the Guardians’ success immediately. His contributions alone could match what Gimenez was able to provide in the last two seasons, albeit in an entirely different way.
Here’s another obvious statement, winning cures everything. I can envision a world where its no longer 15 degrees outside and instead the Guardians are playing in October again. They’ve just taken the first two games in the ALDS against the Royals off the backs of stellar pitching performances from Shane Bieber and Tanner Bibee with Cade Smith and Emmanuel Clase being able to pitch singular innings and shutting the door late. Moving onto Game 3, I like our chances for a sweep in KC because Luis Ortiz is getting the ball and he’s been superb all season.
That world isn’t ridiculous. Ortiz has the tools and Bieber and Bibee are legitimate #1 and #2 ahead of him. Beyond prospect profiles and short-lived Spencer Horwitz Guardians jerseys, if Luis Ortiz is starting playoff games in 2025, this trade is a success. I don’t think that vision is that far out of reach.
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