…and not hit fifth
Coming into 2025, the talk surrounding the Cleveland Guardians was about how cheap ownership was coming off the heels of an ALCS run despite a depleted pitching staff.
Outside of that, however, was how the offense would replace the production of Josh Naylor, who the team sent to Arizona for Slade Cecconi and a competitive balance Round-B pick. Cleveland signed Carlos Santana almost immediately. Santana was coming off a productive platoon season with Minnesota, but with it being a one-year deal and Santana being 39, the answer was clearly short-term. The questions being asked even with Naylor on the roster were always long-term anyways.
The writing always felt like it was on the wall once Cleveland traded Aaron Civale to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2023 for first baseman Kyle Manzardo. Once Manzardo got called up, the initial struggles you’d expect from anyone trying to adjust to major league pitching ensued, but the promise was always there as Manzardo proved to be a good at-bat regardless of result. Then September came, and that writing on the wall went from being written in invisible ink to bold, black Sharpie.
Manzardo was a September call-up after getting demoted to work on some things within his approach, and upon his return to the Cleveland lineup, Manzo took off. As almost strictly a DH, Manzardo posted a 146 wRC+ in September — 176 if you only look at the games he DH’d — and along with Lane Thomas and José Ramírez, those three boosted Cleveland’s late season push into October. Manzardo continued his hot hitting in the Postseason as well. In the ALCS, Manzardo went 5-for-13 with a home run and a double, and while Naylor struggled mightily, Manzardo’s success made it feel like the future felt incredibly bright.
There was a catch, however. All of Manzardo’s production was coming against right-handed pitching. Against lefties, he both struggled while also never really getting a chance to accrue major league at-bats against them. Throw it all out the window. Manzo’s hitting lefties now.
Small sample size be damned, Kyle Manzardo figured out his 2024 struggle thus far in 2025, and there’s a lot to suggest it’s not a mirage.
No, Manzardo is not going to sustainably hit .700 against lefties all season, but he is smoking the ball against them in ways that many worried about even being possible. In the season opener against Kansas City, Manzardo completely turned the game around for Cleveland, ambushing an Angel Zerpa sinker on the inner third, putting it into the fountains at Kauffman Stadium.
The chase rate against lefties has still been there as Manzardo is whiffing at a 35.7% rate, but when every ball coming off the bat is over 100 miles per hour (no seriously—all of them), that can be excused. Cleveland’s lineup against LHP is superior to its lineup against RHP through a measly nine games, and a lot of that has ironically been that Manzardo has struggled against righties, though when those right-handers are Seth Lugo, Lucas Erceg, Michael King, and Dylan Cease to name a few, the slower start is more understandable.
So, why is this for real? We’ve already indicated at the whiff rate being a bit alarming, but I don’t believe it’s as big of an issue as it seems. Manzardo has been all over breaking pitches from lefties. As is expected, whiffs on breaking stuff in lefty versus lefty are heightened. Current whiff rates in LHH versus LHP matchups run at 32.2% with hard hit rates at 35%. Manzardo is running a whiff rate at 44% — again, small sample sizes are very real, and he’s only seen nine breaking pitches from lefties — but he is crushing hangers in ways he never did before.
In 2024, Manzardo saw 21 curves, sliders, and sweepers from left-handed pitchers. He ran a .125 wOBA and 12.5% hard hit rate. Just a mere week into the season, Manzardo has four more hits against lefties than he did all of last season, and every single one of them have gone for extra bases, including a trio of homers.
Replacing Naylor’s production never felt like we were asking the right question. What we should have been asking was what Kyle Manzardo was going to bring to the table in his first full season as a major leaguer instead. The offseason and this first week have brought nothing but more raised eyebrows, but Manzardo has certainly began to provide answers to the future.