Can the team break the odd year disappointment streak?
A “heat check” in basketball is when a player who is shooting well in the game pulls up to take a low-percentage shot to see, essentially, if the basketball shooting gods have blessed his or her hand with a Meidas touch for the moment. We are about to see if a similar phenomenon is true for the Cleveland Guardians’ ownership’s approach to managing this franchise in 2025.
Last offseason, I wrote an article about how the Cleveland front office needed a good season to show they hadn’t lost a step. Check! Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff and co. did that without a doubt as the team exceeded projections, won the AL Central and made the ALCS (where they were soundly defeated by the Yankees). Seemingly, this success has encouraged Paul Dolan and the Cleveland ownership group to leave the Cleveland front office to further trust rely on player development and evaluation while trying to repeat as AL Central champions in 2025 and advance to a World Series; this is an aforementioned “heat check,” if you will.
Let me state the obvious here: if the Dolan family were telling Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff to increase payroll to $130 million after an ALCS run in an attempt to surround future hall of famer Jose Ramirez with the best possible supporting case, we wouldn’t be talking about heat checks. We’d probably be talking about right-fielder Michael Conforto and #3 starter Jack Flaherty accompanying the signing of Shane Biebe. all of whom the Guardians would have signed this offseason. But, because the Dolans continue to keep a pretty tight lid on team payroll, we are where are in terms of the Guardians’ roster. The Guardians are projected for a payroll of $100 million which is essentially exactly the same as their 2024 payroll. To mix metaphors for a moment: when your team ends up on the doorstep of winning a pennant, conventional wisdom would say it is time to pay the covercharge to see if you can get your way into that party. The Dolans and company, instead, are essentially trying to sneak in a back door, because they “know a guy.”
The Guardians in 2024 had the 20th best (or 10th worst) wRC+ against right-handed pitching and they traded their cleanup hitter, Josh Naylor, who reliably produced a 130 wRC+ against RHP and replaced him with Carlos Santana who over the past five years has an 89 wRC+ against RHP. Behind Santana is David Fry recovering from elbow surgery who has a career 95 wRC+ against RHP. Beyond that, one would have to hope for unproven options like Jhonkensy Noel, Micah Pries, CJ Kayfus or perhaps Juan Brito. And, given the $12 million invested in Santana, no one should be optimistic that the team will move on quickly from the 39 year-old if things go south midseason.
The Guardians also traded a reliable three-win player in the middle infield in Andres Gimenez, primarily because they owed $100 million to a player whose bat had remained consistently below average for the past two seasons (while winning gold gloves at second base annually). The Guardians did not want to be stuck paying $20 million per year to a glove first second baseman who doesn’t seem to want to move to shortstop where that number would be easier to swallow. This definitely amounts to a heat check on the player development system because nothing seems more assured than that the Guardians are going to give up more runs moving from Gimenez to Gabriel Arias, Tyler Freeman or Juan Brito; will one of those bats will produce enough runs to compensate for that trade-off? I can’t help but run images of Gimenez making play after play on screaming groundball after screaming groundball from Emmanuel Clase through my mind as I think about this decision and wonder if this bet is going to pay off. I think it seems probable that this move will pay off handsomely in three years (especially if Travis Bazzana pans out), but in 2025, the proposition that the team has improved in the value they have at second base seems questionable, at best.
Given the resources the front office was given, they sensibly made the decision to take most of the money they had available to shore up a rotation that was not at all capable of winning the World Series at any point during a (still) great run last season. But, pitching is expensive, so the Guardians are going to need their pitching development team to fix and implement folks like Luis Ortiz, Slade Cecconi, Joey Cantillo, Doug Nikhazy and Parker Messick quickly to have the moves they made (and didn’t make) this offseason pan out. They are going to need to prove they can continue to get excellent performances from their bullpen arms despite a whole lot going right for those pitchers in 2024 that is not guaranteed to go so well in 2025. They will need Shane Bieber and maybe even John Means if things go awry to return strong from their respective Tommy John surgeries. IF all these things happen, the Cleveland front office will look like geniuses and Paul Dolan will be the envy of every owner next November for squeezing the most value out of his dollars spent on payroll.
To hit this pull-up jumper from way downtown, the Guardians will also need to have some young bats find their way – bats for Bo Naylor and Brayan Rocchio, especially. They will need to get some strong bouncebacks from injury for Trevor Stephan, Fry, Chase DeLauter, and maybe even George Valera. If all of these things take place, the Guardians will look like geniuses again while FanGraphs’ computers look stupid and preseason power rankings look ridiculous. That all sounds fun, for sure, but a big part of me wonders whether this low-percentage shot from 35-feet away is really such a good idea, after all.
As I decide how I’m going to write my part of our staff predictions column, part of me wants to say “These guys are gonna find a way to win 95 games.” Another big part of me says, you can run on for a long time, run on for a long time, run on for a long time… sooner or late math’ll cut you down. Everything that makes sense to me says “Spend a little more money on your roster after you make a championship series.” And, sure, the team will likely add a player or two at the trade deadline when such additions are cheaper. But, will that be too little too late because ownership didn’t want to do what it took to fix fairly significant holes in the lineup and the rotation with proven solutions?
Time will tell – swish or clunk, I’ll be here to see what happens. And I’ll be rooting for this hot streak of doing more with less to continue to shock the world.