Lots of discussion has been and will be had in the next 57 days leading up to the trading deadline. A little of that will even come from the upcoming baseball draft where small market teams will determine, to some extent, what their needs will be in 5 years or so when the fruits of that draft ripen and are picked.
For right now, let's talk about the current Guardians roster and where the 'fluff' is. That is, what guys are expendable going forward.
Most expendable
Anthony Castro
Alex Young
Sandy Leon
Luke Maile
Oscar Mercado
Comments: All of these guys could be replaced right now with someone in the minors as indicated in parentheses. The issue, of course, is that if we replace these guys with someone NOT on the 40 man roster and add a true prospect then we've lost the ability to DFA that person later on as they will surely be lost through waivers if they are a true prospecdt who has produced in the minors. Still, there is the possibility to add production to our current roster by adding guys who we will protect this wnter. Here are some thoughts:
Anthony Castro (Xvaion Curry)
Alex Young (Andrew Misiasek)
Sandy Leon (Bo Naylor)
Luke Maile (Bryan Lavastida, when not injured)
Oscar Mercado (Will Brennan)
Somewhat expendable
Ernie Clement (George Arias)
Nick Sandlin (Nick Mikolajchak)
Bryan Shaw (Hunter Gaddis)
Owen Miller (Tyler Freeman)
Richie Palacios (Nolan Jones)
Enyel De Los Santos (?)
Anthony Gose (?)
Comments: This list will have a lot of debate associated with it, to be sure. However, this team needs offense. Clement is a feel-good story but his anti-offense is a real downer for a team with a hitting hole at catcher and sudden and stunning hitting holes at DH and CF. We thought Miller's 2021 was just an aberration based on his overall body of work in the minors. We were all elated when he started 2022 strong. However, given his peformance and his recent body language it is looking more and more like 2021 was the norm and the aberration was the beginning of 2022. Given how hot he was when called up in 2021, it looks like the guy may just start out hot each season and then regress to his mean which, on a contending team, is below replacement level given our farm system. We should all love what Palacios has done so far and maybe as the 26th man he has a place on this team going forward if his defense improves at all positions. At least when he comes on to pinch hit I feel like we have a chance. Sandlin is a gmmick guy and like those who have come become before him, gimmicks only work for so long unless you uber-perfect them or come up with other weapons. Shaw is and always have been a middling rental. He takes the ball when asked and generally does well enough to not pour gasoline on the fire. Still, he is taking valuable reps from rookies who we have to find out about. For De Los Santos, he looks good now but given that he was a late minor league signee, he could go the way of Blake Parker and not be part of the long-term future. Same is true for Gose.
Hard to believe but maybe expendable
Myles Straw
Franmil Reyes
Eli Morgan
James Karinchak
Comments: Hard to believe but these three guys are on my bubble. It is almost Carlos Baerga-like incomprehensible how Straw's and Reyes' performance has gone away. I mean, they both look at the plate like middling AA prospects thrown to the wolves. Compare the performance of Palacios to Straw, offensively. Palacios should be, and was, Straw's floor of performance, not the other way around. And Reyes? It is almost impossible to believe his performance has fallen off the table this much. Again, Josh Naylor should be Reyes' floor, not the other way around. Finally, there is Eli Morgan. Yes, he looks good but the announcers are starting to talk about it. Is he just a gimmick-laden flash in the pan and when the entirety of ML baseball has seen him a few more times will he just become the guy the Twins beat up the last couple of tmes he faced them. I hope not but that is a possibilty. Karinchak is the most interesting case on this list. Rumblings last year was that he was one of the ones who was loading up on the sticky stuff. When the enforcement tightened, his stuff went south. If he can perform without cheating like he performed in the first part of 2021 he doesn't belong on any list except for the list of guys you want to tie up long term. Time will tell
So literally 40% of our roster could change next year. Some of it will be necessary. Some of it (Miller, Clement) will be painful but necessary. And, finally, some of it will be shocking but necessary as we can't give up our window of competitivenewss just because we are hoping for a return to previous form that is not coming. Time will tell and, as a long-time Cleveland baseball fan, I hope most of the above is wrong and is obliterated by solid to spectacular performance for the rest of the year. However, if we want to compete THIS year, if we don't want to waste all the good performances THIS year, we may have to make some painful decisions this year. It's not like we don't have the talent in the minors to replace some of these guys. We just need the courage to pull the trigger to make this happen.
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