Long Game or Short Game?

That is always the question for teams in the off-season, isn't it?

Will your team go out and make a big splash by making the first big trade or first free agent signing of the winter?  

Teams last winter that went big 'early' (i.e., before the lockout) had some or all of their heavy lifting done before March.  Others, who routinely let the market develop (the Guardians seem to always fall in this category) were locked out (pun intended) from doing that.

So, in a 'normal' off-season, what will the Guardians do?

It comes down to what moves you want to make early and which ones you want to hold back on. Let's take a look at what the Guardians need to do now and what they can wait on.

FINALIZE THE 40-MAN ROSTER - SHORT GAME

This is definitely a short game situation as rosters have to be locked down by Nov. 15th in preparation for the Rule 5 draft in December.  So let's take a look at the roster situation and potential additions and subtractions:

The pool of prospects who both are eligible for the Rule 5 draft AND who are likely losses in that draft is as small this winter as ever.  The major reason for that is that the Guardians, knowing which players were locks to be protected this winter, brought those players to the majors during the season.  As a more secondary reason, the Guardians protected so many prospects (11) last winter there weren't a lot of guys left unprotected last year who had good seasons this year.  With the 40-man roster now full here are the things I think will happen over the next week

• The Guardians will protect: Angel Martinez, Joey Cantillo and Peyton Battenfield.    These three would likely be selections as they are high end prospects and could easily play in the majors this season for rebuilding teams.  Plus the brain trust should see that Battenfield was really in his second year as a starting pitcher in his career AND exceeded his previous high watermark of innings (103) with 153 innings.  It is easy to see how his drop in fastball velocity later in the season could be due to the increased workload.   Plus it is pretty easy to see how a team could draft Battenfield in the Rule 5 and place him in the bullpen, especially since he pitched exclusively in relief in college and a lot in his pro career..  
• Owen Miller, Anthony Gose and Luke Maile will either be traded or designated for assignment
• Prospects Ethan Hankins, Lenny Torres Jr., Alexfri Planez, all of our eligible minor league relievers will be left unprotected.
• Things that should NOT happen, but might, are Richie Palacios. Kirk McCarty, Bryan Lavastida, Will Benson and/or Konnor Pilkington being DFA'd.  While we have an abundance of prospects and young players you just don't give away good prospects for nothing.   Guys like Miller, who have failed multipl opportunities, Gose, who likely won't pitch in 2022 or Maile, who plays at replacement level, make sense.  Prospects who haven't shown their true ceiling make much less sense to just discard, especially when you have just added them to the 40 man this year and they have performed at acceptable levels in the majors, and minors, so far.

Just doing these things by Tuesday will give the Guardians breathing space to play the long game in other areas. 

FREE AGENT SIGNINGS - SHORT GAME AND LONG GAME

While we don't normally see the Guardians get involved in early free agent frenzy, I anticipate that this year will be the exception.  The Guardians need to be aggressive to get the starting position players they need and the ideal players they want may be gone if they don't act and don't act aggressively.  At the same time, given the contracts being given out to relievers, I see the Guardians going bargain basement/late in this area similar to what they did last year.  FOr the first time in my memory, the Guardians don't really need to add many minor league free agents except for relievers and a catcher or two as they will have plenty of rookies already on the 40 man who will be at AAA and can be brought up to fill spots on the roster if injuries pop up.  Note that any free agent signing(s) may result in a player on the 40-man being DFA'd as the roster should be full after Nov. 15th.  That is a concern to me as you don't like to lose prospects for nothing just to sign free agents.

TRADES - LONG GAME

I don't think that the player they might go after (Sean Murphy) will be traded any time soon as I see the A's letting a bidding war develop into and maybe past the winter meetings in December.  I am pretty sure we will see a lot more trading this winter than last winter for the Guardians as they attempt to cash in on their glut of quality major leaguers to get quality, controllable assets like Murphy.  This will also lose guys off the 40 man which, in turn, will allow more flexibility in other free agent signings and additions to the roster during the season, if needed (e.g., Gavin Williams, Logan Allen, Tanner Bibee or Daniel Espino).  It will be surprising if the Guardians make any trade before January 2023 as they may wait for teams to come back to reality about how their tradeable assets are actually valued on the market compared to what they THINK their own players are worth.