So Josh Naylor, Too?

 Josh Naylor was traded today.  

That should really not surprise anyone.  We all know that players approaching their final year of control who won't sign an extension with the Guardians are likely to be traded.

So, let's assume we had to trade him.  The goal should have been to get something back that will help this team be stronger in 2025.

If you include our free agent signing we got back:

• Carlos Santana
• Santana will be 39 this season.  Naylor will be 27 and, in his walk year, would have been highly motivated to have a great year.
• Santana will actually be paid about the same or a little more than Naylor this year.
• While his WAR was higher, Santana is not a power hitter with a good part of his offensive value being a good batting eye.  But for him to be effective there has to be someone to drive HIM in.  
• Santana hit cleanup a handful of times this year, hitting mostly 6th, 5th, 7th and 8th in that order.  He is not a cleanup hitter.  But he is replacing one.
• Santana has to play all the time to make his contract worth it.  No way he platoons with Manzardo as you don't pay the short side of a platoon $12 million.   Thus some young player is going to lose ABs because Santana will play...a lot.
• Slade Cecconi
• He had a 6.66 ERA last year for Arizona.  He is a project, to be sure.  He is not nearly a finished ML pitcher and will likely need some in development, meaning his true worth won't be known until 2026 and any reps he gets this year have a real good chance to hurt our chances of winning games.
• Arizona's Competitive Balance B pick.  
• Currently the 72nd overall pick, which will add about $1.2 million to our budget pool, if you count the increase from 2024 and us adding in the 5% overage.

To me, the important question is did this trade (and the signing of Santana) make us a better team in 2025? For the answer to be 'yes' the following would have to happen:

• Santana would have to repeat his 2024 season.
• Santana would have to provide Jose Ramirez the same protection in the lineup that Naylor did or, I guess, someone else would have to step into the 4 hole and provide Ramirez that protection.
• Naylor would have to tank like he did towards the end of 2024
• Cecconi would have to some quality role in our 2025 ML team.
• We would have to backfill Naylor's offense somewhere else in the lineup

Unfortunately, for me, none of these 5 things seem likely.  Even if you want to look at intangibles, I doubt that the veteran leadership Santana brings offsets the intensity and production that Naylor brought.  I don't think that any pitchers will say 'Man, I have to pitch to Ramirez because Santana is a great guy in the clubhouse'.  If it works out the way I think it will, Ramirez's production will drop this year as he tries to do more than he already tries to do.  I could see him hitting .260 with 25 HRs in 2025 just because people won't pitch to him.  While those numbers aren't bad, he hit 39 HRs in 2024.  

So, there have to be other moves and here are my thoughts on them:

• We need to get an impact OF bat to offset the loss of Naylor's production and protect Jose.
• We need another SP but only through free agency.  With how we have hurt the offensive production of this team with no guarantee we can replace what we have lost, there is not reason to overspend in a trade where we give up prospects and get a ML SP back.  We could be out of the race by June and those prospects will then be wasted as the SP we obtain will not have any meaningful impact on our season.
• We need a veteran LH reliever in free agency.  Counting on Sabrowski is a foolish move.
• We need to get a couple of veteran RH RP on minor league deals (e.g. Enyel De Los Santos and Luke Jackson)

In summary, I think this trade along with that of Gimenez, move us a lot closer to having a lottery pick in the 2026 amateur draft.  So, have some confidence that if these questionable moves hurt our record like I am pretty sure they at least they will, in a twisted way, help our competitiveness in 2029.

The Cleveland Guardians are weaker right now than they were at the end of the 2024 season.  Unless there are good moves, ones that bring in good players without costing us prospects, coming by spring training, we have a real good chance to be out of the race before Beiber is ready to pitch.