"If you do something on a wing and a prayer, you do it hoping that you will succeed, although you are not prepared enough for it...SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases. Hoping and hopefulness"
That, in my opinion, is how the Guardians have approached this off-season, on a wing and a prayer.
While I could hypothesize why they are doing what they are doing this off-season, there is no way for me to know if it is related to some or all of:
- analytics that they trust over common sense when applied to the players they have traded away
- financial constraints that are causing them to dump large (and even, where possible, small amounts of salary and spending (Guards Fest))
- a desire to create playing time to finally allow determination whether prospects are true major leaguers or just AAAA players
The Guardians have, in recent history, been a very shrewd and successful organization. But this year, for whatever reason, they have taken it to a new level, doing things that appear, on the surface, to make the 2025 team weaker while putting more money into the pocket of the owner.
Instead of trying to guess the reasons behind them, let's take a look at the moves from this off-season and how they fit into the above functional definition
- Trading Eli Morgan for a prospect who is 3 years away from the major leagues - The Guardians are counting on mostly or completely untested rookies to give the same or better production as Morgan, while saving probably $400,000 in salary.
- Cancelling Guards Fest 2025 - This is the biggest puzzlement of all their off-season moves. An event that may cost them $200,000 but brings such good will with fans in the time right before tickets go on sale, this is even hard to understand using the wing-and-a-prayer concept. I guess they are hoping that they win and so things like this will be forgotten.
- Trading Gimenez and Sandlin to Toronto for Horwitz and Mitchell - The Guardians dumped Gimenez's salary and doubled down on their thoughts about the bullpen by throwing in Sandlin. They plan to play a rookie at 2B, proposing that Juan Brito can replace Gimenez and give you the same or better overall production even though he is a bad defender and has no speed and, as a rookie, we have no idea will hit even as well as Gimenez. This is a wing-and-a-prayer trade X2.
- Trading Horwitz for Ortiz, Hartle and Kennedy -On paper, this is a great trade, a Guardians' type trade. Ortiz is a ML pitcher. Hartle and Kennedy are good pitching prospects. The only question about this trade is why Pittsburgh would trade even just Ortiz for Horwitz, who is the classic tweener, bad defense at 2B and not enough power for 1B...and he wasn't even a starter full time in Toronto. So, while I love this trade, the Guardians are hoping, on a wing and a prayer, that Ortiz is the guy who shut them down last year rather than just a flash in the pan.
- Trading Naylor for Cecconi and a CB B pick. - In the biggest shocker of all this off-season, the Guardians traded their cleanup hitter who, legitimately, is the only guy on their roster who offers protection for Jose Ramirez in their batting order. They are getting back Cecconi, and his 6+ ERA and a draft pick around #70 in the 2025 draft. Realizing that if Arizona makes Naylor a QO in the 2025 off-season he will net them a pick around #35 in the 2026 draft, they have to be counting on Naylor being so bad that he won't be made a QO AND be worse than his replacement, Santana (See below). That still doesn't clear up who will help cleanup and protect Ramirez this year, but I guess that will take care of itself...on a wing and a prayer. They also have to be thinking that, on a wing and a prayer, that Cecconi can be fixed for the 2025 season and offer Cleveland very good pitching value for this and future seasons. ANother wing and a prayer trade X2, I think.
- Signing Carlos Santana to a 1 year deal - Continuing with the wing and a prayer theme, the Guardians have to be thinking that Santana can approximate his production in 2024 AND that they can find protection for Ramirez in players on their roster. This requires a big leap of faith as Santana was 38 last year in his career year and, at that, only hit cleanup a few times without great results, meaning he can't step into the lineup and replace Naylor, even though he will be making more than Naylor did. So this signing is clearly a wing and a prayer.
- Not signing any other significant free agents - The key here is the word 'significant'. For example, if they sign a LFer like Hayes or Profar, they have to move Kwan, meaning they are hoping, on a wing and a prayer, that he can handle CF or RF w/o weakening the overall defense, that has been weakened by losing Gimenez. They might choose to double down on SP which would help the rotation but not the lineup, gambling, on a wing and a prayer, that their pitching would win games that their offense can't, similar to the way it happened early in 2024. Again, expecting that to happen 2 years in a row is planning for your season on a wing and a prayer.
- The possibility of making a trade - If trade right now for a platoon advantage you are hoping, on a wing a prayer, that your overall team is stronger than it was last year, even though you lost Gimenez and Naylor or only gained back Santana. If you trade at the deadline, taking on salary from the savings this winter, you are hoping that your deadline deals work out. In either case, you are giving up prospects for incremental (now) or short term (deadline) gains. You are hoping, on a wing and prayer, that those deals are worth the prospects you would have to give up to make those deals.
So, there you have it. The Guardians whole off-season is built on a wing and a prayer. These guys are good at putting a competitive team on the field but, sometimes, it just looks like they are making it harder and harder on themselves so they look like geniuses when they do it AGAIN. That seems like a very hard way to go...a wing and a prayer way to go.
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