Guardians Trades from 2016 to Present

In honor of Rule 5 roster setting day tomorrow, I am dusting this article that I published this March about how good the Cleveland Guardians are at making trades.  The reason it is in honor of the roster setting day on Tuesday is that we traded Nolan Jones for Juan Brito on that day in 2022 and, three seasons later, Jones had one good season and Brito has burned all 3 of his minor league options leaving the Guardians hoping for a 4th option to be granted.  In sunmary, except for a few memorable trades, they have sucked at making trades over the past 10 years.  No small market team with a very small payroll can afford to suck at trades but, for the most part, we do.  Here's the data, updated with trades we have made since March:

 I was challenged on X to do something I had wanted to do for a while: look at how well the Guardians have been at making trades.

So let's take a look, going back to the 201-2016 off-season, at how the Guardians have done.

But first, here are the ground rules:

•  I will only look at trades that have TURNED OUT to be significant or was thought to be a significant trade at the time
• 'Significant', for me, is defined as a trade in which one of more of the players traded has a future impact on the team or, in a few rare cases, are prospects projected to have that impact.
• A few of the most recent trades I have graded (e.g., Civale/Manzardo) may change categories over time.
• If I have missed an important trade, I apologize. But I don't believe that a single trade will change the outcome of the analysis below.

With that being said, here goes:

Trades that the Guardians have won

• Andrew Miller for Heller, Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffeld, Feyereisen
• Hedges, Quantrill, Josh Naylor, Arias, Cantillo, Owen Miller for Clevinger, Greg Allen, Matt Waldron
• Clase, DeShields for Kluber
• Kyle Manzardo for Aaron Civale

Trades that the Guardians have lost

• Carlos Santana, Jake Bauers for Encarnacion, Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser
• Trevor Bauer for Scott Moss, Yasel Puig, Frnmil Reyes, Logan Allen, Victor Nova
• Horwitz, Mitchell for Gimenez, Sandlin
• Myles Straw for Yainer Diaz, Maton
• Juan Brito for Nolan Jones
• Justin Boyd, AJ Hajjar for Will Benson
• Junior Caminiero for Tobias Myers
• Kody Huff for Cal Quantrill
• Jefry Rodriguez, Daniel Johnson, Andrew Monasterio for Yan Gomes
• Jean Segura, Khalil Watson for Josh Bell
• Patrick Sandoval for Eddie Rosario
• Kyle Dowdy, Leonys Martin for Willi Castro
• Nolan Jones for Tyler Freeman
• Shane Bieber for Khal Stephen
• NOTHING for Myles Straw, cash and intentional bonus pool money
• Josh Naylor for Slade Cecconi and a Comp B pick.
• Alex Cobb for Jacob Bresnahan

Trades that are roughly even

• Lindor, Carrasco for Gimenez, Rosario, Wolf, Greene
• Lane Thomas for Jose Tena, Alex Clemmey, Rafael Ramirez, Jr.
• Brad Hand, Adam Cimber for Francisco Mejia
• Scott Barlow for Enyel De Los Santos
• Amed Rosario for Noah Syndergard
• Ortiz, Hartle and Kennedy for Horwitz
• Lane Thomas for Clemmey, Ramirez and Tena
• Brandon Guyer for Lukes, Salinas

SUMMARY

Looking at this list, the Guardians have made their positive trade reputation on three trades: Clevinger trade, Andrew Miller trade and Clase/Kluber trade, with a fourth trade, the Civale/Manzardo trade, looking like a winner even if Manzardo doesn't become any more than he was in 2025, a slow-footed liability at first base who hits some homeruns.  That's 4 trades in 10 years and while those were huge wins, they were the only wins, meaning that the Guardians have only won or broken even on 12 out of 28 trades, or 43% of their trades in the past 10 years, and actually have 'won' only 14%.

• 4 trade wins
• 16 losses
• 8 roughly even exchanges

Conventional wisdom would be that teams have to make good on at least 25%, break even on 50% and lose 25%. In essence, they have to at least break even on talent gained and lost, bringing in talent at positions of need and trading their excess  However, a small market club like Cleveland probably needs to do better than that (say, winning 30%, breaking even on 50% and losing 20%) as they can't make up for their trade or draft mistakes by signing expensive free agents.  The Guardians are at 14%, 28% and 58%.

The front office (including the managers and coaching staff) in Cleveland has been UNBELIEVABLE in putting together great teams and giving the fans an unbelievable product for a long time.  Looking at the results of the trades they have made in almost the last decade even makes their performance better because, frankly, they haven't been good at making trades, except for a few huge ones. 

Again, a front office of a small team needs to do better than the Guardians have done on trades, FAR better.  As we enter trade season, starting with roster freeze season, let's remember this.  And, to begin with, let's hope tomorrow doesn't bring any stupid Rule 5-motivated trades. 

I can already tell, looking at trade proposals from some people who write about the Guardians, that these writers don't expect enough from their team in terms of making trades. But you kinda get used to what you get without expecting enough.  We need to expect much more from our FO.