Anyone For Some Horse Trading? Part 1 - Setting the stage

 Twitter is buzzing with lots of opinions about what baseball needs to thrive and a lot of tweeters are spouting gloom and doom about a work stoppage in 2027.

And I can see why people are concerned, given what it will take, just from an approval perspective:

1. The owners have to UNANIMOUSLY approve the new CBA that will be proposed?

2. That a majority of players have to approve it and that vote can be influenced by the thirty union reps (one for each team) and the executive committee of the MLBPA.

And that is after the negotiations between the MLBPA (led by their new Executive Director), and the Labor Relations Department within the office of the Commissioner of Baseball.

Just from a numbers and personalities perspective it seems impossible to believe that this could get done.

Still, let's assume reasonable heads will prevail and both sides WILL want to hammer out an agreement to save the 2027 season. 

How would an agreement come about that the owners and the players would be able to approve?

From some good, old-fashioned horse trading, that's how.  The trick is to know what compromises will have to be made on each side and how those compromises fit together.

The thing that rankles me is that the Labor Relations Departament and the MLBPA do not appear to be seriously negotiating yet.  Now when I began college my preferred study method was all-night cramming before an exam.   But as I got a little older I saw that if I just studied more along the way it made preparation for tests a lot easier.

So I think the the MLBPA and the MLB owners need to do less crammng and more work along the way, starting today.

Part 2 will lay out, using my 7 part series on how to fix baseball, what points will be horse traded.  That is, what points I think the players union and management will be willing to compromise on, including  sub-groups within each group.

So, look for part 2 soon.  I am working on it now.

What Would An International Draft Look Like?

 So, I was thinking: What would it look like if we had an international draft?

From my previous posts on the subject:

General

• The goal of the international draft would be to distribute the talent more favorably to teams that needed it the most while making sure that the top players were still going to make similar bonuses to what they had made previously.
• The draft would be 5 rounds, with 150 players being selected
• Non-drafted free agents could be signed for $150,000 or less and not count against a team's draft pool. There would be a limit of 30 players any team could sign in one year
• Draft order would be based on the regular season record in the previous year 
• The draft would have a hard draft cap for those 5 rounds.  If a team exceeded their cap they would lose the ability to participate in the international draft in the next year.
• All teams who receive competitive balance picks in the Rule 4 draft would have an additional $2 million added to their draft budget.  A competitive balance team that has one of the first 5 picks in the international draft would not be eligible for this additional bonus money.
• Teams must spend 90% of their draft budget
• International bonus money could no longer be traded
• Trading of international draft picks would not be allowed as this could be used by teams as a way not to have to spend money on bonuses for this draft.
• An add-on to the draft would be that the rules of control change so these players can not become minor league free agents until after their 7th season (current is after 6 seasons) and the Rule 5 draft is abolished. In this way teams have enough time to develop these players and yet the players are still young when they can become minor league free agents, even including the 3 options years if they are added to the 40 man roster at some point during that period.

What would the draft budgets look like?

Looking at the top 150 bonuses from the international signing periods of 2026 and 2025, I came up bonuses for the 150 slots in my draft.  If you follow the bonuses that come out of these signing periods you'll see that the slot values are generally flatter than they are in the Rule 4 draft, meaning that I had to do some work to make sure that bonuses continued to go down slightly with each pick with the goal to keep the 150th pick having roughly the same value as the 150th highest signing bonus for the most recent international classes.  I also compared those bonuses to the top 150 draft slots in the 2025 R4 draft, finding that all the R4 draft slots were significantly higher, as expected, than the equivalent slot values in my international draft. That made me feel good, knowing teams would be spending significantly less on 16 year olds than they spent on 18-21 year olds who likely had more polish and were more known quantities. 

So, how did all this turn out?

Cleveland, based on their 2025 record, would draft 22nd. Their bonus pool would be $4,070,000 with the additional $2 million added to their budget given them a total pool of $6,070,000 of which they would be required to spend roughly $5,500,000.  Note that their bonus cap for the 2026 international signing period (includes all bonuses of > $10,000) was $8 million of which they spent roughly $6.7 million on signing prospects.  It is very reasonable that they would meet their bonus pool spent this year if we included all the additional prospects they would sign as NDFAs in the international draft who they signed for over $10,000. If Cleveland used their entire bonus pool AND signed an additional 25 players to bonuses of $150,000 they would have a total budget of almost $11 million to work with as they could spend up to $3.75 million on those additional 25 players if all signed for $150,000.

Colorado, based on having the worst record in 2025, would have the #1 slot and their bonus pool for the first 5 rounds would be about $8.5 million. The Chicago White Sox would have a budget of $8.2 million, and the Washington Nationals would have a budget of roughly $7.9 million. The LA Dodgers would have the 30th slot and, as a result, would have a 5 round bonus pool of roughly $3.6 million, which would almost double if they signed 25 additional prospects to bonuses of $150,000.

THOUGHTS

There would be some wrinkles that would have to be ironed out to have an international draft:

• How would these players be trained if the current buscon system was dissolved.
• How would talent be evaluated leading up to the draft?
• Would these measures ensure that teams are appropriately spending on amateur international player acquisition or would we need additional guard rails to make sure teams were spending enough to acquire quality NDFAs under this new draft.

So, in summary, this is just one possible plan to handle the international draft.  My premise of 5 rounds could be faulty although teams serious about talent in this part of the world might be more incentivized under this system to scout more heavily as the pool of uncommitted players after a draft of this type would be huge, as there are about 550 players who were signed during the international period this year, meaning that there will be about 400 players of signable quality who would be available in the NDFA part of this process, as opposed to the situation in the past, where probably 90% of those 400 being committed to teams long before the signing period began.

Again, one guy's thoughts.  But I hope we can agree on one thing: to aid in competitive balance we need an international draft now.  

Potpourri - February 10, 2026

FREE AGENT THOUGHTS:

 Here are some truths about free agency

• If you invest in free agency you are likely to overpay but...you get talent you don't have.
• If you don't invest in free agency you have two choices
• Just go with what you have and hope or...
• Trade players (and maybe a draft choice) for players you could have had in free agency

This winter in free agency teams like Pittsburgh, Chicago White Sox and Detroit have invested in free agency. In some cases they also made trades.

But the bottom line is that they have gotten better...at least on paper.  In Detroit's case, they got a lot better, even though their recent signing of Framber Valdez might just have been a precursor to them trade arbitration winner Tarik Skubal.  

The Guardians, on the other hand have done the following:

• Sign free agent Austin Hedges (money well spent, and I don't care what anyone says)
• Sign free agent Shawn Armstrong (I'll reserve judgement on this one, cough, Paul Sewald, cough)
• Sign free agent AAAA RPs, Connor Brogdon and Colin Houlderman to MAJOR LEAGUE contracts and FA AAAA OFer Stuart Fairchild.  Never can have too many AAAA FAs, although you don't usually sign those guys to ML deals.
• Have gone public saying that they are (1) they won't be signing any top, expensive free agents and (2) they inept at signing meh free agents so they don't plan to sign any of those, either...and publicly bet money that the media couldn't identify the mistakes they have made trying to go cheap in free agency over the last several years.
• Said they are going with their own, LHH-heavy prospect pool to fill out their roster as they have to give these guys a chance..right before the Tigers signed Valdez, given the Tigers two of the best LH SP in baseball.

To summarize, the Guardians have, in the past 7 months:

(a) Were sellers at the ML trading deadline

(b) Won the AL Central championship with a historic finish/historic Tigers collapse

(c) Said they weren't going to sign any good or meh FAs

(d) Proceeded to sign two AAAA FA RPs to major league deals

This on the heels of way underspending their 2026 international bonus budget, signing a bunch of middling prospects instead of 1-2 top FAs AND having a really, really bad draft in 2025 where they seemed to panic and make a lot of bad, overdraft decisions and the 2024 draft where their first #1 overall pick in team history is looking like a case of bad scouting, their second round pick looks like an overdraft with the upside of a quality major league backup catcher.  This, of course, follows two years of overdrafting LHH college slap hitters and, for the most part, getting away from the one decision showing they MIGHT be the smartest guys in the room, that being the 2021 college pitcher draft that has netted Williams and Bibee and other potential future ML pitchers.

I remember a movie called "And Justice For All".  A small part of the movie was a subplot where a judge used to eat his lunch on the ledge of his building and, if I remember the story right, would fill up the tank of his private plane and fly it a little further out over the ocean every day to see how far he could go without running out of gas and crashing on the way back. The Guardians' FO seems to want to prove that they can have success with less and less resources every year, sort of like that judge and his private plane.  

My advice to the Guardians FO and ownership is stop trying to get the same result with less resources and, for the Guardians FO, stop trying to be the smartest guys in the room.  This team cannot afford to make mistakes on amateur player acquistion and development and on finding cute ways to compete without spending.

I love this team and always will.  But this crap has to stop.

GENIE IN THE BOTTLE

Continuing on the free agent theme I am still seeing a lot of "But wait, there are still things the Guardians can do"

I have seen free agent signing proposals, trade proposals and extension candidate proposals.

Besides the extension candidates that I already wrote about (Ramirez, Kwan, Cade Smth, Williams), I don't see anything else I would do at this point.

There is a story about a genie trapped in a bottle who sat around waiting for someone to set him free.  At first, when he had hope, he thought he would give the person who set him free the three best wishes possible, no tricks.  But the longer he was trapped in that bottle his hope turned to despair and, eventually, anger.  After a while his only thought was to get out of that bottle and trap the person who eventually freed in in the bottle just to show someone else how bad it was.

Well, I have become the genie.  Except for the extension candidates above, at this point I will be really mad if the Guardians actually sign a free agent or trade valuable minor league resources for a player of the type they could have had in free agency.  Hays, Robert Jr., Ozuna and many other viable free agents went to other small market teams.  It would be a slap in the face for the Guardians to turn to the bargain basement bin to pull out a remaining free agent.  Yeah, maybe guys, especially starting pitching, on minor league deals in case of injuries.  But the Guardians have been clear.  They want the young players to play.  

At this point I am resgned to that happening.  Any change in course now that costs us money and/or rosters spots and/or prospects to try to upgrade a team that CA and Chernoff have purposely NOT tried to make better over the winter is bad management and a slap in the face to Cleveland fans.  Hey guys, you have done nothing all wnter.  Don't do anything stupid now!

OK, I'll say it.  You have proven you are the smartest guys in the room. Now sit back and enjoy the ride.  You wouldn't want to do anything to mess up your brilliant strategy now, right?  So let's, for the rest of this season (except for the extension candidates above) just sit back and all admire your brilliance.  Doing anything now might muddy the waters of how brilliant your strategy is.  So, let's not! 

 

Guardians 2026 International Free Agent Class...Well, that was a choice!

 I have been a little busy so I haven't had time to comment on this, but I am extremely disappointed with the Guardians' international signings in 2026.  

Let's level-set the international amateur signing period:

(1) To be clear, the bonus pool that a team is assigned is NOT money they are given.  It is the amount of the team's revenue they are allowed to spend on signing international amateur free agents in a given year.  Therefore, teams don't 'pocket' the amount they don't spend. At the same time, money that goes unspent represents an opportunity lost to acquire the best talent possible into your system.

(2) Some (or most) of the players signed during this period are linked to teams through unofficial agreements made between teams and players years before those players are even eligible to sign.  Therefore, only a few good players are still available within 6 months of the beginning of the signing period so there is very little time to throw excess money at great players who haven't committed to a team yet.

(3) Players who are signed must be at least 16 years old on January 15th and must turn 17 before September 1st, meaning that it is likely that no new players will be added to the eligible group during the time between January 15th and December 15th, the end of the 2026 signing period.  The Guardians have tended to do that with somewhat older Latin American pitching prospects who they have signed sporadically throughout the spring, summer and fall.  

SALIENT POINTS OF GUARDIANS 2026 SIGNING CLASS

(1) The Guardians had the highest bonus pool of any team in baseball at $8,034, 900. They used $6.3 million for their bonuses meaning only 5 teams had more money left in their pool, if you don't count trades involving international bonus pool money. Counting the $1.5 million they traded to the Mets for Franklin Gomez, they used $7.7 million, leaving $250,000 in their bonus pool, ranking 21st in baseball, meaning they used, for signing and trading, a larger percentage overall than 2/3 of the teams in baseball.  

(2) There were 56 players signed to higher bonuses than the Guardians highest priced signee, Svert Reynose ($820,000). That's an average of 2 players per team. 

(3) 27 teams (not the Dodgers or the Yankees, who had $3 million less to spend than the Guardians did) spent more on their first pick than Cleveland did on Reynoso

(4) 17 teams had 2 or more players with bonuses higher than Cleveland's top bonus

(5) The $1.5 million they traded to the Mets allowed New York to sign the 2nd highest ranked player in this signing class, Wander Asigen, so you could argue that their trade allowed the Mets to acquire a talent worth more than the entire Cleveland class.

(6) The Guardians were the only team that spread out their bonus money among a number of players.  It should be noted that Philadelphia did the same thing in 2025 

(6) In 2026 the Giants used >95% of their budget to sign the highest ranked player in this cycle, Luis Hernandez. While this is not necessarily a great strategy, the Giants certainly positioned themselves to get a much better prospect than any of the Guardians' signees are.  Of course one could argue that signing a bunch of decent prospects is better than signing one great one.

(7) The highest ranked prospect in this class that the Guardians signed was the 38th best prospect in this year's international class. 

ANALYSIS

One of two things likely happened to the Guardians during this signing cycle:

(a) The strategy they employed was designed to target a larger number of middling prospects and avoid the highly ranked prospects and, as a result, limit spending on the 2026 international crop. 

(b) They were unable to reach agreements early on with highly ranked prospects as those prospects cost more money than the Guardians were likely willing to commit to one player.

We don't really know what path the Guardians took but the results were:

(a) They did not get top talent out of this signing period

(b) They avoided having to spend almost $2 million of their own resources on signing players during this signing period.

Cleveland is a small market team.  They almost HAVE to spend and spend heavily on amateur talent and still outscout other teams to find the best talent.  They simply can't buy their way out of mistakes.  They had the largest bonus pool of any team in baseball during this period and didn't fully utilize that pool to draft top end talent.  

It was, as they say, a choice to follow this path. As this path was not followed by any team with the same bonus pool that Cleveland had.

CONCLUSION

Once again it appears that Cleveland tried to show they are the smartest guys in the room and ended up with middling talent that will require that their scouts 'outscouted' scouts from other teams and their development team outdevelops those of other teams.  And they left the impression that they were doing this to be cheap.  I think, in the next CBA, there should be provisions to not allow teams to be cheap on the R4 draft or on international amateur acquistion, which I hope will take the form of an international draft going forward.

In essence, this international class puts the Guardians behind the 8-ball, prospect development-wise.  This disappointing international class followed a poor 2025 ML draft filled with incredible reaches, a draft that was preceded by a disappointing (Bazzana & Cozart) and late developing (excess of HS pitchers) group in 2024.

Again, it appears that at every turn the Guardians try to prove they are the smartest guys in the room leaving us to hope that they have found incredible talent for little money.  As pundits who support the Guardians at every turn tell us that it is not as bad as it seems, it certainly walks and quacks like a duck, no matter how you look at it.

The Guardians, on the surface appear to have laid another egg.  Let's hope it hatches into more than it looks like at the moment.

How to Fix Baseball - Part 7 - UPDATE

With the signing of Kyle Tucker by the Dodgers, what was a low rumbling among fans for changes in the game has now become a loud roar.

Caps, floors, deferrals, cheap owners, rich owners ruining baseball.  Conversation on all these topics has ramped up in the last few days. 

I wrote a 6-part series last month on how to fix baseball in the new CBA, an agreement will be negotiated after the 2026 season. 

This article summarizes those articles and, prompted by opinions and suggestions I have read on how to fix baseball, provides more details than my previous 6 articles did.  So let's dive in.

NOTE: I may be updating this document as more information and ideas become available.

SALARY CAP

I wanted to start here because this is the shortest discussion.  It is a non-starter with the MLBPA, IMO. While it wouldn't be hard to get 2/3 of the owners to vote for some version of a cap (say, $275 million), I think it is safe to say the players won't allow this to go through unless they get huge concessions in other areas that they won't get.  While certain provisions (e.g., being able to exceed the cap if you are extending your own players) might make a cap more palatable to the MLBPA, I just see a cap as a non-starter.  

So, if you can't stop overspending let's find ways to catastrophically penalize teams that do overspend.

• Set the luxury tax threshold at $275 million for the 2027 season (for 2026 it is set at $244 million). Teams exceeding the threshold will:
• be charged 100% of the excess in the first violation and $200% of the excess for exceeding the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• lose their top draft pick for the next year if they exceed the threshold and their top 5 draft picks for the next year if they exceed the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• not be able to sign a QO free agent for the next season after their last occurrence of exceeding the threshold.
• not be able to sign an international professional free agent for any more than a $5 million AAV for the year after they exceed the threshold.
• not be allowed to sign any FA for more than $10 million AAV in the next season if they exceed the threshold for 2 years in a 3 year period
• Draft pick penalties that come from exceeding this threshold will not be minimized due to other penalties for the same team related to draft picks (e.g., signing a QO player).  Rather, the penalties would be imposed in subsequent years so that the full weight of the penalty would be felt.  For example, a team losing their 2nd and 5th picks in the draft could not be changed to them losing their 3rd and 6th picks in that draft because they have another penalty.  One of the penalties would be assessed in the subsequent year so that the full weight of the penalties would be realized.

• AAV 
• AAV will be all inclusive without any deferrals or other mechanisms that have previously been allowed to lower (or not raise) AAV.  
• AAV for foreign professional free agents will include the posting fee to their foreign club

SALARY FLOOR

• A salary floor will be set at $120 million for the 2027 season and rise by $10 million a year for the life of the next CBA, [NOTE: The goal here is avoid teams not spending money on payroll. It is NOT to cause teams to overpay meh FAs or AAAA players just to reach the floor. The intent is for encourage them to sign their own players to extensions and sign quality free agents, if desired, to meet the floor]
• Other measures for amateur player acquisition will be put in place (see below) to ensure that teams spend on acquisition of the best prospects they can to help with competitive balance.  

NOTE: Some of this is in opposition to MLBPA's position which is to give more players more money, regardless of a player's limited ability or usefulness to make a franchise more competitive.  A cornerstone of my proposal if for teams to use some of their floor to extend their own players and bring in free agents who they feel would benefit their competitiveness.  At the same time, teams need to be allowed to fill their 26- and 40-man rosters with prospects who they feel can help them win now but, moreso, in the future instead of clogging rosters with meh FAs or AAAA players just to get over the salary floor. Under the PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE section below I suggest that the minimum salary for players be raised to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million for 2nd year players.  Those players would realize, on average, almost $2.5 million in increase earnings over their first two years in the majors compared to the present system.

INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR DRAFT

• An international draft would replace the January 15th signing period.  The goal of this draft would be to distribute the better, eligible talent to the clubs with bad records in the previous major league season (similar to the Rule 4 draft) AND eliminate teams reaching 'agreements' with players years before those players are eligible and eliminate the shadiness of interactions with local trainers, etc.
• The draft will consist of 5 rounds with the order being the inverse of standings for the previous year. NDFA can be signed after the 5 rounds for $10,000 or less.
• MLB will create a bonus pool for each club just like they do for the Rule 4 draft.
• MLB will have a combine similar to what they do for the Rule 4 draft for the top 250 players and will be involved in ranking those players before the draft for the benefit of fans and, to a lesser extent, teams.
• Owners of revenue receivers must spend >90% of their bonus pool the first year of the new CBA going up to 95% in subsequent years, not counting the money spent on NDFAs.  The trading of international free agent bonus pool money will no longer be allowed.

CHANGES TO THE RULE 4 DRAFT

• Maintain most of the current rules for draft pick compensation but weave in a few new rules and the luxury threshold penalties described above
• Change the construction of a draft order as follows.  
• 2 teams with the worst records flip a coin to see who drafts first and second in the first round
• The rest of the first round and all subsequent regular rounds will be ordered as follows:
• Non-playoff, teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round draft first in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are revenue payors draft next in order of dcreasing payroll
• Playoff teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are revenue payors pick in the order of decreasing payroll.
• Competitive balance picks and draft compensation pick rules will continue as is.
• As indicated above under SALARY CAP, change rules on draft pick compensation where a team is already penalized in a particular year and a second (or more) penalty in the same year would result in a lesser penalty.  Instead, have the penalties spill over to the next year(s) so the force of the penalty would be the same for each offense, just in the next year(s).
• To spur owners of small market, limited resource franchises to spend money on development, give every revenue receiver and the worst 2 teams, record wise, in baseball the previous year an extra $5 million in their bonus pool.  These teams must spend between 99-104.99% of their bonus pool or suffer a $10 million penalty
• Eliminate the trading of draft choices before the 11th round but allow up to 3 draft choices (in rounds 11-20) per team per year to be traded.  

CHANGES TO THE RULE 5 DRAFT

• The major league rule 5 draft will be discontinued
• The minor league rule 5 draft will continue as before from the same pool of players as previous minor league rule 5 drafts
• See the CHANGES IN PLAYER CONTROL section below for specifics to address what the ML R5 was supposed to address, but failed and that international players can be signed when they are chronologically, the age and physical development of high school sophomores.

NOTE: The goal here is to allow teams time to develop their players without having to roster some of the best ones long before they are major league ready. My data says the ML R5 is a failure but the minor league R5 draft has some benefits in limiting the number of minor league players a team can hoard.  This also will allow teams to sign minor league free agents after the end of a season without having to worry about losing them in the subsequent R5 draft. Finally, it will free up 40-man roster spots for players who can actually help a team in the next competitive year instead of having a roster spot wasted for 2-3 years on a player who is not close to being major league-ready.

CHANGES TO PLAYER CONTROL

• Players acquired who were not previously in organized professional leagues (domestic or foreign) can be controlled by teams per the following, based on their age when signed, before they can become minor league free agents:
• Players 16 or 17 years old for 7 full seasons
• Players 18 or 19 years old for 6 full seasons
• Players 20 or 21 years old for 5 full seasons
• Players 22 or 23 years old for 4 full seasons
• Players 24 or older for 3 full seasons

PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE

• Increase the minimum wage to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million in their second year.
• Continue the arbitration system as is.
• Mandate that teams spend 90% of shared revenues on payroll + amateur player acquisition costs
• Allow forensic accounting to make sure that the split of shared revenues is actually going to player salaries and acquisition costs.  Don't let teams participate in revenue sharing unless they can show that they meet these reinvestment metrics.

A Dozen Guardians Prospects Whose 2026 Seasons Are Crucial to the Future of the Franchise

 This is quite the serious and dramatic title to an article about the Guardians farm system.  But, unlike in other years, I see the heart of this farm system and young major leaguers being at the crossroads of their careers...even if those careers have not started yet!  Will they be a big part of the future or only so-so players, utility guys or total failures. So let's dive in.

12. Cooper Ingle - I don't see Ingle as being that important to the future of the Guardians.  He is a nice-to-have more than a must-have.  Still, a catcher who can slash .260/.330/.380 AND can also play defense and handle a pitching staff is not that easy to find.  Not saying Ingle is that guy but, in our farm system, he is the ONLY catching prospect of any note.  So he HAS to succeed and there is some urgency for him to become a productive major leaguer, and soon, and help take the pressure off the Guardians to buy or trade for a catcher.

11. Angel Martinez - Although hanging comps on guys puts more pressure on them, I see Martinez having a path similar to that of Jose Ramirez.  Now, the thing that sets Ramirez apart is his drive to be the best.  That drive took him from being a future utility guy or complementary player to being arguably, when all is said on done, of being the GOAT of this franchise.  While being compared to Ramirez is a losing proposition for almost any prospect, I think there are a lot of similarities there.  He just needs the opportunity to grow into the star I think he can be.  If you stick him at 2B or CF and live with the growing pains, he will pay huge dividends.  But, for Martinez, the key is for him to make substantial progress this year, becoming an invaluable complementary player.  If he flounders this year the Guardians may give up on him, which I think would be a huge mistake.  So Martinez needs to NOT give them a chance to make that mistake by having a great 2026.  

10. George Valera - While Valera is not a crucial part of the team's future right now, he COULD be.  As he is out of options, he will have to impress the Guardians out of the gate and, in so doing, cement his spot on the ML team AND his importance to this team in the future, especially if Kwan won't sign an extension.  If he starts slow, he might become another lost-for-nothing guy like Noel, Reyes and Gonzalez were.

9. Franco Aleman - You may say that RHRP are a dime-a-dozen in the majors.  True that, but cheap, high leverage RP are more like $120 million a dozen.  When you see the Guardians try to build their bullpen with guys like Brogdon and Holderman, you become immediately aware of the advantages of having talented, cheap and controllable RPs.  Add to this that homegrown guys are always more desirable and you can see why having Aleman healthy and productive at the ML level really keeps cost down while keeping quality high in the BP, both things a small market team needs.  People may not see how important Aleman is but I feel he is one of the most important pieces in our BP going forward, along with Andrew Walters...

8. Angel Genao - While still a year or two away, Genao could be the future of the middle infield in Cleveland.  He was injured last year and, as a result, never really got going.  While he is likely not to impact the ML team in 2026, he could at some point in 2027 and that might be crucial to this team after that.  How he plays this year will go a long way to determine if he is just Brayan Rocchio Part Deux or if he is much more.  The latter would put us in good shape at SS for years to come.   With Bazzana and Brito at 2B, having a SS prospect with great range who can hit as well as field is crucial.

7. Andrew Walters - Look, the Guardians invested a high draft choice in Walters.  That means that they think he is at least a key 8th inning RP, maybe even closer material.  Having him come through, along with someone like Aleman, allows the Guardians to have a quality AND cheap bullpen and be able to invest at other positions-of-need.  Having 6 years of Walters at the level he was projected when drafted is necessary to stop the revolving door of AAAA RP we see every year.

6. Juan Brito - Brito will be out of options after 2026.  He will have one year to make his presence felt in the majors. His defense is questionable at second base (and even THAT is giving it the benefit of the doubt), his speed is average at best and his major positive trait is that he can take a walk.  In fact, he is the best in the Guardians system at passive aggressiveness.  By that I mean that he attacks balls in the zone and spits on bad pitches.  He needs to make his mark felt in 2026 or Clevleand might have no choice but to DFA him after the upcoming season...although that might not happen if there is a work stoppage.  Still, his OB skills and doubles power would play well if the rest of his game doesn't drain the value of those hitting traits.

5. Jace Laviolette - Look, there are 'experts' who will tell you he is toast.  There are experts that will tell you he is salvageable but it can't be done in the Guardians' system as they can't develop hitters.  You won't hear many people tell you he is the guy who was the early favorite to go 1-1 in 2025.  Cleveland took a HUGE gamble that he will return to his 2024 form.  If he doesn't, they will have wasted a first round draft pick and given their recent drafts, that can't happen.  No Cleveland minor league prospect has more to prove than Laviolette.  

4. Kal Stephen - People just don't realize how important Stephen is.  The Guardians had a great 2021 draft, picking up a bunch of college pitchers including Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee.  In 2022 they continued that trend early in the draft by drafting Justin Campbell and Parker Messick.  Unfortunately, they went away from that trend in 2023, 2024 and 2025, not picking a single college pitcher of note.  As a result, the farm system is devoid of any top line pitching prospecs except for Stephen. The Guardians got Stephen from Toronto for Shane Bieber.  While Bieber meant everything to Toronto, Stephen actually means more to Cleveland.  He came to Cleveland with a shoulder impingement and pitched like crap after the trade.  As he is the only top level pitching prospect in the entire organization (I don't count HS guys in that category until they master AA) he HAS to succeed.  If his injury lingers, if he fails, the Guardians will have a huge gap in their farm system, without a single pitching prospect who can help them before Jose Ramirez's contract runs out.  To throw salt in that wound, the Guardians drafted Jacob Cozart, a college catcher with the upside of a ML backup catcher, in the second round when they could have had Stephen.  Ouch!

3. Jaisson Chourio - Like Genao, he was hurt a lot of last year.  He is hitting well in winter ball but will he burn out there or will it propel him into a great 2026. In the best world he turns into the prospect his brother Jackson was (and is). Make no mistake, Chourio needs to have a breakout year again in 2026.  If he turns into just an above average prospect, this will not be effective at moving the needle of the Guardians future. He has to be great and it has to start this year as he is Rule 5 eligible after 2926. If he is languishing in A+ at the end of 2026 they WILL roster him but he will be on a path that likely will result in him running out of options before he reaches his potential.  For a team like Cleveland, that has happened too much in the past and, with Chourio, it can't happen again.

2. Chase DeLauter - We all THINK he is going to be an above-average ML player. I even dream on him being the next Grady Sizemore.  But he has to stay healthy because he is a cornerstone of this franchise and, given that I believe a salary floor is coming in the next CBA, he is a potential extension candidate.  Unless he gets hurt in St (or before) he is likely to open the season in the Guardians starting lineup.  I don't think he will EVER play himself off the roster.  He is simply that good.  The key for him and an important key in the near future of this franchise is whether he can stay healthy and play at 100% pace.  As the Guardians avoided having him take the extra base or slide last season, that is still to be seen

1. Travis Bazzana - I have followed Bazzana since the 2024 college season began. He looked like the exact player I wanted.  Solid, baseball field rat, with great speed, good power and a great batting eye.  In March of his draft year, while playing in a mid-week non-conference game,  he got hit on the hand with a pitch and left the stadium with it wrapped. He only missed a couple of games and was back in the lineup by the weekend.  But after that, his season started to spiral.  People said that it was just the tougher play in the PAC.  But he didn't look the same.  When he turned pro he was overpaowered by pitches and rolled over or popped up to the 3rd baseman a frightening number of pitches.  He also swung and missed A LOT.  2026 brought more of the same. with fans who didn't want to believe that he could be anything less than a franchise icon failing to see his flaws and deluding themselves that it had to oblique injury (followed by another) that were the cause of his struggles.  The fact is, Bazzana has not been good since February of 2024.  This season is so important for him to establish himself that I cannot overstate that importance.  It doesn't help that Bazzana will play for Austrailia in the WBC.  Given his lack of success in the minors in '24 and '25, there is a good chance he will get eaten alive by the pitchers in that tournament, with all the flaws I have seen in two years causing him to lose confidence, if he hasn't already lost it.  Don't be deceived. 2026 IS the make-or-break year in Travis Bazzana's career.  This year will tell if his career track is more like Chase Utley's or Mikey Moniak's.  And that difference will mean a great deal to the future of the Cleveland Guardians franchise.

There you have it.  Some people look at our farm system through rose-colored glasses and see a bright future. I look at that same farm system and see that same future with the caveat being if all 12 of these guys DON'T succeed at a good level, this franchise could be toast for the next decade.  So, let's keep our fingers crossed for this to happen. Remember, this is NOT all the prospects that Cleveland has so not all of their top prospects have to have the level of success I am asking of these 12.  But the 12 I mentioned? They better be successful if we want to be competitive in the second half of the 2020s and beyond.

A Quick Look at Where The Guardians Roster Is Heading Into 2026 - Part 3 - Who Should Be Added To/Dumped From The Current Roster

 We are now starting the beefing up and weeding out process for our roster.  So let's dive in:

WHO SHOULD WE BE ADDING?

 Marcell Ozuna - This, like many others, is dependent on the cost.  Ozuna is truly a DH but is a RHH with proven production.  He is the jolt this lineup needs and the protection that will help maximize Jose Ramirez's production.  Plus, he moves Manzardo out of the #4 hole into the #5 or 6 slot, which would be more appropriate to his skill set.

Luis Robert Jr. - The only trade on my list, I doubt this gets done as the White Sox are positioning themselves for a better result in 2026 AND they appear to hate trading fairly with the Guardians. Still, I don't feel like DeLauter can hold up in CF (picture a Mr. Glass version of Grady Sizemore).  Robert Jr. might also be a clubhouse distraction but a lineup of Kwan, DeLauter, Ramirez, Ozuna, Robert Jr., Manzardo, Naylor, Martinez (2B) and Rocchio would look pretty good compared to the last 2 years. 

Veteran FA SP - This is just a placeholder as the Guardians need depth.  I think it was Zach Meisel who posted that the Guardians had used an average of 12.5 SP per season for the last 4 years.  We are not even close to that and I would like to see a rotation that has Cecconi @ #4 and Cantillo (out of options) @ #5.  So any of Miles Mikolas, Nestor Cortes, Zach Littell or Lucas Giolito, whoever is the cheap and gives us the best bang for our buck, is who I am targeting.  But, whoever it is, we need one more veteran SP.

WHO WE SHOULD BE REMOVING

Connor Brogdon - I know we can't trade Brogdon but, if we need the roster space, he is 1A of the guys who need to be DFA'd. With the signing of Armstrong and Avila and maybe adding a SP to push Logan Allen to RP and maybe Cecconi, too, and the guys at AAA (Espino, Walters and Aleman) we have enough RP depth.

Colin Holderman - 1B on my list of RP to get rid of if we need the roster space, Holderman was another bad decision by the FO.  Not that he and Brogdon would have been bad minor league FA signings but taking up a 40-man spot seems like a foolish waste of resources for a team that needs to be adding ML quality resources in the midst of a roster crunch. 

Gabriel Arias - Here is the first tradeable asset that we should remove from the roster (via trade only) IF and ONLY IF we need a roster spot.  Right now Arias, on my depth chart, is the backup SS and you can't, in January, dump your first option if something happens to Rocchio.

Nolan Jones - I see no role for Jones in 2026. If we go young we have enough guys to throw out in RF.  I just don't see a way for him to get PT unless he suddenly reverts back to 2023 form and I don't see that happening.  While it's great to have a bunch of guys in ST who compete for positions with the best man winning, (a) that never happens with the Guardians because they believe in spring desert mirages and (b) it, to me, is more important to have roster flexibility than to have competition, which is generally generated through MiLB free agent signings with invitations to ST than through redundant players on the 40-man.  So I could even see them, if the rules allow it, for them to DFA Jones this winter if someone who is a better fit comes along.

SUMMARY

So, like the extension candidates, the lists above are short.  Will the Guardians do anything? I am not sure. But I think there are some fits that make this team better and help keep their collective heads above water until the trade deadline.