TALKING GUARDIANS BASEBALL IN JANUARY IS A THING!
Guardians fans are truly excited and wanting to talk about what tweaks, T-W-E-A-K-S, the Guardians need to make to their roster to be able to solidify their position as a true post-season contender.
Ahhhh, much better than when I was growing up when at this time of the year you were hoping that some of these suspects turned into prospects.
INTERNATONAL SIGNING DAY
Today is the day you can officially sign amateur international free agents. This process has become sort of anticlimactic as these guys appear to already be training at Guardians facilities, making this just the official pen-to-paper of what is a foregone conclusion.
Very little, if any, last minute seismic movement compared to, say, NCAA football signing day. Plus, as these guys are now professionals signed to binding contracts, no transfer portal drama, either.
The Guardians have taken a spread-the-wealth philosophy in the past on this day. That is, they believe in signing (and uber-developing) a bunch of second- and third-tier international prospects instead of putting all their eggs in one basket by signing a top 5 (or even 10) guy. It has worked well for them recently as the past few years have seen some of our 2017 and 2018 signees starting to pop up at the top of our top 30 prospects. They appear to have found the secret sauce on which of these lower tier players to sign and how to develop them.
However, this does bring up the most important point. How do you rate a class when it takes 5-6 years for those guys to develop to a level that they could be considered for spots on the ML 26?
[GETTING UP ON SOAP BOX NOW]
That is why we need to change the Rule 5 rules for guys who sign their first contract before they are 18 years old. They simply don't have enough time to develop and the team that signs and develops these guys need more of a fair shot. BTW, I am also a proponent of an international draft with bonus pool caps like the US/Canadian amateur draft does.
[GETTING DOWN OFF OF SOAP BOX NOW]
Classy move by Jose Ramirez to meet all our 2023 signees (actually from the 2022 signing period?!?!) and have a photo op with them, BTW.
Final thought on international amateur signings. That old investing disclaimer that goes something like 'past performance does not guarantee future success' cannot apply here. For teams like the Guardians we need the successes of 2017/18 to continue. While we won't know with this class of 2023 whether they have for several years, we NEED for them to. So keep the digits at the end of your arms crossed.
RECENT SIGNINGS
Looking over the free agent signings this week, you can easily make the case of how the Guardians may have enjoyed having some of these guys on the team this coming season but didn't need them to be. Let's take a look:
Trey Mancini - Hey, without of three things (hopeful emergence of Oscar Gonzalez, signing of Josh Bell, presence of prototypical Guardians outfield prospect Will Brennan) you might have put Mancini or someone like him in the NEED category. But at $14 million plus incentives over two years, the Guardians Way (i.e., play the kids and save money where you can) would not support signing him.
Nelson Cruz - Reported as a $1 million signing you can easily make the case that the Guardians could have afforded that. However, when you consider the bodies we have now and that Francona likes to 'rest' guys at DH, it shows that even at this extreme bargain price, you don't sign Cruz, who really doesn't have any defensive flexibility. If you ever want a poster child-example of why the position player part of the roster is locked, just look at the fact that Cruz's salary is not far off your fungible 26th man on the roster salary but, still, he is not what the Guardians need right now.
Shintaro Fujinami - Interesting to include a Japanese hurler here but, while he might have found a niche as a shutdown reliever in Japan last year, he probably isn't the sure thing the Guardians need if they are going to add a reliever to their roster. Perfect signing for a team like Oakland. Not a needed investment for a team like the Guardians this year.
Andrew McCutchen - Again, a true veteran player who you might think the Guardians could have used as a 4th outfielder on a contending team. Still, they didn't NEED him so they didn't sign him, especially at the price he was paid.
AJ Pollock - See Andrew McCutchen.
Craig Stammen - Now here is a guy I would have signed, especially on a minor league deal. But I think he was always headed back to the Padres if he didn't get a good major league deal. Plus, if you were going to take Stammen why not just bring back Bryan Shaw?
Brandon Belt - See Trey Mancini, but without the OF profile.
Corey Dickerson - See Andrew McCutchen and AJ Pollock, but without the true veteran power presence.
Johny Cueto - We have 5 starters and the cost of Cueto is not, at this point, a needed expense. Would I be a nice-to-have? Sure. But not needed.
Summary: There have been some moves the Guardians, with their ML roster and minor league prospect glut should have made (trade for Gregory Soto comes to mind) but the general sense of this free agent off-season is that the Guardians Way did not lend itself to any more free agent signings than what we have already. I would still rather have had Jose Abreu in a heartbeat over Josh Bell and traded for Sean Murphy instead of signing Mike Zunino but, aside from those personal preferences, no other guy moved the needle for me this off-season so far, not as someone who knows the limitations of baseball in Cleveland.
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