Even The Moves That Don't Make Sense Make Sense

 Today is a day that didn't seem to make sense if you were a Guardians fan.

But at least some of it really did.

The day culminated with the announcement of the WBC rosters.  One player who is going to play in the WBC for Columbia is catcher Meibrys Viloria.  We entered this year with 5 catchers competing for 2 jobs in Cleveland and 2 jobs in Columbus and maybe one of the two jobs in Akron, truth be told. Before this was made official the Guardians signed Zack Collins to a minor league contract.  The question is, why?  Well, Viloria was supposed to use ST to learn our ML and AAA pitching staff and maybe the AA pitching staff, as well.  So in steps Collins to provide extra catching.  In many cases you see younger catchers get ST invites and that may be happening.  But what is also happening is we are bringing in more veteran catchers to, I think, help bring along the pitchers who will be in Cleveland AND at AAA this year.  It may be that not all of these guys even make it through ST without getting cut but, right now, with Viloria gone, Collins makes more sense.

Yesterday we traded away Will Benson and it cleared a roster spot.  Today we filled that spot with a very unlikely RHP Jason Bilous who we got off of wavers from the White Sox.  He does not appear to be the second coming of Enyel De Los Santos, folks.   I don't read too much into this acquistion because  I see him being DFA'd when we have a better option, with the hope we can keep him and have him work out his issues at AAA or AA.  This claiming followed by DFAing is fairly common in the off-season so his stay with us may be short-lived.  To me this means that we will still fill this spot with a quality pitcher, just not sure who that will be yet.

Speaking of the WBC, here are my thoughts:

Cal Quantrill - Him pitching in the WBC is very surprising.  Playing for your home country is great but he is a #3 starter on a contending team.  The risk of ruining his ML season is, to me, a bigger consideration than anything he could do for Canada and my suspicion is that they expect him to do a lot.

This is also true for Andres Gimenez.   He will be expected to do a lot for Venezuela.

Bo Naylor playing for Canada is also a bit surprising but it may play into the idea that he has no chance to break spring training with the Guardians and so has time to recoup at AAA once the WBC is over.

Cade Smith's stock may also rise as he keeps being asked to play at levels above where you would expect him to play.  

Enyel De Los Santos being an extra pitcher for the Dominican is a bit surprising as he needs to solidify his spot in the bullpen early on to show that last year was not a fluke.  Maybe he stays in Guardians ST until has number is called.  Who knows.

I have already touched on Wolf, Palacios, Frias and Viloria and I think the WBC is built for guys like this.  

The other minor league pitchers signed, Knight, Diehl are likely just AAA guys for this coming year.  Don't see any De Los Santos or better guys there, either.   Last year we had a number of those guys rotate through a single roster spot with a lot of DFAs during the season.  Maybe the same this year but I think we are looking at our actual minor league relievers getting those shots this year.