OK, congratulations Guardians. We won the season series over the Twins but it's not exactly like they were sweating about it. You see, every time I thought the Twins would choke, like when we took 2 out of 3 from them in Minnesota and then they had to go to Texas, they performed well. In fact, they performed well all season. As the announcers said, they are winning the division but don't have a single guy among the league leaders. That is teamwork and picking each other up. That is why they are probably not really worried, especially looking at their and our remaining schedules.
Given all that, let's assume that we won't be able to catch them and then, if somehow we do, then we can all be pleasantly surprised.
So what do we do now that the season is, essentially, over. In order to see that we should examine the roster.
Starting Pitching: Right now we have 6. If Giolito is injured we just put him on the 15 day IL and bring up Cantillo or Gaddis. If McKenzie and/or Beiber come back, we just transfer Giolito to the 60 day DL.
If he is just bad as I see it we have two choices:
(a) DFA Giolito and, if someone doesn't pick him up on waivers, just release him. Then you bring up Cantillo to finish the season and to get his feet wet in the majors without losing his rookie status and start to get the idea if he can really compete for a starting pitcher role in ST or if we need to get someone in a trade or as a FA.
(b) Continue to pitch him and just make sure he gets to between 90-100 pitches each start, even if he is getting hammered. This saves Cantillo and saves the bullpen.
In either case I am done with Giolito. Maybe it is just because I had to live with Syndergaard or I have seen this story before with the Guardians but if he is bringing nothing positive to the Guardians AND we don't need him to eat innings AND we are really out of the race, there HAS to be something better we can do to help us for the future.
So, for me, the starters are Quantrill, Bibee, Williams, Allen, Cantillo and Curry.
Bullpen: It looks like we will go with what we have now:
Clase
Stephan
Morgan
De Los Santos
Lopez
Moore
Hentges
Sandlin
The big question, for me, is if Stephan is cooked due to overuse. We need to make this determination before tomorrow's game and, if we think he is, give Stephan a DL vacation and bring Karinchak back up. There is no time to mess around here. There is no time for, 'well, let's just see how he does his next time or two out'. He either is good or he is DL'd, period. Note that we also have Herrin, Gaddis and Morris at AAA as backups and even Michael Kelly, although I would DFA him if McKenzie or Beiber come back.
Catcher: DFA Gallagher and bring up Lavastida. Look, I know it may appear bush league but we really need to get a look at Lavastida and Gallagher is never coming back and hasn't played well enough to justify us keeping him for the rest of the season as a favor. I go with Bo Naylor, Lavastida and Fry as my 3 catchers the rest of this season.
First base/DH - I think Calhoun has played well enough to become an end-of-the-bench player for the rest of the season. I hate saying that because I would much rather bring up Jhonkensy Noel and watch him flail and miss very often rather than watch a AAAA veteran who should have ZERO chance of making the roster next year, take those ABs. With Naylor at 1B, we can fill in at DH with the other guys. But Calhoun only appears as a PH or maybe when we want to load the lineup against a particular RH starter who is tough on our righties, if he is on the team at all.
Middle Infield: We are pretty set at middle infield right now (Ramirez, Freeman, Gimenez, Tena, Arias). I don't see them making a change at the moment as Rocchio is not going to play SS this season with Arias there. Tena is a better end of the bench guy with Rocchio continuing to get every day ABs at the top of the Columbus battng order that will be playing almost as long as the Guardians, given the extended length of the AAA season.
Outfield: This is simple. Kwan, Straw, Rodriguez, Brennan with Fry and Calhoun (or Noel, if we DFA Calhoun) as backups.
So, in summary, starting tomorrow night, our active roster should be
Starting Pitchers
Quantrill
Bibee
Williams
Allen
Curry
Cantillo
Bullpen
Clase
Stephan (or Karinchak, if Stephan is cooked)
Morgan
De Los Santos
Lopez
Moore
Hentges
Sandlin
Catcher
Bo Naylor
Bryan Lavastida
David Fry
Infield
Naylor
Gimenez
Arias
Ramirez
Freeman
Tena
Outfield
Kwan
Straw
Brennan
Calhoun (or Noel, if we think we are out of it and want to get his toes wet in the majors)
Rodriguez
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