OK, with about two weeks of play to go in the AFL season, let's take a look at how players from the Guardians' organization are doing.
1. Kyle Manzardo - Factoring in the offensive advantage that players see in the AFL, Manzardo's fall season in mirroring what he did after the trade to Cleveland:
Statistics in Columbus: 93 PA 16 R 20 H 8 (2B) 0 (3B) 6 HR 16 RBI 12 BB 14 K .256/.348/.590/.938
AFL Stats: 60 PA 15 R 15 H 5 (2B) 1 (3B) 5 HR 13 RBI 6 BB 16 K .283/.367/.698/1.066
Looks like he may be selling out for power a little more with additional evidence provided by the length of his HRs for the Peoria team.
So it looks like Manzardo is having a solid AFL putting him in an even better position to play for the Guardians next year. Don't think that his AFL performance his chances of being on the opening day roster, however. I think he will need about a month with Columbus but the Guardians may, as a PR move, force the issue. There are plenty of guys who deserve chances before the LHH DH over 1B Manzardo.
2. Ryan Webb - Mirages happen in the desert all the time. Sometimes they are seen in spring training, sometimes they are seen in the AFL. So I can't fully quantitate what we are seeing from Ryan Webb so far. What we know is that he is striking out a lot of guys in the AFL (2+ per inning) compared to his other professional performance (1+ per inning). The competition level in the AFL is supposed to be much superior to the Midwest League so that is a positive. It does appear that his AFL numbers mirror his numbers as a RS junior (his draft year):
RS junior year: 59.2 IP, 43 H, 10 HR, 17 BB, 88 K
AFL:10.1 IP, 8 H, 3 HR 7 BB 21 K
These last 2-3 outings for him will be telling because he did get rocked in his last outing meaking me wonder whether the hitters, in a small league like this, are just figuring him out or not. He has a chance to come close to matching Manzardo in impact on his prospect status if he has 2 more games like his second start (4.1 IP, 1 H, 1 HR, 2 BB, 9 K).
3. Chase DeLauter - Take away his opening two games in the AFL and he has, simply, really struggled. We should remember that this kid did not even have a full minor league season (and only a few games at AA) before he was thrown in the deep end in the AFL. His overall results don't mean much, negatively, given that but he clearly hasn't placed himself on the express train to Cleveland with his performance so far and that is a good thing as he won't have to be protected from the Rule 5 until after the 2025 season. That is good considering his health and the mounting questions surrounding the weirdness of his swing and how upper minor league pitchers will attack it and how DeLauter will react.
4. Ross Carver - The Guardians must have seen something in Carver as they traded him for the ML-ready flamethrower Carlos Vargas (opening day roster Arizona Diamondbacks). however, most of 2023 was a lost season for Carver due to injury and, except for a few cases, poor performance (6.53 ERA). He did have a great starte on August 19th (6 IP 1 H, 1 R, 0 BB 12 K) and his last two starts of the regular season (10.1 IP, 9 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 9 K). His assignment to the AFL was, ostensibly, to make up for the innings he lost during the season and while he hasn't done great (3.60 ERA), he has struck out 12 in 10 innings so far. He does not have to be protected against the Rule 5 until after the 2024 season.
5. Bradley Hanner - Let's level set here. Hanner was a MINOR LEAGUE rule 5 pick last year. Most MiLB rule 5 picks never even get to the majors and Hanner, while he was good in his first exposure to AA in 2023, is almost 25 and hasn't made it to AAA yet. Still, his performance in the AFL certainly has not hurt his status with the Guardians. If they roster him against the Rule 5, however, it will once again give me serious doubts about the abilities of Guardians player evaluation personnel.
6. Christian Cairo - One of the once-a-week AFL part-timers, he has made the most of his limited opportunities to put up a .348 BA on 23 ABs with a HR and 2 BB for a .901 OPS with only 4 Ks. Still, guys with lifetime .212 BA in the minors are generally not considered priority prospects, unfortunate as we spent a high draft pick (4th round) overdrafting a guy likely in part because of his baseball heritage. Still hard to understand why they just didn't send Tyler Freeman to the AFL to give him some ABs to replace the ones he missed sitting on Cleveland's bench AND to work on his OF play. Instead, Cairo spent time in the OF in the AFL to increase his versatility. Makes no sense to me.
7. Eric Sabrowski - Sabrowski, about to turn 26 years old, has been injured most of his career and logged 21.2 innings in Akron this year pushing his grand total of professional experience since being drafted in 2018, to 28 games and 50.2 innings. The third of three organizational filler guys on this team from the Guardians (along with Cairo and Hanner), I think we could have found a true prospect to send who might have benefitted from the extra reps (Ethan Hankins?). In the AFL Sabrowski has pitched 5 times for 5 IP and given up 2 H and 2 ER while walking EIGHT and striking out eight.
SUMMARY
Good that the Guardians sent true prospects Manzardo, DeLauter and Webb to the AFL to get extra reps to make up for the time they missed this season. Ditto to some extent for Carver. However, Hanner, Sabrowski and Cairo were headscratching assignments to me. There HAD to be other guys in the organization who were more priority prospects who they could have sent to the AFL. Guys like Ethan Hankings, Cody Morris, George Valera, Tyler Freeman and even David Fry (work as a catcher) could have gotten extra work in that they needed due to lack of opportunities this year due to injuries and lack of playing opportunities during the regular season. Heck, even Noel and Rodriguez could have beneftted from extra reps as could have Tena, due to sitting on the bench so much in Cleveland, stunting his ability to playing in Columbus.
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