3 Trades The Guardians Should Make This Off-Season

 1. Tyler Wells & Jud Fabian for Shane Beiber - Look, Beiber may be a Cy Young award winner or he may go the way of Corey Kluber when we traded him for Clase/DeShields.   One thing for sure: Bewill make over $12 million this year.   We would be replacing Beiber in the rotation with the more pedestrian Wells (and 3 years of his control) meaning we are getting a relatively cheap innings eater who still has a chance to be more.  Think of Wells like Xzavion Curry if Curry could give us 6 innings regularly as well as slide to the long man spot if needed.  Fabian, a RHH, is the wild card here and while he had troubles with Ks he hit 24 HRs between A+ and AA in his 1st full year of pro ball and is not Rule 5 eligible until after the 2025 season.   Compare his production to that of Joe Lampe and tell me which one you would rather him (BTW, in my 2022 draft analysis I said that Fabian was the better pick). Baltimore is going for it all and we are trying to win the AL Central.  When you think of it in that way you could see where Baltimore would take that gamble.

2. Luis Robert Jr. for Manzardo, Brito, Cantillo and Webb -  This is a lot to give up for Robert Jr. but every one of these guys are expendable or will not be ready to help in most, if not all, of 2024.  All 4, however, are PERFECT for a team that would be going into a deep rebuild IF they trade Robert because trading him would likely mean the trading of Cease which would assure they are rebuilding.  These 4 prospects would likely be core members of their team in 2 years, just when they should start to come out of this rebuild.  This would also take the pressure off of trading for a RFer and allow us to take a longer look at JRod/Brennan as a RF combo, although I don't know what this would mean for Laureano given this trade and #3 below.

3. Myles Straw and Nick Sandlin for Jorge Barrosa - This is more of a salary dump of Straw's contract for the Guardians but I really like Barrosa and he is blocked in Arizona.  He is a great 4th outfielder and as a switch hitter who will take a walk (80 BB/82 K in AAA in 2023), would slot in nicely hitting #2 for us with Jose sliding back to #3 and being protected by Robert Jr. and Naylor IF Barrosa can make the ML club out of spring training.