Some random thoughts for Monday morning:
- I still believe that their plan revolves around "on a wing and a prayer" defined as: If you do something on a wing and a prayer, you do it hoping that you will succeed, although you are not prepared enough for it
- The Guardians need to have a fast start to the season. As such, I don't think they should still be experimenting during the season. I feel they need to make all decisions so that they give themselves the best chance to hit the ground running. The rest of this post will be colored by this opinion.
- Gavin Wiliams did well in his spring debut. Remember that he was rolling last spring until he got injured. If he can stay healthy all year he could provide us with stability in the rotation that could lessen the need for a superior offense and shorter games for the bullpen.
- As I said at the beginning of spring training, the Guardians have 4 players on their 40 man roster who are out of options. Here are my thoughts on each:
- Triston McKenzie - Neither of his starts have looked sharp. In my opinion he is cooked as a starter and we need to spend the rest of spring training seeing if he can be a bullpen arm. We have a little over 3 weeks left. McKenzie 2025 looks EXACTLY like McKenzie 2024. Get him to the bullpen and stop operating on a wing and a prayer with him, hoping that suddenly he finds it again.
- Sam Hentges - He is on the 60-day IL and is out for the season. So he will not have to be sent to the minors this year and will enter spring training next year without having to be DFA'd...assuming there is no roster crunch this winter.
- Ben Lively - Unless catastrophe strikes him, Lively will open the season in the rotation, eating innings like he usually does. Depending on the health and performance of the rotation, he may be a prime trade candidate at the deadline to bring in some offense that will likely be needed if the Guardians are still in the race at the end of July.
- Gabriel Arias - Although I think Arias shows too much stubborness, too much lackadasical play and too little progress to have earned a starting job this spring, his competition for a utility spot, Schneeman and Martinez, have not helped themselves. Therefore I think Arias will open the season as the utility player IF the Guardians are trying to put their best foot forward to start the season. Arias, along with Freeman and Noel, have become the 3 clear choices to open the season on the Guardians bench, along with Hedges.
- Clearly, to me, Carlos Santana should not be hitting 2nd in the order. His notoriously slow starts, his penchant to hit into double plays, his clogging of the bases when he gets on (as evidence in the 1st inning yesterday) and his poor production in this limited time as a #2 hitter in the majors tells me that starting him off as our #2 hitter is not putting our best foot forward to start the season. Here are my thoughts on the other potential candidates to hit second behind Kwan:
- Juan Brito - Although I think his defense sucks, Brito, with his good batting eyes, doesn't ground into many double plays and so could provide Jose a lot of opportunities to come up with 2 guys on base. This, to me, is the best choice, even though I have been saying for a long time that Brito's defense sucks. Still, he is my first choice to start at 2B and hit second as he is the best choice to hit second. If he can't handle hitting second, he has not place on this team and needs to go back to AAA for more work on his defense and his hitting.
- Brayan Rocchio - If he can handle this mentally I think he can handle it physically and would allow us not to play Brito and maybe put Freeman at second base and down in the order somewhere. This is Freeman's make or break year so my heart tells me that Rocchio handling the #2 spot gives us the best chance of short and long term success.
- Tyler Freeman - I don't see him hitting second, even in a platoon situation. Too many DP balls, not enough walks and, maybe worst, lots of doubles, meaning that they are likely to pitch around Ramirez if Freeman is just doubled...especially with our questionable cleanup situation.
- Gabriel Arias - No way for him. I can see him being a real rally killer with his biggest offensive asset being the HR. In either case, DP ground ball or HR, he isn't helping Jose be successful. The only plus for him at #2 are his strikeouts. And if can live with strikeouts at #2, you could put Noel there.
- Jose Ramirez - Maybe the best overall solution is one Jose would not like. This a last ditch situation if everyone else screws up #2. At least he will likely get pitched around less at #2, in my opinion, and will obviously get more plate appearances there than hitting third. Plus, the rest of the guys in the lineup are better #3 hitters than cleanup hitters and having Thomas hit 3rd, Manzardo (or Noel) 4th and Santana 5th looks better to my gut.
- Jhonkensy Noel -I know, I know. But hear me out. Noel will get pitches to hit in front of Ramirez. In addition, he is pretty athletic and only hit into one DP last year. If he Ks after Kwan gets on it is much better than a Santana, Arias or Freeman mentally deflating GIDP. I now it's unorthodox but I think we should give it a try if Brito and Rocchio don't work out.
- Nobody...and I mean NOBODY said not to trade Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor. To me they were prime trade chips this off-season to help this team in 2025. However, so far, those trades are both looking sort of bad.
- Slade Cecconi has looked bad so far, making his 6+ ERA look more long-term than just growing pains. He is clearly becoming a long-term project and getting him as the only player in the Naylor trade looks terrible. If we continue to use him as a starter I doubt that he impacts our 2025 result. If we move him to the bullpen he might not help us this year, either.
- Luis Ortiz plus two decent pitching prospects for Horwitz seemed like a stretch to me. Plus the Guardians FO harping so much on the one start Ortiz made against them last year seems kind of crazy to me. Anybody can have 1 or 2 good starts during the season where everything is clicking. The fact that the Pirates were willing to trade young, controllable talent for a positional tweener like Horwitz was a red flag to me. Some people like to include him as part of the Gimenez trade b/c the return from Toronto for Gimi and Sandlin was pretty weak. Even combining the Toronto and Pittsburgh trades doesn't save them UNLESS Ortiz excels. It was a big gamble of a trade if you lump the two trades together. Every fan should at least be willing to acknowledge that.
We have 3 weeks of spring training left. It would be great to see this all come together for the Guardians' pitching staff and avoid injuries and bad performances. As far as the hitting? Who knows. But we can at least hope for improvements from all the guys we had last year and the avoidance of injuries so that we can dream of the same offensive start in 2025 that we got in 2024.
