Dear Cleveland Guardians Draft Room,
Look, the Guardians draft room has been innovative in a good way (2021 college pitcher draft) and a bad way (2023 college LH slap hitter draft). We have had to endure Brady Aiken and Carson Tucker. We have seen what happens when guy get in right, too, with Francisco Lindor.
Some of their good, solid draft picks haven't panned out due to injuries (Daniel Espino and Justin Campbell and, up to this point Chase DeLauter). Some sure things are looking questionable (Bazzana).. But some of those picks are part of our core of players.
The reason I am writing to you today is because of some disturbing things I have heard from 'experts'
- MLB Pipeline, in their last mock draft, has the Guardians taking one of two players
- Josh Hammond - HS SS/3B who was thought more highly as a P entering his senior year but who wants to be drafted as a position player.
- Marek Houston - SS - Wake Forest - A defense-first, slap hitter college shortstop
- ESPN has you guys taking the following guys with your first 4 picks:
- Tate Southisene HS SS - who would be an overdraft by all the scouting services I have seen
- Jordan Yost HS SS - slap hitter
- Cade Obermueller LHP Iowa - He is on the shorter side
- Aiden Stillman HS LHP - Another overdraft
- Covering the Corner has you drafting Ethan Conrad, a college outfielder who missed most of his 2025 season after undergoing shoulder surgery to fix a separated shoulder he had in March.
My request to you is to NOT do any of the above. In doing this I ask you to remember the following things:
- The most difficult demographics in terms of draft successes are high school hitters and pitchers. Look at your recent history
- Cole Tucker, Jake Fox and even Ralphy Velasquez and Petey Halpin from your recent drafts are struggling and either won't make it or will be long-term projects.
- We recently have drafted a half dozen HS pitchers who are at the bottom of our development system. Many (Oakie, Mobley, Zinn, Remily) are struggling early in their careers, some are still in low A (Doughty, Zibin) and some are injured (Espino, Sullivan) are injured.
In summary, we haven't had much luck with HS guys as either they fail, they struggle or they have are obviously on a slow development path. In addition, we have so many SS in our system that I don't think we need any more young or light hitting SS. As far as Conrad, while DeLauter looks good as a prospect, look how his development has been slowed by an injury.
So, here is my request to you. Your ML core players will almost all be free agents or close to free agents after the 2028 season. Base your draft on acquiring players who can make impact on your ML team by 2027 or 2028. This means drafting healthy college hitters, especially at positions of need, and college pitchers, at least through round 9.
This is not the time to build for the distant future. It is not the time to think that Travis Bazzana is not developing at the pace you hoped he would.
This is the time to bank on your ML core and the prospects (DeLauter, Aubry, Messick, Ingle, Genao, Nikhazy, Aleman, Walters) who are close to the majors.
So, when you are drafting, look for college power hitters and college power arms through round 9, at least. After that you can get creative.
If you try to do have a great draft by taking a bunch of brass ring picks, your ML team isn't helped in the near future and the distant future, based on the riskiness of drafting HS kids, becomes really murky.
So, please. Do this right. We want to root for a winning team for years to come and this draft is key to the short and intermediate future of this franchise. Please make sure you are doing what is the best thing for the franchise. And, in this case, it is drafting college power hitters at positions of need and good college pitchers, especially power arms who are on the taller side.
Thank you,
Dennis Nosco
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