Horse Trading Part 3 - MLB Makes Proposal On Amateur Drafts

 Baseball America did a detailed article on the MLB's latest proposal that covered amateur drats.  Here are my comments:

1. Rule 5 Draft -MLB's proposal does not eliminate the Rule 5 draft and, in fact, accentuates it.  The MLB proposal would allow for domestic players to be R5-eligible after 2 seasons with teams being able to 'buy' a 3rd season of protection for $30,000. 

My thoughts: I have published several posts on this site with data that shows that the Rule 5 ML draft does not work.  While MLB's latest proposal would change the dynamic to the R5 draft based on eligible players it is still not workable and, IMO, the ML R5 draft should be eliminated. The goal of eliminating the Rule 5 draft would be to give teams LONGER periods of control for their players to develop and to reduce the money and effort spent on determining which players to roster and which to draft in the R5. 

2. MLB Draft Changes - MLB proposes dropping the draft to 12 rounds, cutting the bonus pool in half, not allowing players to be drafted until they turn 20 (no HS players or JUCO freshmen), limiting the bonuses for NDFA to $10,000, draft choices are freely tradeable with some limitations, no competitive balance picks.

My thoughts: 

No drafting of HS/young JUCO draftees - I am on board with that.  The demographics show that the most high risk is in drafting HS players, especially RH pitchers and catchers. While some guys do make it big being drafted out of HS, a lot fail.   

However, this system will only work if foreign leagues support this and refuse to sign US kids who are not draft-eligible. The system must also allow for matriculation from college to pro ball at a faster rate so that kids pushed to college find playing time at colleges that will develop them and get them ready for pro ball at a young age.  This cannot be like HS where seniors and juniors play and freshmen and sophomores sit (or play JV, which doesn't currently exist in college) and wait their turn.  For example, IMO there are still too many Friday night SP in college baseball who are seniors because they give the team the best chance to win and winning is a main goal for a college coach.  While that may impact winning for those schools it adversely impacts kids with a lot of talent but no experience.  Additionally, if the influx of players to college is not handled correctly, the already out-of-control transfer portal will get crazier as kids find that they can't get playing time early and so transfer to a place that 'guarantees' them playing time..

Dropping the draft to 12 rounds: I am totally against that.  The pool of draft-worthy players will, in theory, be the same every year even if HS/JUCO kids are not eligible. Those kids will simply be in college at their draft age,  MLB has already dropped the draft from 40 to 20 rounds.  Dropping it further favors cheap teams not having to spend money on amateur player acquisition AND make it harder for draft-worthy players to get playing time in their freshman and sophomore years in college. I am not in favor of any rule that allows cheap teams to cheap out on amateur player acquisition. 

Cutting the bonus pools in half: Again, totally against this.  In fact, I want the bonus pools enhanced for the resource-limited teams.  Make them spend more on amateur player acquistion.

Elimination of Competitive Balance Draft Picks - I am totally against this.  Resource-liimited teams should get more draft picks, period.  As I have said repeatedly, any change that allows resourc-limited teams to avoid spending money on amateur player acquisition is bad for baseball. There is a substantial difference between revenue sharing, which can be accomplished with better local media revenue sharing and a salary floor and competitive balance. The latter requires carrot-and-stick rules for small market teams.  That is, give them extra bonus pool money but make them spend it.

Somewhat Free Trading of Draft Picks - I am TOTALLY against this. Trading a 1st round draft pick could save a team MILLIONS of dollars.  Being a Cleveland guy I remember Ted Stepien for the Cavaliers and the DeShaun Watson/Browns trade.  These trades hamstrung their teams for years.  Rules should NOT be made that allows this kind of shooting in the foot.  Just the opposite, actually.  I am against any rule that keeps cheap teams from spending on amateur player acquisition. My rule is to not allow draft picks from being traded before the 11th round and then they can only be for the current draft cycle and only be traded by large market teams.  I don't want teams to be able to mortgage the future for a brass ring push in a year.  

Limiting NDFA bonuses to $10,000 - Again, this, like cutting the draft to 12 rounds, is just a mechanism for teams to save money on player acquisition while driving kids back to college.  Kids need to matriculate to pro baseball from college to give younger college players the opportunity to play.

Hard Draft Slots - I am against this.  Teams should be allowed to decide how to spend their money.  Nowhere in this proposal does it address a college player simply saying that they don't want to be drafted in a particular year.  This would be heightened if hard draft slots were adhered to.  I think this spending flexibility is one of the beautiful things of the draft.  Some teams might like to spread their money around.  Hard slotting eliminates creativity in amateur player acquistion.  However, there does need to be rules saying a team MUST spend between 95% and 105% of their draft pool budget. 

3. International Draft - Players can only be drafted when they reach 18, bonus pool the same for international and domestic drafts. Skip the 2027 January 15th signing period.

My thoughts - I am on board with these proposals.  That being said, this proposal has still not eliminated the difference in age between domestic and international signees that currently exists.  This draft would clearly have to include elimination of the R5 draft so these kids could develop.  My other thought on this is that there are huge advantages to getting kids in younger. All teams right now get these kids to finish their HS education.  MLB would have to invest in academies for kids to continue to develop and get life skills until they can be drafted.  That obviously exists in the US but one of the beauties of signing these kids at 16 and them having them play in the DSL is that you get them in a structured environment early.  MLB would have to figure how to do that.

SUMMARY 

Many of these changes could be good for baseball.  However, a salary floor and salary cap should be tied to changes in revenue sharing.  Changes to amateur player acquisition should NOT.  Even in a cap situation the best players would leverage their talent to get to a large market where their earning power outside the game would be maximized.  Talent will NEVER be split evenly in a cap/floor environment.  Also we need to provide small market teams a pathway that allows them to reach the salary floor by signing their only prospects like the Athletics did and other teams are now starting to do.  This comes from enhanced amateur player opportunities for small market teams that are mandated to be followed both in keeping and using draft picks and spending appropriately instead of just not using money on these drafts. The new CBA should not just make fringe players and AAAA players richer as teams try to get to the floor.  Finally, in no way should ANY of these changes impact the gains that were made in the historic MiLB CBA.  Those benefits should be protected. so guys can chase their dreams to their natural conclusion without giving up because they can't afford to continue.

Anyone For Some Horse Trading? Part 2 - Let's Trade the Right Horses - Initial MLBPA and MLB New CBA Proposals

I started to write this months ago. but, after thinking about it and looking back at how the previous CBA unfolded, I decided to wait until the MLBPA made their initial proposal to the owners.  Surprisingly, IMO, it was not as shock-and-awe as I had expected it to be, instead nibbling at the edges.  The publicly released part of the MLB proposal was shock and awe as it really only addressed a cap/floor system with initial dollar figures

Note that many of the topics below were not publicly disclosed in MLB's counterproposal.

Let's dive in and see where the two sides are and where I think this should go.  Again, only one guy's opinion.

1. Minimum salary -

MLBPA - $1.65 MM minimum, scaling up to $2.2 MM at the end of the CBA.

MLB - Not mentioned but MLB is rumored to be against such a hike in rookie salaries

My Thoughts - fits right in line with what my goal of a $2 MM minimum salary I proposed.  Owners are going to have to see that a salary floor is coming and the smart ones will see that it is better to give this money to their own players than be forced to give it to mediocre FAs who won't impact the course of a season. As I said before, 26 players at $2 MM gives you a base total salary of almost 1/2 of the $120 MM floor they will likely settle on.

2. Pre-arbitration pool - 

MLBBPA - Raise from current $50 MM to $180 MM. 

MLB - Not mentioned

My Thoughts - Currently, each of the 30 ML teams contribute $1.67 MM to the pool. The new pool would cost each team $6 MM, which disproportionately taxes the 'poorest' teams.   If the owners are to agree to this increase it is going to have to be tied to something in lieu of a salary cap (see #7 below).  For example, the bottom 10 markets would still contribute $2 MM/team, the middle 10 markets would contribute $6 MM each and the largest 10 markets would each be left to contribute $10 million.  I am not saying the $180 MM will end up being the number but whatever the number is, the split should hit the wealthiest teams the hardest.

3. Super 2 Players - 

MLBPA - Increase from 22% to 44%. 

MLB - Not mentioned

My thoughts -  I think this IS a shock-and-awe request designed to get them concessions elsewhere.  I would think an increase to $25% with a increase of 1% per year of the next CBA would be a good compromise without meaning that the owners have to give up something else somewhere.  Frankly, I think that arbitration should be dropped to after 2 years of service time.  This eliminates the Super 2 issue while it still doesn't address the player control issues that led to Super 2, PPI and other rules.  I think that this would be less of a hard pill to swallow if teams had access to more revenue and were forced to spend it.

4. Minimum Arbitration salary 

MLBPA: 3 MM

MLB - Not mentioned

My Thoughts -  I think this, in combination with the ca. $2 MM minimum salary is good and the owners can complain about it to gain some good PR but they will see that paying a rookie $2 MM is better than paying a mediocre arbitration-eligible player $3+ MM.  I see this nicely fitting into current organizational thinking of when they pull the plug on arbitration-eligible

 players. I also see those players being stuck getting minor league deals which is not helpful to those players playing in the majors unless there is an increase in salary year over year due to service time.

5. Service time for ML free agency - 

MLBPA - No change for younger players . 5 years service time for players over 30 to become FAs

MLB - Not mentioned but I have to guess this would be a no for teams.  They develop players and want to hold onto those players for the longest time possible before potentially losing them to free agency.  Still, teams that understand the 'churn' of expensive players leaving for greener pastures, might want to horsetrade this for other concessions.

My Thoughts - The players propose 5 years for players over 30 years old.  I see the owners doing some horsetrading here by giving in to this but asking for two things in return: elimination of the ML Rule 5 draft and change in the minor league free agency to 7 years for players signed before their 18th birthday.  Latin amateur FAs take so long to develop that exposing them minor league free agency or the Rule 5 draft is just foolish.  These two horse trades are something that owners of small market teams would likely favor, anyway.

6. Competitive Balance Tax and Other Penalties

MLBPA:  Raise Competitive Balance Threshold from $244 MM to $300 MM, raising in subsequent seasons.  Remove all penalties for exceeding tax

MLB - Not mentioned but from their low salary cap proposal, MLB probably considers this irrelevant.

My Thoughts - Assuming no salary cap, my philosophy to improve competitive balance is to make teams choose.  If they choose to buy FAs (high team salary), they should be penalized more heavily than they are now.

7. Revenue Sharing

MLBPA - More sharing of broadcast rights, less stadium revenue sharing, Lower revenue teams receive at least $240 MM in revenue sharing annually but they must spend that money or suffer penalties. Low revenue teams would receive bonuses if they make the playoffs or have a winning record.

MLB - Not addressed

My thoughts - I align with the MLBPA here.  More revenue sharing, penalties if not spending that money, bonuses for successful franchises. I would like part of that money going to the draft, giving those low revenue teams even larger bonus pool, and money they HAVE to spend or be penalized.

8. Salary Cap

MLBPA - Does not want

MLB - $245 MM

My Thoughts - This is where the rubber meets the road in these negotiations.  Owners can play hardball here but everyone should warn them that it will be THEIR fault if this results in a work stoppage.  There are plenty of ways to improve competitive balance without a cap.  In fact, having a cap actually will hurt competitive balance as big market teams will just funnel money to player development and scouting. See #6 above for ways to help compettive balance.

9. Salary Floor

MLBPA - $150 MM - Penalties for teams spending under that (reverse competitive balance tax). 

MLB - $171 MM (includes player benefits meaning it is lower). Likely to be closer to $150 MM in salaries.

My Thoughts - MLBPA's plan is similar to my plan.  Remembering that 100% of owners need to approve the new CBA and only 50+% of players need to approve, the lower the salary floor, the better to get 100% of owners to approve.  Note that this floor needs to be tied to increased revenue sharing, particularly from local revenues (TV and merchandise).  It is still not clear how the MLBPA is addressing that their plan guarantees teams $240 MM in revenue sharing but only requires them to pay $150 MM in salaries.  As I have said, part of that revenue should be forced into draft bonus pools (domestic and international (see below) with the smaller market teams getting more money to spend, and have to spend, to sign amatuer players.

10. International Draft

MLBPA - Not mentioned

MLB - Not mentioned

My Thoughts - This is a must for me.  A large part of competitive balance has to include all amateur players being subject to a draft.

11. Rule 5 Draft

MLBPA - Not mentioned

MLB - Not mentioned

My Thoughts - The ML portion HAS to be eliminated.  I have published a number of evidence-based articles on this and the current R5 does not work.  As a good part of competitive balance has to be in amateur player acquistion and development, the R5 is counterproductive.

2026 Draft - Part 4 - Why We Need to Get Back To What Worked For Us in 2021

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 Let me start out by saying this: the end result of a draft, in its entirety, does not necessarily represent what the intent or strategy of that draft was, going into it.

So, when you look at a draft like Cleveland's college pitcher draft of 2021, they may not have intended to take that many (18 of 21 picks) as college pitchers.  But that's how it turned out and we can learn from that draft.

In 2021, and even 2020, the Guardians selected/signed as non-drafted free agents A LOT of college pitchers, many of whom were polished pitchers with excellent stuff.  Then, after round 2 in 2022, the trend stopped.  The Guardians started drafting position players (especially LH slap hitters), high school pitchers and less college pitchers. The college pitchers they DID draft were mostly soft tossers.  As I have said from Part 1 of this series, I think it is time the Guardians get back to their 2020-2021 strategy. Right after that strategy the pipeline was full of pitching prospects who were rapidly making their way to the majors.  However, if you look at the Guardians' farm system now. It is almost devoid of impact pitching prospects who came from the draft, making our depth at AAA almost non-existent in terms of starting pitching. It's time to change that with another college pitcher draft.

HISTORY LESSON

Before talking about who we might draft in 2026, let's look at the last 5 drafts and how we got to where we are today

GUARDIANS DRAFTING SUMMARY (2020-2025)

2020

In the COVID-19 draft, the Guardians focused on HS hitters and college pitchers.  As far as the HS hitters, Tucker was clearly one of the worst #1 picks in Cleveland's draft history.  The jury is still out on what we will end up with in Tolentino and Halpin but it looks like both will end up having some sort of ML career.

As far as college pitchers, the Guardians drafted Tanner Burns (CB-A), Logan Allen (2nd rd) and Mason Hickman (5th round). In addition, they signed Cade Smith as an NDFA.

Hickman, an unranked draftee, never made it past AA.  Burns is currently a very low level prospect working out of the bullpen in AAA.  Allen has had some ML success so far and may be back in Cleveland's rotation in 2026 if injuries occur in the rotation. The undrafted Cade Smith remains as the crown jewel of this draft.

2021

In the famous college pitcher draft, the Guardians, likely by choice, selected 18 college pitchers, 1 HS hitter, 1 HS pitcher and 1 college hitter.  Here is the breakdown of the progress of those 18 guys:

ML SP - Williams (1st round), Bibee 5th(

ML cups of coffee - Aleman (10th), Nikhazy (CB-B)

AAA - Webb (3rd), Davenport (6th, injured), Mace (2nd), Dion, Leftwich, Denholm, Miller (20th round)

AA -  Johnston, Thornton, Abney, Stanley, Boone (injured), Sharpe (injured)

Released/retired - Pettway

So, almost every college pitcher from Cleveland's 2021 draft is still in Cleveland's system 5 years later or in the major leagues with another team. That is a remarkable achievement if we stopped there but there is still a chance that some of the remaining pitching prospects from that draft may get a cup of coffee or have a niche career in the majors.  To have this many players still in your organization almost 5 years after they are drafted is a testament to Cleveland's pitcher development program and gives more credence to having another college pitcher draft.

2022

The Guardians took a college hitter (DeLauter) with their first pick.  This was a good gamble at the time as he was a distressed asset who was in the comversation to go 1-1 until his junior season ended early in February with a foot injury.

However, afte DeLauter they Guardians went back to college pitching, selecting hard throwing Justin Cambell (CB-A) and Parker Messick (2nd) with their next two picks.  Both seem worth it, although Campbell's (he is up to #17 on BA's Guardians top 30 prospect)s debut was delayed for almost 4 years!

After Messick, who was somewhat of a soft tosser, the Guardians started a disturbing 2 year trend of drafting LHH college players with questionable power who were overdrafted slap hitters with good plate discipline.  Lampe, Furman, Lipscomb were drafted in the 3rd-5th rounds followed by soft tossers Dylan DeLucia (6th) and Austin Peterson (10th) and hard throwing albeit wild tosser Javier Santos (7th), HS flyer Humphries (10th) and, later one, college hard tossing relief pitchers (Ellerts (11th), Jasiak, Tulloch, Jacobs).

So, 2022 may get us two good SP in Messick and Campbell and maybe a little more in later round picks Peterson and Ellerts with the possibility of late blooming guys like Jasiak. But this pales in comparison to the depth of pitching prospects we got from 2021 and is not much better than what we got from the 5 round draft of 2020.  The reason for that is simple: we stopped drafting quality college pitchers after the 2nd round in 2022.

2023

If 2021 was the college pitcher draft, 2023 was the college LH slap hitter/HS pitcher flyer draft.

Literally, the only quality college pitcher we got out of that draft is a relief pitcher, Andrew Walters.  Yes, Matt Wilkinson is a prospect but he is a soft tosser and, despite his minor league success and notoriety due to his nickname, size and LL WS background, not a top prospect.  We even got many fewer later round college flyer relief prospects than we did in 2021.

So, from the 2023 draft we didn't get ANY help to the SP depth in our farm system.

2024

The Bazzana draft, once again, was devoid of top college pitching talent. It is highly likely that NONE of the college pitchers picked in this draft will EVER make the majors. The college pitchers they DID take were essentially organizational guys to fill out spots in minor league bullpens.  While they added some quality HS pitchers, those guys are still so far away from the majors that they may not impact this team for years.  

NOTE: Prospect evaluators and rankers are high on Khal Stephen who the Guardians got for Shane Bieber last July.  He is probably their top pitching prospect right now.  When you consider that we could have had him instead of drafting future ML backup catcher Jacob Cozart in the 2nd round of this draft, it shows just how messed up the Guardians thinking had become relative to acquiring quality college SPs from the draft vs other, less quality, prospects.

2025 

This draft had quality college pitching in the top two rounds, where the Guardians could have added up to 3 quality college SP and a quality college hitter in their top 4 picks through the end of round 2.  Drafting at #27 the Guardians missed the top tier pitchers in this draft who were already taken and a couple of the college hitters they wanted were grabbed early, meaning they were left with the HUGE gamble of strikeout-prone LaViolette in the first round.  There were so many 2nd tier college pitchers in this draft it was set up for Cleveland to grab 2-3 of the 10 college pitchers who would likely still be around when they picked at 64, 66 and 70.  Unfortunately every one of those 10 pitchers were overdrafted before our pick at 64 and all that was left in college pitchers were guys with huge question marks who slotted more in the 100+ range, talent-wise.  So Cleveland went with college hitters but did very poorly at that, ending up with a number of low ceiling, low floor guys.  As they had in 2023 and 2024, they drafted a HS flyer pitcher overdrafted a bunch of fourth tier college pitchers, and topped it off with 3 second or third tier college firstbasemen in the top 7 rounds, leaving them, one year after this draft, with what will likely be one of the worst drafts in their team history and, much worse, another draft that will likely produce ZERO ML pitchers and, therefore, ZERO college SP from the low level college pitchers they selected.

SUMMARY

The Guardians draft braintrust have screwed the ML team by not drafting quality college pitching after the top of the 2022 draft.  This organization is known for pitcher development, especially college pitchers, and not drafting to the strength of your organization in the area MOST needed by every ML team, starting pitching, borders on criminal negligence.  No resource-limited team should make this mistake, especially when their recent past has shown they can draft and develop college pitchers to quickly become impact arms in the majors.

The 2026 draft contains some qualiity college arms but if the 2025 has shown me anything, it is that you HAVE to overdraft college power SPs.  Like every draft, it will be fluid and there is a chance lowly rated college SP will bubble up to be overdrafted this year since there is dearth of quality college SPs available, with a large tier of 2nd and 3rd tier college SPs who will be projects to develop.

That being said, if we could somehow come up with 

1st round -Hunter Dietz - Arkansas

2nd round - Tyler Rabe - Ole Miss

3rd round - Cameron Johnson - Oklahoma

4th round - Josh McDeavitt - Missouri

5th round -  Matt Sauser - Central Florida 

6th round - Shane Sdao - Texas A & M

7th round - Ryan Marohn - NC State

8th round - Aiden Weaver - Duke

9th round - Ben Davis - Mississippi State

10th round - Wyatt Danilowicz - Louisville

11th round - Most intriguing, signable college pitcher available at the beginning of the 3rd day of the draft. Maybe an injured college pitcher or a guy, like Magnus Ellerts in 2022, from a small college with one plus pitch.

or something like that (I will refine this list later) would go a long way to bring college pitching talent back into this organization.  The Guardians abandoned a great strategy after round 2 in 2022. It's time to bring that strategy back for the first 11 rounds in 2026 and avoid the urge to overdraft college hitters or take flyers on HS pitchers (after trading our CB-A pick we don't have resources to do flyers this year) I think we will have a successful draft. Even if we have to overdraft some of these college pitchers, our organization will likely coach them up to be worth the round in which they were drafted.

2026 Draft - Part 3 - Impact of Trading Away Our Very High Comp A Pick

Some Thoughts For A Tuesday:

Protecting Teams From Themselves  

Part of my plan for changes to the next collective bargaining agreement is to disallow trading of draft choices completely for teams that receive competitive balance picks and before round 11 for the rest of the teams. 

Simply put, the reason for teams getting competitive balance picks is that these teams are resource-limited and are being incentivized to build from within through the draft process. 

Competitive balance picks, besides adding a highly-ranked player to a team's farm system, also come with a hefty addition to a team's draft bonus pool.  In this case the Guardians' draft bonus pool will be $3.2 million smaller as a result of this trade, significantly impacting their ability to draft and sign players to overslot bonuses in this draft.  

The trade between Cleveland and San Francisco is a shining example of why teams given this gift of an extra draft pick and enhanced bonus pool should not be allowed to spend it on anything except for what it was intended: to draft and sign talented amateur players.

Combined with Cleveland's trade in January to 'sell' international bonus pool space to the Mets, Cleveland has avoided spending close to $5 million on amateur player acquisition this year.  This is a bad, cheap look for Cleveland's ownership who have now found yet another way to be cheap and not spend money on this franchise.

BTW, for people who say Cleveland is never cheap on the draft, MOST teams are not cheap on the draft and their process in previous years is in line with what is done by most teams.  It ain't anything special.

Movement at the Middle of The First Round

My premise for the Guardians in the upcoming draft was that they needed to add top tier college pitching in most of their picks.  They were aced out of every quality college SP last year who fit their profile, making it 3 consecutive drafts without any college pitchers who weren't soft tossers.  In fact, they haven't drafted a quality college starting pitcher since 2022 where they got Messick and Campbell.  The latter is a great example of where a quality, hard-throwing college SP can have significant value even if he hasn't pitched for 3 years.  The hype around the acquisition of Kal Stephen and his high rank in Cleveland's system is another example of the value of hard-throwing top shelf college pitchers, even though Stephen's performance so far with the Guardians has been underwhelming.

So, in a draft filled with college position players with holes in their game and all the typical question marks and risk with drafting high school hitters and pitchers in the first round, I was looking at snagging quality college arm at #19.  My first couple of posts targeted Hunter Dietz as a guy the Guardians could overdraft to start them off on what I hoped would be a college pitcher centric 2026 draft.  Well, Dietz has pitched so well this year (6-0 vs the top #1 starting pitchers in the SEC) that a guy ranked as low as 60-70 this spring may have raised his stock so much that he could be gone before the Guardians can draft him.

With the lack of quality college starting pitchers available in this draft and the Guardians giving away their second 1st round pick to San Francisco, this draft is trending for the Guardians toward being a combination of high upside/very low floor guys and more LHH contact hitters with good OB skills but meh upside.  The 2025 was bad for the Guardians because they made the wrong picks.  The 2026 draft could be bad because they might not be able to draft what they really need, quality, hard-throwing college starting pitchers.  

In addition to Dietz's rise, other college starting pitchers with first round talent are performing well and are rising because every team now knows that if you want quality college starting pitching in this draft you better be willing to overdraft guys or be left with a draft without college pitchers with big upside.  

That is hugely bad for the Guardians who have one of thinnest farm systems in regards to upper level starting pitcher prospects.

The Impact of No Competitive Balance Pick

Besides the bonus pool impact I talked about above, the other major impact in the loss of the 29th overall pick is how that impacts the Guardians draft strategy and other early picks.  My plan for them was college SP, HS bat, college SP, college SP/RP, college SP/RP. has likely gone out the window as we don't have a pick to gamble with.

Without that Comp A pick, taking a HS bat early in this draft is just too big of a risk.  With essentially 2 picks in the top 94 picks, taking a gamble on a guy like Landon Thome has now gone out the window and the Guardians will likely fall back on their fatal flaw: making head-scratching picks to show everyone they are the smartest guys in the room. 

We simply cannot afford another disaster of a draft like 2025 or (excluding Bazzana) a slow developing class like 2024.  But this is what the loss of that one pick has done, in addition to basically making the 3rd day of the draft really boring for the Guardians as they just try to finish their draft with a bunch of college organizational players who will sign for slot who they feel they can develop into something more but almost always can't.

Saturday Thoughts: MORONIC TRADE!!!

 This morning the Guardians announced that they traded for two-time GG winning catcher Patrick Bailey.

This will have to go down, on the surface, as one of the DUMBEST trades in Guardians history.

The background is this:

1. The Guardians have said repeatedly how valuable Austin Hedges is to this team.  They signed him for $4 million this off-season, a large financial investment for a resource-limited team.  

2. They have THREE catchers on the their ML roster of which Hedges has value but Naylor is a weak ML backup at this point and Fry is, as a catcher, somewhere on the spectrum between emergency only catcher and starts once in a blue moon catcher.  Hedges is having a career offensive year but Naylor has been terrible on offense.

3. In the minors we have Cooper Ingle who the FO says is not ready defensively but looks like a future all-star offensively, They spent a high draft pick on overdrafting Ingle hoping they could turn him into a ML catcher and more than just a slap hitter.  I have watched him for years and right now I think he is somewhere between Fry and Naylor defensively and would be the best offensive catcher in on the team, by far, if they call him up now.

4. Behind Ingle the Guardians have Cody Huff (AAA), a good ML backup-type who can also play a little 1B and Jacob Cozart (AA), another drafted colloverege, defense-first catcher who has yet to hit much in the low minors.

In summary, the Guardians were set with serviceable bodies all the way down to AA.  Not exactly a position of need.

The trade:

The Guardians received Patrick Bailey, a defense-first (aforementioned two time GG catcher) , switch hittng catcher who is hitting .146 this year.

The Guardians traded 

1. Matt Wilkinson, a soft-tossing and seemingly pudgy LHP who was dominating at AA.  In truth, the only way Wilkinson could be a #3 starter in the majors is if he does a Messick and adds 4-5 mph on his fastball and, since he hasn't made any progress in that regard in 2+ years in the organization, I doubt if he can.  That being said, his current arsenal and competitiveness makes his floor AAAA and his likely outcome as a swingman or #5 SP.  

2. A first round pick (#29 overall) in the upcoming draft.

ANALYSIS

This is likely one of the dumbest (and there have been quite a few) trades this FO has made in the last 10 years.  Here are the reasons:

1. Bailey helps our defense but catching was not exactly a black hole on defense in Cleveland or our minor league system.

2. The trade cost us A FIRST ROUND PICK.  This was the highest possible pick that could be traded. It should be noted that trading this pick saved cheapass Dolan likely $3.2+ million doesn't have to spend on a draft pick.  It also seriously damages our flexibility in trying to sign draft picks for overslot value in the upcoming draft.  This is why teams should not be allowed to trade draft picks.

3. This trade does not help our anemic offense at all.  Bailey is hitting .146 in 2026 with a career OPS of .611.  

4. Basically this trade kills any trade value Bo Naylor has.  Not that he has much, but this will prompt conversations with other GMs that go like "Hey, I can take Naylor off your hands for a bag of balls".

5. These leaves no place for Ingle.  Obviously the Guardians value defense at catcher over offense but Ingle can hit.  You COULD say that this makes Ingle an intriguing trade chip but if the GUARDIANS are saying OUT LOUD that Ingle is a long way from being a ML defensive catcher, it is pretty obvious we would be selling low on him right now. So...

6. Bailey catches around 120 games a year.  This leaves very little time for Hedges to impact the game so while we gain on Bailey's defense we lose on Hedges' ability to impact our team.

7. It is not a secret that I waited until point #7 to mention the other piece to the trade, Matt Wilkinson.    Already stated my opinion on Tugboat above and I would have been fine with it being a Wilkinson/Alfonsin Rosario package as the potential is there.  The loss of Wilkinson does not move the needle for me on this trade but his current value and future projection is not chopped liver.  He is a good prospect if not a top 30 prospect for the Guardians. We can spit on his ability based on peripherals but you CANNOT spit on his results and guys with results, like Messick, always have the chance to be coached up.  Guys like Oscar Gonzalez and Anthony Gose, who have inherent skills, cannot always be coached up to have performance.

8. Finally, and I preface this as a possible red herring, the Guardians traded away the chance to spend MILLIONS of dollars to sign international prospects in January and now have traded away the chance to spend over $3 million to sign the #29 pick in the upcoming draft.  So, it could be intuited that the Guardians would rather NOT spend money on signing prospects.  This is why teams should NOT be able to trade prospects before the 11th round so owners can't find creative ways to avoid investing in their team.

So, there it is. One of the least impactful, cheapass, dumbass trades in recent memory by the Guardians.  This trade will do very little to help the Guardians get to or advance n the playoffs now or in the future and it has already damaged the long-term future of the team with loss of draft picks and blocking prospects in the minors. 

The Bazzana Era Begins!

 Some might say it is a move of desperation

Some may say it is about time.

But today begins the Traivis Bazzana era in Cleveland...ready or not!

So what do I expect from Bazzana:

1. Given that he is currently slashing .287/,422/.511/.933 in Columbus, I expect he will slash .260/.340/.440/.780 in Cleveland

2. I expect his K rate to go up 20% and his walk rate to go down 20%. I expect his whiff rate to go up 10% and his chase rate to go up 10%

3. I expect his defense to be halfway between Schneeman and Brito at second base

4. In my most difficult expectation, I expect that if we starts slow his production is likely to crater as he will lose confidence more quickly than the average player although he is more likely to rebound than Brito, JRod, etc. as he will quickly learn that he doesn't have to be successful all the time if surrounded by good players, compared to Australia, college and the minors where he HAD to be the best.

I hope he is the spark we need.  This is quite the gamble by the Guardians as they lose a year of pre-arb control and he can't get them a PPI draft pick, although he may cost them a full year of control like Bibee did in his rookie year.

Finally, I expect this to be an overwhelmingly positive addition to the Guardians 2026 effgort.

2026 Draft - Part 2 - Rounds 2-5 and some late round possibilities

In this second post of this series, I am providing a very early look at guys who I think the Guardians could draft and who I think will be there when they get to all these spots in the first 5 rounds. I have already shifted off my #29 pick and I provide options for their picks in the first 5 rounds.  Again, this is very preliminary and I will have to see these guys play 'live', if possible.  

Update on picks in Round 1

Slot #19 (1st Round)

Saw Hunter Dietz pitch again vs Missouri and he gave up HR-HBP-HR to lead off the game and finished it off with 7 scoreless innings (including the rest of the 1st inning). He showed great flexibility in changing his whole arsenal around after those first 3 batters and looked pretty dominant, albeit against a rebuilding Mizzou lineup.  Still on Dietz as our pick at slot #19

Now Dietz is still my pick here.  However, in recent developments Baseball America has Georgia Tech OFer Drew Burress (#5 prospect on MLB Pipeline) sliding to us at slot 19 and USA Today in their latest mock has Logan Reddeman, RHP UCLA, (#18 on ESPN) slightly falling to us at #19.  I have not seen Reddeman pitch yet and I have not looked at Burress bc I didn't think he would fall to us.  That being said, scouting reports on Reddeman intrigue me and I would be OK with him if Dietz was already taken. Burress would be a great get, being a likely CFer with RH Bazzana-like offensive skills and makeup.  I could easily imagine Bazzana-DeLauter-Burress for years along with Jose, Schnee and Angel.  Still, Groucho Marx once said "I would never want to be part of a club that would have me as a member" so if the #5 prospect in the draft falls to #19 just based on his perceived limitations, do I really want to gamble on him a year after gambling on LaViolette?  For me, its still Dietz with Reddeman in contention if he is still available.

Slot #29 (Comp A)

I am going to move off college pitchers here (unless Dietz falls and I take Reddeman at 19) and hope that a sentimental favorite will still be here. Landon Thome is rated in the 40s and is, of course, Jim Thome's son.  I might have to flip flop Thome and whoever I was planning to take at 29. I obviously have not seen the younger Thome play but once you get in the 40s range HS hitters are less sure things than a top 10 HS hitter would be.  The only thing you really have to go on is pedigree, tools and baseball IQ, all of which Thome apparently has. HS hitters are a risk but I will go with Thome unless I go with Reddeman first and Dietz is still available.  

Possible Picks In Rounds 2-5

Slot #59 (2nd round)

I still like Tegan Kuhn and am sliding him down to this slot because I think he will be there if I go with Thome or Dietz at 29. Ideally, I would get Reddeman, Thome and Dietz but I don't think that is possible so if I only get 2 of the 3 because the 3rd one is gone at this pick, Kuhns is my guy here.

Slot #95 (3rd round)

Continuing my run on overdrafted college pitchers, I saw Missouri's #1 starter, Josh McDevitt RHP Missouri (not listed in the top 200 of most draft prospect lists), pitch against Dietz and #24 Arkansas, including #29 overall draft prospect Ryder Helfrick.  McDevitt loaded the bases on walks in the worst but struck out the side on the way to 6 scoreless innings with a career high 11 Ks.  Despite that first inning he is a strikethrower who uses the FB 70+% which touched 95 along with a slider and an occasional curveball and changeup.  The term 'reliever risk' is thrown around as a derogatory term but in this case I look at this kid and see Cade Smith part deux.  I see him getting up to 97/98 in a relief role if he can't stick at starter, So, after opening with 3 college starting pitchers I am hedging my bets knowing that I have a pretty good chance of getting a leverage RP in McDevitt.

Slot #123 (4th round)

Now we are getting to the range where the Guardans (and me) would be looking for projectable arms and not all of these picks will make sense to us fans as they aren't top 100 ranked guys. That being said, my pick here is Cameron Johnson, LHP, Oklahoma, big bodied guy pitching in a pretty good program.  The stats looked intriguing (only 3 HRs allowed in 84 innings in college/summer ball), he throws 95-97 with the secondary stuff lagging behind, almost all types being get-me-over variety.  I watched him pitch against #11Auburn and he threw 110 pitches of which 100 were fastballs, mostly 95-98.  He had six 3-2 counts so his command needs work as when he missed, it was with intention on backfoot sliders. On those 3-2 counts he got 4 outs and gave up a single and a walk. He is 6'6", 250 pounds and resembles, to me, CC Sabathia early in his career.  In addition to the 110 pitches in the game I saw, he threw 116 earlier in a game against Alabama so that may be a plus (durability and ability to compete when he is tired) or a red flag (overuse injury waiting to happen?).  He was clearly gassed the last inning against Auburn.  Note that even with his size and velocity he is currently not a big strikeout guy, likely because of the lack of secondary stuff.  Warning: this is an extreme overdraft but my recent experience with the draft is that guys who you think should be comfortably available in a particular round are gone 10-20 picks earlier.   

Slot #155 (5th round)

Continuing with college arms, I am picking Tyler Rabe, RHP, Ole Miss with the 5th round pick.  Rabe, 6'5", 200 lbs (some room to add strength) has a great combination of a fastball that sits 97-99 and has only walked SEVEN batters in 56.2 innings at#17 ranked Ole Miss.  He has struck out 47 in 40.1 IP in 2026 against 5 walks. He has given up some loud contact this year (39 hits and 7 HRs so far this season).  When I saw him pitch yesterday against a stacked lineup in #5 ranked Georgia, he had what I would refer to as ineffective secondary stuff early due to poor command and his fastball looked hittable as it looked a little straight, resulting in a HR to dead center. He tired in his 6th inning, resulting in diminished fastball velocity but much better use and command of his off-speed stuff.  He had given up 2 runs in 6 IP on 6 hits at that point, a quality start.  He was allowed to pitch to one batter in the 7th, who doubled, and who the relief pitcher allowed to score. My impression was, in Cleveland's pitching lab, when looking at his FB velocity and his low walk rate, as a 5th round pick from a program that plays advanced competition , this appears a slam dunk pick to me if he is still on the board at that time.  

Late Round Sleepers of the Day

As will be the case with all these posts. Today's pick is: Dylan Johnson,  C, RHH, College of Charleston.  A classic 3rd day pick for the Guardians, I like his bat, his batting eye. His stats  are very comparable to those of Cooper Ingle except that Johnson has been a full-time catcher.  This is the year of the catcher (especially college catchers) in the 2026 MLB draft so a guy like Johnson may fall to the 3rd day where the Guardians like to pluck their college catchers from. 

I am putting in another plug for Judd Utemark,  a RHH UTIL, Ole Miss.  He was on my 3rd day watch list for the 2025 draft due to his position versatility (he was the tallest secondbaseman in DI last year while also having started games at 1B, 3B and all 3 OF spots with some talk about him even being the starting SS this year).  He has a long swing but shows a decent contact rate and eye at the plate.  When I saw him on Sunday his bat speed and foot speed impressed me as he hit a 2-strike, 108 mph ground ball to the SS that was turned into a DP on a great turn at 2B and they STILL only beat Utemark, a RHH, by an eyelash at 1B. Utemark was among the NCAA D1 leaders with 22 HRs in 2025 and already has 17 in his senior year in 2026.  Definitely fits Cleveland's versatility profile and, as a RHH, he balances out the handedness profile of Cleveland's OF/1B power hitting prospects. As a college senior I could see him sneaking into the end of day 2 or early in day 3 of the draft.  I could even see them trying to redo their David Fry conversion and try adding catcher to his versatility.

Summary/Disclaimer

As I said in my previous post, these are very early projections of who will be available, how I think the Guardians should structure this draft (mostly college pitchers) and who is pitching well right now.  I haven't had a chance to see all of these guys yet and it is clear from my description the guys I have seen and not seen yet.

More to come in future weeks.  Stay tuned.

Thoughts for a Monday: Angst Over The Season So Far and Our Complicated Roster Crunch

I Thought Watching Baseball Was Supposed To Be Relaxing!

In 2020 the Browns were playing away against Pittsburgh in the wild card round. As I am sure you all remember, the Browns scored first, and then again. We're a few minutes into the game and we're up 14-0 and I remember saying to myself 'This is not enough, we need a bigger lead'. Well, as fate had it, the Browns found away to run that lead to 28-0 before the Steelers scored.  The final score of the game, 48-37, showed it was two games: The opening quarter plus was 28-0 Browns.  The remainder of the game was 37-10 Pittsburgh, a score that was within what some 'experts' were saying the entire game would look like.

So, forgive me if I angst over losing Tuesday to St. Louis after having a 4-1 lead on a terrible error by Brito AND losing on Friday after holding a 4-0 lead entering the 8th inning on a complete collapse by the bullpen in the 8th.  We are 13-10 and that is at the top of what I could have, with a straight face, predicted our record would be when I looked at the schedule before the season. So I should be happy, right? Well, I remember that Steelers game, I remember the Tigers in 2025 and I remember 2024 when we built a big lead which allowed the team to relax down the stretch and hold that lead.  

Bad loses early are just the same in the standings as one run loses where the team played well and  I also remember the saying that teams are guaranteed to win 60 and lose 60, with the other 42 determining the success of their season.

Still, I HATE early season bad losses as you can't get those games back.  13-10 is good but 15-8 at this point would be outstanding.

Roster Crunch Stuff

Juan Brito needs to go.  David Fry needs to be sent to Columbus.  Matt Festa and Connor Brogdon need to be off the roster.  Travis Bazzana and/or Milan Tolentino need to be called up TODAY. Walters, Espino and Aleman need to be called up to bolster the bullpen and the AAAA guys Festa and Brogdon need to be sent to Columbus. Cooper Ingle needs to be called up and Bo Naylor sent down for a reset

All those things sound nice at this moment, right?  

Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Here are some reasons why:

- Our 40 man roster is full

- We have no one (thankfully) to put on the 60-day IL to create a roster spot.

- The only obvious guys to DFA are Colin Holderman and Codi Heuer, but the former would be owed his entire salary.  Both are bullpen depth.

- The rest of the 40-man is full of prospects and guys in the majors.  There is no fluff

So, while sending Brito down and bringing up Tolentino or Bazzana sounds good, we would have to DFA someone to do it as neither Tolentino or Bazzana are on the 40-man and would have to be added to be called up.  Ditto for Ingle if he was called up and Naylor was sent down. Plus adding Ingle would give us FOUR ML level catchers on our 40-man which is probably not a good use of 40-man roster spaces.

While sending down Festa and/or Brogdon sounds good, neither has an option left meaning we would have to DFA them to take them off the major league roster, likely lessening our bullpen depth available to call up from Columbus in case of an emergency.

Plus Brito and Fry are RH bats and our minors are, by design I think, filled with mostly LHH.  So sending these guys out would make our active roster even MORE LH.

So switching the roster around sounds good, especially to me as a prospect geek.  But essentially almost all of our off-season plans would be trashed with the season less than one month into this season.  And right after we lost prospects to bring in these AAAA pitchers we are now jettisoning (still ticked off we lost JRod and Nikhazy for Holderman and Brogdon). 

So, while people think these are good roster moves, probably it is not a good look if you blow up a roster built on some stupid, off-season free agent decisions. It also is not a good look to send down more young guys after we promised to give those guys enough runway to prove themselves, something we have already went back on (Kayfus demotion).

2026 Draft - Part 1 - Early Season Impressions

 OK, it's time to start thinking about the draft.  This year I plan to organize my thoughts by highlighting guys I think will be available at each of the Guardians draft slots.

Let's first talk about the dates.  The first night of the draft will be July 11th and will include all picks (38) before the second round.  The Guardians will pick twice, at #19 (regular 1st round pick) and #29 (Comp Round A pick). The second day of the draft (July 12th) will be rounds 2-10, the rounds that have bonus slot values above the minimum.  These rounds, along with round 1, determine how much money teams likely will have to spend to offer overslot bonuses on 3rd day picks. The 3rd day of the draft, (July 13th) will include rounds 11-20, similar to what 2024 included but different than 2025, which was only a 2 day draft.  Round 11 becomes a key moment in the draft as many teams will know how much money they have left to spend, what stud prospects are still available and what it will cost to sign them, if they want to be signed.  This was not the case in 2025 where they shortened the draft to 2 days, which created issues for teams trying to budget for late round flyers who would require overslot bonuses to sign. 

From the Guardians perspective (no pun intended) the draft looks pretty open.  There seems to be a lot of strength at the very top, say the top 5 picks will have superstar potential and then, after that, it looks like it could be teams liking who they like.  By that I mean that this year's rankings may go out the window at draft time with a lot of lower ranked players being selected higher than normal.  While that, of course, happens every year, I think this year will be extreme with maybe only 15 top 38 ranked players being selected on day 1, with the other 23 selections being ranked anywhere from 10 to 40 places below where they are selected.  

So, what do I think the Guardians should do? In 2021 the Guardians selected mainly college pitchers. Whether that was by design or just how the draft worked I, that I don't know. Position players they selected (Koxx and Fox) and high school pitchers (Ventimiglia) have not done well.  Of the 18 college pitchers they selected, 15 of them are still in our system, most at AAA and AA.  Most probably won't make the majors or at least won't have long major league careers but the point is not that.  It is that the Guardians did a great job of drafting and developing the college pitchers they selected, starting with Williams and Bibee and maybe, eventually, including Aleman and even, eventually, Aleman, Davenport )inured now), Denholm, Webb, Dion and maybe Abney and other middle relievers. 

The 2021 draft worked so well to infuse quality pitching prospects into their system and the system seems, in 2026, to be thin in terms of pitching prospects as the emphasis in 2022 to 2025 was to infuse position player prospects.  I think this year the Guardians should have another college pitcher draft.  They might have done this last year but essentially every college pitcher that was on their radar for the first 4 rounds was gone before they selected in that round.  They would have had to overdraft college pitchers with middling stuff and chose to go a different direction, over drafting questionable college position players and HS pitchers early, leading to my grade of C- for their draft.

They need to correct that this time around. This might require some overdrafting and going for more solid prospects rather than brass ring guys, saving money for HS flyers and maybe some college sophomores in later rounds.  However, with the approach of slightly overdrafting college pitchers who will almost assuredly be available, I think they stand a better chance of getting the players they put the most scouting hours into.

So let's dive in, looking at round 1 today, as a bonus, give my first mention of a potential 3rd day pick..

Round 1 (slot 19) - Hunter Dietz. LHP, Arkansas

Right now Dietz is rated 35th by MLP Pipeline, 25th by ESPN and 85th by Perfect Game. He is a classic Friday night starter at a good college, with good stuff and projectability. I see him as a Bieber-type of pitcher in the right organization.  He does have an injury history and hasn't thrown much before this year so I don't think he will jump high enough in teams rating to be gone by pick 19, even if he continues to pitch well the rest of this season.  His fastball sat 95 MPH when I saw him this spring and his breaking stuff looked sharp.  

Round 1 CB-A (slot #29) - RHP Tegan Kuhns

This is where it gets dicey as teams may see the value of Kuhns, a draft-eligible sophomore, based on his improvement this year.  He has a history of control problems but, so far this year, Kuhns, currently ranked 43 by MLB Pipeline, 24th by Perfect Game and 77th by ESPN, has only walked 10 and struck out 64 in 51 innings.  I think the combination of leverage from his sophomore status and lingering questions about his control might make him available at that spot.

My backups, should Kuhns be taken, would be LHP Cole Carlon, or LHP Shane Sdao, although I think Sdao is likely to be available in the 3rd or even 4th round, given how his season is going.

SUMMARY - These two pitchers would fill a need within the organization as far as quality college arms who can come fast.  Neither are sexy or the type of brass ring picks that fans like.  However, after looking at last year's draft, it is clear to me that we should aim low and heavily scout guys we are comfortable will be there and I think these two guys will be.

Third Day Pick Possibility - Mark Quatrani C Notre Dame

As a preamble, I identified Boston Smith, a catcher from Dayton, as a potential 3rd day pick for the Guardians last year and Washington actually selected him on the second day (6th round) and then traded him this winter to Tampa Bay.  So, I have at least a little history of success in identifying hidden gems among senior college catchers.

I have seen Quatrani twice this spring. He is a senior transfer from Cornell and Notre Dame's primary catcher.  He is currently hitting .343 with 11 HR 15 BB and 30 K in 134 AB with his swing and miss being exposed by hard stuff inside.  However, I saw him hit a 460 foot homerun vs North Caroline and all that is enough for me to make him my 11th or 12th round picks.  I think he stands a good chance to be significantly better than Boston Smith (a 6th orund pick in 2025) and Bennett Thompson (our 13th round pick in 2024).  The Guardians put a lot of emphasis on good game calling and catching skills in their 3rd day college catchers as organizational catchers appear to be crucial to them in developing their pitching prospects.  Still, you get a catcher who can hit AND hit for power who will be available on day 3, you should jump on him as your 2026 3rd day college catcher.

So, this is my first foray into the 2026 draft as it applies to the Guardians.  Over the next three months I will be posting other articles about the draft.  

Minor League Previews: Columbus Clippers

 It's opening night in the minor leagues and the Columbus Clippers will have good enough weather in Des Moines (not always a given in March) to play the Iowa Cubs.  In fact, weather this entire 3 game series will trend upward.  

So, let's take a look at the opening day roster for the Clippers:

Hitters - In short, they currently have 11 hitters on their roster. I think this number may increase over the weekend but right now, with 3 of those 11 being catchers, I think you'll see everyone play a lot and the catchers who are not catching that day may play 1B or DH. A probable lineup looks like:

C - Ingle

1B - Brito

2B - Bazzana

SS - Tolentino

3B - Frias

LF - Halpin

CF - Watson

RF - Fairchild

DH - Jones

Bench: Huff, Nunez

There is no AAAA filler in this lineup outside of Fairchild and even he is interesting. The lineup begins and ends with Bazzana but I could see that Bazzana and maybe 6 other guys among the hitters could play in the major leagues this year.  However, as long as this hitter list remains this thin, these guys will get a lot of runway, so to speak which is exciting since the fewer AAAA guys the better for me

Pitchers - Unlike the hitters, there is an excess of pitchers with that number likely being thinned by injury.

The Bazzana of the pitchers is clearly Daniel Espino as he is the pitcher to watch here.  The rotation will likely be guys who were SP at either Columbus or Akron last year, with Logan Allen (if he isn't called up replace Tanner Bibee), Webb, Dion, Yorman Gomez, Tommy Mace and even Rorik Maltrud being candidates.  Given how pitchers get hurt, guys like Webb, Gomez and Dion might see major league time this year.  Among the relievers there are some interesting names, many of whom had cameos in ML spring training this year and, while not considered top prospects, might see ML time this year as fungible assets.  That is, guys who we wouldn't be afraid to lose if we had to DFA them to clear a ML roster spot.  If just 1-2 of those relievers leap forward this year it will be a big boost to the ML bullpen depth during the season.

Summary

All-in-all, this will be a very interesting set of hitters to watch during the year and, knowing how injuries happen a lot to pitchers, which guys will step forward if a need is felt on the ML team. If you are looking at W-L record, this team could go either way as there are lots of pitchers with a lot of experience and a lot of hitters who might shine.   That combination could, possibly, be a real winning one at AAA.

Guardians Top 100 Prospects - Pre-2026 Season Edition

 Spring training is over and we will start the minor league seasons on Friday.  It's time to roll out the top 100 Guardians prospects to begin the season.

NOTE: This list was made without benefit of any minor league spring training information about who has advanced in the off-season, who is hurt, who has taken a downturn. I have also chosen to not include Messick as he will almost certainly blow by his rookie eligibility limits soon. It is also subject to change as information on guys getting released and anecdotes about players could raise or lower rankings of other players.

NOTE: Added Pallette, removed Nikhazy (may add him back in (in the 50 range) if he clears waiver).

1. Chase DeLauter 

2. Ralphy Velasquez

3. Travis Bazzana

4. Angel Genao

5. Jaison Chourio

6. Jace LaViolette

7. Braylon Doughty

8. Joey Oakie

9. Juniker Cáceres

10. Khal Stephen 

11. Cooper Ingle

12. Robert Arias

13. Dean Curley

14. Welbyn Francisco

15. Andrew Walters

16. Khalil Watson

17. Alfonsin Rosario

18. Gabriel Rodriguez

19. Daniel Espino

20. Juan Brito

21. Josh Hartle

22. Franco Aleman

23. George Valera

24. Dauri Fernandez

25. Yorman Gomez

26. Petey Halpin

27. Jogly Garcia

28. Peyton Pallette

29. Chase Mobley

30. Milan Tolentino

31. Jackson Humphries

32. Nolan Schubart

33. Jacob Cozart

34. Austin Peterson

35. Matt Wilkinson

36. Franklin Gomez

37. Wuilfredo Antunez

38. Dylan DeLucia

39. Aaron Walton

40. Michael Kennedy

41. Will Dion

42. Will Hynes 

43. Jacob Zibin

44. Cam Sullivan

45. Luke Hill

46. Magnus Ellerts 

47. Nelson Keljo

48. Ryan Webb

49. Logun Clark 

50. Trenton Denholm

51. Anthony Martinez 

52. Kody Huff

53. Dayan Frias

54. Riley Nelson 

55. Hiverson Lopez

56. Heins Brito

57. Alex Mooney

58. Luis Merejo

59. Jose Devers

60. Jack Jasiak

61. Justin Campbell

62. Aiden Major

63. Tanner Burns

64. Jay Driver

65. Tommy Mace

66. Caden Favors

67. Juan Benjamin

68. Izaak Martinez

69. Sean Matson

70. Esteban Gonzalez

71. Aaron Davenport

72. Jake Miller

73. Rodney Boone

74. Alaska Abney

75. Steven Perez

76. Rafe Schlesinger

77. Ryan Prager

78. Cam Schulke

79. Guy Lipscomb

80. Harrison Bodendorf

81. Connor Whitaker

82. Jervis Alfaro

83. Raudy Rivera

84. Luis Flores

85. Johan Rodriguez

86. Christian Knapczyk

88. Yeiferth Castillo

88, Melkelis Hernandez

89. Zach Jacobs

90. Maick Collado

91. Zane Morehouse

92. Will McCausland

93. Tommy Hawke

94. Davis Sharpe

95. Jack Jasiak

96. Aaron Savary 

97. Ryan DeSanto 

98. Evan Chrest 

99. Jose Pirela

100. Evelio Hernandez

101. Keegan Zinn

102. Anthony Silva *

103. Tyrese Turner

104. Jake Fox

105. Nick Mitchell

106. Joe Lampe

107. Jonah Advincula

108. Rorik Maltrud

Anyone For Some Horse Trading? Part 1 - Setting the stage

 Twitter is buzzing with lots of opinions about what baseball needs to thrive and a lot of tweeters are spouting gloom and doom about a work stoppage in 2027.

And I can see why people are concerned, given what it will take, just from an approval perspective:

1. The owners have to UNANIMOUSLY approve the new CBA that will be proposed?

2. That a majority of players have to approve it and that vote can be influenced by the thirty union reps (one for each team) and the executive committee of the MLBPA.

And that is after the negotiations between the MLBPA (led by their new Executive Director), and the Labor Relations Department within the office of the Commissioner of Baseball.

Just from a numbers and personalities perspective it seems impossible to believe that this could get done.

Still, let's assume reasonable heads will prevail and both sides WILL want to hammer out an agreement to save the 2027 season. 

How would an agreement come about that the owners and the players would be able to approve?

From some good, old-fashioned horse trading, that's how.  The trick is to know what compromises will have to be made on each side and how those compromises fit together.

The thing that rankles me is that the Labor Relations Departament and the MLBPA do not appear to be seriously negotiating yet.  Now when I began college my preferred study method was all-night cramming before an exam.   But as I got a little older I saw that if I just studied more along the way it made preparation for tests a lot easier.

So I think the the MLBPA and the MLB owners need to do less crammng and more work along the way, starting today.

Part 2 will lay out, using my 7 part series on how to fix baseball, what points will be horse traded.  That is, what points I think the players union and management will be willing to compromise on, including  sub-groups within each group.

So, look for part 2 soon.  I am working on it now.

What Would An International Draft Look Like?

 So, I was thinking: What would it look like if we had an international draft?

From my previous posts on the subject:

General

• The goal of the international draft would be to distribute the talent more favorably to teams that needed it the most while making sure that the top players were still going to make similar bonuses to what they had made previously.
• The draft would be 5 rounds, with 150 players being selected
• Non-drafted free agents could be signed for $150,000 or less and not count against a team's draft pool. There would be a limit of 30 players any team could sign in one year
• Draft order would be based on the regular season record in the previous year 
• The draft would have a hard draft cap for those 5 rounds.  If a team exceeded their cap they would lose the ability to participate in the international draft in the next year.
• All teams who receive competitive balance picks in the Rule 4 draft would have an additional $2 million added to their draft budget.  A competitive balance team that has one of the first 5 picks in the international draft would not be eligible for this additional bonus money.
• Teams must spend 90% of their draft budget
• International bonus money could no longer be traded
• Trading of international draft picks would not be allowed as this could be used by teams as a way not to have to spend money on bonuses for this draft.
• An add-on to the draft would be that the rules of control change so these players can not become minor league free agents until after their 7th season (current is after 6 seasons) and the Rule 5 draft is abolished. In this way teams have enough time to develop these players and yet the players are still young when they can become minor league free agents, even including the 3 options years if they are added to the 40 man roster at some point during that period.

What would the draft budgets look like?

Looking at the top 150 bonuses from the international signing periods of 2026 and 2025, I came up bonuses for the 150 slots in my draft.  If you follow the bonuses that come out of these signing periods you'll see that the slot values are generally flatter than they are in the Rule 4 draft, meaning that I had to do some work to make sure that bonuses continued to go down slightly with each pick with the goal to keep the 150th pick having roughly the same value as the 150th highest signing bonus for the most recent international classes.  I also compared those bonuses to the top 150 draft slots in the 2025 R4 draft, finding that all the R4 draft slots were significantly higher, as expected, than the equivalent slot values in my international draft. That made me feel good, knowing teams would be spending significantly less on 16 year olds than they spent on 18-21 year olds who likely had more polish and were more known quantities. 

So, how did all this turn out?

Cleveland, based on their 2025 record, would draft 22nd. Their bonus pool would be $4,070,000 with the additional $2 million added to their budget given them a total pool of $6,070,000 of which they would be required to spend roughly $5,500,000.  Note that their bonus cap for the 2026 international signing period (includes all bonuses of > $10,000) was $8 million of which they spent roughly $6.7 million on signing prospects.  It is very reasonable that they would meet their bonus pool spent this year if we included all the additional prospects they would sign as NDFAs in the international draft who they signed for over $10,000. If Cleveland used their entire bonus pool AND signed an additional 25 players to bonuses of $150,000 they would have a total budget of almost $11 million to work with as they could spend up to $3.75 million on those additional 25 players if all signed for $150,000.

Colorado, based on having the worst record in 2025, would have the #1 slot and their bonus pool for the first 5 rounds would be about $8.5 million. The Chicago White Sox would have a budget of $8.2 million, and the Washington Nationals would have a budget of roughly $7.9 million. The LA Dodgers would have the 30th slot and, as a result, would have a 5 round bonus pool of roughly $3.6 million, which would almost double if they signed 25 additional prospects to bonuses of $150,000.

THOUGHTS

There would be some wrinkles that would have to be ironed out to have an international draft:

• How would these players be trained if the current buscon system was dissolved.
• How would talent be evaluated leading up to the draft?
• Would these measures ensure that teams are appropriately spending on amateur international player acquisition or would we need additional guard rails to make sure teams were spending enough to acquire quality NDFAs under this new draft.

So, in summary, this is just one possible plan to handle the international draft.  My premise of 5 rounds could be faulty although teams serious about talent in this part of the world might be more incentivized under this system to scout more heavily as the pool of uncommitted players after a draft of this type would be huge, as there are about 550 players who were signed during the international period this year, meaning that there will be about 400 players of signable quality who would be available in the NDFA part of this process, as opposed to the situation in the past, where probably 90% of those 400 being committed to teams long before the signing period began.

Again, one guy's thoughts.  But I hope we can agree on one thing: to aid in competitive balance we need an international draft now.  

Potpourri - February 10, 2026

FREE AGENT THOUGHTS:

 Here are some truths about free agency

• If you invest in free agency you are likely to overpay but...you get talent you don't have.
• If you don't invest in free agency you have two choices
• Just go with what you have and hope or...
• Trade players (and maybe a draft choice) for players you could have had in free agency

This winter in free agency teams like Pittsburgh, Chicago White Sox and Detroit have invested in free agency. In some cases they also made trades.

But the bottom line is that they have gotten better...at least on paper.  In Detroit's case, they got a lot better, even though their recent signing of Framber Valdez might just have been a precursor to them trade arbitration winner Tarik Skubal.  

The Guardians, on the other hand have done the following:

• Sign free agent Austin Hedges (money well spent, and I don't care what anyone says)
• Sign free agent Shawn Armstrong (I'll reserve judgement on this one, cough, Paul Sewald, cough)
• Sign free agent AAAA RPs, Connor Brogdon and Colin Houlderman to MAJOR LEAGUE contracts and FA AAAA OFer Stuart Fairchild.  Never can have too many AAAA FAs, although you don't usually sign those guys to ML deals.
• Have gone public saying that they are (1) they won't be signing any top, expensive free agents and (2) they inept at signing meh free agents so they don't plan to sign any of those, either...and publicly bet money that the media couldn't identify the mistakes they have made trying to go cheap in free agency over the last several years.
• Said they are going with their own, LHH-heavy prospect pool to fill out their roster as they have to give these guys a chance..right before the Tigers signed Valdez, given the Tigers two of the best LH SP in baseball.

To summarize, the Guardians have, in the past 7 months:

(a) Were sellers at the ML trading deadline

(b) Won the AL Central championship with a historic finish/historic Tigers collapse

(c) Said they weren't going to sign any good or meh FAs

(d) Proceeded to sign two AAAA FA RPs to major league deals

This on the heels of way underspending their 2026 international bonus budget, signing a bunch of middling prospects instead of 1-2 top FAs AND having a really, really bad draft in 2025 where they seemed to panic and make a lot of bad, overdraft decisions and the 2024 draft where their first #1 overall pick in team history is looking like a case of bad scouting, their second round pick looks like an overdraft with the upside of a quality major league backup catcher.  This, of course, follows two years of overdrafting LHH college slap hitters and, for the most part, getting away from the one decision showing they MIGHT be the smartest guys in the room, that being the 2021 college pitcher draft that has netted Williams and Bibee and other potential future ML pitchers.

I remember a movie called "And Justice For All".  A small part of the movie was a subplot where a judge used to eat his lunch on the ledge of his building and, if I remember the story right, would fill up the tank of his private plane and fly it a little further out over the ocean every day to see how far he could go without running out of gas and crashing on the way back. The Guardians' FO seems to want to prove that they can have success with less and less resources every year, sort of like that judge and his private plane.  

My advice to the Guardians FO and ownership is stop trying to get the same result with less resources and, for the Guardians FO, stop trying to be the smartest guys in the room.  This team cannot afford to make mistakes on amateur player acquistion and development and on finding cute ways to compete without spending.

I love this team and always will.  But this crap has to stop.

GENIE IN THE BOTTLE

Continuing on the free agent theme I am still seeing a lot of "But wait, there are still things the Guardians can do"

I have seen free agent signing proposals, trade proposals and extension candidate proposals.

Besides the extension candidates that I already wrote about (Ramirez, Kwan, Cade Smth, Williams), I don't see anything else I would do at this point.

There is a story about a genie trapped in a bottle who sat around waiting for someone to set him free.  At first, when he had hope, he thought he would give the person who set him free the three best wishes possible, no tricks.  But the longer he was trapped in that bottle his hope turned to despair and, eventually, anger.  After a while his only thought was to get out of that bottle and trap the person who eventually freed in in the bottle just to show someone else how bad it was.

Well, I have become the genie.  Except for the extension candidates above, at this point I will be really mad if the Guardians actually sign a free agent or trade valuable minor league resources for a player of the type they could have had in free agency.  Hays, Robert Jr., Ozuna and many other viable free agents went to other small market teams.  It would be a slap in the face for the Guardians to turn to the bargain basement bin to pull out a remaining free agent.  Yeah, maybe guys, especially starting pitching, on minor league deals in case of injuries.  But the Guardians have been clear.  They want the young players to play.  

At this point I am resgned to that happening.  Any change in course now that costs us money and/or rosters spots and/or prospects to try to upgrade a team that CA and Chernoff have purposely NOT tried to make better over the winter is bad management and a slap in the face to Cleveland fans.  Hey guys, you have done nothing all wnter.  Don't do anything stupid now!

OK, I'll say it.  You have proven you are the smartest guys in the room. Now sit back and enjoy the ride.  You wouldn't want to do anything to mess up your brilliant strategy now, right?  So let's, for the rest of this season (except for the extension candidates above) just sit back and all admire your brilliance.  Doing anything now might muddy the waters of how brilliant your strategy is.  So, let's not!