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 - 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! 

 

Guardians 2026 International Free Agent Class...Well, that was a choice!

 I have been a little busy so I haven't had time to comment on this, but I am extremely disappointed with the Guardians' international signings in 2026.  

Let's level-set the international amateur signing period:

(1) To be clear, the bonus pool that a team is assigned is NOT money they are given.  It is the amount of the team's revenue they are allowed to spend on signing international amateur free agents in a given year.  Therefore, teams don't 'pocket' the amount they don't spend. At the same time, money that goes unspent represents an opportunity lost to acquire the best talent possible into your system.

(2) Some (or most) of the players signed during this period are linked to teams through unofficial agreements made between teams and players years before those players are even eligible to sign.  Therefore, only a few good players are still available within 6 months of the beginning of the signing period so there is very little time to throw excess money at great players who haven't committed to a team yet.

(3) Players who are signed must be at least 16 years old on January 15th and must turn 17 before September 1st, meaning that it is likely that no new players will be added to the eligible group during the time between January 15th and December 15th, the end of the 2026 signing period.  The Guardians have tended to do that with somewhat older Latin American pitching prospects who they have signed sporadically throughout the spring, summer and fall.  

SALIENT POINTS OF GUARDIANS 2026 SIGNING CLASS

(1) The Guardians had the highest bonus pool of any team in baseball at $8,034, 900. They used $6.3 million for their bonuses meaning only 5 teams had more money left in their pool, if you don't count trades involving international bonus pool money. Counting the $1.5 million they traded to the Mets for Franklin Gomez, they used $7.7 million, leaving $250,000 in their bonus pool, ranking 21st in baseball, meaning they used, for signing and trading, a larger percentage overall than 2/3 of the teams in baseball.  

(2) There were 56 players signed to higher bonuses than the Guardians highest priced signee, Svert Reynose ($820,000). That's an average of 2 players per team. 

(3) 27 teams (not the Dodgers or the Yankees, who had $3 million less to spend than the Guardians did) spent more on their first pick than Cleveland did on Reynoso

(4) 17 teams had 2 or more players with bonuses higher than Cleveland's top bonus

(5) The $1.5 million they traded to the Mets allowed New York to sign the 2nd highest ranked player in this signing class, Wander Asigen, so you could argue that their trade allowed the Mets to acquire a talent worth more than the entire Cleveland class.

(6) The Guardians were the only team that spread out their bonus money among a number of players.  It should be noted that Philadelphia did the same thing in 2025 

(6) In 2026 the Giants used >95% of their budget to sign the highest ranked player in this cycle, Luis Hernandez. While this is not necessarily a great strategy, the Giants certainly positioned themselves to get a much better prospect than any of the Guardians' signees are.  Of course one could argue that signing a bunch of decent prospects is better than signing one great one.

(7) The highest ranked prospect in this class that the Guardians signed was the 38th best prospect in this year's international class. 

ANALYSIS

One of two things likely happened to the Guardians during this signing cycle:

(a) The strategy they employed was designed to target a larger number of middling prospects and avoid the highly ranked prospects and, as a result, limit spending on the 2026 international crop. 

(b) They were unable to reach agreements early on with highly ranked prospects as those prospects cost more money than the Guardians were likely willing to commit to one player.

We don't really know what path the Guardians took but the results were:

(a) They did not get top talent out of this signing period

(b) They avoided having to spend almost $2 million of their own resources on signing players during this signing period.

Cleveland is a small market team.  They almost HAVE to spend and spend heavily on amateur talent and still outscout other teams to find the best talent.  They simply can't buy their way out of mistakes.  They had the largest bonus pool of any team in baseball during this period and didn't fully utilize that pool to draft top end talent.  

It was, as they say, a choice to follow this path. As this path was not followed by any team with the same bonus pool that Cleveland had.

CONCLUSION

Once again it appears that Cleveland tried to show they are the smartest guys in the room and ended up with middling talent that will require that their scouts 'outscouted' scouts from other teams and their development team outdevelops those of other teams.  And they left the impression that they were doing this to be cheap.  I think, in the next CBA, there should be provisions to not allow teams to be cheap on the R4 draft or on international amateur acquistion, which I hope will take the form of an international draft going forward.

In essence, this international class puts the Guardians behind the 8-ball, prospect development-wise.  This disappointing international class followed a poor 2025 ML draft filled with incredible reaches, a draft that was preceded by a disappointing (Bazzana & Cozart) and late developing (excess of HS pitchers) group in 2024.

Again, it appears that at every turn the Guardians try to prove they are the smartest guys in the room leaving us to hope that they have found incredible talent for little money.  As pundits who support the Guardians at every turn tell us that it is not as bad as it seems, it certainly walks and quacks like a duck, no matter how you look at it.

The Guardians, on the surface appear to have laid another egg.  Let's hope it hatches into more than it looks like at the moment.

How to Fix Baseball - Part 7 - UPDATE - 3-4-2026

The buzz in baseball now is about the new CBA and how to fix baseball with the hope of doing this without a work stoppage or lockout. It strikes me that both MLB and the MLBPA should have a sense of urgency to start this process right now, giving themselves the greatest chance to work out the terms of the new CBA without the pressure that will surely increase as the December, 2026 expiration of the current CBA approaches.  

This off-season I have written a series of 6 articles about how to fix baseball.  

This article summarizes those articles and, prompted by opinions and suggestions I have read on how to fix baseball, provides more details than my previous 6 articles did.  So let's dive in.

NOTE: I WILL be updating this document as more information and ideas become available.

OVERALL GOALS

The overall goals in the proposals below are:

• Make revenue, especially TV revenue, more equal
• At the same time as spreading out the revenue, institute measures to make sure teams are actually spending the increased revenue on player acquisition, development and retention
• Take steps to ensure that competitive balance is achieved naturally, without the need for artificial measures to limit talent acquisition and retention
• Make sure more revenue goes back to the players.

KEY CONCEPT

People have proposed the salary cap to keep teams like the Dodgers from 'buying' championships.  So let's say we have a salary cap.  They won't be able to spend money on free agents but the revenue disparities will still exist.  While draft and international signing budgets cap how much they can do to acquire talent and, along with a salary cap, would seem to level the talent acquisition playing field, the Dodgers would still have all that excess revenue that they could simply throw into player development.  For example, they could completely outbid every team for the best coaches, front office people, analytics people, scouts, etc.  They could spend more on state-of-the-art training facilities and equipment.  They could also overwhelm other teams by numbers of scouts.  Imagine if the Dodgers had 25 scouts to cover Latin America and the Guardians could only afford 10. This would put the Guardians at such a disadvantage they likely, without a lot of luck, couldn't compete to find the best NDFAs in Latin America or around the world. 

So, the key is to redistribute revenue to all teams and let those teams decide how best to use it, given that they have to use an appropriate amount on player salaries (salary floor)

Revenue balancing and ensuring that teams like Cleveland are spending the increased revenue appropriately to improve their team HAVE to be key to this new CBA

TV CONTRACTS

MLB has a problem.  Teams like the Dodgers have lucrative local TV deals. Teams like the Guardians have bad TV deals that don't bring in much revenue.  There are two ways I can think of to manage that:

• Bring al the TV revenue under MLB and divide it evenly among all teams
• Leave the current system in place but heavily tax teams whose TV revenue fall over the median and divide that tax between the teams whose TV revenue falls under the median

I am not sure how the 2nd way can be any better (or even different) than the first with the first being much more 'organic', of course.  

However, one thing is for sure.  This NEEDS to happen to balance revenues between teams.  Without a measure like one of the two proposed above, rich teams will remain rich and poor teams will remain poor and, in my opinion, competitive balance will never truly be achievable. 

SALARY CAP

I wanted to start here because this is the shortest discussion.  It is a non-starter with the MLBPA, IMO. While it wouldn't be hard to get 2/3 of the owners to vote for some version of a cap (say, $275 million), the new CBA has to be approved by 100% of the owners.  While only 50_ % of players have to approve the new CBA,  I think it is safe to say the players won't allow this to go through unless they get huge concessions in other areas that they won't get.  While certain provisions (e.g., being able to exceed the cap if you are extending your own players) might make a cap more palatable to the MLBPA, I just see a cap as a non-starter.  

So, if you can't stop overspending let's find ways to catastrophically penalize teams that do overspend.

• Set a soft cap, i.e., set the luxury tax threshold at $275 million for the 2027 season (for 2026 it is set at $244 million). Teams exceeding the threshold will:
• be charged 100% of the excess in the first violation and $200% of the excess for exceeding the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• lose their top draft pick for the next year if they exceed the threshold and their top 5 draft picks for the next year if they exceed the threshold 2 or more years in a 3 year period.
• not be able to sign a QO free agent for the next season after their last occurrence of exceeding the threshold.
• not be able to sign an international professional free agent for any more than a $5 million AAV or for more than 2 yeas in the year after they exceed the threshold.
• not be allowed to sign any FA for more than $10 million AAV and for more than 2 seasons in the next season if they exceed the threshold for 2 years in a 3 year period
• Draft pick penalties that come from exceeding this threshold will not be minimized due to other penalties for the same team related to draft picks (e.g., signing a QO player).  Rather, the penalties would be imposed in subsequent years so that the full weight of the penalty would be felt.  For example, a team losing their 2nd and 5th picks in the draft could not be changed to them losing their 3rd and 6th picks in that draft because they have another penalty.  One of the penalties would be assessed in the subsequent year so that the full weight of the penalties would be realized.

• AAV 
• AAV will be all inclusive without any deferrals or other mechanisms that have previously been allowed to lower (or not raise) AAV.  
• AAV for foreign professional free agents will include the posting fee to their foreign club

SALARY FLOOR

• A salary floor will be set at $120 million for the 2027 season and rise by $10 million a year for the life of the next CBA. [NOTE: The goal here is to make teams spend revenue on payroll and not just cheap-out. The floor is low so as NOT to cause teams to have to overpay meh FAs or AAAA players just to reach the floor. The intent is for encourage them to sign their own players to extensions and sign quality free agents, if desired, to meet the floor]
• Other measures for amateur player acquisition will be put in place (see below) to ensure that teams spend on acquisition of the best prospects they can to help with competitive balance.  

NOTE: Some of this is in opposition to MLBPA's position which is to give more players more money, regardless of a player's limited ability or usefulness to make a franchise more competitive.  A cornerstone of my proposal if for teams to use some of their floor to extend their own players and bring in free agents who they feel would benefit their competitiveness.  At the same time, teams need to be allowed to fill their 26- and 40-man rosters with prospects who they feel can help them win now but, moreso, in the future instead of clogging rosters with meh FAs or AAAA players just to get over the salary floor. Under the PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE section below I suggest that the minimum salary for players be raised to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million for 2nd year players.  Those players would realize, on average, almost $2.5 million in increase earnings over their first two years in the majors compared to the present system.

INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR DRAFT

• An international draft would replace the January 15th signing period.  The goal of this draft would be to distribute the better, eligible talent to the clubs with bad records in the previous major league season (similar to the Rule 4 draft) AND eliminate teams reaching 'agreements' with players years before those players are eligible and eliminate the shadiness of interactions with local trainers, etc.
• The draft will consist of 5 rounds with the order being the inverse of standings for the previous year. NDFA can be signed after the 5 rounds for $10,000 or less.
• MLB will create a bonus pool for each club just like they do for the Rule 4 draft.
• MLB will have a combine similar to what they do for the Rule 4 draft for the top 250 players and will be involved in ranking those players before the draft for the benefit of fans and, to a lesser extent, teams.
• Owners of revenue receivers must spend >90% of their bonus pool the first year of the new CBA going up to 95% in subsequent years, not counting the money spent on NDFAs.  The trading of international free agent bonus pool money will no longer be allowed.

CHANGES TO THE RULE 4 DRAFT

• Maintain most of the current rules for draft pick compensation but weave in a few new rules and the luxury threshold penalties described above
• Change the construction of a draft order as follows.  
• 2 teams with the worst records flip a coin to see who drafts first and second in the first round
• The rest of the first round and all subsequent regular rounds will be ordered as follows:
• Non-playoff, teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round draft first in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Non-playoff teams who are revenue payors draft next in order of dcreasing payroll
• Playoff teams that receive picks in the competitive balance round in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are not revenue payors or receivers draft next, again in order of decreasing payroll
• Playoff teams who are revenue payors pick in the order of decreasing payroll.
• Competitive balance picks and draft compensation pick rules will continue as is.
• As indicated above under SALARY CAP, change rules on draft pick compensation where a team is already penalized in a particular year and a second (or more) penalty in the same year would result in a lesser penalty.  Instead, have the penalties spill over to the next year(s) so the force of the penalty would be the same for each offense, just in the next year(s).
• To spur owners of small market, limited resource franchises to spend money on development, give every revenue receiver and the worst 2 teams, record wise, in baseball the previous year an extra $5 million in their bonus pool.  These teams must spend between 99-104.99% of their bonus pool or suffer a $10 million penalty
• Eliminate the trading of draft choices before the 11th round but allow up to 3 draft choices (in rounds 11-20) per team per year to be traded.  

CHANGES TO THE RULE 5 DRAFT

• The major league rule 5 draft will be discontinued
• The minor league rule 5 draft will continue as before from the same pool of players as previous minor league rule 5 drafts
• See the CHANGES IN PLAYER CONTROL section below for specifics to address what the ML R5 was supposed to address, but failed and that international players can be signed when they are chronologically, the age and physical development of high school sophomores.

NOTE: The goal here is to allow teams time to develop their players without having to roster some of the best ones long before they are major league ready. My data says the ML R5 is a failure but the minor league R5 draft has some benefits in limiting the number of minor league players a team can hoard.  This also will allow teams to sign minor league free agents after the end of a season without having to worry about losing them in the subsequent R5 draft. Finally, it will free up 40-man roster spots for players who can actually help a team in the next competitive year instead of having a roster spot wasted for 2-3 years on a player who is not close to being major league-ready. All these changes are likely to increase competitive balance because teams will have a longer time to develop players and the players will still be able to become free agents before they reach their physical and professional primes.

CHANGES TO PLAYER CONTROL

• Players acquired who were not previously in organized professional leagues (domestic or foreign) can be controlled by teams per the following, based on their age when signed, before they can become minor league free agents:
• Players 16 or 17 years old for 7 full seasons
• Players 18 or 19 years old for 6 full seasons
• Players 20 or 21 years old for 5 full seasons
• Players 22 or 23 years old for 4 full seasons
• Players 24 or older for 3 full seasons

PLAYERS GETTING MORE REVENUE

• Increase the minimum wage to $2 million for first year players and $2.5 million in their second year.
• Continue the arbitration system as is.
• Mandate that teams spend 90% of shared revenues on payroll + amateur player acquisition costs
• Allow forensic accounting to make sure that the split of shared revenues is actually going to player salaries and acquisition costs.  Don't let teams participate in revenue sharing unless they can show that they meet these reinvestment metrics.

A Dozen Guardians Prospects Whose 2026 Seasons Are Crucial to the Future of the Franchise

 This is quite the serious and dramatic title to an article about the Guardians farm system.  But, unlike in other years, I see the heart of this farm system and young major leaguers being at the crossroads of their careers...even if those careers have not started yet!  Will they be a big part of the future or only so-so players, utility guys or total failures. So let's dive in.

12. Cooper Ingle - I don't see Ingle as being that important to the future of the Guardians.  He is a nice-to-have more than a must-have.  Still, a catcher who can slash .260/.330/.380 AND can also play defense and handle a pitching staff is not that easy to find.  Not saying Ingle is that guy but, in our farm system, he is the ONLY catching prospect of any note.  So he HAS to succeed and there is some urgency for him to become a productive major leaguer, and soon, and help take the pressure off the Guardians to buy or trade for a catcher.

11. Angel Martinez - Although hanging comps on guys puts more pressure on them, I see Martinez having a path similar to that of Jose Ramirez.  Now, the thing that sets Ramirez apart is his drive to be the best.  That drive took him from being a future utility guy or complementary player to being arguably, when all is said on done, of being the GOAT of this franchise.  While being compared to Ramirez is a losing proposition for almost any prospect, I think there are a lot of similarities there.  He just needs the opportunity to grow into the star I think he can be.  If you stick him at 2B or CF and live with the growing pains, he will pay huge dividends.  But, for Martinez, the key is for him to make substantial progress this year, becoming an invaluable complementary player.  If he flounders this year the Guardians may give up on him, which I think would be a huge mistake.  So Martinez needs to NOT give them a chance to make that mistake by having a great 2026.  

10. George Valera - While Valera is not a crucial part of the team's future right now, he COULD be.  As he is out of options, he will have to impress the Guardians out of the gate and, in so doing, cement his spot on the ML team AND his importance to this team in the future, especially if Kwan won't sign an extension.  If he starts slow, he might become another lost-for-nothing guy like Noel, Reyes and Gonzalez were.

9. Franco Aleman - You may say that RHRP are a dime-a-dozen in the majors.  True that, but cheap, high leverage RP are more like $120 million a dozen.  When you see the Guardians try to build their bullpen with guys like Brogdon and Holderman, you become immediately aware of the advantages of having talented, cheap and controllable RPs.  Add to this that homegrown guys are always more desirable and you can see why having Aleman healthy and productive at the ML level really keeps cost down while keeping quality high in the BP, both things a small market team needs.  People may not see how important Aleman is but I feel he is one of the most important pieces in our BP going forward, along with Andrew Walters...

8. Angel Genao - While still a year or two away, Genao could be the future of the middle infield in Cleveland.  He was injured last year and, as a result, never really got going.  While he is likely not to impact the ML team in 2026, he could at some point in 2027 and that might be crucial to this team after that.  How he plays this year will go a long way to determine if he is just Brayan Rocchio Part Deux or if he is much more.  The latter would put us in good shape at SS for years to come.   With Bazzana and Brito at 2B, having a SS prospect with great range who can hit as well as field is crucial.

7. Andrew Walters - Look, the Guardians invested a high draft choice in Walters.  That means that they think he is at least a key 8th inning RP, maybe even closer material.  Having him come through, along with someone like Aleman, allows the Guardians to have a quality AND cheap bullpen and be able to invest at other positions-of-need.  Having 6 years of Walters at the level he was projected when drafted is necessary to stop the revolving door of AAAA RP we see every year.

6. Juan Brito - Brito will be out of options after 2026.  He will have one year to make his presence felt in the majors. His defense is questionable at second base (and even THAT is giving it the benefit of the doubt), his speed is average at best and his major positive trait is that he can take a walk.  In fact, he is the best in the Guardians system at passive aggressiveness.  By that I mean that he attacks balls in the zone and spits on bad pitches.  He needs to make his mark felt in 2026 or Clevleand might have no choice but to DFA him after the upcoming season...although that might not happen if there is a work stoppage.  Still, his OB skills and doubles power would play well if the rest of his game doesn't drain the value of those hitting traits.

5. Jace Laviolette - Look, there are 'experts' who will tell you he is toast.  There are experts that will tell you he is salvageable but it can't be done in the Guardians' system as they can't develop hitters.  You won't hear many people tell you he is the guy who was the early favorite to go 1-1 in 2025.  Cleveland took a HUGE gamble that he will return to his 2024 form.  If he doesn't, they will have wasted a first round draft pick and given their recent drafts, that can't happen.  No Cleveland minor league prospect has more to prove than Laviolette.  

4. Kal Stephen - People just don't realize how important Stephen is.  The Guardians had a great 2021 draft, picking up a bunch of college pitchers including Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee.  In 2022 they continued that trend early in the draft by drafting Justin Campbell and Parker Messick.  Unfortunately, they went away from that trend in 2023, 2024 and 2025, not picking a single college pitcher of note.  As a result, the farm system is devoid of any top line pitching prospecs except for Stephen. The Guardians got Stephen from Toronto for Shane Bieber.  While Bieber meant everything to Toronto, Stephen actually means more to Cleveland.  He came to Cleveland with a shoulder impingement and pitched like crap after the trade.  As he is the only top level pitching prospect in the entire organization (I don't count HS guys in that category until they master AA) he HAS to succeed.  If his injury lingers, if he fails, the Guardians will have a huge gap in their farm system, without a single pitching prospect who can help them before Jose Ramirez's contract runs out.  To throw salt in that wound, the Guardians drafted Jacob Cozart, a college catcher with the upside of a ML backup catcher, in the second round when they could have had Stephen.  Ouch!

3. Jaisson Chourio - Like Genao, he was hurt a lot of last year.  He is hitting well in winter ball but will he burn out there or will it propel him into a great 2026. In the best world he turns into the prospect his brother Jackson was (and is). Make no mistake, Chourio needs to have a breakout year again in 2026.  If he turns into just an above average prospect, this will not be effective at moving the needle of the Guardians future. He has to be great and it has to start this year as he is Rule 5 eligible after 2926. If he is languishing in A+ at the end of 2026 they WILL roster him but he will be on a path that likely will result in him running out of options before he reaches his potential.  For a team like Cleveland, that has happened too much in the past and, with Chourio, it can't happen again.

2. Chase DeLauter - We all THINK he is going to be an above-average ML player. I even dream on him being the next Grady Sizemore.  But he has to stay healthy because he is a cornerstone of this franchise and, given that I believe a salary floor is coming in the next CBA, he is a potential extension candidate.  Unless he gets hurt in St (or before) he is likely to open the season in the Guardians starting lineup.  I don't think he will EVER play himself off the roster.  He is simply that good.  The key for him and an important key in the near future of this franchise is whether he can stay healthy and play at 100% pace.  As the Guardians avoided having him take the extra base or slide last season, that is still to be seen

1. Travis Bazzana - I have followed Bazzana since the 2024 college season began. He looked like the exact player I wanted.  Solid, baseball field rat, with great speed, good power and a great batting eye.  In March of his draft year, while playing in a mid-week non-conference game,  he got hit on the hand with a pitch and left the stadium with it wrapped. He only missed a couple of games and was back in the lineup by the weekend.  But after that, his season started to spiral.  People said that it was just the tougher play in the PAC.  But he didn't look the same.  When he turned pro he was overpaowered by pitches and rolled over or popped up to the 3rd baseman a frightening number of pitches.  He also swung and missed A LOT.  2026 brought more of the same. with fans who didn't want to believe that he could be anything less than a franchise icon failing to see his flaws and deluding themselves that it had to oblique injury (followed by another) that were the cause of his struggles.  The fact is, Bazzana has not been good since February of 2024.  This season is so important for him to establish himself that I cannot overstate that importance.  It doesn't help that Bazzana will play for Austrailia in the WBC.  Given his lack of success in the minors in '24 and '25, there is a good chance he will get eaten alive by the pitchers in that tournament, with all the flaws I have seen in two years causing him to lose confidence, if he hasn't already lost it.  Don't be deceived. 2026 IS the make-or-break year in Travis Bazzana's career.  This year will tell if his career track is more like Chase Utley's or Mikey Moniak's.  And that difference will mean a great deal to the future of the Cleveland Guardians franchise.

There you have it.  Some people look at our farm system through rose-colored glasses and see a bright future. I look at that same farm system and see that same future with the caveat being if all 12 of these guys DON'T succeed at a good level, this franchise could be toast for the next decade.  So, let's keep our fingers crossed for this to happen. Remember, this is NOT all the prospects that Cleveland has so not all of their top prospects have to have the level of success I am asking of these 12.  But the 12 I mentioned? They better be successful if we want to be competitive in the second half of the 2020s and beyond.

A Quick Look at Where The Guardians Roster Is Heading Into 2026 - Part 3 - Who Should Be Added To/Dumped From The Current Roster

 We are now starting the beefing up and weeding out process for our roster.  So let's dive in:

WHO SHOULD WE BE ADDING?

 Marcell Ozuna - This, like many others, is dependent on the cost.  Ozuna is truly a DH but is a RHH with proven production.  He is the jolt this lineup needs and the protection that will help maximize Jose Ramirez's production.  Plus, he moves Manzardo out of the #4 hole into the #5 or 6 slot, which would be more appropriate to his skill set.

Luis Robert Jr. - The only trade on my list, I doubt this gets done as the White Sox are positioning themselves for a better result in 2026 AND they appear to hate trading fairly with the Guardians. Still, I don't feel like DeLauter can hold up in CF (picture a Mr. Glass version of Grady Sizemore).  Robert Jr. might also be a clubhouse distraction but a lineup of Kwan, DeLauter, Ramirez, Ozuna, Robert Jr., Manzardo, Naylor, Martinez (2B) and Rocchio would look pretty good compared to the last 2 years. 

Veteran FA SP - This is just a placeholder as the Guardians need depth.  I think it was Zach Meisel who posted that the Guardians had used an average of 12.5 SP per season for the last 4 years.  We are not even close to that and I would like to see a rotation that has Cecconi @ #4 and Cantillo (out of options) @ #5.  So any of Miles Mikolas, Nestor Cortes, Zach Littell or Lucas Giolito, whoever is the cheap and gives us the best bang for our buck, is who I am targeting.  But, whoever it is, we need one more veteran SP.

WHO WE SHOULD BE REMOVING

Connor Brogdon - I know we can't trade Brogdon but, if we need the roster space, he is 1A of the guys who need to be DFA'd. With the signing of Armstrong and Avila and maybe adding a SP to push Logan Allen to RP and maybe Cecconi, too, and the guys at AAA (Espino, Walters and Aleman) we have enough RP depth.

Colin Holderman - 1B on my list of RP to get rid of if we need the roster space, Holderman was another bad decision by the FO.  Not that he and Brogdon would have been bad minor league FA signings but taking up a 40-man spot seems like a foolish waste of resources for a team that needs to be adding ML quality resources in the midst of a roster crunch. 

Gabriel Arias - Here is the first tradeable asset that we should remove from the roster (via trade only) IF and ONLY IF we need a roster spot.  Right now Arias, on my depth chart, is the backup SS and you can't, in January, dump your first option if something happens to Rocchio.

Nolan Jones - I see no role for Jones in 2026. If we go young we have enough guys to throw out in RF.  I just don't see a way for him to get PT unless he suddenly reverts back to 2023 form and I don't see that happening.  While it's great to have a bunch of guys in ST who compete for positions with the best man winning, (a) that never happens with the Guardians because they believe in spring desert mirages and (b) it, to me, is more important to have roster flexibility than to have competition, which is generally generated through MiLB free agent signings with invitations to ST than through redundant players on the 40-man.  So I could even see them, if the rules allow it, for them to DFA Jones this winter if someone who is a better fit comes along.

SUMMARY

So, like the extension candidates, the lists above are short.  Will the Guardians do anything? I am not sure. But I think there are some fits that make this team better and help keep their collective heads above water until the trade deadline.