Roster For The Tampa Bay Series

 OK, celebration over. Time to get to work and the first order of business is to name the roster for the Tampa Bay series.  So here are my thoughts:

ROSTER BALANCE

As much as I loved the flexibility or 14 position players, the CWS series really taxed the bullpen.  I think we have to go 13/13 this time.

ROSTER BREAKDOWN

Position Players (13)

Catchers (2): Bailey and Hedges

Infielders (5): Lowe, Bazzana, Rocchio, Ramirez, Genao

Outfieleres (5): Kwan, Halpin, DeLauter, Adell, Halpin

Utility (1): Schneeman

Pitchers (13)

Starters: Messick, Williams

Openers: Espino, Cecconi

Bulk Relievers: Bibee, Cantillo, Griffin, 

Relievers: Smith, Sabrowski, Gaddis, Herrin, Festa, Armstrong

SUMMARY

So, for me, this boils down to one choice: removing Schneeman or Fry from the ALDS roster.  Tampa Bay has a reasonable balance of 4 lefties and 9 righties so I would not base the decision on handedness. I would make this decision based on my continuing Michael Martinez comp: Martinez was a last player on the roster type, a versatile defended but with a very, very weak bat.  He was the last batter in the 2016 World Series for Cleveland and could only manage to hit the ball weakly for 80 feet as an easy out, mimicking his offensive ineptness for the season and his career.  Although Schneeman has had a bad offensive season I still think that I would choose Schneeman 100 times out of 100 to bat in that situation instead of Martinez.  Fry has one advantage over Schneeman as he is a catcher but he can travel with the team and be rostered if something happened to Bailey or Hedges...or they could roster Ingle.  Aside from that, Schneeman is the better choice and Fry would lose his roster spot.

People will question me leaving Festa on the roster but, to me, Festa is your sacrificial lamb.  We did not have a negative blowout in the CWS series and so Festa didn't pitch. I disagree with people who said if Vogt didn't trust Festa in the White Sox series why was he on the roster.  They just did not need the skill set he brought: length in a blowout loss.  Also, as a last resort extra inning pitcher in deep extra innings, you could do a lot worse than Festa, especially with no ghost runner in playoff extra innings. If we have one of those two situations in the TB series, you watch as Vogt deploys Festa as needed.

So, that's it.  Without going for it by bringing up Ralphy as a secret weapon, this is, IMO, the best roster we can have with what we have to work with.

And please, no Rhys Hoskins.  

Thoughts For A Saturday Night

Congratulations to the Guardians on their historic win in the ALDS and, particularly, in the last game of that series.

Congratulations to the White Sox on their excellent season with EIGHT rookies on the post-season roster.  The future is bright and I hope we see you guys and us in the playoffs for years to come.  

There is only one negative thing that I will say here and probably this will be an unpopular hot take:

The Guardians management team went all-out to win this series.  The usage of Cade Smith, Gavin Williams, Hunter Gaddis and others and the non- or slight-use of Schneeman, Festa, Espino, Fry and others is troubling to me.  These guys are major league players, all of whom have had big moments in their careers and some even in the post-season.  It takes a village to win in the regular season and while I note that the bench has shorten a bit in the post-season, it should always be remembered that burning- or freezing out players in the post-season is not good for the future of this team.  I love Schneeman's game and if you can replace Festa with a high-leverage arm this off-season and if you want to replace Fry bc you think he is more AAAA than ML, I get it.  But, at some point, you HAVE to realize that besides the obvious that these are human beings, major league players don't grow on trees.  So, I'll tell you this: you are Cleveland, you just can't go out and replace these young players because they struggle because you end up with Fairchild, Brogdon, etc. 

Keep the young guys, the inexperienced guys and give them reps.  If you want to 'go for it' do that by bringing up a Ralphy Velasquez.  Stop worrying about his service time and ability to play at AAA in what will be a very diluted league if there is a lockout next year.  

So, Guardians one-and-all, congratulations.  Good luck against Tampa Bay.  I think you have what is necessary to make a WS run.  Eight more wins, all of them tough, and you are WS champions.  But let's do it in such a way that builds for the future from within. I love this team and the players in the organization and I want to see them play together for years to come, at least through 2031.