Kwan the Town

 

Year two of the 'contact over power' Guardians experiment is still not doing as well as the previous. Yes, it did help that Jose Ramirez hit 3 homers in a game last week, but even with Josh Bell and Josh Naylor hitting a few homers here and there, it's all on the contact guys, and it's only so successful.

Pretty much every major piece of the 2023 Guardians is delivering a season that pales in comparison to last year's campaign, hence the hedging around 2nd they've been doing. Steven Kwan, who was their contact god last year, is doing alright. Not overwhelmingly great, alright. He's hitting .258 with 68 hits and 11 steals. Not burning up the road like he did last April, but he's still relatively trusted in Cleveland, and he's still a decent piece of this team. Andres Gimenez is doing pretty well defensively but he's hitting .241.  The only people in this lineup hitting above .250 are Kwan, Will Brennan, Josh Naylor and Jose Ramirez. For a team that had 6 guys hit over .250 last season, that's definitely a drop-off. 

So now basically we have a team that's alright at contact hitting, mediocre at power hitting, getting by solely on their pitching. And the AL Central already has a team like that, and it's the Minnesota Twins.

Honestly, Bieber-Civale-McKenzie-Allen-Bibee is actually a pretty good rotation. Tanner Bibee did just get lit up recently, but the others have really been hanging in there. It's really just injuries, as evidenced by Cal Quantrill being out, but these guys are beginning to come back and get to what they should have been doing all along. Triston McKenzie has looked awesome in his first two starts, though admittedly his first was better than his second. Aaron Civale's looking strong again, with a 2.31 ERA on the season. I'm not shocked that Bieber's been the rock, that's what he's been positioned as since roughly 2020, and he's done a great job of it. And you still have Eli Morgan, Emmanuel Clase, Trevor Stephan, Sam Hentges and now Xzavion Curry providing excellent bullpen help.

Which, if anything, means they're not especially giving up very many runs. But when you're not quite scoring many either...there's your problem. Which is why I've seen this team at third place on a few occasions.

The Guardians do have a lot of the pieces there, but a lot of this lineup seems to be streakier than anticipated, and a lot of them aren't on the same page at all. Last year it took them a while to come around, and around this time they came into their own and excelled to the finish, but will this happen again? Will the Twins let them, as they did in 2022? 

Coming Tomorrow- One of the best relief pitchers in baseball, bar none.