So obviously the Guardians are in a pretty good position at the moment. Still in 1st in the AL Central by 4 games, still getting excellent seasons out of Steven Kwan, Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor, still responsible for one of the best bullpens in the biz, and now have a #1 pick to look forward to, Travis Bazzana, once he's given a respectful development period. However, there are issues beginning to mount. For one, they won their first game back from the break then promptly fell off. A friend of mine was at that Friday game, the win, and then after the three losses he went 'am I just gonna have to go to all their games to make sure they keep winning?'. Next they have a crucial divisional series against the Tigers, followed by an even more crucial series against the Phillies. They cannot slip now, because the Twins will be more than happy to slide right into the divisional lead.
Now, there are two big things in regards to this Guardians team that worry me. One is a current issue, the other isn't an issue yet but could be down the road. The first issue is a simple one- the starting pitching. There's nothing overwhelmingly great happening here. Tanner Bibee, to his credit, is having a good season, he's 8-4 with a 3.58 ERA and 126 Ks, but for the ace of a first place, surging Guardians team it's a weaker affair than one might think. I go back to the 2016 team, who ruled the AL with a rotation of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, Danny Salazar and Josh Tomlin, and even the 2019 iteration, which got great years out of Bauer, Carrasco, Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger. As recently as last year, the Guardians could come at you with a powerful youth rotation of Bibee, Gavin Williams, Triston McKenzie, Logan Allen and Xzavion Curry. And now it just seems like everything's all over the place.
Some of the Guardians' most useful starters this year have been Ben Lively, a control artist who's 8-6 with a 3.57 ERA, Carrasco, who's clearly lost his juice but has made 18 starts and has struck out 74, and Logan Allen, who went 8-4 with a 5 ERA before being sent back to the minors. Gavin Williams and Xzavion Curry are up now, and have been decent in their past few appearances, but this is a very injury-depleted rotation, and it's hard for this team to deliver a consistent rotation year-to-year if everyone's gonna wear out their arms like this. The current model could work, but there's really no unification, it's really just 'well this is what we have'. It honestly wouldn't shock me if they go for a rental in a week or so.
The other issue, though, is a bit more concerning. This season, the Guardians have called up a ton of big-time prospect hitters, all of whom have the future of the franchise upon their shoulders mightily. We've seen the likes of Johnathan Rodriguez, Jose Tena, Kyle Manzardo, Angel Martinez, Jhonkensy Noel and Tyler Schneemann. This in addition to organizational prospects Gabriel Arias, Brayan Rocchio and Bo Naylor, who've been up in the majors most of the season. And if all of these players have something in common, it's that they haven't especially factored into this season much at all for the Guardians. All of those players have a combined 0.7 WAR. Comparatively, Kwan and Ramirez together have a 6.3 WAR.
And while there are good seasons amidst that pack, like Rocchio being excellent defensively and Martinez off to a nice start at the plate, a lot of these guys just haven't gotten anything going. And it's the kind of thing where the Guardians would activate somebody and go 'THIS IS IT, CODE RED, THIS GUY'S GONNA BE HUGE', and then he'd get there and hit .129. Like, Kyle Manzardo they were going 'OH HE'S GONNA BE OUR NEW POWER GUY', he hit no homers in 30 games. Cracked 13 of 'em in Columbus, couldn't get one in Cleveland. The Mariners did this as well, they'd bring up Jonatan Clase or Ryan Bliss going 'OH NO, POUR ONE OUT FOR BASEBALL MANUFACTURERS' and then a month later they have to awkwardly go 'also uh...Ryan Bliss has been uh...returned to Tacoma..'.
The Guardians have such a great team that it's not worrying at the moment that none of their future pieces have been inheriting the team as well as Kwan or Gimenez have. You can see some promising pieces, like Angel Martinez, who's hitting .262 in 17 games, and Jhonkensy Noel, who has 4 homers in 17 games, or even Schneemann, who's been a nice fellow utility guy to David Fry. It's just taken until now for anything that optimistic to come from this area.
I don't want to go from a team this good to just drumming around waiting for Bazzana after people start leaving. They need to build, and hopefully these are the guys that can help them do that.
Coming Tomorrow- Ironically, a fun, contact-friendly outfielder from a team whose rookies HAVE shown up.
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