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Jose Ramirez Day-To-Day After Exiting Game With Wrist Sprain

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March 30: Ramirez remains day-to-day and is out of the lineup today, as Vogt told reporters (including Tim Stebbins of MLB.com) this afternoon. Vogt added that Ramirez is available to pinch-hit today and that the club hopes he’ll be back in the lineup on Monday in San Diego.

March 29: Star third baseman Jose Ramirez exited the Guardians’ game against the Royals in the sixth inning today due to what the Guardians later announced was a right wrist sprain. The 32-year-old appeared to sustain the injury after landing awkwardly during a headfirst slide in the third inning as he attempted to steal second base. As noted by Zack Meisel of The Athletic, manager Stephen Vogt suggested that Ramirez is day-to-day after the game.

The news is a potentially brutal blow to Cleveland’s hopes of building on a strong 2023 season where they earned a bye through the Wild Card round of the playoffs and made it to the ALCS. Ramirez, of course, was a key part of not only that playoff run but every playoff run the club has made since he completed his first full season in the majors back in 2016. Since then, Ramirez has received votes for the AL MVP award in every season except for 2019 while finishing in the top 5 for the award five times. He’s made six All-Star appearances and slashed an incredible .284/.358/.522 during that time with 340 doubles, 247 home runs, and 223 stolen bases all while playing solid defense at third base.

The switch-hitter is among the game’s most consistently excellent players, even among his fellow stars. Part of that consistency has been thanks to his exceptional durability. Ramirez has appeared in at least 152 games and stepped up to the plate at least 618 times in every 162-game campaign since his first full season as a big leaguer besides his 129-game 2019 season, but today’s injury risks putting another asterisk on that lengthy track record. Fortunately, Vogt seemed to indicate that the club’s current expectation is that he won’t miss significant time due to the issue.

“He’s day-to-day,” the manager said, as relayed by Meisel. “We’re going to see how he feels in the morning. It’s early in the year. But I think I’m gonna have to hold him down to keep him out of there.”

There’s no replacing a player of Ramirez’s caliber for any club, but the Guardians are particularly lacking in depth on the infield dirt after trading utility man Tyler Freeman to the Rockies to re-acquire outfielder Nolan Jones just before Opening Day. Gabriel Arias handled third base in Ramirez’s today and could be tasked with covering for the club’s star in the event he misses time, but Arias was already ticketed for at least semi-regular reps at second base this year. Daniel Schneemann played at the keystone today and could slot in if Ramirez misses only a short period of time, but if a trip to the injured list opens up a roster spot the club could instead turn to infield prospect Juan Brito, who posted strong numbers at Triple-A last year but has not yet made his major league debut.

Guardians’ Tanner Bibee Scratched From Opening Day Start Due To Illness

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The Guardians announced Thursday that right-hander Tanner Bibee has been scratched from his scheduled Opening Day start due to acute gastroenteritis (or, the stomach flu). Cleveland will give the nod to fellow right-hander Ben Lively in his place.

It’s an unfortunate development for the recently extended Bibee, who is just days removed from signing a five-year, $48MM contract extension. It’s unlikely he’ll miss significant time with the illness, but Opening Day starts are a cherished occasion for pitchers. Bibee figures to have opportunities in the future, but this would’ve been his first Opening Day nod. Shane Bieber started for Cleveland in each of the past two seasons — Bibee’s only two years in the majors.

On the flip side, it’s an unexpected chance for Lively to also get his first career Opening Day nod. The notion of Bibee as an Opening Day starter would’ve been beyond far-fetched just a few short years ago. The now-33-year-old righty pitched only one big league inning in 2019 and didn’t pitch in the majors at all from 2020-22. Lively spent the 2020-21 season with the Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization, returned to North America on a minor league deal with the Reds, and didn’t make it back to the majors until 2023. He pitched 88 2/3 innings for Cincinnati that year and logged a 5.38 ERA.

The Guardians still brought Lively in on a major league contract last year, guaranteeing him a $750K salary. He crushed any and all expectations, rattling off 151 innings with a 3.81 earned run average, an 18.7% strikeout rate, a 7.2% walk rate and a 41.9% ground-ball rate. Lively misses bats at a well below-average level, but he has sharp command and managed to strand runners at a much higher rate than average (78.4% compared to league-average 72.1%). He and the Guardians settled on a one-year, $2.25MM contract this offseason to avoid an arbitration hearing.

Bibee and Lively will be joined in Cleveland’s rotation by righties Luis Ortiz and Gavin Williams, as well as southpaw Logan Allen. The bullpen will have several long relief options, including veteran swingman Jakob Junis, prospect Joey Cantillo and former standout righty Triston McKenzie, who’s looking to bounce back after a dismal 2023-24 run and rocky spring training. McKenzie suffered a UCL strain back in 2023 and avoided surgery but has not pitched anywhere close to the same level since sustaining that elbow injury.

Guardians, Rockies Swap Nolan Jones, Tyler Freeman

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The Guardians and Rockies have reached a deal that sent outfielder Nolan Jones to Cleveland in exchange for infielder/outfielder Tyler Freeman, according to a report from Thomas Harding of MLB.com. The deal has subsequently been announced.

The deal represents a homecoming for Jones, who was a second-round pick by Cleveland in 2016 and made his MLB debut with the club in 2022 before being traded to Colorado in a deal that brought back Juan Brito in November of that year. Jones went on to finish fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting that year as he posted 3.8 fWAR/4.3 bWAR for the Rockies, slugging 20 homers and swiping 20 bases while splitting time between the outfield corners and first base. In all, Jones slashed .297/.389/.542 that season, which even in the inflated offensive environment Coors Field provides was good for an excellent 137 wRC+. Meanwhile, Brito has yet to make his big league debut for the Guardians but posted a strong .256/.365/.443 line in 144 games at Triple-A for the club last year.

As impressive as Jones’s first year in Colorado was, however, he suffered a significant sophomore slump in his second year with the club. Back issues limited him to just 79 games, and when he was healthy enough to take the field he was ineffective with a lackluster .227/.321/.320 slash line. While a downturn in production should have always been expected relative to his 2023 campaign given Jones’s unbelievable .400 BABIP that year, Jones’s lost power production was something of a shock. After barreling up a whopping 15.7% of his batted balls in 2023, that number cratered to just 5.9% last year despite his overall rate of hard hit batted balls increasing from 40.9% to 44.4%. That came primarily from a massive spike in groundball rate, as Jones hit 52.7% of his batted balls on the ground last year, ten points higher than the year prior. That left him to club just three homers last year and enter his age-27 campaign with plenty of questions about what his production would look like this year.

Those questions will now be answered back in Cleveland, where Jones now appears likely to have the opportunity to lock down the club’s regular right field job, which to this point appeared likely to be filled by Will Brennan. Jones offers more proven upside than Brennan, 27, who posted roughly league average offensive numbers in a platoon role with the Guardians last year. Brennan, unlike Jones, has options remaining and can be sent to Triple-A as depth for the coming season. Should he replace Brennan on the roster, Jones could share time in right field with right-handed slugger Jhonkensy Noel if the Guardians want to spell him against left-handed pitchers, though Johnathan Rodriguez is another option on the 40-man roster.

As for the Rockies, they’ll be parting with Jones to bring in Freeman, a versatile utility bat with the ability to play quality defense all over the diamond but minimal offensive potential. A career 83 wRC+ hitter who slashed .209/.305/.321 (84 wRC+) in 118 games with the Guardians last year, Freeman spent the majority of his time in center field but also got brief looks at shortstop, third base, and second base throughout the season. With Brenton Doyle locked in as the everyday center fielder in Colorado, it seems likely that Freeman will be tasked with a more regular return to the dirt in 2025. While a utility role off the bench could be in Freeman’s future given the presence of Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop and Ryan McMahon at third base, an injury to Thairo Estrada earlier this week opened up regular playing time at the keystone for at least the start of the season. Given that, it seems likely that Freeman will either serve as the Rockies’ regular second baseman or split time with veteran utility man Kyle Farmer at the position while Estrada recovers from the broken wrist that figures to sideline him for four to eight weeks.

Freeman was projected to be part of the Guardians’ bench mix come Opening Day, likely serving as a backup center field option behind Lane Thomas as well as a potential platoon partner for either Brennan or Kyle Manzardo. It’s possible a more regular outfielder like Rodriguez or Angel Martinez could be asked to take on that role, but one potentially intriguing candidate to join the club’s roster would be Brito himself. Brito is mostly an infielder with the vast majority of his time in the minors spent at second base, but he got a look in right field last year and could be an intriguing addition to the club’s bench mix as long as they believe in Lane Thomas as a legitimate everyday option in center field.

Guardians Extend Tanner Bibee

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The Guardians have signed Tanner Bibee to a five-year contract extension that includes a club option for the 2030 season, according to MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins.  The Athletic’s Zack Meisel (multiple links) reports that Bibee will receive at least $48MM in guaranteed money.  As per Meisel, the contract breaks down as a $2MM signing bonus and a $3MM salary this season, $4MM in 2026, $7MM in 2027, $10MM in 2028, $21MM in 2029, and then Cleveland holds a $21MM club option for 2030 with a $1MM buyout.

Bibee just turned 26 earlier this month, so he gets a late birthday present in the form of a life-changing contract.  Bibee has exactly two years of MLB service time, and his $48MM deal ranks as the third-most money ever given to a pitcher with between two years and two years and 171 days of service time.  The 2025 season was Bibee’s final pre-arbitration year, so the extension covers all three of his arb-eligible years and at least one of his free agent years.

A fifth-round pick out of Cal State Fullerton in the 2021 draft, Bibee quickly became the latest quality arm to emerge from Cleveland’s pitching development factory.  Bibee attracted top-100 prospect attention entering the 2023 season, and he immediately delivered on that potential by posting a 2.98 ERA in 142 innings with the Guardians.  That performance earned him a second-place finish in AL Rookie of the Year voting, and subsequently a full year of service time, as per the rules of the league’s Prospect Promotion Incentive plan.

There was no sophomore slump in the follow-up, as Bibee had a 3.47 ERA in 173 2/3 frames last season, with improved strikeout and walk rates from his rookie year.  Bibee also got his first turn on the postseason stage, with a 3.45 ERA in 15 2/3 innings during the Guards’ run to the ALCS.  Perhaps the only minor red flag was that Bibee (an average velocity pitcher) saw his fastball drop off rather drastically in effectiveness from 2023 to 2024, but that was balanced out by his cutter becoming an even more effective pitch.

Bibee becomes the latest in a decades-long line of quality players the Cleveland organization has signed to early-career extensions.  Identifying and locking up talent has been perhaps the key plank of the team’s success over the years, given how the smaller-market Guardians rarely sign their players to secondary contracts or big free agent deals.  Jose Ramirez is a rare example of a Guardians player who did ink a second extension to remain in the Cleve, and Ramirez and Bibee are now the only Guards players signed to guaranteed money beyond the 2026 season.  The Guardians do have some control over Emmanuel Clase and Trevor Stephan in the form of club options covering their 2027 and 2028 seasons, as per the terms of their own extensions.

If Ramirez is the cornerstone of the position-player mix, Bibee now has a similar status as the key figure of the Guardians’ rotation for the remainder of the decade.  Bibee already stepped up as a pillar of stability in what was an uncharacteristically so-so year for the Cleveland rotation as a whole, and he’ll look to again be the ace of a staff that includes Ben Lively, Logan Allen, Gavin Williams, and new arrival Luis Ortiz.  Longtime ace Shane Bieber re-signed with the Guards in December and is expected to return around midseason once he fully recovers from Tommy John surgery.

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images

Guardians Option Juan Brito

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The Guardians optioned second baseman Juan Brito and outfielders Angel Martínez and Johnathan Rodríguez to Triple-A Columbus. It’s most notable regarding Brito, who entered camp with a good chance to secure the second base job.

Cleveland created a hole at the position when they dealt Andrés Giménez to Toronto to offload the nearly $100MM remaining on his contract. Last year’s first overall pick Travis Bazzana is the expected long-term answer. He hasn’t gotten beyond High-A, so he’s unlikely to be a factor before the second half at the earliest.

The 23-year-old Brito was a much more realistic candidate to break camp. He’s been on the 40-man roster since the Guardians swapped Nolan Jones to Colorado to acquire him during the 2022-23 offseason. Brito spent all of last season on optional assignment to Triple-A Columbus. He hit .256/.365/.443 with a robust 13.5% walk rate against a modest 16.1% strikeout percentage. He popped 21 homers and stole 13 bases.

Brito doesn’t have huge physical tools, but the well-rounded offensive profile and ability to play in the middle of the diamond landed him among the league’s Top 100 prospects at FanGraphs. The switch-hitter had a bizarre Spring Training. He hit four home runs in 39 trips to the plate, but those accounted for all but three of his total hits. He hit .189 with a .231 on-base percentage that wasn’t enough to grab an Opening Day job.

The Guardians will seemingly go with a combination of Tyler Freeman, Daniel Schneemann and potentially Gabriel Arias at the keystone. The righty-hitting Freeman owns a modest .223/.304/.329 slash in parts of three seasons, but he’s been on fire this spring (.278/.381/.583 in 14 games). Schneemann, a lefty bat, hit .218/.303/.368 in 73 games as a 27-year-old rookie last season. He’s also had a big showing in camp (.265/.342/.559 over 14 contests). Schneemann has moved all around the infield and outfield and only logged 59 innings at second base between Triple-A and the majors last year.

Arias is out of options and needs to make the team or be exposed to waivers. The 25-year-old utilityman has hit a couple homers this spring but has only a .275 OBP in 15 games. His plate discipline has been a major problem over his three big league seasons. He’s a .212/.274/.350 hitter with a 32.3% strikeout rate over 563 plate appearances.

Braves Return Rule 5 Pick Christian Cairo To Guardians

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The Braves announced that they have returned Rule 5 pick Christian Cairo to the Guardians. Atlanta’s 40-man roster count drops to 37 but Cairo does not need to take up a roster spot with Cleveland. Atlanta also officially announced that their other Rule 5 pick, Anderson Pilar, was returned to the Marlins. The Pilar news was reported earlier today.

Cairo, 24 in June, was a fourth-round pick of Cleveland’s in 2019. His profile has been fairly consistent. He’s never hit a lot of home runs but has always drawn plenty of walks. In 1,390 minor league plate appearances, he has just 15 homers but has earned free passes at a 15.6% clip. He also stole 72 bases in 89 tries while playing all four infield positions and some left field.

Perhaps Atlanta felt Cairo was ready to jump to the big leagues and serve as a utility guy, so they grabbed him in the Rule 5. Unfortunately, he didn’t do much to impress in camp, producing a tepid .179/.294/.250 batting line.

Per the parameters of the Rule 5 draft, selected players cannot be optioned to the minors. In order to keep him, Atlanta would have had to carry Cairo on the active roster. They clearly weren’t willing to do so and let him go. Rule 5 players have to be put on waivers if they are not kept. Other clubs could claim them but would be bound by the same roster rules. Now that Cairo has been returned to the Guardians, he can provide them with some non-roster depth and try to earn his way to the big leagues the traditional way.

Erik Sabrowski Likely To Start Season On IL

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Guardians reliever Erik Sabrowski has not appeared in a game this spring as he nurses inflammation in his pitching elbow. While there is no indication that the issue is particularly serious, any elbow problems are concerning when it comes to a pitcher who has already undergone two Tommy John surgeries in his career. According to MLB.com’s Tim Stebbins, Sabrowski was given “an anti-inflammatory injection” this past week. The southpaw will take some time to rest before being re-examined next week – and hopefully starting a throwing program soon after. However, this setback means he is likely to begin the 2025 season on the IL.

Never a highly-ranked prospect, Sabrowski burst onto the scene last September, tossing 12 2/3 innings and striking out 19. Of the 47 batters he faced, not one crossed the plate. Only six reached base. Despite his lack of experience, the left-hander made Cleveland’s postseason roster and continued to impress in October. He faced 23 batters over 5 1/3 innings, striking out eight. He gave up two runs, though only one was earned.

The star of Sabrowski’s arsenal is his four-seam fastball. He doesn’t throw it especially hard, but his long extension increases the pitch’s perceived velocity. He also gets great movement on the pitch, and it’s his best weapon for generating swing and miss. The 27-year-old complements his heater with two breaking balls – a curveball and a slider – both of which have the potential to be plus secondaries.

After his strong performance in 2024, Sabrowski seemed like a good bet to make the Guardians’ Opening Day roster and pitch meaningful innings out of the bullpen in 2025. While the former is now unlikely, the latter is still a strong possibility. Not only is Sabrowski a promising arm – the ZiPS projection system sees him posting an ERA in the mid-3.00s – but he is one of only two left-handed relievers with MLB experience on Cleveland’s 40-man roster. With Sabrowski on the shelf, RosterResource currently has Tim Herrin and Doug Nikhazy as the lefties in the projected Opening Day bullpen. Herrin is a lock, but Nikhazy has no MLB experience and next to no experience pitching out of the ’pen. If Sabrowski can get back to full health soon, he should have a job waiting for him.

Tyler Naquin Converting To Pitching, Signs Minor League Deal With Guardians

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The Guardians announced that they have signed Tyler Naquin to a minor league contract, but that the longtime big league outfielder is attempting to move to the mound and is reporting as a right-handed pitcher.

Naquin, 34 in April, appeared in each big league season from 2016 to 2023. Most of that was with Cleveland, though he later went to the Reds, Mets and White Sox. Over those eight seasons, he got into 562 games, hitting 61 home runs and slashing .263/.316/.445 for a 101 wRC+. He spent most of 2023 in the minors, getting into just five big league games for the White Sox as the season was winding down. He didn’t sign anywhere for the 2024 campaign.

With his career as an outfielder seemingly stalled out, Naquin will try a late-career move to the mound. It’s a tough trick to pull off, but the Guardians have had one other such convert in the system in recent years. Anthony Gose is also an outfielder-turned-pitcher. He saw some action for the Guardians over the 2021-24 stretch, missing 2023 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He was outrighted off the roster in September and is now with the Mets on a minor league deal.

Naquin’s arm strength was an asset during his career. In 2020, when Statcast first started ranking arm strength, Naquin ranked in the 99th percentile. He dropped to the 98th and 94th percentile respectively over the next two seasons, but still quite a respectable position. He had 32 outfield assists in his career.

Whether he can harness that into effective results on the mound is anyone’s guess. For the Guardians, there’s no harm in bringing him aboard via a minor league deal to see how it goes. For the fans, it’s a fun and unique story involving a familiar face.

Offseason In Review: Cleveland Guardians

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The Guardians kept their longtime ace but traded their everyday first baseman ahead of his final season of club control. Their offseason featured a blend of creative trades to trim payroll and acquire controllable talent, plus some short-term spending on veterans to replace some of the big leaguers they traded away. It was a vintage Cleveland offseason that should keep them in the mix in what'll be a tightly contested AL Central.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $37.5MM
Total spending: $54.5MM

Option Decisions

  • None

Trades and Waiver Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

The Guardians entered the 2024-25 offseason looking to bolster a roster that made an unexpected run to the American League Championship Series. Cleveland faced decisions on some players with dwindling club control and, as is always the case, some notable payroll limitations. In a departure from most offseasons, however, the Guards found themselves in an unfamiliar position: needing to acquire starting pitching.

Cleveland has emerged as one of the industry leaders in maximizing its rotation output. At times, it feels as though they have an almost magical ability to produce quality starting pitchers out of thin air. In fact, when the Guardians signed righty Ben Lively to a one-year, $800K deal in the 2023-24 offseason, it was the first time they'd signed any free agent starter to a major league contract since inking Gavin Floyd back in 2014. Midway through the 2024 season, they did so again, signing Matthew Boyd to a major league contract.

Both moves worked out splendidly. Boyd started eight games down the stretch and produced a sub-3.00 ERA. Lively finished second on the club with 151 innings and notched a 3.81 ERA and stuck with the club as an arbitration-eligible player. He'll be back in the 2025 rotation. Boyd, however, hit free agency and did so alongside former Cy Young winner Shane Bieber and trade deadline acquisition Alex Cobb.

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Chase DeLauter Undergoes Core Muscle Surgery

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The Guardians announced that outfield prospect Chase DeLauter underwent surgery to address a core muscle/sports hernia injury this morning. As part of the announcement, the club relayed that similar cases have required players about eight to twelve weeks to return to play.

DeLauter, 23, is one of the club’s top prospects. The 16th overall pick from the 2022 draft, he has 406 minor league plate appearances under his belt thus far, having hit .317/.387/.517 in those for a 147 wRC+.

He isn’t yet on the club’s 40-man roster but he came into camp as a non-roster invitee. That technically put him in the competition for an Opening Day job, though that was always going to be a bit of a long shot. While he’s had strong results in terms of quality, injuries have stood in the way of quantity.

He was once projected as a potential top ten pick in the draft but a foot injury created some concern and caused him to fall to 16th. Recurring foot injuries have held him back since then, with DeLauter getting into just 57 minor league games in 2023 and 39 games in 2024.

Though his numbers have been good and he does have six Triple-A games on his track record already, the Guardians were likely planning to have him get more reps in a minor league environment to start 2025. That plan will now have to be delayed, as DeLauter should be on the shelf into May or June.

Given that injuries have already prevented him from building a notable workload, it’s less than ideal that this season is starting with yet another setback. Though if DeLauter is able to return in eight to twelve weeks, he would still have time to set a new career high in terms of games played in a professional season.

Once he gets healthy and into form, there could be a path to big league playing time in the Cleveland outfield. Steven Kwan and Lane Thomas should have left and center field spoken for, respectively, though Thomas is an impending free agent after 2025. Right field, DeLauter’s likely future position, will be handled by some combination of Will Brennan, Jhonkensy Noel and Johnathan Rodríguez. Both Noel and Rodríguez just debuted in the majors last year. Brennan has a bit more experience but with subpar offense and questionable defense.

In the long run, the Guards are surely still hoping for DeLauter to take up a job in that outfield mix, though he will ideally show some extended health at some point. For now, it’s yet another roadblock but hopefully one he can overcome in a few weeks/months. Even if he doesn’t push for a major league debut during the 2025 season, he’ll need to be added to the 40-man in December to be protected from the Rule 5 draft.

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