Guardians Claim Luis Oviedo From Pirates
The Guardians have claimed right-hander Luis Oviedo off waivers from the Pirates, reports John Dreker of Pirates Prospects (Twitter link). Pittsburgh had designated Oviedo for assignment last week. Cleveland had a vacancy on the 40-man roster, but they’ll need to create spots for both Anthony Castro and Yu Chang once those players are ready to be reinstated from the COVID-19 injured list.
Oviedo returns to his original organization. Cleveland signed the 6’4″ hurler out of Venezuela during the 2015-16 international signing period. He spent five seasons in their farm system, never advancing past Low-A. Oviedo’s numbers in the low minors weren’t great, but he worked in the mid-upper 90s with a sinker and had a pair of promising breaking pitches. Baseball America named him the #8 prospect in the organization entering the 2019 season, although he dipped to 18th the following year due to concerns about his control and minor league performance.
The canceled 2020 minor league season robbed Oviedo of a needed development year, and the Indians declined to add him to their 40-man roster that winter. Nevertheless, the Pirates nabbed him in the Rule 5 draft (via trade with the Mets) and carried him on the Opening Day roster. Oviedo stuck in Pittsburgh the entire season — albeit with a pair of injured list stints mixed in — and tossed 29 2/3 innings over his first 22 MLB outings.
As one would expect for a pitcher who had zero previous appearances above Low-A, Oviedo didn’t do well in his first big league look. He posted an 8.80 ERA while walking an untenable 17.7% of opponents. His fastball averaged nearly 95 MPH, however, and he generated quality swing-and-miss rates on each of his curveball and slider. The rebuilding Bucs were willing to live with his control woes last year, but he lost his spot on the 40-man roster after walking four and hitting two of the first 19 batters he faced in the minors this season.
Oviedo has still yet to reach his 23rd birthday. He owns intriguing stuff and is only in his first of three minor league option years. The Guardians are clearly of the belief he has a chance to blossom into a productive MLB pitcher down the road, although it’s obvious he at least needs more time in the minors to get to that point. If Oviedo sticks on Cleveland’s 40-man roster, they’ll have plenty of time to try to help him tap into that upside.
Guardians Promote Richie Palacios, Activate Luke Maile
The Guardians announced they’ve recalled left fielder/second baseman Richie Palacios to make his major league debut. Cleveland also activated catcher Luke Maile from the 10-day injured list. In corresponding moves, backstop Bryan Lavastida was optioned to Triple-A Columbus, while left-hander Kirk McCarty was returned to the minors and removed from the 40-man roster.
Palacios was already on the 40-man, having been selected before Rule 5 protection day last November. A third-round pick out of Towson in 2018, the left-handed hitter has played his way up the minor league ladder with strong numbers at every stop. Palacios had a nice run in the low minors during his post-draft summer, but he missed the entire 2019 campaign after tearing the labrum in his shoulder. The canceled 2020 minors season cost him another year, but the Brooklyn native played his way onto the 40-man roster with an impressive showing last year.
Splitting the season between Double-A Akron and Columbus, Palacios hit .297/.404/.471 in 428 plate appearances. While he only hit seven home runs, he rapped 33 doubles and swiped 20 bases. As his excellent on-base percentage attests, Palacios drew walks in a robust 13.6% of his plate appearances against just a 16.4% strikeout rate. Baseball America named him the #14 prospect in a deep Guardians’ farm system this winter, praising his hit tool, plate discipline and gap power while noting some questions about his best defensive fit.
The Guardians signed Maile to a one-year deal over the winter to serve as the #2 backstop behind Austin Hedges. He missed the first few weeks of the year with a left hamstring strain, leading Cleveland to turn to the 23-year-old Lavastida for a brief first look. He collected just one hit and three walks in 15 plate appearances, but that was to be expected for a player with just 36 games above High-A coming into the year. Lavastida will have a chance to get more regular reps at Triple-A with Maile back to spell Hedges as needed.
McCarty, meanwhile, was selected to the majors as a COVID substitute last week. Cleveland was without Cal Quantrill, Owen Miller and Anthony Castro at the time, but Quantrill and Miller have since made it back. Tanner Tully, who had also been selected as a COVID replacement, was returned to Columbus over the weekend. Cleveland now has one open 40-man roster spot, but both Castro and Yu Chang remain on the COVID injured list and will have to be reinstated once healthy.
AL Central Notes: Kwan, Tigers, Funkhouser, Manning, Mize, Kirilloff
The Guardians suffered a 10-2 defeat to the Yankees and also lost outfielder Steven Kwan to right hamstring tightness in the third inning. Kwan started the game in left field and made his first two plate appearances before being replaced in the field in the bottom of the third. Guardians manager Terry Francona told MLB.com’s Joe Trezza and other reporters that it was a “preventative” removal for Kwan, and that the outfielder is day-to-day.
Making his MLB debut on Opening Day, Kwan has been one of the season’s early stories, hitting a whopping .341/.456/.500 over his first 57 plate appearances. Quite a bit of that production came in Kwan’s first five games, yet there is still plenty of hope that the rookie can stick as Cleveland’s everyday left fielder. Depending on his hamstring’s status, however, Kwan might soon be making his first trip to the big league IL. Kwan missed almost seven weeks of the 2021 Triple-A season while dealing with a strain of that same right hamstring.
More injury updates from around the AL Central…
- Kyle Funkhouser has yet to pitch this season due to a right shoulder strain, and the Tigers moved him yesterday from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL. “We’re trying to resolve the symptoms before we can progress more aggressively,” Hinch said. “The timeline made it virtually impossible for him to be back prior to the 60 days,” manager A.J. Hinch told reporters (including The Detroit News’ Chris McCosky). Hinch also noted that Funkhouser is speaking with doctors about whether or not surgery could be required, so the reliever could be facing a much longer absence than just the minimum 60 days.
- In other Tigers news, Hinch said that Casey Mize will be resuming his throwing program today at the team’s spring training facility in Lakeland. Mize was placed on the 10-day IL on April 15 with a sprained MCL, though there were already early indications that the former first overall pick wouldn’t be out of action for too long, and that he has escaped a more serious injury. Matt Manning is also headed to Lakeland but won’t yet begin throwing, as his right shoulder was still feeling some discomfort when Manning threw off flat ground yesterday. Despite this update, Hinch said Manning didn’t have “a setback. It’s nothing we are overly concerned about. It’s just a slower ramp to playing catch before we get him back on the mound.”
- Twins outfielder Alex Kirilloff is slated to begin a Triple-A rehab assignment on Tuesday, according to multiple reporters (including Betsy Helfand of The St. Paul Pioneer Press). Right wrist inflammation sent Kirilloff to the injured list on April 13, so between the injury absence and a dismal 1-for-17 start to the season, Kirilloff will be looking for a reset once he returns to Minnesota’s lineup. Most importantly, Kirilloff and the Twins hope that this is the end of his wrist problems, as the former top prospect also underwent ligament surgery last year.
Guardians Reinstate Owen Miller
The Guardians are activating Owen Miller from the Covid-related injured list prior to today’s game, per Ryan Lewis of the Akron Beacon Journal. Konnor Pilkington is being optioned to make room for Miller on the active roster. Players on the Covid-IL don’t count against a team’s 40-man roster, but the club had an open spot, meaning they won’t be required to make a corresponding move in that regard.
Miller was one of several Guardians players who went on the Covid-IL last week. That interrupted an otherworldly start to the season for Miller, who hit .500/.545/.964 in his first nine games. That amounts to a wRC+ of 334. That’s obviously a very small sample, but it’s nonetheless encouraging for a Cleveland team that was widely expected to have strong pitching but mediocre offense. In order to stay competitive in a strong American League playoff race, they will need some of the young players on their roster, like the 25-year-old Miller, to take steps forward.
With Miller’s return, the club’s 40-man roster is now full. However, Yu Chang and Anthony Castro aren’t currently occupying spots due to being on the Covid-IL and will need to be added back once they are available to return.
As for Pilkington, the 24-year-old was just called up in recent days and made his MLB debut, throwing five scoreless innings with five strikeouts and just a single walk.
AL Central Notes: Guardians, Plesac, Quantrill, Tully, White Sox, Anderson
White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson has been served a one-game suspension for making an obscene gesture towards the fans at Progressive Field, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com (via Twitter). Anderson apologized for the gesture. He’s appealing as well, so the suspension will not occur right away. Let’s stay in Cleveland for a few other updates…
- The Athletic’s Zack Meisel thinks the Guardians are probably done handing out extensions for now. Shane Bieber is the big name remaining without an extension, with Franmil Reyes often mentioned as another player on that hypothetical list, despite his slow start to the season. Both Bieber and Reyes are set to enter free agency following the 2024 season.
- On another payroll note, starter Zach Plesac is making $2MM this season, despite still being a year shy of arbitration. The contract is the result of a league and union decision stemming from the Guardians’ treatment of Plesac after he violated the team’s COVID protocols in 2020. The Guardians can certainly afford the small bump in payroll, as they’re still well under $80MM in terms of total contributions for the season.
- Cal Quantrill has been cleared to return from the COVID-19 list and he will start today’s ballgame, per Joe Trezza of MLB.com (via Twitter). Tanner Tully will head back to Triple-A to make room on the active roster, notes Meisel (via Twitter). Tully tossed two innings in last night’s loss, serving up one earned run on two hits and a walk.
Guardians Announce Several Roster Moves
11:20am: Mandy Bell of MLB.com relays word from manager Terry Francona, who confirms that Quantrill, Miller and Castro are on the Covid-IL. Zack Meisel of The Athletic provides a quote from Francona, who says “I don’t know that we’re out of the woods yet. I hope we are, but I don’t know that that’s going to be the case. We’ll see.”
10:45am: The Guardians announced a series of transactions prior to today’s doubleheader against the White Sox, placing right-hander Cal Quantrill, infielder Owen Miller and righty Anthony Castro on the injured list. No designation was provided, likely indicating that all three are being placed on the Covid-related IL. In their place, Cleveland has selected the contracts of right-hander Enyel De Los Santos and lefties Kirk McCarty and Tanner Tully. Additionally, top shortstop prospect Gabriel Arias is up as the 29th man for today’s twin bill — as first reported last night by Andrea Alejandra Gil of Brujula Deportiva 106.3 FM in Maracay, Venezuela (Twitter link).
It’s not clear whether any of the players placed on the injured list today tested positive or have been deemed close contacts and thus require testing that leaves them unavailable for today’s games. The 2022 health and safety protocols jointly agreed upon by MLB and the MLBPA technically call for a 10-day absence for players who test positive, but players are able to return more quickly than that — provided they receive a pair of negative PCR tests, show no signs of fever and are then subsequently approved by a team medical staffer and a joint committee of one MLB-appointed and one MLBPA-appointed medical expert. Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo, for instance, returned to the team in less than half that 10-day window.
Of the players added to the big league roster today, only De Los Santos has prior MLB experience. A well-regarded prospect during his time with the Padres and the Phillies, De Los Santos debuted with Philadelphia in 2018 but has yet to carry his strong Triple-A production over to the big league level. He’s seen action in parts of three MLB seasons but carries a 6.06 ERA in 65 1/3 innings. De Los Santos has fanned 24% of his opponents against a 10% walk rate, but he’s also yielded an average of 1.9 homers per nine frames — far too many to succeed over any lengthy sample. He’s fared vastly better in Triple-A, where he sports a career 3.37 ERA in 237 2/3 innings and just 1.1 HR/9.
The 27-year-old Tully, meanwhile, was a 26th-rounder back in 2015 who posted a 3.50 ERA in 113 innings between Double-A and Triple-A last year. He’s never posted particularly high strikeout or ground-ball rates, but Tully has walked only 4.5% of the hitters he’s faced in his pro career.
McCarty, 26, was Cleveland’s seventh-rounder back in 2017 and has gotten out to a fast start in Triple-A Columbus, holding opponents to one run on seven hits and five walks with a dozen punchouts through 11 1/3 innings. He was knocked around for a 5.01 ERA in 124 Triple-A frames a year ago.
As for Arias, the 22-year-old infielder is regarded as a potential key piece down the line for the Guardians. Acquired from the Padres (alongside Miller and Quantrill) in the trade that sent Mike Clevinger to San Diego, Arias entered the season ranked among the game’s top 100 prospects at Baseball America (No. 100), MLB.com (No. 73), Baseball Prospectus (No. 57), FanGraphs (No. 95) and ESPN (No. 73).
Arias hit .284/.348/.454 with 13 home runs, 29 doubles, three triples and five steals in 483 trips to the plate last season, and he’s out to a near-identical start in 2022, hitting .278/.350/.472 in 40 plate appearances. He’s starting at second base in Game 1 of today’s doubleheader.
In all likelihood, it’ll be a one-day look for the highly touted Arias, but he’ll give Cleveland fans a brief glimpse of the future. The fact that he’s both on the 40-man roster and being considered for roles like this speak to his general proximity to MLB readiness, and it wouldn’t be a surprise at all if he were to get a lengthier audition at some point in 2022. Amed Rosario and Andres Gimenez are getting a good portion of the middle-infield time early in the season, but Rosario has at least some outfield experience and, of course, injuries are inevitable over the course of a 162-game schedule. Arias is one of many high-end middle infield prospects in the upper levels of the Cleveland system; Brayan Rocchio, Tyler Freeman and Jose Tena, among others, have all received a good bit of fanfare.
Details On Jose Ramirez’s Contract Extension
Shortly before Opening Day, the Guardians and star José Ramírez agreed to an extension that’ll keep him in Cleveland through the 2028 campaign. Ramírez was already under club control for two seasons at a combined $26MM via a pair of options, and it was initially reported the team would lock in those options while tacking on $124MM over five subsequent years.
That’s not quite the case, as Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports (on Twitter) that Ramírez will be guaranteed $141MM over seven seasons. That comes out to $115MM in new money (assuming the Guardians would’ve exercised their 2023 option). It’s treated as a seven-year deal with an average annual value of approximately $20.1MM for competitive balance tax purposes, although it seems likely Cleveland’s payroll won’t approach luxury tax levels anyhow.
Heyman specifies the year-by-year breakdown of the extension:
2022: $22MM
2023: $14MM
2024: $17MM
2025: $19MM
2026: $21MM
2027: $23MM
2028: $25MM
Ramírez’s deal contains a full no-trade clause, as initially reported. It also includes various incentives upon awards finishes. While the guarantee is a bit lighter than initially believed, the three-time All-Star makes more money up-front than he would’ve had the Guardians simply tacked on five seasons of new money in 2024 and beyond.
He’d initially been set to play this season on a $12MM salary, but he’ll nearly double that figure with this new agreement. The deal brings Cleveland’s player payroll for this season up to around $69MM, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource. That’s well above last season’s approximate $50MM mark, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, although it still checks in 27th league-wide.
Guardians, Myles Straw Agree To Five-Year Extension
The Guardians and Myles Straw have agreed to a five-year contract extension, with club options covering the 2027 and 2028 seasons, per Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The deal is worth $25MM, per Mandy Bell of MLB.com, with the options valued at $8MM in 2027 and $8.5MM in 2028. This is the third extension for the club in recent days, following the deals for Emmanuel Clase and Jose Ramirez.
Straw was drafted by the Astros in the 12th round in 2015 and earned attention in the minors for his speed and defense. He stole at least 20 bags in the minors in his first three season in 2015-2017, before swiping 70 bags between Double-A and Triple-A in 2018. He was ranked by Baseball America as one of Houston’s top 20 prospects in 2018 and 2019. That latter season, he saw his first extended stretch of MLB action, hitting .269/.378/.343 in 56 games, along with eight steals.
At last year’s deadline, he was acquired by a Cleveland team that was looking to fill an outfield that had been mired in uncertainty for quite some time. Between the two teams, he hit .271/.349/.348. That production was just barely below league average (98 wRC+), though Straw was better after the trade than before. He also stole 30 bases on the year and provided excellent defense, coming in seventh among center fielders in the 2021 Fielding Bible Award voting. Desperate that average-ish batting line, he was still worth 3.7 wins above replacement, in the estimation of FanGraphs, due to his athleticism in the field and on the bases. He should now give the team a stable presence in the middle of the outfield for years to come.
Straw finished last year with two years and 112 days of service time, just four days shy of the 2.116 Super Two cutoff for the most recent offseason. That means he wasn’t going to qualify for arbitration until after this year. This deal will cover his four remaining years of team control and at least one free agent year, with the options potentially accounting for two more. The 27-year-old Straw will be 31 in the final guaranteed year, with the options covering his age-32 and age-33 campaigns.
Prior to this extension, and the deals for Clase and Ramirez, the Guardians had a clean slate on their payroll beyond this year. Now all three of them could potentially form a core for the club to build around, with each player under control through 2028. (Ramirez’s deal is guaranteed, while Clase and Straw are each guaranteed through 2026 with the two club options.) The majority of the rest of the roster is young players who have either not yet reached or just recently qualified for arbitration.
With the White Sox still looking like division favorites, the Twins aggressively reloading after a down year and the Tigers and Royals both coming out of rebuilds, the division looks like it is on the cusp of becoming stronger in the years to come. Even with these deals, the Guardians still have plenty of payroll flexibility, even for a typically low-spending club like them, with Ramirez still earning the only significant salary in the years to come.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Guardians Trade Bradley Zimmer To Blue Jays For Anthony Castro
The Guardians have announced that they have traded outfielder Bradley Zimmer to the Blue Jays in exchange for right-hander Anthony Castro.
For the Blue Jays, this is the second trade in recent weeks where they’ve added a speedy outfielder with a left-handed bat as a complement to their lineup of right-handed power bats, with the other being Raimel Tapia. Zimmer was selected by Cleveland as the 21st overall pick in the 2014 draft and made his debut in 2017. He didn’t hit a ton, putting up a line of .241/.307/.385 for a wRC+ of just 79 in 101 games. However, he did steal 18 bases and get favorable reviews for his work in the field, which helped him earn a mark of 1.6 wins above replacement, in the estimation of FanGraphs.
Unfortunately, Zimmer has never been able to top that mark since. He started 2018 with the big league club but struggled over 34 games and got optioned down to the minors. A shoulder injury suffered that year wiped out the remainder of his 2018 and most of his 2019 as well. Over 2020 and 2021, he got into 119 big league games and showed a similar profile to his rookie year. The batting line was fairly tepid, coming in at .220/.329/.333 for a wRC+ of 88, but with 17 steals and good defense. On the other hand, he did strike out in 34.2% of his plate appearances, something that has been a persistent issue with him throughout his big league career.
As a lefty hitter, he’s better versus righties but doesn’t have drastic platoon splits for his career. With the Jays featuring a starting outfield of right-handed batters George Springer, Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Zimmer and Tapia will likely be competing for given those guys the occasional day on the bench or in the DH slot, giving the lineup a different look.
It seems Zimmer was nudged out of the plans in Cleveland, as he didn’t crack the lineup in today’s season opener, with Myles Straw, Amed Rosario and Steven Kwan getting the starting nods on the grass. Blue Jays president/CEO Mark Shapiro and general manager Ross Atkins were both working in the Cleveland front office at the time Zimmer was drafted and are clearly willing to take a shot that the 29-year-old can still be valuable. His defense was estimated to be worth seven Outs Above Average by Statcast last year, meaning he can be a productive player even without any offensive improvement. Though development in that department will surely be a goal of his new team. He qualified for arbitration for the first time this year and settled on a salary of $1.3MM. He can be controlled through the 2024 season.
As for the Guardians, they’ve subtracted a player who wasn’t likely to see significant playing time and is out of options, while adding an optionable reliever to their bullpen mix. Castro made his MLB debut in 2020 with Detroit but pitched just a single inning. After going to the Jays on a waiver claim, he was able to log 24 2/3 innings in the bigs last year with a 4.74 ERA, 29.4% strikeout rate and 7.3% walk rate. The 26-year-old has an option year remaining and just over a year of service time, meaning he could be controlled by the Guardians for years to come.
Guardians Extend Jose Ramirez
Jose Ramirez won’t be going anywhere. The star infielder has agreed to a new five-year extension with the Guardians that will see his 2023 club option picked up and another five seasons and $124MM tacked onto his contract, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Ramirez’s contract now runs through 2028 and contains a full no-trade clause as well, all but ensuring that he’ll remain in Cleveland for the long haul. The Guardians did explore trade scenarios while simultaneously discussing an extension, Passan adds, noting that the Padres in particular believed they had a chance to pry him away. Ramirez is represented by Repulik Sports.
The new contract is the largest in franchise history but will still be regarded as a club-friendly deal. Ramirez has emerged as one of the game’s elite players at a time when annual salaries well north of $30MM have become commonplace, but the switch-hitting 29-year-old has been “adamant” about his desire to remain in Cleveland during negotiations, tweets Zack Meisel of The Athletic. Ramirez was already set to earn $12MM this year, and next year’s now-exercised option came with a $14MM value, so he’ll now be guaranteed a total of $150MM over the next seven seasons.
Prior to this new deal with Ramirez and this week’s extension of closer Emmanuel Clase, the Guardians didn’t have a single dollar committed to the payroll beyond the 2022 season. Locking up Ramirez now puts any near-term trade chatter to bed and sets him up to serve as a focal point in the lineup through what will be his age-35 season. Ramirez’s contract clocks in south of the $151MM extension signed by Altuve at a similar juncture of his career and well shy of Nolan Arenado‘s $234MM extension with the Rockies (although Arenado was just months from free agency, whereas both Altuve and Ramirez were controlled through the upcoming season and one more via an affordable club option). Maxing out his annual salary doesn’t appear to have been as large a priority as staying with the team that originally signed and developed him, however, and Ramirez’s new deal obviously offers more than a lifetime’s worth of financial comfort.
It’s a major win for the Guardians and their fans to keep Ramirez locked in as the face of the franchise as the team kicks off a new era in its franchise history. Trading Ramirez just one year after trading away Francisco Lindor and just months after a name change/rebranding that was far from universally praised by the fan base would’ve been a tough pill for many longtime Cleveland fans to swallow.
Instead, Ramirez will continue to show off his electric brand of across-the-board excellence at Progressive Field for more than a half decade. While he first broke out as an above-average player back in 2016, it was the 2017 season that saw Ramirez jump into the ranks of MVP-caliber talents — and he hasn’t looked back since. Dating back to 2017, Ramirez boasts a .280/.365/.547 batting line (39 percent better than league average, by measure of wRC+) with 144 home runs, 112 stolen bases (in 134 attempts) and strong defense at both third base and second base. There’s virtually no flaw in Ramirez’s game — evidenced by the fact that he trails only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts in total Wins Above Replacement, per FanGraphs, since 2017.
The extensions for Ramirez and Clase come at a time when the Guardians are set to welcome a wave of high-end young talent to a roster that is, once again, deep in talented young pitchers. Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Triston McKenzie, Zach Plesac and Cal Quantrill give Cleveland a strong collection of big league rotation pieces, and touted righty Daniel Espino isn’t far behind that quintet. On the position-player side of things, outfielder George Valera and infielders Brayan Rocchio, Tyler Freeman, Gabriel Arias and Nolan Jones (who’s also seen time in the outfield) could all be up in the big leagues by 2023 — some of them as soon as during the 2022 season.
That collection of young talent simultaneously gives Cleveland good cause to lock Ramirez into place and also provides the typically low-payroll club the ability to dedicate a significant portion of its annual budget to one player in just this manner. The Guardians will need to make a similar decision on their ace, Bieber, before too long, as he’s controlled another three seasons and will see his price tag continue to mount through the arbitration process.
With Ramirez putting pen to paper on a second club-friendly extension, however, it stands to reason that the team has a bit of extra leeway in trying to piece together an extension for the 26-year-old right-hander. The Marlins’ five-year, $56MM for Sandy Alcantara is the largest ever extension for a pitcher in Bieber’s service bracket. If the team waits until next year, the extension record for that four-plus service bracket jumps considerably; Jacob deGrom signed a five-year, $137.5MM deal in that same bracket. Bieber won’t have quite that same earning capacity, as deGrom was a Super Two player whose second-year arb price had already soared to $17MM — Bieber is not Super Two-eligible and is earning $6MM in his first year of arb in 2022 — but the gap in those two records still serves to illustrate the likely hike in Bieber’s eventual price tag.
Regardless of whether Cleveland keeps Bieber, goes year-to-year or even eventually considers trading him, the Guardians’ future looks quite a bit brighter with Ramirez now etched firmly into cornerstone status. And if the team prefers not to spend big money to keep Bieber in place alongside him, that’ll only further allow the front office to make some free-agent investments to supplement the burgeoning young core. It’s not likely that we’ll ever see Cleveland dive headlong into the deep end of the free-agent pool, of course, but some second-tier spending to surround Ramirez and whichever of the team’s prospects emerge as regulars will eventually be required if the Guardians hope to keep pace in an increasingly competitive AL Central.
The White Sox are currently the AL Central favorites, due in no small part to their own exciting young core and some key investments in veterans on the free-agent and trade markets. The Twins, meanwhile, have a series of young pitchers on the cusp of the big leagues and shocked the baseball world with their offseason signing of Carlos Correa, which firmly signaled there’s no intent to rebuild after a lost year in 2021. Detroit and Kansas City are both emerging from longstanding rebuilding efforts themselves and are set to welcome some of the sport’s premier prospects to the Majors when the season opens (Spencer Torkelson in Detroit, Bobby Witt Jr. in Kansas City).
The shifting landscape in the Central makes it all the more pivotal for the Guardians to not only retain Ramirez but to succeed with their own player-development efforts and to spend at least some money to supplement that group. Cleveland will probably always have the division’s lowest payroll, at least when all five Central clubs are aiming to contend, but successfully bartering a team-friendly extension with a superstar talent of Ramirez’s caliber helps to narrow the the edge that other division rivals may have in terms of their overall financial resources. Beyond that, a long-term deal for a face-of-the-franchise player of this nature is cause for any team’s fan base to celebrate. Ramirez jerseys ought to be flying off the shelves now in Cleveland, as Ramirez could spend the next seven seasons looking to add to his already-impressive collection of three Silver Sluggers, three All-Star nods and four top-six MVP finishes.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.