A Hater’s Guide to the AL Central: Cleveland Guardians

Published On: March 18, 2025By 0 Comments on A Hater’s Guide to the AL Central: Cleveland Guardians

  This article is presented by Antonio’s Italian Cucina

Ohio is a miserable state, filled with miserable teams and miserable individuals. If it were up to me, we’d annex Cedar Point, and then finish off what we started in 1835. Part of what causes my scorn for Ohio is the fact that they always have teams and individuals that are just a total ass-pain to deal with: from Trevor Bauer to Lebron James, Jim Thome to Anderson Varejao. The Detroit Tigers were the feel good story of the MLB postseason. We were undoubtedly the best “vibes” team remaining in the playoffs when we went to the divisional round, and who fucked all that up? That’s right: 

Cleveland Guardians

 

2024 Record: 92-69 

2025 Projection: 2nd in AL Central

FUN FACT: How many years do you think it’s been since Cleveland won a World Series? Go ahead, think about it.

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77 YEARS

For a franchise that has been around forever and had two movies featuring Charlie Sheen, you’d think they’d have won a World Series more recently than, I dunno, the Truman presidency.

 

Projected Starting Lineup:  

 

1B: Carlos Santana

2B: Juan Brito

SS: Brayan Rocchio

3B: Jose Ramirez

LF: Steven Kwan

CF: Lane Thomas

RF: Will Brennan

C: Bo Naylor

DH: Kayle Manzardo

 

Projected Starting Rotation:

 

Tanner Bibee

Ben Lively

Gavin Williams

Traistan McKenzie

Joey Cantillo

 

Key Offseason Acquisitions:

1B Carlos Santana (FA/Twins)

RHP Slade Cecconi (Trade/Diamondbacks)

RHP Luis Ortiz (Trade/Pirates)

 

Key Offseason Departures:

1B Josh Naylor (Trade/Diamondbacks)

RHP Eli Morgan (Trade/Cubs)

RHP Connor Gillespie (FA)

RHP Alex Cobb (FA/Tigers)

RHP Peter Strzelecki (Trade/Pirates)

2B Andres Gimenez (Trade/Blue Jays)

RHP Nick Sandlin (Trade/Blue Jays)

 

Cleveland is frustrating because they’re one of those franchises that drafts players, brings them up, gets production out of them, lets them sign for big money elsewhere, and you sit there and go “damn, I can’t believe they let that guy walk”, and then they bring up their replacement, and they end up being really good as well, and you go “well shit” and the whole cycle repeats itself over and over. They’re kind of like Oakland, if Oakland didn’t suck absolute ass once they let their star players sign elsewhere.

 

Let’s go through some reasons for hope:

 

Bullpen                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

In the playoff series last year, Cleveland tried to imitate Detroit’s bullpen madness, and it ended up working out pretty well for them due to the relative strength of their bullpen (except one guy, who we’ll talk about later). Cleveland’s bullpen reminds me a bit of the Kansas City Royals, the year they won the World Series. If their starters can manage to get to the 7th inning, they’ve got dudes that can dominate the rest of the game.

Hitting

Quite simply, Cleveland has guys that can hit the shit out of the ball. Jose Ramirez is a shoo-in for 30+ home runs a season at this point, and Carlos Santana, despite being like 100, still provides discipline and consistent offensive output at the plate. Rookie Juan Brito is going to be a downgrade from gold-glove winning second baseman Andres Gimenez, but should provide more offensive upside, specifically in regard to power. Plus, they’ve got this rookie named Jhonkensy Noel, whose nickname is “Big Christmas”, which is admittedly a pretty great nickname, especially if the guy hits bombs like he’s projected to do.

Organizational Stability

Cleveland is one of those franchises that makes smart moves that aren’t necessarily sexy, but are effective. When Francona left, I was the first to start predicting their downfall; unfortunately, Stephen Vogt seems like an all-around vibe guy that is steady and even-keel. Oh, and he won AL Manager of the Year (even though Hinch should’ve won. Fuck you.)  Plus, they really haven’t had much change in their front office- they’re almost ten years into the same President and GM, with a World Series trip and multiple deep playoff runs in their tenure. Despite my most sincere wishes, Cleveland just isn’t an organization marked by dumb shit and clown management.

 

Reasons why it could turn to shit:

 

Playoff Busts

It’s hard to figure out what kind of performance you’re going to get out of guys that you’re relying heavily on, specifically Emmanuel Clase and Lane Thomas. I distinctly remember a couple of buddies proclaiming that Clase was dominant and going to shit all over Tigers hitters: cutscene, he goes full Jose Valverde in key closing moments against the Tigers.

And remember Lane Thomas, the guy that hit a grand slam of Tarik Skubal in Game 5? Yeah, he disappeared in the ALCS. So, the question is: who are these guys? Do they return to their regular season form? Or, does their collapse in pivotal moments in the postseason portend their fall? Hopefully it’s the latter.

 

Postseason Performance

The Guardians, since 2016, have been really good about making the postseason. Winning in the postseason? Different story. They’re 10-20 in the playoffs since their 3-1 collapse against the Cubs in the 2016 World Series, and while organizational stability has been a plus, I do wonder if they have the right people in place to get to the next level. Say what you want, but at a certain point, they’re just not in the same tier as teams like the Dodgers, Phillies, Braves, Mets, etc. I do wonder if getting rid of guys like Naylor and Gimenez was a way to spice things up in the bedroom. I guess we’ll see.

 

Starting Pitching

As I mentioned before, if your pitching strategy is “just get to the bullpen”, that usually means most of your starters are kind of ass. Perhaps such a case can be made for Cleveland, a team that had a collective ERA of 4.40 amongst the 14 starters they trotted out (not hyperbole). Shane Beiber won’t actually be available until June at the earliest, and coming off Tommy John surgery, we’ll have to see how cavalier (see what I did there) Cleveland will be with his usage. Gavin Williams is a big ass lefty, but hitters figured him out in the second half of the season last year, diminishing his overall effectiveness. I think one of my favorite projections I’ve read for Tanner Bibee is “durable starter who throws strikes”- which sounds like some shit you would say about the 3rd best starter on a 14U travel baseball team. Bibee is fine, and filled in admirably during Beiber’s absence, but no one is fully torqued when they hear that he’s taking the mound.

 

Cleveland will be competitive over the course of the regular season, but they feel like an organization that is just treading water. They didn’t get significantly better over the off-season, but they didn’t take a huge step back either. I think Cleveland’s biggest issue is that the AL Central is undoubtedly getting tougher with the Tigers and Royals showing vast improvement over what they’ve been for the majority of the last eight years. But, this is what Cleveland has always been: the team that is usually good enough to warrant paying attention to, but not really exciting enough to do anything beyond that. I feel like the move that most epitomizes Cleveland was back in 2011, when the Tigers and Cleveland were in a race in the AL Central. Cleveland went and got Ubaldo Jimenez; The Tigers, Doug Fister. Jimenez performed “meh” the rest of the season, and Doug Fister was exceptional for the next few years. The Tigers ran away with the division, and Cleveland fell 15 games back from 1st place. Such is life as a Cleveland fan. All promise. No results. At least you have Kid Cudi. He’s pretty cool.

 

RIP to the 2025 Cleveland Guardians.

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