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Why the Guardians will win over 100 games this year

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Wham with the Right Hand said:
I was reading an analysis of Oscar Gonzalez which revealed he had the second highest swing percentage in the majors and also the second highest chase percentage. He was an extremely aggressive swinger as a rookie, but despite chasing more bad pitches than any player except one, he hit .296/.789, indicating he has tremendous bat-to-ball skills. His maximum exit velocity was in the 91st percentile, so less than 10% of hitters ever hit a ball harder than Oscar last year.

I suppose this could go either way. Pitchers, now well aware that he's an extreme free swinger, could toy with him this year with teasers off the zone. Or, Oscar could develop juuust a little more plate discipline and cut down his chase rate by 10% or so, which could drive his BA and OPS over .300 and .800, respectively.

What I love about Oscar is that the last 30 days of the season, covering 121 AB's, he hit .322/.877, indicating that pitchers didn't exactly figure out how to get him out as the season went along. If anything, he started figuring them out.

He also had a walk-off home run in the 15th against Tampa and a walk-off single against the Yankees, both in the playoffs. The moment was not too big for him.

One thing that concerns me is his batting average with runners on was 80 points lower than his average with nobody on base (.333 versus .253). My guess is he tries too hard to drive in runs and chases more bad pitches with runners on. If he can learn to be more patient at the plate, especially with runners on, he could be a .300/.850 guy with speed on the bases and a gun in right field.
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Of our 2 big rookies from last season, (Kwan and Gonzales) - Oscar is the wildcard.

With Kwan I think we know what we have. He should always have a good contact rate. His stats should be fairly consistent.
But with Oscar - if he can work on his game, and improve just a little bit, we could have something very special.
When was the last time the G's/Indians had regular corner outfielders.
 
I Love Oscar Gonzales. He got better the longer he played, but his lack of defensive/baserunning instinct and k/bb data are pretty worrisome.
I do think he's a slight net positive in RF.
 
Zach Meisel in a discussion of the AL Central in The Athletic:

I’ll say this about the Guardians: They addressed their primary deficiencies by adding first baseman/DH Josh Bell to replace the Franmil Reyes/Owen Miller disaster and catcher Mike Zunino to replace the Austin Hedges/Luke Maile disaster. And even though they had 17 major-league debuts last season, we still haven’t seen their top prospects, who could arrive this summer. All of that said, there’s still a wide array of potential outcomes for the Guardians. They’ll be leaning on some significant question marks, such as Oscar Gonzalez, Aaron Civale, Zach Plesac and Myles Straw. They do have depth, though, if things go awry. I still think another established starting pitcher (a No. 2-3 type) or another right-handed bat would help, but I suspect those moves will be addressed, if needed, in July. (For what it’s worth, Cleveland’s payroll is projected to be in the neighborhood of $85 million, or a little more than half of the Twins’ payroll.)
 
The White Sox writer had this:

I watched too many games to not understand the rampant White Sox cynicism, but a core with the talent level of Luis Robert, Eloy Jiménez, Tim Anderson, Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn — all right, I’m not going to list the whole roster, but this team should have a reasonably high ceiling. And I’m more than willing to entertain the idea that the difference a new manager could make with this group is … significant. Talking about hitting home runs is the first step toward actually hitting them, perhaps.

But Cleveland’s potential to respond to shortfalls in performance with major-league-ready farm depth is not something the White Sox can presently match.
 
What happened to Carlos Baerga in 1996 to cause such a steep decline? I can’t remember.
 
Cleveland is the Reason said:
There were some rumors of off the field things circulating downtown Cleveland back in the day that I remember. Lived downtown in the 90s and him and his friends used to be regulars at Club 1148 and the Beach Club.
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Yeah, I think the Indians moved on quickly because of the off the field / out of shape issues. Plus, lack of range to play 2B.
But this is MLB, and sometimes guys just lose it - like that.
It's a shame because everybody loved him. Big fan favorite.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Of our 2 big rookies from last season, (Kwan and Gonzales) - Oscar is the wildcard.

With Kwan I think we know what we have. He should always have a good contact rate. His stats should be fairly consistent.
But with Oscar - if he can work on his game, and improve just a little bit, we could have something very special.
When was the last time the G's/Indians had regular corner outfielders.
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Agreed. I don't see much variance in Kwan's game, but if Oscar can display just a smidge more discipline he could really be something.
 
The Oi said:
What happened to Carlos Baerga in 1996 to cause such a steep decline? I can’t remember.
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Some asshole got him on a Carlos Seagull conservation kick, he lost his drive for the game and his production simply cratered.
 
macbdog said:
Some asshole got him on a Carlos Seagull conservation kick, he lost his drive for the game and his production simply cratered.
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Jesus. I hope whomever influenced Carlos is no longer doing whatever they were doing whenever they first influenced him. Especially not at a relatively high volume.

Speaking of Birds…

I actually heard Carlos ravaged his body (and screwed up his swing plane) spending the ‘95 offseason using his bat like a machete to clear many of the trails now used for the Cleveland Metroparks System. Much as Larry Bird permanently destroyed his back grading that driveway for that asshole mother of his.

Another legend lost to offseason mistakes.

Don’t even get me started on Kellen Winslow…
 
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I actually met Carlos Baerga at a Browns game in 1994 at Municipal Stadium. I was an 11 year old kid with my dad and had to pee during the 3rd quarter of the game against the Patriots in early November (we won that game 13-6!).

My dad waited outside of the bathroom as I made my way to the piss trough and I'll never forget it... Carlos Baerga was walking up at the same time as me wearing what I can only describe as a 1970s/80s leisure suit. As we both pissed in the trough, Carlos looks at me, grins, and starts rapidly shaking one of his legs until a small turd rolled out of his pant leg. As soon as it happened, he tucked back in, kissed his cross necklace, winked at me, and walked away without washing his hands.

It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
 
I remember seeing Alvaro Espinoza in 1996 playing with his little Louisville Slugger in the stairwell of the operation center at the old Charter One Bank on Superior & East 12th….

I didn’t recognize him without his goggles on at first… Glad I didn’t hit that stairwell a little later….
 
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