2023 Cleveland Guardians Season Thread

ZinAZ said:

Ya but being a RH platoon guy is a tough gig. I think Noel would really struggle with the limited playing time.

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I agree there...

I really wanted to get a veteran utility for the bench to take those last 200 ABs (Aka Clements spot in 22) which has gone to Freeman for some reason...

I actually wanted to get IKF from the Yankees and move Rosario. I wanted IKF as the bench guy while giving one of the youngsters the starting spot...

IKF, though has stunk with the bat, but that's not as important in the reserved role since he is a way better fielder than Amed...

CalBuckeyeRob said:

The mistake they made was not trading him to free the spot to allow someone else to get a chance to succeed or fail regardless of the return. A year ago they had a bunch of MIF prospects and needed to find a 2B and SS for the long term. Gimenez performed and they committed to him. Now they need a long term SS (or 2B if the slide Gimenez over) and they still have a bunch of MIF that are getting fewer chances to fail on the field. I am not sure if Arias, Freeman or Rocchio might be a solution, but I would hate to lose any of them without giving them a fair shot to play when Rosario is the reason they are not playing.

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Man! I swear I've heard this somewhere here before.

Noel isn't anywhere near ready for ML pitching. He can certainly run into one from time to time, but his approach has a ways to go.

Edited to say that isn't a knock on him. For crying out loud he's 21 yrs old and by all rights should be in Lynchburg.

Fun fact: Tyler Freeman is now 4th in Guardians position player fWAR.

KluberSociety said:

Fun fact: Tyler Freeman is now 4th in Guardians position player fWAR.

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Think you meant to say "SAD" Fact -- really, when he has only 20 PAs total. And, if I can play an inning or two and be better then 4-5 players (who have negative war), that is just pathetic.

petes999 said:

Think you meant to say "SAD" Fact -- really, when he has only 20 PAs total. And, if I can play an inning or two and be better then 4-5 players (who have negative war), that is just pathetic.

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Yeah it's Ramirez - Gimenez (despite struggles) - Kwan (despite semi-struggles) - Freeman

The rest of the roster outside of the top 3 (who also led last year in fWAR) has basically provided nothing.

Gs need to give this guy a shot. Yeah, it's probably smoke and mirrors... But what if it's not? And spare me that they cant use, or find a place for, a bat like that.

Criznit said:

Is there anybody out there besides @rcristal who is actually advocating for Amed Rosario to continue getting playing time at SS over Arias, Feeeman, Rocchio?

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I , absolutely admit that I was wrong. I love the young man's hustle and attitude. However, he has no plate discipline and his obvious natural athletic ability aside, his skills are not a fit at shortstop.
Having said that, I would definitely want him on my team in some role.
Rcristal

rcristal said:

I , absolutely admit that I was wrong. I love the young man's hustle and attitude. However, he has no plate discipline and his obvious natural athletic ability aside, his skills are not a fit at shortstop.
Having said that, I would definitely want him on my team in some role.
Rcristal

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He should have been converted to center field early in his pro career. He absolutely has the speed for the position and being a .280 singles hitter would not be a negative if he was a plus defender at a key position. His bat plays at SS but the glove isn't there.

As I said in the Cardinals' game day preview, these next 23 days will be critical. It starts with three home games against the Cardinals, who have a losing record but have won 13 of their last 18. They are on a roll.

After that five of the next six series are against winning teams, with the exception being a series in San Diego against the 23-27 Padres.

The cold weather excuse no longer plays, nor does the early season excuse. At 21-28 they can no longer say their record is the same as this time last year. They need to start playing much better immediately or the season will be lost by June 18. If they go 8-15 between now and then they will be 14 games under .500 at the halfway point.

Or not. The Twins also have a brutal schedule coming up; their next series are against Toronto, Houston, Cleveland (4 games in Minnesota), Tampa, Toronto, and Milwaukee. Those are all winning teams, except the Guardians. Then they have nine games against Baltimore, Boston, and Atlanta in the last half of June. Their other six games in June are against the Tigers, who have won 13 of 21.

So both the Guardians and Twins are looking at a very tough stretch of schedule over the next 3-4 weeks. We could get to the end of June with the first place team in the Central several games under .500.

Guards Season….

Woot

Wham with the Right Hand said:

He should have been converted to center field early in his pro career. He absolutely has the speed for the position and being a .280 singles hitter would not be a negative if he was a plus defender at a key position. His bat plays at SS but the glove isn't there.

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He came up as a glove-first SS then his bat progressed and his glove didn't. It would've been interesting to see at which stage it was when people actually lost hope on his glove. He did put up some pretty terrible metrics his first 3 seasons in the bigs.

33Y0 said:

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Somebody help find me Jeff's argument here? Because don't see one.

Nobody expected a great return, but it's pretty obvious Rosario would have netted more back in the offseason than now. And he did have surplus value then. He doesn't now. That's the difference between peak and nothing

Tondo said:

Somebody help find me Jeff's argument here? Because don't see one.

Nobody expected a great return, but it's pretty obvious Rosario would have netted more back in the offseason than now. And he did have surplus value then. He doesn't now. That's the difference between peak and nothing

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Though it is also possible that he had almost no value then too. Many on here were critical of his actual performance value when defense was factored in. Other teams certainly could see those deficiencies. Combine that with a cost of nearly $8 million this year and it is quite possible that other teams found better ways to spend their money and use their tradeable assets.

As a 2+ fWAR player in his prime, Rosario easily had 10+M surplus value, based on the 8-9M per 1 WAR model. Would have fetched a couple of 40 FV prospects easily (Curry, Herrin, Battenfield etc), maybe even a 45.

He's now still projected for 1.5 fWAR for the rest of this season, which is generous considering his - 0.5 he has now. This would land him around 1 WAR, he's owed another 5+M, so his surplus value now is somewhere between 3 to 6M, depending how much his recent struggles weigh him down. As a rental, I'd say that puts him at minimum surplus value. At best we'd get a Pilkington type (35+/40ish)