2024 Guardians Regular Season Thread

[Gimme Some Mo]

So then who were you keeping out of the rotation?

Bieber?
McKenize?
Bibee?
Allen?
Williams?

In hindsight it’s easy to say since some of them NOW have injuries /are out but you start the offseason planning on all to be healthy and having only five rotation spots.

Saying it's very unlikely that the entire rotation stays healthy isn't hindsight. Even if Bieber didn't get hurt, he's traded by the deadline in all likelihood. McKenzie's arm is a ticking time bomb. There's definitely solutions to keeping Civale even if we got extremely lucky and everyone stayed healthy. Use 6 starters. Use 1 as the long-man til Bieber is traded. Keep Allen in minors til an injury or Bieber is traded. Counting on all 5 guys to be healthy all year is not a winning bet way more often than not IMO, especially when you know your Ace will be traded away or lost at end of season anyways.

 

[MirORich]

Saying it's very unlikely that the entire rotation stays healthy isn't hindsight. Even if Bieber didn't get hurt, he's traded by the deadline in all likelihood. McKenzie's arm is a ticking time bomb. There's definitely solutions to keeping Civale even if we got extremely lucky and everyone stayed healthy. Use 6 starters. Use 1 as the long-man til Bieber is traded. Keep Allen in minors til an injury or Bieber is traded. Counting on all 5 guys to be healthy all year is not a winning bet way more often than not IMO, especially when you know your Ace will be traded away or lost at end of season anyways.

I get that but that would have meant you signaled to one of Bibee, Allen, or Williams that they would be starting the season in the minors and would only get a call up due to a trade (likely not until June/Juky) or injury( which could only be short term before log jam again

Its only in hindsight that we now know Bieber is out for the season

 

[Gimme Some Mo]

I get that but that would have meant you signaled to one of Bibee, Allen, or Williams that they would be starting the season in the minors and would only get a call up due to a trade (likely not until June/Juky) or injury( which could only be short term before log jam again

Its only in hindsight that we now know Bieber is out for the season

True. I understand your POV. My preference is just to keep as many solid starting pitchers around as possible. It's the main reason we've stayed competitive the last decade+ despite our spending limitations.

Hopefully Manzardo makes me change my mind.

 

[Stark]

Josh Naylor is going to end up out of our price range isn't he?

 

[TxBuckeye]

Man, that Civale trade looks more and more suspect every day. Trading a solid Starting Pitcher with Biebers and Mckenzies injury history just never felt like that right move to me, especially with the supposed injury epidemic we keep hearing about.

Civale hasn't exactly been the healthiest guy either

 

[Alabuckeye]

I’d do Civale for Manzardo again today. And Civale was one of my favorites.

he just didn’t give off a sense that he’d ever make a full season. And we need hitting. Especially if Josh is priced out.

 

[Alabuckeye]

For the first time, the meaningless stats showing projected wins and % odds to win division has the guardians winning the division. The Twins were stubbornly holding on till now.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Still, I'm assuming we'll be getting the "McKenzie out for season" headline any day now, and a rotation of:

1) Williams
2) Bibee
3) L. Allen
4) Curry
5) Cookie

...probably isn't enough to cut it if we want to contend barring Williams and Bibee merging into legitimate top of the rotation guys.

There's also Lively and I'm hoping Cantillo gets healthy soon, although he's never pitched in the bigs.

Starters: Williams, Bibee, Allen, Curry, Cookie.

Bullpen: Clase, Hentges, Gaddis, Herrin, Sandlin, Barlow, Lively, Smith. Lively is the starter-in-waiting.

Cut: Beede

Minors: Parsons, Karinchak, Morgan, Avila (do they all have options?)

Worst case scenario if we lose McKenzie AND two more starters (which would be four including Bieber) is to put Gaddis (a former starter) back into the rotation and piggy back him with Morgan, another former starter. Sam Hentges takes Gaddis' spot in the pen.

 

[CleveRocks]

Bit of an odd choice to add. Has been awful in relief this year after mixing in starts last year. Walks way too many, along with hitting guys. Not sure how they see him fitting in. Cash was probably not enough to feed a family of 4 at McDonald's.

Would have liked Morejon. I saw him live once and he throws fire.

 

[KluberSociety]

I get that but that would have meant you signaled to one of Bibee, Allen, or Williams that they would be starting the season in the minors and would only get a call up due to a trade (likely not until June/Juky) or injury( which could only be short term before log jam again

Its only in hindsight that we now know Bieber is out for the season

This discussion happened last year though and people were absolutely tag team laying it on the poster who said that Bieber and TMac shouldn't be relied on. I don't think it was absolutely predictable per se but it's a pretty good rule not to lean on injured guys.

 

[Criznit]

There's also Lively and I'm hoping Cantillo gets healthy soon, although he's never pitched in the bigs.

Starters: Williams, Bibee, Allen, Curry, Cookie.

Bullpen: Clase, Hentges, Gaddis, Herrin, Sandlin, Barlow, Lively, Smith. Lively is the starter-in-waiting.

Cut: Beede

Minors: Parsons, Karinchak, Morgan, Avila (do they all have options?)

Worst case scenario if we lose McKenzie AND two more starters (which would be four including Bieber) is to put Gaddis (a former starter) back into the rotation and piggy back him with Morgan, another former starter. Sam Hentges takes Gaddis' spot in the pen.

I don't think we will be seeing Cantillo in non-rehab game action until summer. If he's healthy and ramped back up by July 1st it's a win.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Here are the starters' rankings by ERA. A total of 144 starters have pitched 10 innings or more.

Cookie 60
Bibee 97
Allen 103
McKenzie 120

We have received four excellent starts from Bieber, Lively, and Curry. But to NOT have a single starter in the top 40% of baseball in ERA and still be tied for the best winning percentage is nuts. It really points up how good the offense, defense, and bullpen has been.

There's hope. Cookie has gotten better with each start. Williams will be back in May from all reports. Bibee looked much better in his last start. McKenzie has an ERA of 6.23 and is pitching with a torn ligament, apparently. Either he improves dramatically or is replaced by Curry or Lively, either of which will do a lot better than 6.23.

I can see three of the five spots being better very soon; Allen I don't know about. Williams will take the Bieber/Curry/Lively spot and that might be a small step back since those four starts have been outstanding.

There's every reason to expect the starting pitching, which has been the ONLY weak area of the team, to improve significantly. Right now the Guardians' starters rank 11th with a 3.90 ERA, but take out Bieber's scoreless 12 innings and it drops to 4.52, or 23rd.

McKenzie goes against Oakland tomorrow. The A's are averaging 2.95 runs per game and are hitting .209 as a team with an OBP of .276. If he can't go six innings and hold them to one or two runs it's time for surgery.

In 2022 hitters swung at 36% of McKenzie's pitches that were out of the zone. This year it's down to 21%. His swinging strike percentage has dropped from 13.0% to 5.6%. His fastball velo is down from 92.7 to 91.0.

The big problem is his command; 12 walks in 13 innings. For example, against the Yankees he walked two batters, then fell behind Soto 3-0. He grooved an 89 mph fastball down the middle and Soto hit a three-run homer. It wasn't a walk, but lack of command led to the home run.

 

[bigfoot5415]

3 out of 4 in Boston is impressive.

9-3 on the road is more impressive. Idc who we played.

12-6 is a great start, with about 3 losses that we kept close that I can recall. Having a blast despite the injury.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

The Guardians are 13-6 but two of their losses have come against two of baseball's best starters so far.

Paul Blackburn ranks 6th out of 83 qualified starters in ERA at 1.08. Tanner Houck ranks 8th at 1.35. They both shut out the Guardians for 7 and 9 innings, respectively.

The lowest ERA belongs to Boston's Kutter Crawford, who also shut us out for 5.2 innings. We won that game 6-0, beating their bullpen. Crawford's ERA is 0.42.

So we're 1-2 in games against baseball's top eight starters based on ERA. Unfortunately, we will see Houck again on Tuesday, but this time at our house.

In terms of starters' ERA, the Twins rank 29th. Their 4th and 5th starters, Paddack and Varland, have ERA's of 8.36. Their 3rd starter, Ober, is at 6.57. What a disaster. The Twins are 6-11.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

3 out of 4 in Boston is impressive.

9-3 on the road is more impressive. Idc who we played.

12-6 is a great start, with about 3 losses that we kept close that I can recall. Having a blast despite the injury.

We're 10-3 on the road and 13-6 overall. We've played 13 of 19 games on the road and have the best winning percentage in baseball (well, tied with the Yankees but better than the Braves, Dodgers, Orioles, Rangers, and Phillies).