Fortune Favors the Bold

Audentes Fortuna Iuvat

It's time for the Guardians to put the rest of the chips they have in on trying to make a playoff run.

"I am taking the rest of this week off for vacation." - Me as a site runner today and Guardians hitters as they headed to Milwaukee on Friday, apparently. The Guardians are playing a *fun* little game where they lose a bunch of games then win a bunch of games, where their pitching falters while their hitters start to find it, and then their hitting falters while their pitching starts to find it. Overall, I am still confident they will find their way through all this to make the playoffs. This has been a great season from front office, to coaches, to, of course, players, led by José Ramírez as he closes in on a 40/40 season and Emmanuel Clase as he blows away everything in sight.

But, I'm not satisfied. And, the Guardians front office shouldn't be either. As the MLB playoffs have demonstrated time and time again, just get in, and you can win. The Guardians have a bullpen good enough to win a title. They have star hitters who can carry them in a short series against anyone. They, now, have enough starting pitching in Bibee, Cobb, Williams, Boyd and Lively to give them a chance (provided health remains steady) in any series. The 2024 Cleveland Guardians have enough pieces to win a World Series.

No one wants to hear that coming off a weekend sweep at the hands of Aaron Civale, Freddy Peralta and Colin Rea. Peralta is good. The other two are... well, not. But, that's baseball. The Guardians have beat plenty of good pitchers this season and they will again. The summer swoon MLB players often go through in a long season should not dissuade us from believing this team has as much of a chance as any team to make a playoff run.

The trade deadline is over. What was done there is done, what wasn't done there won't be done. But, the Guardians can still make some aggressive moves in an attempt to help their team. Cleveland has a 112 wRC+ as a team vs LHP in 2024. They added Lane Thomas at the deadline and gave Jhonkensy Noel a chance to help there as well. Although Thomas has yet to find his footing, I approve of the aggressive movement to help combat teams' tendencies to perpetually pitch left-handed relievers against a typically left-handed heavy lineup.

It is, time, however, to come to grips with Cleveland’s issues vs RHP, against whom they have a 93 wRC+ this year, and over the past two months has sunk them to 26th in baseball against RHP. The Guardians have two very capable left-handed hitters sitting in Triple-A: Kyle Manzardo has an .857 OPS against RHP this year (.823 vs LHP) and George Valera has an .845 OPS against RHP in 2024 (.444 OPS against LHP).

It was worth it to try Daniel Schneemann in the bigs to see if his 2024 breakout was real. But with a wRC+ below 60 since the first two weeks of his time in Cleveland, it's very clear that once MLB pitchers got a book on him, he has been exposed as the Quad-A player he likely always was. It was fun watching it snow barrels while he was at the plate for a while and a 33rd round pick should feel incredible for becoming one of the best 0.1% of baseball players in the world.

With Tyler Freeman (or Angel Martinez if the team wants to try their Guardian Angel in that spot again, which is my preference) the team has a player who can play any infield or outfield position. That gives them the opportunity to use their 13th position player spot for anyone who best fits their needs. I'd get Manzardo up and split his time at first base and DH with Josh Naylor. It's clear that Naylor doesn't want to DH, likely to stay loose, but he's not hitting at the level where he gets to maintain that preference. Make Manzardo your every day starter against RHP at first or DH and let's ride. Or, if the team prefers a player who can play LF or RF, get Valera up and let him see if he can fulfill on his longtime promise as a hitter against RHP.

Patience is vital in baseball. The team is being rewarded right now by being patient with Will Brennan and Nick Sandlin and I hope it continues. But, the time to make a play for the kind of ceiling that can make a big difference has arrived. Just as the team did with the Noel promotion, who has led the team in wRC+ since his arrival, it's time to take another swing.

Speaking of swings, I will also mention that the team that was giving Chase DeLauter first team reps all Spring Training and causing rumors that he had a chance to break camp with the team to float out there now has a first round pick demolishing Double-A pitching since he returned from an episode of turf toe with a 147 wRC+ an 11.9/5.4 K/BB%, a .278 ISO and a healthy pulled fly ball rate all season, to boot. The most aggressive potential move would be to give DeLauter a chance to see if he can provide some lightening in a bottle on the major league team, but all I'm asking for is a speedy promotion to Columbus to allow the left-handed hitting outfielder a chance to show he deserves a look topside before October, or not.

Overall, I've gone pretty light on the Cleveland front office here. I could make a compelling case to move on from Brayan Rocchio, push Andres Gimenez to short and let Juan Brito play second base.

But, I won't.

I could make a strong argument that Andrew Walters needs to have a spot in the bullpen somehow, some way, but I'll hope that Scott Barlow can fling and flunk his way to high leverage success. Just know that if there is ANY player in the entire Cleveland system who has even a 25% chance to provide a 25% or greater value than the player they'd be replacing, the time is NOW to give them a good six week run until the playoffs and get their first adjustments out of the way.

Why? Because it's been 76 years, folks. If you have a card to play, it's time to play it. If you've got a chip to bet, push it to the middle of the table. There are obviously no guarantees, but giving yourself a chance at a division and a first round bye gives yourself as good a chance at a World Series as any season since 2017. As Roman playwright Terence in 161 B.C. said, fortune favors the bold. Let's be bold before our era with no World Series title approaches the same length as the epoch since Terence penned his masterpieces.