Cleveland Guardians Use Patience, In Lieu Of Payroll, To Return To The Postseason

Have the Cleveland Guardians blazed a new trail in organizational systematization, or are they just incredibly lucky?

How did they get from there to here, and where do they go from here?

Is Terry Francona a baseball shaman?

As postseason party crashers go, it’s hard to beat the Cleveland Guardians, about whom the questions outnumber the answers. They’re like the black sheep of the family, who flies in from Pocatello, unannounced, to attend a wedding reception to which he wasn’t invited.

You know, one of those “Oh, him” moments.

At the start of the 2022 season nobody took the Guardians seriously, mostly because it looked like they didn’t take themselves seriously. In 2021 they finished a distant 13 games behind the AL Central champion White Sox. Only six American League teams lost more games than Cleveland’s 82.

During the offseason, Cleveland officials addressed the team’s needs by doing nothing. There were no significant trades and no significant free agent signings, due mostly to an insignificant payroll. The only news Cleveland made was changing its name from Indians to Guardians.

The front office chose to stand pat on a lineup that appeared in desperate need of more sock. The team payroll, as usual, was near the bottom of the 30 major league teams. Season ticket sales stagnated, fan interest waned.

But then, 162 games later, only two American League teams – the 106-win Astros, and the 99-win Yankees – had more victories in 2022 than the 92-win, Central Division champion Guardians.

How could a franchise that appeared to be dead in the water after a forgettable 2021 season and a do-nothing offseason, suddenly emerge as one of the scrappiest, winningest, hardest-to-beat teams in the majors?

Better yet: what can other down-on-their-luck franchises do to emulate Cleveland’s stunning competitive U-turn in 2020?

Well, those teams can start out by doing nothing. That’s what the Guardians did. Nothing – and it worked. That’s not to say it will work for other teams. But it worked for this one, because of a quietly constructed organizational infrastructure that was able to produce, right on schedule, player inventory that, following a dismal 2020, flourished in 2021.

Exhibit A is rookie left fielder Steven Kwan, who at the start of spring training was an anonymous fifth-round draft pick out of Oregon State three years ago. He hit his way into the Guardians’ opening day lineup, and spent most of the season hitting around .300, stealing 19 bases, playing a Gold Glove caliber left field, and hitting leadoff, where he was the second-hardest player in the majors to strike out (one strikeout every 9.4 at bats).

Kwan was one of a staggering 16 players to make their major league debut with Cleveland this year, and most of them contributed something to the club’s 92-70 record.

An early hint that this was going to perhaps be a magical season in Cleveland came on opening day when one of baseball’s greatest players, third baseman, and looming (at the time) free agent Jose Ramirez gave Cleveland a ridiculously generous hometown discount in agreeing to a seven-year, contract extension worth $141 million. That was probably only about half of what Ramirez could have gotten on the open market.

Ramirez responded with another sensational season: 29 home runs, 20 stolen bases, 126 RBI, and a league-leading 44 doubles, all of which further enhanced his role as a team leader

Keeping Ramirez in Cleveland was a huge boost for a franchise with a long history of star players who left Cleveland, through trade or free agency, because the ballclub could no longer afford them.

Finally, one stayed.

That took some of the sting out of having to trade Francisco Lindor in 2021, because Lindor was on the verge of becoming a free agent. But Cleveland president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff parlayed Lindor’s exit into the addition of two key players, by trading Lindor to the Mets for second baseman Andres Gimenez, an All-Star this year, and shortstop Amed Rosario, who was third in the American League with 180 hits this year. The two have been cornerstones both offensively and defensively for the Guardians.

Gimenez might be the most underrated player in the league. In addition to being on the All-Star team, his 7.2 WAR is higher than any AL player not named Judge or Ohtani.

Astute trades have further accelerated Cleveland’s emergence as a formidable team. Seven key players were acquired in trades. In addition to Gimenez and Rosario, others who came to Cleveland in trades are All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, pitcher Cal Quantrill, a 15-game winner this year, first baseman Josh Naylor, centerfielder Myles Straw, and catcher Austin Hedges.

Rotation starters Shane Bieber, Triston McKenzie, and Aaron Civale, plus relievers James Karinchek, Sam Hentges, and Nick Sandlin, arrived through the draft, and another key reliever, Trevor Stephen, was plucked out of the Yankees’ system in the Rule 5 Draft.

It’s a meticulously-assembled roster that Guardians officials gave Francona, baseball’s best manager. Club officials decided to bet on that roster last winter, due to ownership’s payroll restrictions. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Standing pat worked.

In the end, the Guardians did something – something big – by doing nothing. Team officials felt the pieces were already in place. All that was needed was patience, and a little luck.

They exhibited the former then profited by the latter.