Is It Time For The Cleveland Guardians To Go Big Bat Hunting?

Is the Cleveland Guardians’ surprisingly successful season an argument for being more aggressive in the offseason? Or does it confirm that the organization’s current approach is working, and requires no dramatic shifts in philosophy or application?

To put it more simply still: when you win your division with one of the smallest payrolls in the sport, where is the incentive to increase it?

Big market teams such as the Mets, Dodgers, and Yankees, teams for whom robust payrolls are a way of life, would never entertain such a question. Baseball’s big spenders spend whatever it takes to hopefully be among baseball’s biggest winners.

Then there are the Guardians, who in 2022 probably got more bang for the buck out of their total payroll of $82 million (per Spotrac) than any team in the majors. Counting the postseason, the Guardians won 96 games, and took the Yankees to a deciding Game 5 in the Division Series.

Cleveland did so with only three players making more than the average major league salary of $4.4 million: Jose Ramirez ($22 million), Shane Bieber ($6 million), and Amed Rosario ($4.9 million).

The good news for Cleveland is that the Guardians in 2022 had significant contributors making well below the major league average. For example: closer Emmanuel Clase ($1.9 million), who led the majors in saves (42) and appearances (77), pitcher Triston McKenzie ($707,000), who had a 2.96 ERA, all-star second baseman Andres Gimenez ($707,000), whose 7.2 WAR was highest among all American League position players not named Aaron Judge, and .298-hitting Rawlings Left Field Gold Glove finalist Steven Kwan ($700,000).

That kind of production from those types of salaries has been the kind of economic roster-building that has been a Cleveland trademark, and has helped the Guardians reach the postseason five times in the last seven years.

However, the franchise’s World Series drought continues. It currently stands at 74 years since Cleveland’s last World Series title in 1948. Reaching the playoffs on a limited payroll is one thing. Going all the way to the World Series, and winning it, is quite another.

As well-constructed as the Guardians’ roster is, with a minor league system as well-fortified with prospects as theirs is, and with the youngest roster in the major leagues, the franchise seemingly has the pieces in place, most of them, anyway, to create a window of opportunity.

The Guardians, however, are not a finished product. In baseball’s current home run era, only Detroit hit fewer home runs than Cleveland in 2022. The Guardians’ biggest need, perhaps their only need, is a big middle-of-the-order bat that gets opponents’ attention.

Big bats, of course, tend to cost big money. The Guardians prefer to grow their own, but with everything else seemingly in place for an even deeper run into the postseason next year, the addition of a slugger to hit cleanup, behind perennial all-star Jose Ramirez, could be the final piece to the puzzle.

According to Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti, the team may be in a position to make a rare effort to acquire the 30-home run hitter that stands between a very good Guardians team, and a potentially championship Guardians team.

Speaking to reporters in the club’s end-of-the-season press conference, Antonetti said, “We will have financial flexibility going forward.”

Whether they use it, and how they use it, if they use it, remains to be seen. Clearly, however, this is a youthful, talented Cleveland team that is built to be a contender for as long as that window of opportunity exists.

The next, most logical step would be to follow through and use such “financial flexibility” to add a missing piece. It could be done through a free agent signing or through a trade. The Guardians are loaded with prospects in their minor league system, particularly with middle infielders.

Packaging a group of them for the right big bat would seem to make sense for a team that, given its youth and the culture created by Manager Terry Francona, should be a factor in the coming post seasons.

Whether Cleveland chooses to exercise in that way its “financial flexibility” remains to be seen. The last time the team did so was in January of 2017 when the club signed free agent Edwin Encarnacion to a three-year, $60 million contract, which at the time was the largest in franchise history.

That Cleveland team went on to win 102 games, including, at one point, an American League record 22 in a row. It was eventually eliminated by the Yankees in the Division Series.

That Cleveland team had a window but was unable to take advantage of it.

The current Guardians likewise have a window, a fact not lost on Francona, who recently announced he will return next year for his 11^th year as Cleveland’s manager. Francona’s reason for returning is simple.

“I love that we have something that can be special moving forward,” he said. “I want to see this group grow.”