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July 21, 2022WFNY CornerCast: Episode 18 – All Star recap, midseason awards, and a big trade discussion
July 22, 2022It has been far too long since I last graced the pages of Waiting For Next Year. Life comes at you fast. The last time I sat down to discuss the Cleveland Guardians — way back in May — I heaped praise upon Andres Gimenez for his newly refined approach at the plate and how he was teetering on a breakout. Now? Well, Gimenez started at second base for the American League All-Stars Tuesday night. Naturally, I’m here to claim credit for that. Why wouldn’t I?
Joking aside, let’s talk about statistics. Don’t everybody gasp at once. This time, however, I don’t mean FanGraphs or SABRmetrics. Let’s focus on the statistical anomaly that is Major League Baseball players. Specifically how 90% of minor league players never make it to The Show. In case that number didn’t sink in for you, for added context, each team can roster up to 180 minor league players. Multiply that by 30 teams and there are 5,400 players competing for only 780 jobs, assuming every Major League team cut all their players at once. Entering any given season there may only be competition from minor league players for 2-5 jobs depending on how each team tackles free agency.
This, of course, is ignoring the horrid conditions and salaries that minor league players endure in their endeavor to achieve their dreams (Commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent comments aside). That subject is an entirely different matter and is being covered by folks far more intelligent than myself. So you may ask yourself, why am I bringing this up now? Well, as alarming as it is that 90% of all minor league players don’t make the pros, the 2022 Cleveland Guardians are a bit of an anomaly themselves.
The Guardians fielded baseball’s youngest roster on opening day, and still do. So far this season, Cleveland has seen 10 players make their Major League debuts and has featured 25 players who are 26 or younger. Sure, some of those players have been fillers for a roster trying to make room for its younger, more talented players climbing the minors, but the point remains that those numbers stand out against the sheer number of players that never make it.
Position players specifically are where Cleveland has been the most surprising in 2022, and the rookies/youth have largely stolen the show. Of the 10 players to debut for the Guardians this season, seven have been position players. Among the 25 players who are 26 or younger to have played for Cleveland this season, 14 are position players. Currently sitting at 46-44 at the All-Star break, the Guardians find themselves in the midst of a division run, not necessarily because baseball’s youngest roster is ready for it, but because the AL Central is just awful this season.
The Guardians have seen four rookie hitters record at least 30 at-bats. That quartet of Steven Kwan, Richie Palacios, Oscar Gonzalez, and Nolan Jones have combined for a triple slash of .278/.350/.376 in limited time together. It’s easily some of the best rookie production from Cleveland hitters in recent memory not named Francisco Lindor or Tyler Naquin.
This isn’t even considering the contributions of the largely improved Josh Naylor and previously mentioned Gimenez. Naylor and Gimenez have combined for a triple slash of .286/.346/.492 in 141 games together, chipping in 25 doubles and 23 home runs, a much-needed offensive boost outside of Jose Ramirez. Considering the horrific seasons put together so far by both Myles Straw — who is showing signs of life with a .364/.432/.455 line and no strikeouts since July 6 — and Franmil Reyes, this type of insulation for Ramirez in the lineup has been crucial to Cleveland’s success.
From an individual standpoint, Cleveland’s young position players have also stood out. With their second half of the season set to resume on Friday against the Chicago White Sox, Kwan enters the second half with the fewest strikeouts in baseball, just 27 in 78 games. Gimenez is tied for 17th in all of baseball in wRC+ (138) and fWAR (2.5). Naylor, while showing significant improvement at the plate, has already provided arguably the most memorable moments of the 2022 season. Go ahead, pick one. Is it headbutting manager Terry Francona after telling his teammates he was going to hit a walk-off home run? Was it the game-tying grand slam and subsequent game-winning three-run bomb in extras against the White Sox?
Among the seven position players to make their debut in 2022, and how rare that is already, the Guardians have seen three record multi-hit games in their first career big league game, something that has been done just three times by a Cleveland player since 2010 (Jason Donald, Lonnie Chisenhall and Roberto Perez). Amazingly enough, Kwan was not one of them despite the gaudy 9-13 he posted in his first Major League series against the Kansas City Royals. Gonzalez, before the injury, was bucking trends that he was a three true outcomes player by hitting .285 with more walks than home runs and 12 doubles in 32 games.
Now, I’ve said all of this, which is a bunch of nothing, but a way to say the kids are fun. Cleveland’s philosophical shift to prioritizing contact hitters with excellent plate discipline for player development has been talked about ad nauseum, but to see the fruit of that change play itself out on the field this year has been refreshing. Cleveland’s offensive woes since 2017, especially among the outfield, are well documented, but in a season where the pitching staff is currently 18th in baseball with 7.7 WAR and a 4.01 ERA the position players and their late inning heroics are stealing the show.
This is all based on small sample sizes, of course, Gimenez and Naylor are the only two I focused on with more than a year of Major League service time, but it’s an impressive shift from players like Bradley Zimmer, Daniel Johnson, Yu Chang, Bobby Bradley, Oscar Mercado, someone please stop me. You get the point. There hasn’t been a lot of success to go around for Cleveland rookies before Kwan, Jones, Gonzalez, and Richie Palacios made immediate impacts on the big league club.
Plus, the farm is loaded, featuring eight top-100 prospects, the most of any team in baseball. The hopes remain high that this kind of success is replicable with more young, arguably more talented prospects waiting in the wings. The point is, however, that this team finishes the season and whatever they decide to do at the deadline is not the focus, it’s living, breathing position player development on a scale we’re not used to as fans in recent years. Whatever happens, it’s going to be an entertaining finish fueled by kids that don’t know what they don’t know with more of them possibly on the way. Enjoy the second half, and stop for a second here and there to really appreciate what the younglings are doing for the Guardians.