Cleveland Guardians and Their “Situationships”: Outfield

In case you missed my article last week, and the one from Tuesday, I discussed the nuance of what the kids call a “situationship”: when you wanna date and do the “things” you do when you date but you don’t want all the “dating” that comes with dating, it’s called a “situationship”. The Cleveland Guardians have more positional battles than normal this season, unsettled spots where they are going to have to have a sit-down and “DTR talk”: to define the relationship. We are very nearly done with the offense, as this will cover the right and center field positions; again, as with the others, these bleed into other roster spots. Luckily, we already know Steven Kwan will be patrolling left field for the foreseeable future.

Centerfield and Right Field

Those involved: Myles Straw, Estevan Florial, Will Brennan, Ramon Laureano, David FryAnother messy messy spot(s) here. First things first: all five of these players likely make the roster, and all will play 3-to-5 games a week as platoons and such pan out. But it is still entirely too murky to know who is getting the majority of playing time. Estevan Florial figures to get the first look in center field seeing as how he was the "big move" of the offseason. Florial was acquired from the Yankees for Cody Morris and might be could be maybe is the bat the team needs in the outfield. There are question marks all over Florial, "why didn't New York try him sooner? Is the hit tool there? Is he simply a Quad-A guy?", and they are all valid. He showed legitimate growth in Triple-A in 2023 and if he keeps those gains in the majors, he could be the "missing piece" as it were. As excited as I am for Florial, and I am really happy to try someone new in center field since the Straw experiment is on its last legs, I can't help but think of Tobias Funke "but it might work for us!" when considering Florial as our fix.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po4adxJxqZk[/embed]Since I invoked his name, we might as well discuss him here: Myles Straw remains and could be considered in the center field mix. His 2023 was laughably brutal, in that you had to laugh to make sure you didn't cry. A declining walk rate for the second year in a row, with only 20 stolen bases, which seems like a high number for any other player except Straw. But not only was the performance at the plate disappointing, but the defense waned as well. A wRC+ of 69 ((Nice.)) can be tolerated when you have Gold Glove-caliber defense in centerfield to boost your WAR, but when you drop from 17 defensive runs saved in 2022 to only six in 2023, you've become an albatross of a player with no real spot to hide. Straw had a near refusal to run in 2023 despite opportunities: he had four stolen bases from May through August despite being on first base via hit or walk 64 times. If it seems like I've soured a bunch on Straw, it's because I have a bad taste in my mouth. He seemed to always appear at the plate when a big moment was going to save the game and he fell to the challenge at every chance, and his profile has been screaming OF4/5 for the last few years. I don't like being negative, but that's where I'm at with Myles Straw.A late-season pickup off the waiver wire, Ramon Laureano was not someone I envisioned the team acquiring. The years of him being a plus defender in centerfield have come and gone, but his arm is still decent enough for right. He feels like a perfect platoon bat with the next guy I'll bring up, Will Brennan, because his splits got really bad in 2023: .270/.333/.460 with a .794 OPS against LHP against .200/.290/.323 and a .613 OPS facing righties. If he's being called upon to start against the majority of the starting pitchers in MLB, it won't be pretty.Brennan struggled in 2023, with a full-season wRC+ of 81 and a walk rate low enough that it could be a REALLY bad blood alcohol level (3.5%). He didn't seem to do any one thing well enough. The contact was there enough, but the quality of said contact left much to be lacking. A K rate of 12.5 would have been the 9th lowest in the majors if he qualified, but as with Kwan, you'd almost rather he swung more as long as he swung harder. You can't write off a player after 500 plate appearances, but Brennan seems more like a JAG than a dude. He can be serviceable as the strong side of a platoon, which is likely how he will be handled in 2024, but he's the poster boy for the "we need to upgrade!" chants from fans all winter.A 28-year-old third catcher who moonlights at first base and right field is more someone I want to count on, and yet the last three submissions in this article have been looking at David Fry as maybe something we can work with. In the very limited playing time Fry got in 2023, he did enough to stick around in conversations, but in the way that you kept the only friend who had the car even though he smelled like hot Cheetos and wouldn't stop talking about his Magic the Gathering tournament he had coming up. I wish I could find more excitement for Fry or a place to use him, but with all these other options at the positions he plays, there just isn't a fit. Deyvison De Los Santos and Kyle Manzardo make him redundant at first and the team isn't going to carry six outfielders.Verdict: Florial earns the starting job in center, Brennan/Laureano platoon in right, Myles Straw is the defensive sub OF5 and David Fry is probably DFA bait. Florial's traits have always carried him and he shouldn't face much resistance from Straw unless the front office feels like they want to showcase him for a potential trade. A Brennan/Laureano platoon could actually be a functional player, but the first chance the team has to upgrade, internally with prospects George Valera, Johnathan Rodriguez, or Jhonkensy Noel, or externally via a trade, they need to pull the trigger.