The Guardians enter this afternoon’s series finale against the Yankees with a narrow lead in the AL Central. They’re half a game up on the White Sox with a 37-32 record in their bid for a third consecutive division title.
It has been a similar story to the past few iterations of Guards baseball. They have one of the better bullpens in the American League, moving seamlessly to Cade Smith in the ninth inning while getting surprisingly strong work from reclamation pickup Colin Holderman. They could use another lefty, but the back end is generally a strength.
They’re the only team that has used the same five-man rotation all season, mostly successfully. Parker Messick and Gavin Williams have made for an excellent combination at the top. Tanner Bibee, Slade Cecconi and Joey Cantillo have been less consistent but reasonably effective overall.
The other side of the ball remains the big question. The offense isn’t as bad as last season, when they somehow won the division despite scoring the fewest runs in the American League. They’re certainly better positioned in the middle infield with Travis Bazzana at second base and Brayan Rocchio amidst a breakout season at shortstop.
It’s still one of the weaker overall lineups in the league, however. They’re 10th in the AL in scoring, 12th in home runs, and last in batting average and slugging. They’ve worked enough walks to get to middle of the pack in on-base percentage. By measure of wRC+, only the Red Sox and Royals have had less productive offenses among AL teams. They’re 22nd by that measure overall and 21st in MLB in runs scored.
There should be a clear target area for the front office as they approach deadline season: the outfield. Cleveland is clearly content to punt offense from the catcher position. First base hasn’t been great overall, but Kyle Manzardo and Rhys Hoskins have each gotten going since the beginning of May. The outfield, on the other hand, has been rough after a reasonably encouraging start to the season.
Cleveland outfielders were hitting .251/.321/.413 through the end of April. They were 12th in OPS and tied for 11th in homers. Since the calendar turned to May, they’ve combined for a .215/.291/.310 line across 465 plate appearances. Their .601 OPS over the last six weeks is dead last in the Majors. They’ve hit just eight home runs, above only the White Sox, Rays, and Royals. Only Houston outfielders have fared worse by the park-adjusted metrics.
Essentially the entire outfield has gone cold. Chase DeLauter started his career with a bang, homering four times in his first three regular season MLB games. He added another homer amidst a three-hit game on April 3. He’s gone deep just twice since then and has a .252/.315/.333 line since the beginning of May. It’s common for players even as talented as DeLauter to have some ruts during their rookie seasons. He’s not in danger of losing playing time, but his slump exposes the depth concerns elsewhere.
Steven Kwan was supposed to be the stabilizer. He’s an elite defensive left fielder whom the Guardians felt could play a capable center field on a semi-regular basis. Kwan has impressed defensively, but his bat has tanked. He’s hitting .213/.323/.262 with just one home run through 264 trips to the plate. No other qualifier has made less hard contact.
Kwan’s game has always been about plate discipline rather than hard contact. He rarely expands the strike zone and probably has the best pure contact skills of anyone not named Luis Arraez. That’s still intact — even Arraez has a slightly higher swing-and-miss rate this year — but Kwan can’t be a productive hitter without some kind of extra-base impact. He’d topped 10 home runs in both 2024 and ’25 and hit at least 25 doubles in three of his first four seasons. This year, he’s on pace for 19 doubles and two homers. Stephen Vogt dropped him from the leadoff spot in favor of Bazzana in mid-May; Kwan has hit seventh for the past couple weeks.
It’d be less concerning if this were only a bad two-month stretch. Kwan’s numbers trended down during the second half of the ’25 season as well. He’s a .233/.311/.310 hitter in nearly 700 trips to the plate over the last calendar year.
Kwan has come up in trade rumors for the last few seasons. It’d be less straightforward to move him now than it would’ve been last summer, when they were deadline sellers before going on an improbable run to seize the division from Detroit. At the same time, Kwan is the team’s second-highest paid player on a $7.725MM salary.
That’ll probably jump into eight figures for his final arbitration season. He’s on pace to be worth roughly one win above replacement despite the defensive contributions. Would a team that runs one of the lowest payrolls in the sport be willing to tender him a $10MM contract if he hits like this all season? If they feel he’s trending toward a non-tender, they could entertain trade scenarios this summer while looking to acquire a corner outfielder who has more offensive punch.
That’s complicated by their lack of recent production from center and right field. Hot starts from Angel Martínez and Daniel Schneemann were among the reasons for Cleveland’s early success. Schneemann’s fantastic April always felt unsustainable, and he has hit .160/.233/.181 since the beginning of May. Schneemann has gotten some run as a regular center fielder but should be in a utility role.
Martínez has bigger physical tools and can certainly flash significant upside. He’s less than a month removed from winning AL Player of the Week after popping four homers in five games. Martínez also has an extremely aggressive approach and almost never walks, lowering the floor from an on-base perspective.
He’s among the bottom 10 qualified hitters this year with a .275 OBP. In 19 games since the Player of the Week award, he’s hitting .178 with a .200 on-base mark — though he matched last year’s career high by connecting on his 11th home run of the season this afternoon.
Schneemann and Martínez are each capable big leaguers, but they should be role players rather than locked into the everyday lineup on a contender. Cleveland has Kahlil Watson, George Valera, CJ Kayfus and Petey Halpin on the 40-man roster and on optional assignment in Triple-A.
Watson and Valera have hit pretty well against minor league pitching, as has non-roster corner bat Nolan Jones. Neither Valera nor Watson has an MLB track record. Jones hasn’t hit big league pitching since 2023. Gabriel Arias could get some outfield work when he returns from a hamstring strain, but his strikeout issues are well established.
Although the Guardians aren’t typically aggressive deadline buyers, they could move one or two of their toolsy but unestablished minor league outfielders for someone with a higher floor. There aren’t many defined sellers yet, though the Rockies have a couple outfielders (Mickey Moniak and Jake McCarthy) who should be available. Moniak is currently sidelined by ankle tendinitis but expected back before the deadline. Lars Nootbaar, Taylor Ward, Trevor Larnach, Casey Schmitt and Jacob Young are some of the other players who could hit the trade market. Adding someone to raise the offensive floor should be the priority next month.
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