If you scroll down on the Guardians homepage just a little, you can see a brief interview with Guardians’ GM Mike Chernoff where he helps MLB reporter, Jon Morosi, realize he has asked a stupid question about trading Jose Ramirez and assures him that Jose is set to retire in Cleveland. Also, Chernoff and the Guardians like Manzardo and are looking for offensive help this offseason.
The Guardians have added backup catcher Christian Bethancourt to the 40-man and reliever Adam Oller to the minor-league collection of arms. Bethancourt should be good for like a 90-100 wRC+ improvement over Cam Gallagher and has a cannon behind the plate. Oller… is tall? His fastball is in the mid-90’s and he has an interesting changeup. We’ll see what the Guardians’ pitching factory can do with him.
Zack Meisel has a great article out today about the process that led the Guardians to hire Stephen Vogt as their new manager. Apparently Vogt’s introductory press conference will be at 1pm tomorrow EST. No word on where we can listen to or watch it, but I’d assume it will be on WTAM 1100AM and maybe on the team website?
Fangraphs released their list of top 50 free agents and ESPN released their version of the list today. Teoscar Hernandez at 3/$48M or 3/$52M seems like a guy the Guardians should be focusing on, to me.
The Peoria Javelinas are closing in on a playoff spot and Guardians’ prospect Christian Cairo got the game-winning hit for them last night going 1 for 4, Chase DeLauter went 2 for 4 with a double and Kyle Manzardo went 1 for 4. Eric Sabrowski, Guardians lefty reliever prospect, pitched a scoreless inning and a third, striking out all four batters he faced. Sabrowski has a 1.86 ERA in the AFL and is maybe making himself a fringe roster guy for someone.
If you want to follow the exploits of Juan Brito (.813 OPS) in the Dominican Winter League, bookmark this page, and if you want to see what Angel Martinez (.540 OPS) and Jose Tena (.722 OPS) are up to there, bookmark this one. Meanwhile, Johnathan Rodriguez’s Puerto Rico stats (.635 OPS) are here,