It’s getting late early for the Cleveland Guardians.
June 13th was a terrible day for the Cleveland baseball team. You have to expect some major injuries in a baseball season, but you hope (1) they don’t take out three of your top five hitters when your offense is not especially good in the first place, (2) they are spread out over the whole season and not all at once, and (3) it doesn’t effect your future Hall of Famer. Instead, the Guardians lost Jose Ramirez, Angel Martinez and Chase DeLauter all to broken bones in one game. Bummer. That stinks.
But, the Guardians ten days later are still in first place in a weak AL Central in a weak AL West. This grip on the division is, obviously, very tenuous. The Guardians just lost their most interesting starting pitching prospect in the “Near the Big Leagues” category when Khal Stephen underwent Tommy John surgery. If they sustain one starting pitcher injury… this train will absolutely plummet off the tracks. Should they lose – God forbid – one of Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis or Collin Holderman – I don’t think the train can avoid derailment either. But, if we can assume unsually good pitching health to hold – and assume the Guardians are going to give Franco Aleman a chance to provide more than what Matt Festa can provide AT SOME POINT – it’s the Guardians’ offense that is the panic point when we are evaluating their chances at hanging around until some of the Ramirez/Martinez/DeLauter group can make their return.
Since June 13th, the Guardians offense has a 70 wRC+ in six games. Clearly, this is a small sample size. No argument. However, the six starting pitchers the Guardians faced in that time period had a combined 4.83 ERA. Not managing to get at least 3 of those 6 games should raise some alarm bells, especially when they scored only 1 run twice and 2 runs once during that stretch.
In the Guardians’ defense, they did the right thing in calling up Kahlil Watson and giving him a shot. It isn’t terribly surprising that Watson has struggled. He had clear contact red flags in Columbus that have been exposed. He deserves a chance to see if he can work through some of those issues and reduce his whiff and chase enough to get to his power. So, buckle down and brace yourself for a rough stretch while this young player works on making adjustments. That make sense.
I am here to tell you that the Guardians need to make the same move they made with Watson with some other players. Take a look at some of these eye-watering hitting stats for players that are infesting Cleveland’s lineup, currently:
Petey Halpin – 15 wRC+, .265 xwOBA, 27.9/2.3 K/BB%.
Steven Kwan – 67 wRC+, .300 xwOBA, 10.4/12.8 K/BB%
Patrick Bailey – 71 wRC+, .293 xwOBA, 26.9/6 K/BB%
Gabriel Arias – 71 wRC+, .266 xwOBA, 40.8/4.1 K/BB%
Daniel Schneemann – 79 wRC+, .290 xwOBA, 30.4/9.2 K/BB%
Rhys Hoskins – 91 wRC+, .288 xwOBA, 30.6/16 K/BB% (61 wRC+, .243 xwOBA over the past months’ worth of games).
Wow, ok, where to begin. Halpin, Arias and Hoskins appear to just be bad. Not really surprising in any of these cases. Hoskins may just be going through a prolonged slump and need a chance to get back to his career norms. But, Halpin and Arias are here to provide defense. That’s it. And, that’s simply not enough. Daniel Schneemann has not been good… but he has been better than Arias has been. I think the team should install Schneemann as their everyday third baseman against RHP’s and mix Arias in against LHP’s (if they MUST).
Kwan is an interesting problem because his .300 xwOBA is not good, but would be enough to help this lineup if he was able to get close to it (around an 85 wRC+). However, it feels like defenses have simply adjusted to playing exactly where Kwan will ALWAYS hit the ball and so his insanely low .220 batting average on balls in play feels entirely justified instead of unlucky. If Cooper Ingle is capable of playing left field (certainly a legitimate question), it would make complete sense to bring him up, move Kwan to Halpin’s bench role and demote Halpin. CJ Kayfus has struggled to find his footing in Columbus, but he might also make sense as a temporary promotion in the future Ingle spot while Ingle continues to get reps in the outfield.
Kody Huff has a 141 wRC+ with a 17.1/15 K/BB% in what looks like a legitimate breakout as a catcher. His OPS is .979 at Columbus which is clearly inflated, but it’s still .875 in road games. He’s going to force the team into a very uncomfortable decision at some point should this breakout continue. As a right-handed hitter with a 1.012 OPS against LHP this yeaar, he makes a perfect pairing with Patrick Bailey, who appears to be the team’s choice for someone they want as part of their catching tandem in the future. But, they simply are not going to cut Hedges (who, as seen below, is having a decent hitting season!). Will they be willing to run with Huff getting some DH at-bats and either cut Hoskins or demote Fry? I am here to tell you that it is probably the right decision, given where they are currently with the disastrous injury runs, they should probably DFA Hoskins and see if he’ll accept a Columbus assignment for a bit if not claimed and run a Bailey/Huff platoon with Hedges providing third catcher help and his clubhouse magic. Will they do that? Probably not. But, I don’t see how they can continue to deny what Huff is doing and how he could potentially help.
Before looking at Ingle a bit more, let’s briefly discuss Austin Hedges and David Fry. Hedges is actually a remarkable story this year. He has a 91 wRC+ and a 16.7/8.9 K/BB% with a .303 xwOBA that makes something like that seem kind of sustainable??!! But, we cannot forget that Hedges has a career 52 wRC+. Chances are, given too many more plate appearances, that’s more the kind of hitter he will averae out to be. Meanwhile, Fry has a 104 wRC+. Above average, nice. But, that comes with outperforming his xwOBA of .268 by .060. He’s striking out a third of the time, has displayed very little power, and is propping this up with an elevated walk rate that seems remarkably unsustainable given that good pitchers are going to realize they simply don’t need to worry about throwing him pitches in the zone at some point (perhaps that point has begun since Fry has a 45 wRC+ in June). So, Hedges and Fry are fine for now and I’d be cool with both getting more opportunities (especially if they aren’t going to promote Huff); I would also not be at all surprised if both see their current solid numbers absolutely collapse if given those additional chances.
All right, now, for Cooper Ingle has a 155 wRC+ with a 22.7/18.5 K/BB%, a .333 BABIP, a .380 xwOBA, and a .274 ISO. He has a 1.112 OPS in Columbus, but still a great .892 OPS on the road. He has a little more whiff in him than you might want, but I see no reason to doubt that Ingle is, right now, a top five hitter in the Guardians organization. I would postulate that he is only not currently in Cleveland because the organization has yet to solidify his defensive footing in the outfield. Understandably, they are not ready to pause his potential development as a catcher and so he is still going between catcher and left field.
I am here to say that it is time to bite the bullet and pause the Ingle Catcher Project and make him the left fielder every night until he has enough reps under his belt to not embarrass himself. Once that happens, he needs to be in Cleveland to replace Petey Halpin and move Kwan to the bench. Ingle has some pretty pronounced splits so he isn’t going to help much vs LHP – who cares? This lineup just needs someone who can actually hit the ball. As many someones as they can find, in fact.
George Valera is back, having got through waivers. See if he can get himself on track and pop him in for Watson in a week or so if Kahlil continues to struggle. Ralphy Velazquez seems to be finding his footing in Columbus with a 125 wRC+ in his past seven games. If he can maintain some sort of breakout, it will be officially time to move on from either Hoskins or Fry and give the team’s one potential middle of the order bat a chance to take his lumps.
I don’t know if the Guardians will survive June 13’s massacre. They could even end up some sort of sellers by the trade deadline. However, I hope the front office will continue to be aggressive in trying to give them all the chances in the world to survive by promoting Cooper Ingle and Kody Huff as soon as possible, and Ralphy Velazquez should the opportunity become clear.
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