Take a day off and come back to a brand new baseball team!
By now, you probably know that the Guardians made three trades yesterday:
Foster Griffin from the Nationals for Will Dion, Josh Hartle, Nick Mitchell and Kendeglys Virguez
Nathaniel Lowe from the Reds for Alejandro Rivera
Jo Adell from the Angels for Jacob Cozart.
These trades added to the trade made this weekend: Craig Yoho and Blake Perkins from the Brewers for Bo Naylor and Codi Heuer.
Kyle Manzardo and David Fry were optioned to Columbus, Juan Brito was DFA’d and then traded to the Reds for cash. Shawn Armstrong went on the 60-Day IL. So long, Shawn.
The last remaining mystery is what they do with the pitching staff… sounds like it will be Slade Cecconi to Columbus or to the bullpen. Maybe they run a 6-man rotation again in September? I don’t see them leaving the pen thin by doing that now or having Cecconi piggyback or open with someone like Joey Cantillo.
It will be interesting to follow what they do with Manzardo now and how he responds. Does he get more rest to help his back issues? Does he shorten his swing and rediscover his missing plate discipline? Or does he go the way of Bo Naylor eventually and get traded to make way for Ralphy Velazquez and Cooper Ingle?
Chris Antonetti had an interesting response when asked about if they avoided players under control beyond 2026 because of the impending lockout:
Zack Meisel had a great wrap-up article as usual. Matt Seese and Michael Mahoney offered some great analysis of the four trades last night on the Disgusting Baseball Podcast.
AROUND MLB:
Many trades. Read about them here. The Twins and White Sox made moves to go for it, also.
No AL Central rivals played yesterday. The Yankees lost, though, so it really was a great day.
Read the full article here