Are Guardians' Waiver Wire Moves Enough To Win The AL Central?

The Cleveland Guardians claimed Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Matt Moore with the intention of catching the Minnesota Twins in the American League Central.

Tommy Wild | Aug 31, 2023

Are Guardians' Waiver Wire Moves Enough To Win The AL Central? /

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For once, the Cleveland Guardians made a number of moves that weren't centered around their future but to win now. Cleveland took advantage of the Los Angeles Angels' bizarre fire sale and claimed RHP Lucas Giolito, LHP Matt Moore, and RHP Reynaldo Lopez off waivers on Thursday afternoon.

President of Baseball Operation, Chris Antonetti, said the motivation behind these moves was clear; to get the Guardians back in the playoffs.

The only way Cleveland is going to do that is by catching the Twins and winning their own division as the Wild Card seems well out of play at this point.

The Guardians currently sit just 5.0 games out of first place. They took two-of-three games from the Twins earlier this week to cut into Minneosta's lead and they have another series with the division leader early next week.

It's hard to imagine Cleveland making any of these moves if they hadn't just won a series over their rival while gaining momentum. Now the team gets a number of late-season upgrades

The rotation for the Guardians currently looks like this (in no particular order):

Lucas Giolito
Tanner Bibee
Gavin Willaims (assuming he is healthy enough to make his next start)
Logan Allen
Xzavion Curry

This doesn't include Shane Bieber or Triston McKenzie who could be back on the mound sometime in September.

The acquisitions of Moore (2.66 ERA) and Lopez (3.93 ERA) are also intriguing bullpen additions that could help the Guardians win games. Cleveland's relievers have been shaky all season, with 25 blown saves, and bringing in two veterans could help solve that.

With everyone fully healthy, it can easily be argued that the Guardians have a better all-around pitching staff than the Twins. However, that's just half the battle.

Cleveland's offense is still below average, to put it nicely.

They had a team batting average of .234 with an OPS of .664 in the month of August. Their 101 runs last month were the second-fewest in the American League only scoring eight more runs than the Oakland Athletics.

If anything was ever going to hold them back it was going to be their bats and that hasn't changed with these recent moves. Bringing in Hunter Renfroe on top of the pitchers would've helped their outfield trouble, but that unfortunately didn't happen.

So, now to answer the question "Are the Guardians's waiver wire moves enough to win the AL Central?"

No, not entirely.

They certainly won't hurt and will give the pitching staff a nice boost, but the offense will still have to do more in order to catch the Twins.

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Published Aug 31, 2023