Cleveland Guardians are Blowing Golden Opportunity

The Cleveland Guardians have a golden opportunity in front of them, but they are blowing it.

Jun 8, 2023; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez (11) celebrates his two-run home run with left fielder Steven Kwan (38) in the third inning against the Boston Red Sox at Progressive Field. Mandatory Credit: David Richard-Imagn Images / David Richard-Imagn Images

The Cleveland Guardians have been busy this offseason, but not exactly in in a good way.

The Guardians have already made a few trades, jettisoning second baseman Andres Gimenez and first baseman Josh Naylor in separate deals. They also sent some of the return they got for Gimenez to the Pittsburgh Pirates for pitcher Luis Ortiz.

Cleveland has also re-signed Shane Bieber and added old friend Carlos Santana.

But have the Guardians actually improved?

Cleveland went into the offseason with a couple of very obvious needs: starting pitching and some more offense.

Well, the Guardians haven't really done a great job addressing either issue. Re-signing Bieber is nice, but he is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Ortiz has talent, but he has very limited experience as a starter. Santana is not an upgrade over Naylor (and let's not even get into the return that Cleveland received in exchange for Naylor).

Cleveland is blowing an absolutely golden opportunity here right on the heels of making it all the way to the ALCS.

The New York Yankees lost Juan Soto this offseason. The Houston Astros are falling apart. The Guardians' AL Central rivals haven't done much of anything.

The path to the World Series is absolutely wide open for Cleveland, and it is not taking advantage.

Part of that is to be expected given the Guardians' history. The organization does not spend a whole lot of money, and Cleveland is known for jettisoning players before they hit free agency (a la Naylor).

But Guardians fans were also hoping that the team would double down on its impressive 2024 run and go all in for 2025.

Cleveland has a clear avenue to success at its fingertips. All it really needed to do was add one more pitcher and another bat. It didn't even have to spend excessively. Just adequately fill the holes.

Instead, the Guardians have chosen to be more focused on their financial situation then actually improving the ballclub.

You can run through all of the verbal gymnastics you want, but going from 27-year-old Naylor to 38-year-old Santana is not an upgrade. And even if it was, Cleveland needed to add another bat. Not replace one with another.

The Guardians were good enough to win 92 games, capture the AL Central division crown and come within three wins of a World Series appearance this past year.

Was there some luck involved? Probably, but Cleveland could have bet on itself and attemped to bring in reinforcements rather than just trying to shuffle the roster to maintain costs.

In that sense, the Guardians are really just the Miami Marlins with far superior management and player development.

Cleveland had a golden opportunity to make a serious championship push in 2025, but based on what we've seen this offseason, the front office just doesn't seem to care enough.