Cleveland Guardians 2025 preview
The 2024 Cleveland Guardians won the AL Central for the fifth time in eight non-COVID seasons and had their deepest playoff run since losing the 2016 World Series. Some would say that AL Manager of the Year Stephen Vogt picked up right where Terry Francona left off, but I would disagree. I believe that Vogt ushered in a new era of Guardians baseball with the way that he empowered each and every one of the 50 players that came through the clubhouse door.
Francona’s declining health and the changing complexion of the team were good reasons for the Guardians to cut bait and they couldn’t have hit a bigger home run with Vogt. This was not a 92-win roster, but one of the best bullpens we’ve ever seen and some really productive situational hitting led to something very special.
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I can understand why the betting markets are down on Cleveland’s ability to repeat last season’s division crown and are expecting something closer to .500. The optics of the offseason have not been good with the trades of Josh Naylor (Diamondbacks) and Andres Gimenez (Blue Jays). Those were very much viewed as cost-cutting measures and, to some degree, they probably are, but Travis Bazzana is close to taking over second base and Kyle Manzardo needs more frequent plate appearances.
Postseason hero David Fry is also out for a while after Tommy John surgery and Shane Bieber is still recovering from his. So, I really do get it. The bullpen is unlikely to repeat last year’s epic performance and it turns out that the rest of the division is better than we all thought.
But, I’m here to tell you that the markets are too low on the Guardians and here are some reasons why.
2025 Cleveland Guardians Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 25)
World Series: +4000
AL Pennant: +1500
AL Central: +300
Win Total: 82.5 (-105/-115)
Make Playoffs: Yes +120 / No -145
Cleveland Guardians Preview: Offense
It wasn’t talked about enough last season thanks to the dominance of the bullpen, but the Guardians offense really improved. Finishing 17th in wOBA doesn’t sound like a huge improvement, but Cleveland had a 100 wRC+. They had a 100 wRC+ in 2022 when they went 92-70 and won the AL Central. They had a 91 wRC+ in 2023 and went 76-86. They had a 95 wRC+ in 2021 and went 80-82.
Because of what Cleveland has on the pitching and defensive sides of the game, they simply need to be a league average offense to reach some pretty nice heights. The fan base also bought back in with a much more exciting team, as the Guardians crossed two million in attendance for the first time since 2017, which was on the heels of their World Series appearance.
Is league average attainable this season? I would say yes, but it could take some time and creativity to get there. Naylor had a 118 wRC+ and hit 31 homers. Fry had a 129 wRC+ with 14 homers, starting out as almost strictly a platoon guy against lefties and then becoming a near everyday player as the season went along. Fry is projected to be back in May or June and will have to strictly DH, so that does hurt Cleveland’s versatility a bit, but a Fry/Manzardo DH platoon could be really valuable.
Manzardo is the wild card of the offense. In 156 PA, he posted a 98 wRC+, but it is with noting that he posted a .270/.333/.540 slash with a 147 wRC+ and a .373 wOBA after his September recall. He also hit .316/.316/.526 in 19 playoff plate appearances. He’s a career .279/.388/.544 hitter in the minors and he’s had a major family issue off the field throughout his days in pro ball, as his mom is on the heart transplant list.
I don’t know that Carlos Santana can replace Naylor’s offensive production, but he’s a clear defensive upgrade at first base and a guy that will continue to draw walks and hit somewhere around 20 homers. A full season of Lane Thomas should help as well, as he struggled badly after the trade from the Nationals, but he came around late in the year and carried that into the playoffs. Steven Kwan’s elite bat-to-ball skills will continue to give him a high average and he’s an exceptional outfielder.
Jose Ramirez is one of the game’s most underappreciated superstars coming off of his third 6+ fWAR season out of four years. He fell one homer shy of 40 (Game 162 was rained out), but had 41 stolen bases. He walked way less than usual, coming in at 7.9%, his first season under 10.1% since 2019, so that hurt his OBP a bit, but the power uptick more than made up for it. As long as he’s healthy, he’ll be a rock in the lineup, along with Kwan.
Where I think the upside comes for Cleveland is with Chase DeLauter and Bazzana up sometime in late May or June, after the Super Two deadline passes. DeLauter, a first-round pick out of James Madison, hit .402/.520/.715 in 66 college games and owns a .317/.387/.517 slash in 96 minor league games. Unfortunately, foot injuries have held him back. He slashed .340/.475/.511 in the Arizona Fall League a few months back and I think he debuts early if he’s healthy, as right field is wide open right now for the Guardians.
Bazzana, the 1.1 pick in 2024, only played at High-A last season and struggled a little bit at the end of his collegiate campaign. He batted .360/.497/.660 in three college seasons and hit .238/.369/.398 in Lake County to start his pro career. Maybe the Guardians are slower with him than DeLauter, but, again, the position is available and I think he’ll start at Double-A Akron where he can work on his defense at second. He had a high K% at High-A, but only had a 7.5% SwStr%, so I’m not worried about the spike and I doubt Cleveland is either.
What you see now on the roster may not be what you see as the season goes along and I don’t think those things are accurately priced into the market.
Cleveland Guardians Preview: Pitching
The bullpen did a tremendous amount of heavy lifting for the Guardians in 2024. The team finished third in ERA and 12th in FIP, but that only tells part of the story. With Bieber out for the season after just two starts, Guardians starters were 24th in ERA and FIP. We’re talking about a 4.40 ERA and a 4.51 FIP when the league average for starters was 4.15 in both categories. This was not a good starting rotation, though they were able to piecemeal something together late in the season with contributions from Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb, who are both playing elsewhere this season.
As a team that has meager financial resources to deploy during the free agent spending spree, Cleveland has to be creative. They isolated Luis Ortiz from the Pirates as a guy that they liked in the sort-of three-team deal that sent Andres Gimenez to Toronto. The Guardians then spun Spencer Horwitz to the Pirates for Ortiz, who had a 3.32 ERA with a 4.31 xERA and a 4.25 FIP in 135.2 innings across 15 starts and 22 relief efforts last season. He has a really good fastball/slider mix and above average velocity with plus extension. Something fun for Cleveland’s pitching factory to leverage.
And Ortiz is important because nobody knows what Triston McKenzie may bring, though his velocity readings from his first Spring Training start were good. If McKenzie, who was awesome in 2022 and not very good in any other season, can be a viable arm, it will help. That’s because Ben Lively is a massive regression candidate with a 3.81 ERA, 4.00 xERA, and a 4.66 FIP last season. He ran a 78.4% LOB% with a low K%. And the Guardians got worse defensively on the infield, which will impact him and others.
It would help if Gavin Williams can be the prized prospect arm he was on his way to The Show. He has a 4.04 ERA with a 3.86 FIP, but has only made 32 starts over two MLB seasons, as health concerns follow him around like a dark cloud. It puts a lot of pressure on ace Tanner Bibee, who had a 3.47 ERA with a 3.78 xERA and a 3.56 FIP in 173.2 innings over 31 starts last season. Bibee has the chance to take a leap into one of the AL’s top starters this season and could be a dark horse Cy Young candidate, though Vogt has a quick hook with his starters.
As underwhelming as the rotation looks right now, Bieber has a shot to be back in June, if not July. The Guardians will also run it back with a Boyd-esque hurler in John Means, who is recovering from TJS himself, and could be an August or September option. Slade Cecconi, the centerpiece of the Naylor trade, has revamped his arsenal and could feature prominently with Joey Cantillo and others. Parker Messick and Matt Wilkinson are two names to keep in mind, beginning the season at Double-A.
With an organization like Cleveland’s, somebody should pop and be an above average arm out of that group. I think this rotation will be better than people realize as the season goes along. Remember, Carlos Carrasco, Logan Allen, and McKenzie were all awful last season and collectively made 57 starts.
Health is the only thing that could hold the Cleveland bullpen back. Dating back to 1995, so spanning the last 30 MLB seasons, the Guardians bullpen ranked fourth in ERA and 14th in fWAR. Cade Smith emerged as an elite setup man. Emmanuel Clase was bad in the playoffs, but had a 0.61 ERA in 74 regular season appearances. Hunter Gaddis had a 1.57 ERA in 78 appearances after transitioning to a relief role. Andrew Walters, Erik Sabrowski, and newcomer Paul Sewald are in to offset the high workloads from last season. The two worst relievers, Scott Barlow and Nick Sandlin, are both gone, too.
Cleveland Guardians Player to Watch
2B Juan Brito
It seems like Brito has the first crack at replacing Gimenez at 2B. FanGraphs has him as the 78th-ranked prospect entering the 2025 season. He fits the profile for a Cleveland hitter as a guy with great plate coverage and he also hit 21 homers last season at Triple-A Columbus, which is a good hitter’s park, but he’s a switch hitter with decent pop from the left side. His contact authority numbers don’t really support the power potential at the MLB level, but team evaluators seem really high on him, the prospect acquired in the Nolan Jones deal with the Rockies.
Brito is likely just holding the position warm for Bazzana, but Cleveland is painfully slow with graduating prospects to the Majors, so even though I think Bazzana debuts in 2025, he may not. Brito is a toolsy guy with some versatility and he’ll put the bat on the ball. That’s not a bad player to have at the bottom of what I think is an improved offense.
Cleveland Guardians Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
The way that Vogt kept everybody fresh and made everybody feel important helped him squeeze a lot of contributions out of a lot of different guys and that is precisely what Cleveland needs to do with their roster construction. But, this is absolutely a team that should improve in the talent department as the season goes along and guys come and go. To me, this division is between the Tigers and Guardians.
As such, I do like Over 82.5 wins for this ballclub. As I said, the optics are bad with the offseason that they had, but Santana + Manzardo covers Naylor and Gimenez’s defense is a clear loss, but his poor offensive performance won’t be missed. With the upcoming pitching options and a Bieber return, the ceiling should be higher for this starting rotation as the season progresses and I fully expect the Guardians to fix what ailed them in that department last season.
Pick: Over 82.5
