NO GUTS, NO GLORY: Why Cleveland Guardians NEED Less Risk Averse Moves to Break Their Title Drought

NO GUTS, NO GLORY: Why Cleveland Guardians NEED Less Risk Averse Moves to Break Their Title Drought

Guardians have the third best record in Major League Baseball going back to 2013. But are they too risk averse? We’ll tell you if that’s what makes them so good or if that’s what’s holding them back and we’ll predict 40 man moves on decision day on this episode of Locked on Guardians. You are Locked on Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians. Part of Locked On Podcast Network your team every day. Hello friends, Guardians fans all around the world. Thanks for hanging out with us. For the next half hour we talk about what’s going on with your Cleveland Guardians on Lockdown. Guardians, the only daily podcast that covers your team every day from the majors, the minors, the draft, everything in between. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network now the number one sports podcast network if you’re an everydayer. Welcome back. If you’re new here, I’m Justin Latta, one of your two co hosts for the last three years of counting before joining my friend and co host here, Jeff ellis. I’ve spent 18 years and counting covering the Guardians farm system as a prospect writer and editor. As I mentioned, I am Jeff Ellis. I have been here since Lockdown expanded into baseball. Before that I was national writer at Scout and 247 focused on prospects. Thank you for joining us and making us your first listen today and every day wherever it is you get podcasts. Big shout out to all the everydayers, everyone who’s been sticking to us. Through my technical issues, I have changed nothing in my set. Well, today I changed a bunch of my setup. We’ll see if it works. I apologize. I just want to say that at the top we’re working through it. I really do apologize to anyone who’s been annoyed or that has been an issue. We’re fighting, we’re working. If you would like me to redo that Kenny Lofton trade episode, comment below and let me know if it was listenable, if it was salvageable, or if I need to do it again. All right, we’re going meta today, not the app, but we’re going to a bigger look at the Guardian strategy. But Tuesday, November 18th is 40 man decision day to protect prospects in the roll 5 draft. So later in this episode we’ll tell you what we think the Guardians will do. We did a quick preview of it last week, but we’ll kind of give you our predictions on this show. On that note, we’re talking about the Guardians approach to risk tolerance and how it affects them and if it’s an organizational issue or more of a league wide Issue episode of Locked in Guardians today is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. If your bet wins, you’re gonna get 300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Download the FanDuel app today. All right, so I mentioned before the Guardians at the third best record in Major League Baseball. If you go back to 2013 in the regular season, if you go to 2015, the last decade, it’s the fourth best record across Major League Baseball. The teams ahead of them are only the Yankees, the Dodgers, I’m sorry, the Yankees, Dodgers and Astros. Not really a shock, right, that those teams would be ahead of them. But they’ve been better than the brewers. They’ve been better than the Cubs over the last decade. They’ve been better than the Red Sox, the Cardinals, the Braves, the Mariners, even better than the Mets. They’ve been better than a lot of teams that the Padres even, I know the Padres been, you know, better lately than if you want to go back that far, but they’ve been better than a lot of these teams over the last decade plus. So the question really is though, is that working for them or is there some sort of barrier that’s leading them or it’s stopping them from get to higher highs because they don’t really go for a lot of like high risk, high reward. They’d like to stay in the middle. They only have, you know, one World Series appearance in the last decade. They don’t have any titles obviously. I’ve talked about that a lot, but the postseason can be pretty random. But you know, does it take more risk tolerance to try to get over the hump and win a World Series and, and have more dominance in the postseason? I would argue that they’re, they’re weird to put it non scientifically here because the first round they’re incredibly risk focused. Like they take risks. Those covers a lot of things to be clear. It’s not just, I know it’s not just. Yeah, but like you know, just kind of looking at different parts. So it’s like the first round, the draft, very much a risky team. After that they tend to be a little more conservative. Internationally they’re very conservative. I feel like they might spend, but they’re typically spending on more of floor guys, which is not great because they honestly have not done well over there. They, you know, the, the safe floor players have not been safe floor players. They just have not done well. Even though when you go through, I feel like their international class is always extremely conservative and when when they’ve gone for trades, you know, I, I can’t fault them because their trades are where they make bank. That is probably over the, you know, second half of my life here, I’m 44. Over the last 20 years, they have won trades at just an unbelievable rate. The value the players they’ve gotten back, how consistently they get contributions from trades, how often they trade. A. Very rarely do they trade a central piece and not get someone who contributes. Not all teams can say that. You know, I, you can go back to a lot of organizations that have nothing to show from trading their stars and they are a little more conservative in those trades. But you know, again, I can’t fault them. They do. And the other thing I’ll say is I do feel like we’ve seen them shift a little more recently. You know, they have gone with a lot of high pipe priced prep arms even though they’ve had zero success with prep arms for the most part over the last 25 years. You have just a McKenzie and that’s about it. Kind of counts, kind of. Yeah, I guess that’s fair. It’s fair. Good call there. And then you know, last year’s draft, no matter how you want to slice it, I know people got mad at me and my draft takes, but Jace Lavalette and Nolan Schubart are huge gambles. Like those are guys who literally, based on what I have looked through the numbers, had a 0% chance of success. Maybe they see there’s something they can fix. They’ve been better at it than I am. So I’m hoping they’re right. I would love them to be right. But like those were massive gambles. They’ve started to take a few more gambles. Trading for Rosario was kind of more of that gamble type. So we’ve seen them shift a little bit I think in that regard where they are getting out there, you know, signing and trading for guys, adding guys who have bigger risk. But again, I’ll point out the first round, they’re about as risky a team as there is in baseball in terms of what they do in the first round. For the most part, yeah, the draft. Is for sure the one area at least the first round of the draft is where they take the most risk. Because like as we always talk about the draft, like the first round is the height, the top of the first round is safety. Right. You’re taking guys that you, you know, high college players. Like you were talking off air about like prep pitchers and you know, there’s a reason that no prep Right hander has gone number one overall and. And the last prep left hander to go number one overall, I think was. Was Brady Aiken. And that worked out tremendously for everybody. I don’t think anybody hurts. Worked out great for Houston. I mean, this is true. They didn’t sign him. So instead the next year they get Carlson. No, it’s Bregman. Bregman, yeah, Bregman. And then the extra money from that pick because they also got Tucker, allowed them to get Daz Cameron, which allowed them to trade for Justin Berlin. Yeah. So the Astros medical team saw a reason to be risk averse and they said that worked out well for them. Yeah, it did not work out well for the Guardians, but yeah, when you don’t dry, I think that, I think that’s the Guardians draft approach in the first round is they’re willing to take a gamble on guys they have higher on the board if they fall. Right. Because they are. Because of how well they’ve played over the last decade or so. They’re generally not picking the top half of the draft. Right. Like Clint Frazier was the last high pick they’ve had, except for Travis Bazana because they won the lottery that year. But when you’re picking, you know, the 12, the teams, the mid to late 20s, you’re not getting the same level of prospect or at least the same level of safety. So when a Daniel Spino or I guess Jace Lavalette or even a Gavin Williams who isn’t quite as high on people’s board, or they were, they’re off the board due to medicals or whatever. The guardians, you know, Brady Aiken falls in this category. They take a risk to see if they can get a player they normally wouldn’t be able to get their hands on. And that’s where their risk comes in. And. And you know, they took a lot of Prep Pictures in 2024, which is definitely risky for anybody, but especially them because of the lack of success they’ve had. But I mean, I think if you look around baseball, that’s one of the highest attrition rates as high school pitchers. Yeah, but that was the strength of the class that year, was high school pitching. And they had just all the money to spend, so they had to do something to kind of capitalize that season. So the draft in the first round is definitely one area they take risks in. I mean, the Nolan Schubar thing I can’t totally explain because it wasn’t the first round and I don’t know, there was other guys on the board there. But, you know, free agency, we always talk about like that’s a sucker’s bet. It’s always a risk. Unless you’re signing a Juan Soto or Bryce Harper or Manny Machado, you’re gonna get, you know, your, your next Swishers and your Michael Bournes and your Mike Soninos and your, your Josh Bell. Sometimes it works out better than that, sometimes it doesn’t. Like Mike Napoli in 2016 was, you know, similar and that made bank for them in that season. And yeah, there’s a financial component to all of this for sure, but I think overall it’s, it’s how much can you tolerate, how much can you account for and finding the right time to make those swings. So we’ll talk a little bit more about the Guardian’s approach to risk tolerance. If they’re simply following the majority of the league or if a different approach could end their title drought in just a moment. The weather might be cooling off in Cleveland, but the NBA, it’s back and it’s heating up. And there’s no better place to get in on the action than at FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you missed the start of the game, that Cavs game on Monday night was one to miss, at least to start. But if you tuned in later and you wanted to ride the hot hand on a Mitchell played very well. FanDuel has all kinds of things like live bets and everything. Who’s going to score next, the fourth quarter comebacks, and you can combine those live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. We’re talking about big risk, big reward on today’s podcast. And there you have it. The Cavs are entertaining the Houston Rockets on Wednesday should be a fun one to keep track of. They currently have the best odds to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals and the third best odds to win the NBA Finals. That’s fun to keep an eye on. Right now. If you’re a new customer of FanDuel and you’re a Lockdown Guardians listener, you can get $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet win. So head on over to FanDuel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. As always, want to thank you for making Lockdown Guardians your first listen today and every day. Wherever you get podcasts and even bigger. Thank you to all of our everydayers, our insiders, everybody is listening. And for you all who have Made Lockdown the number one sports podcast network. We’re not number one. You’re number one technically because you’re the one who. Who got us here. So thank you for that. Give it to date with all things Guardians this off season by hitting the Bell on YouTube. Get notified of the newest episode of Lockdown Guardians or whenever any big videos come out, whether it’s breaking down the Rule 5 ads for the one of those tomorrow. Right. I bet we’ll have two shorts when that info drop. Yes, absolutely. When that news breaks, you can count on two of those videos. So when you want to see if those go live, hit the Bell on YouTube to get those and auto download wherever you get. Podcasts, we are free literally everywhere. And if we’re not somewhere on audio, let us know. I’m sure we can get our podcast there. So you keep to showing your feed no matter what’s going on, even during the holiday season and all the news that’s going on. All right. So, Jeff, we talked a little bit about the draft and we touched a little bit on free agency from risk tolerance. You mentioned a lot of the international class. I think that’s one area for sure that the Guardians are very conservative in and very risk averse. Because it’s been what the high price guys have been. Right. Like it was one of the highest. Yes. Ever. Gabriel Rodriguez. Yeah, Gabriel Rodriguez is the highest bonus ever. And that blew up in their face. So I guess you can’t blame them for that. He quickly outgrew his outgrew shortstop, moved to third base and he just couldn’t hit. Junior San Quentin was another one of those guys to bring him up. Yeah, he was a shortstop when they signed him and he immediately got too hefty for shortstop, played first base. But then he couldn’t. He couldn’t find a softball, let alone a baseball when he got to high a. It’s not just Cleveland too. Like the Yankees just fired their like international scouting director of like the last 15 years where they have paid for every big name in the market. It’s a hard thing to do. And I’ll say this, I think Cleveland is 100 taking the right approach of just focusing on hitters because we’ll save it for another day. I did some deep data diving talking about like, you know what the best value from Latin America is, where you’re going to get the most consistent return and it is hitters. We’ll get into the how wise and what’s of that later. But I think they’re right to go after Hitters. But I think one of the big things, when I look through the data, look through everything, it’s like they were going for, you know, Welvin Francisca is their guy. Right? Like this is their type of guy. He is a player that when you and I were writing for one organization, like they want to put him in the top five prospects. Like, no, like, like I understand it’s a sweet swing this and that’s like you got to see this guy stateside do a degree. You got to see what he can do. And it was a bad year for him. Like it was big time struggles and you know, we’ll see when the next time they get a, you know, a Latin American player, maybe it will be Valera. Maybe he’ll stay healthy, maybe he’ll put together. Maybe he’ll make me. My words from a year ago, I would love that same thing. Maybe Noel could figure something out and he can make. I’m waiting for someone to make me. My words. I really would enjoy someone who is that solid. But like it’s just been swinging a miss after swinging a miss, which is funny because they mostly target guys who are not supposed to swing and miss. Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s what it’s been, you know. Yeah, Valera, it’s all been high contact guys and that’s, that’s the low risk profiles, the high contact guys because you can assure that like, okay, well, we know this guy will put up a good at bad, he’ll make contact, he won’t strike out, he’ll play defense, he can run, he can do a lot of the things well. And that gives you a really nice floor of a player. But that’s how you wind up with, with Rokios and Martinez is and things like that from the Dominicans and the Latin Americas and the guys like, like you could talk about Jose Ramirez. Jose Ramirez, they signed for $50,000. That was literally, I don’t want to say it’s dumb luck but like because they, they just had the signing scout happened to be there on the right, at the right place in the right time. Yandy Diaz was the other guy in the boat. Like they went and gave, gave Linares a million and Yandy was just the other guy there that day. And he’s their second best Latin American player of the last decade. Right, right. And Noel, same thing. Noel was like what, a hundred thousand dollars? Not a high priced guy. And, and if it were, you know, he’s obviously got huge. They would, they might be willing to more spend less to get a high like, you know, try to go for the low risk. I don’t know what the, what the right combination of words here is. Words are hard but you know, they’re willing to, to try to find guys like I’ll pay a hundred thousand dollars for Noel who might hit a ton of home runs or he might never get past a ball and the outcome he’s already had might be the best it’s going to get for him. And that might be a win because they got him to the major leagues based on what we knew about him. You know, down, down there at that point. I think it’s interesting. The guardians are very low. I was, I don’t know why Dorses Paulino just, just popped in my head. There’s a big believer there. Yeah, a lot of money I had, I had a lot of guardians in the, it’s at the time, of course they believed because they were the people who are developing him. But a lot of coaches and player development people tell me that oh great Dorsus Paulina was the next big thing and he was gonna just hit, hit and hit and he played, almost played the most games ever for the like county captains. That would have been his, his claim to fame. I find it interesting though that, that they, they’re risk averse there is because they have one of the best facilities in all of Major league baseball down in the Dominican Republic. Like they, they can probably outdo a lot of people when it comes to those sorts of things. You would think they would. I mean, I know they use it as a selling point, but they don’t necessarily go after like, you know, and I can remember the White Sox paid for Fernando Tatis Jr. But like you’ve never seen them. Yeah, okay, so, but you haven’t seen them go after, you know, like an Ethan Salas. And I, I mean is it, is it all money? Can they use the other recruiting tools for that? I don’t know. Like obviously Ethan Sals hasn’t worked out for the Padres so far, but that’s what I’m getting at. Those, that’s a high risk, high reward kind of thing. But they don’t, they don’t go in that direction. I mean even, even the Astros, like Christian Javier and Framer Valdez and Jose or Quidi, those, those types of things have worked out for them. I’m sure it’s a, you know, one in a hundred or one in a thousand of those worked out, but those are the ones that have worked out for them. Yeah, it’s all you know, they also got out Altuve and then they, they didn’t sign him, but they traded for Jordan when he was young. So I’m sure they had scouted him. The one thing I’ll say too is the, the problem with that safe profile is I have a, I have a very long time argued the safe profile isn’t safe because you’re counting on everything working out. And whenever, when the margins are so small, if they don’t hit quite well enough, then they’re in aaa, then they’re not advancing, then they’re not. So it’s like the safe profile isn’t safe. Especially when you’re talking about a teenager. It’s not safe at all. So go for more ceiling. Go with a little more risk. Now I’m not saying drop $4 million on, you know, I’m trying to think Kevin Mitied, like I remember I did not like him all that much as a prospect. He was not a guy I was high on. But I was told back when I was writing at Scout, no, he’s got to be a top 40 guy. And we had some debates and I, I relented. But like I think their approach is the right approach. Spread it around. I do think that’s the way not to overspend on one particular guy. But I think the overly safe profiles where they’re flawed, I think that is, I think you have to take a little more ceiling, you have to mix it. And again I think it’s get a few guys who are safe, get a few guys who hit the ever loving snot out of the ball, you know, especially because, you know, you’re probably talking somewhere between now it’s not my money, but, but you know, a hundred to, you know, 100,000 to a million. They spend their whole slot, they spend all their money. You know, maybe there’s a, you know, close to a hundred thousand left over in the end, but they, they typically spend. So I think they need to diversify their investments. Yeah. And they, and they’ve taken risks in free agency. I mean everything in free agency is a risk if you’re gonna get if you’re not signing a Soto or Machado. And yeah, the best ones that have worked out have been what Mike Napoli. And I’m trying to think of the next best one like Jacob Junas. Like, yeah, I mean Junas worked well. It’s, I mean Ben Lively at this point is actually, yes, I would argue and yell de los Santos, who I didn’t even bother to talk about back when I was doing solo shows when they brought him in as a like that worked out pretty well for multiple years. It’s like, yeah, it hasn’t worked out for them and I don’t think they need to be more, I don’t know, I don’t think they need to be less risk averse and free agency, I think the approach for them is to be less risk averse in other areas. Like, to be fair, you and I have both criticized the players they’ve taken in the draft in the first round. Like neither one of us were really high in Jace Lavalette didn’t think there was any chance they would go for him. We’re not really high on Nolan Schubart. You’ve been critical in the past about the pick of Espino and that ended up being correct. Even though you know we’re rooting for Bidden to be healthy and he was finally this past month. He’s exciting. Healthy. Yeah, exactly. But overall I think the first round picks have been very high risk. And you know, look, Bo Naylor’s in the majors and he’s contributing, which is something that’s better than nothing. That’s still a win. Gavin Williams has been good for a year now or at least half a season. And who else is in the majors in the first round like Chase the Lauder filling made his debut. But that was a risk as well. And, and that was a risk on a player who was down everyone’s board because of the injury and they decided to capitalize. So I don’t fault them for taking those risks there, even though I may not agree with them at least that’s. They love a distressed asset. They love a distressed asset like they do. And I, I if we’re going to sit here and say like you got to swing big occasionally, that is the area where you want to do it. I think is is maybe I have to look at it more as that’s the right approach because we can’t ask them to do it in free agency because they, they won’t and it’s probably not a good bet anyway. Yeah. So maybe international, maybe trades is another way to do it. I got one trade. We’ll talk about it as it relates to risk and the 40 man will wrap up this discussion on the risk tolerance of the Guardians approach and we’ll talk about who we think the Guardians are going to add today in the Rule 540 man decision deadline coming up here in just a moment. If you need more guardians talk to warm you up during the off season, I know you do. You can always follow us on social media. Got Jeff at MLB Jeff, MLB drafts everywhere on the jail, Underscore Baseball on Twitter and Jail Baseball on Blue Sky. You can also join the Lockdown Guardians Insiders club. We text every day. The community when I’m not sick, drop news rumors. We ask for mailbag questions from our insiders. We do monthly video chats which will have, I think right after Thanksgiving is what I’m planning on. And then we’ll provide some bonus content from time to time. We’ll definitely have all the news on the rule 5:40 man ads today to our insiders when they happen. So that is join subtext.com lockdown guardians tap in all right, so let’s wrap up our discussion on the Guardians approach to risk aversion and then let’s give them our rule 540 man prediction. So sounds perfect. What do the yeah, what do the Dodgers and the Astros and the Yankees and the Blue Jays do differently besides the Guardians when it comes to risk and player acquisition? That it’s not free agency. You know what I mean? Like the Dodgers, they spend heavily in international market. They are aggressive in terms of the draft. They do the same thing. Like they’ve taken guys in the draft that have injury histories. They’re not afraid of that. They’re not afraid of signing injured free agents. But that’s not, you know, that’s the Guardians can’t compare there. The Astros, they seem to have a type of player they really like. The Yankees that just fire their international guy. The Blue Jays, they’ve spent big in international, but you know that everybody has different pools to spend in the international market. But you know, the Guardians could spend differently. They, you know, I were the Guardians going to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. No, because he had ties to Canada. That was never going to happen. But that’s one area. Maybe the Guardians could do a little better. And then you have like I think overall this is a league wide thing. I think the league as a whole, when you’re not looking at the Dodgers and the Astros and the Blue Jays and the Yankees and the Mets, the league wide as a whole has become very risk averse. I think there’s a lot of group think like look at Jerry Depot, he said the Mariners Hope to win 54 of their games over a long stretch of time. And, and that’s gotten them their first playoff series win since 01 and they got one game within the World Series. I think that speaks the inequality of the league even more. And overall I think the Guardians could Be less, less risk averse. But they’re trying to avoid the lows, which we know they try to do. And I appreciate that. And they try to, you know, capitalize on the highs and avoid bottoming out and not be the White Sox. And overall that keeps people from being fired. It’s stability, which has been good for the Guardians, but I do think they could be a little bit less, less risk averse when it comes to maybe the international market and maybe when it comes to trades. And one of those guys in trades, I think is Cleo Watson, who was. Was a nice gamble. I know it’s not really nice to talk about the Guardians and gambling in the same sentence these days, but that was like a nice gamble. Right. You traded Josh Bell and you’re like, well, you know, same thing with Alphonse and Rosario, like, like you said with Eli Morgan, like, let’s pick a high risk, high reward guy. And it’s. Well, in those cases it was low risk because you’re trading Eli Morgan and Josh Bell, guys that weren’t going to be a part of your future. And you decided to go on a guy that, yeah, you could have gotten a utility infielder or a, A safe bullpen arm, but you went for upside. And I, I appreciate that. Yeah. I think, you know, the, the separator everyone’s screaming about in the background of this is of course, money. Right. Like, those are all teams. Most of the teams you mentioned are the teams that three of the top five teams spending and the Astros are a top ten team as well. So, you know, money just staunches all wounds. It’s essentially how baseball teams heal themselves. It makes you more tolerant of risk. Yeah, you can. Well, it’s not even more risk if. You have more money. It’s further to that. It’s like it gives you the ability to recover from those risks. You know, paper over it. Yeah. Yep. And you can find other approaches. So that’s always going to be the thing. And I would argue, like looking at recent drafts, like Houston is one of the most conservative teams in baseball. The Yankees, historically in the draft, one of the most conservative teams in baseball. The Dodgers have actually been a more conservative team in terms of the draft and their draft picks. So a lot of those teams, actually Cleveland is, is. Is, you know, less conservative than I think every team you mentioned in terms of their f. The Blue Jays are one of the most conservative teams in baseball. So, you know, it’s just interesting. It’s like they can, they can play it a little safer because they can go out and spend in free agency. Sure hit. So it’s. That’s true. Cleveland is kind of gambling trying to find that. But yeah, yeah. So it’s, it’s interesting to look at, at all of it and you know, I know people are going to scream about money and it’s like, it’s all well and good, but again, it’s fascinating to me. We didn’t get a chance to talk about this, but it’s like Bally’s, whatever it is nowadays, just went out and brought the brewers back under their, their umbrella. They kept the Royals under their umbrella. You know, what team they have no interest in Cleveland. Like it just speaks again to Mark in Milwaukee, has the smallest market size in baseball. But they were brought back. So it’s like, you know, Cleveland’s just doesn’t have the pool, the monetary value of other teams, unfortunately. Yeah, I want to bring up the Royals. I know. And I think this speaks to the randomness too. Like the Royals are the last team, like the Guardians that won the World Series. Right. Like, that’s the closest you can get to the Guardians is the Royals. And I’m like, okay, what did they do that worked so well for them while they went out and they traded for James Shields and they had Mustakis and Hosmer and, and Alex Gordon. They, they took what those guys. All high school bats. Moussakis was a. Yeah, he was a high school bat. Yeah, those were all high school bats. Salvi worked out for them at that time. Gordon. Gordon was a leftover who was a college bat who’d been. But they also had about 10. It’s the same thing with the current Tigers. Everyone’s like, oh, look at all the great young hitters. All these teams. Yeah. How’d they get there? They had like seven top 10 picks in a row. You know that, that makes it a lot easier. The Guardians don’t want to bottom out. They want to play in the middle a little bit more. And, and how if you have a 90 loss season or whatever they did in 20, you know, 20, 23, but you want to have more 24s and 25. So that’s, that’s just kind of where they are. And I get that approach, I appreciate that approach, but sometimes you gotta maybe swing a little bit bigger and handle those highs and lows. All right, get out of here. On this note, the Guardians have to make a all their 40 man rule 5 decisions today. So here’s the names to know real quickly. If you missed our episode last week, Go back and watch that. The names you want to pay attention to today is there’s Angel Hanau who maybe we’ll get a different pronunciation on because I’ve heard it multiple ways or both ways. Comment below on the show. That’s from. But he’s gonna be 100 added after that. It’s your man Gomez, right handed pitcher Austin Peterson, Cleo Watson, Dylan Delucia, Wilfredo Antunia, Steven Perez and I threw in Jake Miller even though I think that’s a pretty unlikely name. But there’s three open spots. They have 37 spots coming into the morning. I think for sure we will see them non tender DFA trade Nolan Jones or Zach Kent. So that will put them down to 35. You could see them non tender Will Brennan, I think but I, maybe they’ll hang on to him. Noel and Rodriguez are both on the fringes and I wouldn’t rule out a trade in general because they always make trades on these kind of days. If I had to guess they’re gonna add Noel or I’m sorry Noel, they’re gonna add. Now they’re gonna add Gomez. I think they’re gonna add Watson if he’s not traded. I could see him being traded and I could see maybe Peterson and Perez in that order is what I think will happen today. So I think you’ll see at least 4 guys added so they’ll have to open up at least one spot. I think they’ll have five spots overall open. So I, my, my theory is they’ve got the three spots open. So that’s Hanau, Gomez and Peterson just kind of my. And then I think Nolan Jones is definitely a. He’s gone because he’s got a two million dollar arbitration. They’re not going to pay him two million dollars after what he did. So he’s out. Zach. Ken is out of options. That eliminates his value. So those two guys off that allows me to add Delucia and Watson. And who am I forgetting at that point? I feel like there’s a name I’m forgetting after. I know you said Hanau and Gomez, right? Hanau, Gomez and Peterson and Watson. Peterson. There’s Perez and Delucia. Well, so the two open spots and that gives you Watson and Delucia. So Perez is then the guy who isn’t on who could be added. But I mean there’s also room if they really like Perez as well easily to get rid of one of Noel. Noel and Rodriguez are redundant. Let’s be real honest. They’re redundant. You can Only keep one. And if you do that, that still leaves Brennan as roster fodder. It still leaves. I mean there’s other guys on this roster you can still debate about on top of Brennan. It’s like you could probably move on from Noel and Rodriguez at this point, but Brennan is an easy guy to possibly move off of. And you know, I, you know, Doug Nikazi right now I think is, is kind of a borderline situation. He still has options, I believe. Right. So then he’s, he’s going to be next year. Zach Kent. So I think he’s fine. But like, I think, I think it’s easy to add five. I, I do think it’s relatively easy to add five and I don’t think they’re going to look where they are with how well teams protect anymore. I don’t think they’re going to look to go dumpster diving. They’re, they’re not looking at who’s rule five available. They’re looking at who’s the, the second. Like the more important parts are the AAA and double AA phase. Honestly. Yeah, AAA and double A phase are more important for that. I mean that’s where Eric Zabrowski came from. Like that’s, that’s, that’s what’s going to be more important to them than the actual thing. So yeah, my, my theory is for sure Jones and Kent and, or one of the, the two right handed hitters are gone and they’ll add five. That’s my theory. But again, I agree. I would also bet heavily on a trade. I would, I would and I’ll be crowing about it if I’m right or maybe roostering about it if I’m right. I think they should trade Tobias Myers for Junior Kim there. That’s, that’s my prediction. They don’t have Tobias Myers to trade this year. No, I think they’ll make a trade because I think you’re right. They’re not looking to go dumpster diving in the Rule 5 job. I think it’s more likely they would trade for some other teams player that would be on the fringes of being added and they would add them to theirs versus taking him in the roll five so they don’t have the, the protections on him, the risk. So I think they could trade for somebody else’s Rule 5 candidate and get him ahead. But yeah, I, I don’t think they’ll have a 40 man spot open normally. They like to. But I think you’re right, they’re not in a position right now to be adding a guy they have to keep in the Rule 5, but I think they’ll appreciate, they’ll load up. And I can also see them flipping for a lotto ticket, trying to get their own Junior Caminero situation. I could see that. You know, here’s, here’s me throwing some spaghetti at the wall. This is not, you know, don’t, don’t run with this. If you’re an aggregator and say I’m calling, this is gonna happen. But I could see them. Gabriel Arias is off the roster in his Venezuelan Winter League team. Very odd timing for that. I don’t know if he’s just done. Well, he did just have a baby, so maybe he’s done. I was gonna say maybe that’s why he’s off the roster now. I was gonna say he’s out of options and he’s off the roster. Maybe the Guardians will try to free up a 40 man roster spot by trading him. So. And then I just realized he just had a child, so maybe that’s why he’s off the roster. And this is not me using that as, as justification. But you never know. One of those things could happen. Make sure to check out the show tomorrow, November 19th. We’ll cover all the moves and decisions the guardians make on 40 man rule five day. Then Thursday we’re going to visit with our favorite guest Jeff Potts of Baseball America to talk about the Guardians farm system rethinking 2024 draft decisions. And we’ll talk about their approach to the 2025 draft with Jeff. Thank you all for joining us. Remember to rate and review download daily. You know, thank you for sticking through again through technical issues. I appreciate all of you. And go, go Guardians. Go.

Cleveland Guardians face a pivotal offseason as risk tolerance comes under the microscope. Is their cautious approach holding them back from World Series glory, or is it the secret to their consistent success since 2013? Hosts Justin Lada and Jeff Ellis debate the team’s strategy, comparing the Guardians’ record to MLB powerhouses like the Dodgers, Yankees, and Astros, while questioning how financial constraints shape Cleveland’s player acquisitions. The show predicts key Guardians decisions: 40-man roster moves such as Angel Genao, Yorman Gomez and Kahlil Watson. The episode break down past draft gambles, international signings, and the franchise’s trade track record. Can the Guardians embrace bigger risks to end their title drought? Get analysis and predictions on which Rule 5 candidates might make the cut as decision day looms.

00:00 Guardians Among MLB’s Best
04:29 Masterful Trading Success
09:13 Guardians’ Risk and Title Drought
12:56 Cleveland’s Focus on Hitters
19:29 Draft Risks and Strategy
21:53 Guardians Insights & Rule 5 Updates
23:23 MLB’s Risk Aversion Trend
28:33 Roster Moves and Trade Predictions
31:28 Rule 5 Trade Prediction
32:48 Guardians’ Moves & Draft Insights

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