UNAVOIDABLE CHANGE: Cleveland Guardians RUMORED Moves, Zach Kent’s Future & Money Debates

UNAVOIDABLE CHANGE: Cleveland Guardians RUMORED Moves, Zach Kent’s Future & Money Debates

The winter meetings have begun, which means your Cleveland Guardians will be making a move. It’s only a question of the magnitude. [Music] You are Locked On Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the show today. I am your host Jeff Ellis as I have been for almost every episode of this show. Been here since locked on expanded into baseball. Before that, I was a national writer. It’s gone 24/7 focused on prospects in the draft. What is Locked on Guardians? Well, we are the only daily podcast that talks about your Cleveland Guardians from the majors to the minors to the draft and everything in between every single day. Proudly part of the Locked On Network. Now, the number one sports podcast network. And why are we the number one podcast network? It’s thanks to each and every one of you out there. for all of our everydayers tuning in every single day to talk about, you know, what is going on with this team and all the excitement that occurs with the Cleveland Guardians. Uh, and I do want to take a moment and say a big thank you to you for making today’s episode your first listen today and every day, wherever it is you get podcasts. On today’s show, we are going to talk about some of the news around the league, some of the things that happened. We’re going to explain the Zack Kent of it. I had some people ask exactly why the Guardians did what they did, and that’s what we’re here for. We are here to explain the why. Uh, I’m going to bring up some alternate history. I know people like the history stuff and I’ve kind of hinted at noting some things in the past. So, we’re we’re going to look at a point of pivot in history and discuss that. And I also spent some time this weekend diving into the Atlanta Braves money. Why did I dive into the Atlanta Braves? because they’re one of the two teams that’s information is publicly available trying to figure out exactly how much you know the Cleveland Guardians might have to spend figuring out exactly how the money of it all works it it’s the biggest debate right so let’s I wanted to try to take it in a very logical approach so we are going to look at we’re going to look at the news and the moves we are going to look at some fun alt history and then we are going to look at money. But first, today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season. FanDuel.com. Visit FanDuel.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. So, the news around the league. Uh the the winter meetings are starting. As I mentioned, Cleveland’s going to make some kind of move. Uh they always do. Uh, it might be something very minor, but the the thing with those minor moves is I will bring it up, that minor league section of the rule five, that’s where they got Eric Sabowski, and that’s turned into a valuable piece for this team. Um, Bradley Hanner, I believe, is the other pitcher they got a few years ago. They have found some interesting players, some depth pieces to help them, and sometimes they turn to major league talent. I do think they’re going to select someone in the rule five draft. And, you know, a year ago, it’s the winter meetings is where we had the Andre Himenez deal come. So, they have been a little bit active during this time. So, you know, I’ll be curious to see what happens. We know something will happen. Uh, we’re already seeing the rumors. I My favorite rumor of the day before we get into the Guardian side of it was the Pirates make a four-year offer to Kyle Schwarber for more than 100 million. The reason this is my favorite news piece of the day is because that is a classic we know he’s not going to take it deal. So, uh, we’re going to leak it to Ken Rosenall so he can report it. Hey, we offered $100 million contract knowing that he wants five years and he’s probably going to get closer to like 140. Uh, so that that’s why that’s my favorite. That’s the hey, we’re trying to show you participation medal time. Um, and then I think you know someone’s going to comment on it if I don’t mention it. So Jeff Kent made the Hall of Fame. Former Cleveland great Jeff Kent. Um, it’s okay if you do not remember his time here. Mostly known for many of us for then being part of the Matt Williams deal. played all of 39 games uh and was okay. It just he immediately would go to San Francisco. You know, he had been a 2-7 win, 32 win that year at Cleveland, a 2.4 win player. Getting him for Carlos Berg was actually a really good value at the time. Uh then they trade him to San Francisco and he goes on a tear immediately becomes a 4-in player and just keeps going from there. So, shout out to a Guardian who is now going to the Hall of Fame or Indian as it were at the time. Uh before we talk Zack Kent, one other piece of news to discuss. I had people ask about this. Jose Frier, they didn’t understand the trade wanted, you know, how does this make sense? And this is what we’ve been talking about a little bit that the relief market is hot right now. If you want to get relievers, you have to, you know, pay a price. We’ve seen the closers go for a high value. And the reason this trade happened is, you know, three years of team control. you look at the data on Jose Frier, the, you know, the fastball run value of that stuff. It sometimes feels like more noise than value unless you’re seeing something very consistent in it. Uh, but the important data here is he doesn’t walk anyone. He’s a lefty who throws upper 90s, keeps the ball on the ground, and, you know, is just someone who’s really hard to pick up. You know, it’s a sinker change slider, mostly sinker change, high velocity lefty, three years of team control. Fit much better. Field FIP stands for fielding independent RA and it’s what we talked about with some of the you know Sarah’s things like ERA doesn’t matter anymore like teams are not using that no it’s the same thing like a few years ago with like we you know I don’t want to say like RBI’s team no team is looking at RBI as an evaluative stat teams don’t look at RA they look at FIP they look at stuff plus they’re looking at models and things like that to try to find guys who are being undervalued by traditional and older metrics so far was fantastic um again lefty throws exceptionally hard and people while he gets, you know, his hard hit rate is a little bit up there, it’s it’s hard hitting to the ground. It’s all ground balls. No one’s barreling. No one’s hitting his stuff well. So, he just hits everything right into the worms and then, you know, they were able to clean it up. So, adding a, you know, a guy who could become an elite reliever cost him Harry Ford and Harry Ford’s uh prospects of Mont Page, you know, I had people be like, why wasn’t Cleveland after him if he was available? because, you know, he’s an athletic kid. He’s a right-handed bat. Kind of that tweener because he was a catcher who then they move quickly through the system and didn’t have him catch that much. He does a lot of things well. You know, he doesn’t chase. He walks, but he’s also a passive hitter. He’s a very passive hitter and he doesn’t do the pull the ball in the air, which is what teams want to see more and more of. So, I’m not saying that he is going to be a bust or anything like that. But I also think, you know, he’s a guy who’s a former top 100 prospect that likely wasn’t going to make any of those top 100 prospect lists this year, even though he still would have qualified. He’s a good prospect, but one of those things that always stands out is Seattle desperately needed hitters for large parts of last year and they barely gave him a cup of coffee. So, they just did not think he was quite ready to help or contribute. And I know some be like, well, they already have a good enough catcher, but again, he wasn’t really catching that much. He was he was spending a lot of time in the outfield because that was likely going to be his role with Seattle. Uh bit of an undersized guy as well. So there’s some good things. I mean, you have to give up value to get value. I think both teams did a good job. If you’re the Nationals, you don’t need a potential elite backend type. And if you’re um Seattle and you want to help that bullpen really solidify, adding a frier can really help them. So, let’s talk about Zack Kent. Why did Cleveland let him go now? Why didn’t they let him go earlier? And why should we care? Well, Cleveland held on to Zack Cam for a reason. And that’s his curveball and his slider are both very good pitches. His fast ball, unfortunately, is not. So, it kind of limits him in that regard. His fast ball is the pitch he threw the majority of the time. And it just it it’s not something that is going to help him out. It’s it’s not a pitch that he can really lean on, even though he threw it as much as he did. It’s those secondary offerings that stand out for him. And last year in AAA, it’s a bad combination for where he pitches. the exit be low, hard hit uh rates were bad. So um when guys made contact and went a far distance, but you know, he generated a lot of whiff, a lot of um swings and miss. And Cleveland waited to release him to now. And a lot of teams did. If you saw like uh Mario Luciano was one of the top 15 prospects at one point in time in all of baseball. The Giants released him. Multiple teams were releasing players on Friday. And the hope for the teams that are doing the releasing is the winter meetings are getting ready to happen. teams have started signing some free agents. Other teams are trying to intentionally keep open roster spots because of the rule five draft and wanting to add players that way. And other teams are also up against it to begin with. So, you’re hoping to slide guys through waiverss. You’re hoping that this is a time where teams are about as taxed as they’re going to be all off season. So, that you’re sitting there trying to slide someone through. So, if Zack Kent is taken off your 40man but stays in the minor, then that gives him more depth for next year. That is the approach. That is the hope. that is what they tried to do. It didn’t happen and you know they valued him enough to hold on to him to this point. Uh the two roster spots one can say like that probably points to a chance that they might want to add some in the rule five. It might also point to the fact that maybe they are trying to do some deals and stuff around uh the corner as well as it was reported I believe by Paul Hines that they were trying on Tyler Ward tyler no Taylor Ward but uh you know they didn’t really have um a Rodriguez type just because of Rodriguez’s ceiling and the sheer amounts of control he has uh even though there’s a lot of injury risk. So they’re trying they’re trying to do things but you know they’re trying to open up those 40man roster spots and they took a gamble and they lost. Can I is that even the right expression for me to use anymore? I don’t know. Uh but yeah, that’s why Zack Kent was let go when he was let go. They still need DAP’s arms. They need Zack Kent and Triple A to have some big league experience. They’ll be camp invites and we’ll talk about them. But when we come back, I’m going to talk about the alternative history. A few people have asked about that. Um every time I mention Jose, so let’s talk about a you know Christmas Carolesque moment. Uh let’s let’s see if if we had taken another path that had been traveled and we’ll come back and discuss that on today’s lockdown guardians. NFL Sundays move fast. One big play and suddenly everything feels different. That’s what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You’re not just watching the game, you’re reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. every drive, every momentum swing and every human highlight. A few years ago, I, you know, I made a recommendation of, you know, at this point in time maybe throwing a little bit of money on Edmonton. I I still think few years later, I know they are terrible right now because here’s the thing, I watch more NHL than I do NBA or NFL. So, that’s a, you know, a good team that you can maybe get right now at a discount price because of their struggles. Like, you know, Florida Panthers, they won the last two cups plus 950 over right now on Stanley Cup odds. Colorado has been really good, but now is the time to maybe buy low on some teams that have had some injuries. Um, so if you want to be right in the middle of the action, visit fandal.com and place your live NFL bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast and so can you. Thank you all for being with us. I want to talk about we have a new program here at Lockdown called the Everyday Club. Uh, thank you for making Locked On Guardians your first listen of the day. And thank you for making Locked On the number one sports podcasting network. You already live your team every day. Now you can take it to a level and go ad free. Join the Everyday Air Club and get Locked Ong Guardians with no interruptions. Members only Discord access and more for $5 a month or 50 bucks a year. Go to locked onguardians.supcast.com for more information. Uh, or you can check in the show notes. Uh, let’s get back into the action. So, I talked about alternative history back I mean really it was it was going to happen like this is one of those things that I had information on that I was kind of sitting on because it was depressing me honestly back in the day uh Jose Ramirez you know I’ I’ve hinted at this but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about fully what the trade was going to be if Jose Ramirez left Cleveland and I’m going to say this no matter how you want to view it and we’ll look at the lineup and I want people below to comment like with their thoughts I can look at the lineup and know the lineup would be had they traded Jose. But that doesn’t mean that I want them to have done it. This is a situation where my heart is going to overrule my head because if you’re a Cleveland baseball fan, your whole life has been about transactional situations of players leaving. Um, you know, they they had two superstars here with Lindor and Jose and they could they kept Jose. Uh, Lindor wanted a ton of money and he got it with the Mets. uh until baseball figures out some kind of system to make it. You know, I a lot of people I see in the comments talk about a lot of times about like uh you know this and that with Cleveland and like very bottom line, Major League Baseball is not built for small market teams. Cleveland is not supposed to have had the success they’ve had. Uh they just they they make significantly less money than other teams. When you’re a small market, you are supposed to be a feeder. I mean, that’s what the 60s and 70s were for a lot of small market teams. you fed the bigger teams. You were a feeder program. That’s kind of what MLB was. And you know, it’s changed a little bit, but specifically once free agency started, um, you know, teams are willing to spend could go out and buy guys and teams would have to trade away and try to, uh, figure out the underneath of it all. There’s a lot more one could go into with that. Um, specifically, you can really get into where some of the money shifts happened, um, with ownership that essentially caused them to destroy their minor leagues in the late 50s, but that’s, you know, early 60s, I think, is when that happened. But that that’s a story for another day of doing the historical pieces. But the bottom line here is um Cleveland’s not supposed to be successful. Small market teams under the current setup are not. It’s you know the line from money ball about trying to win an unfair game. It’s this is the only um you know North American league without a cap of of the big ones. And it means a team like the Dodgers can just paper all paper over everything but with more money. It’s the same thing with the Yankees, right? they can have a misplay and paper over it in that same regard, but Cleveland’s been successful. Um, but unfortunately, the system makes it hard to be a Cleveland fan. It’s hard to get attached to players, right? Because you’re used to them leaving. So, no matter how much it might be fun to do this alternate history and look at what this lineup could look like today, at the end of the day, I’m still glad Jose’s here. I’m still glad he took a well under market extension because um you know it’s it’s something we just don’t get to see. We just have not had a guy do that. It’s very rare. Um and Cleveland having a chance to do that. And then we’ll talk some finances in segment three just to kind of show more of how things don’t balance out. But what I had heard was leading up to Jose was going to be a Padre. This is the way it was. If if Jose if they didn’t get an extension done, he was going to the Padres’s. That was that was the team he was going to. And the way I’d heard it at the time was you were looking at CJ Abrams, Mackenzie Gore, and then one of James Wood or Jackson Merrill. James Wood and Jackson Merrill have been their first and second round pick the last uh year. I think they more liked Merald than Wood. Um if I’m being honest, I I had heard mixed parts if Robert Hassel was also involved and then there was multiple other pieces. I think it was not Hassel because I think they were hoping to get like five to six pieces. Now, for those who don’t remember, the Wanoto deal was Janoto and Josh Bell, who at the time was in the midst of an all-star year for Yarlin Susana, uh, pitcher, C.J. Abrams, Kenzie Gore, Robert Hassel, James Wood, and Washington agreed to eat Luke Voit’s contract because Luke Voit was not very good at that point. So, it was a little bit and you might say, well, it sounds like Cleveland is getting less. The the other side of it is James Woods, I keep getting this wrong, James Wood, not not the actor, James Wood, had kind of broken out in the year in Well, no. So, this was August of 22. And over the course of that year, we had really seen more of a breakout by James Wood. Uh, he had, you know, this was August, like I said, of 22. The Jose trade, I believe, would have been April of 22. So you’re looking at, you know, having that whole season for a player that otherwise like James Wood who had just been drafted. So having that full season of his performance kind of moved him up lists a bit. So there’s that side of it, but you know, looking at it, it was a very similar trade. Like I said, I think it was not Robert Hassel, though. I think it was Abrams, Gore, either Merryill or Wood, and then some other players down the board. Um, you know, at various times I thought I’d heard Brandon uh Valenuela is a guy and then there was just a lot of, you know, rumor and conjecture and and thought about who it could be in terms of, you know, the Padres’s maybe even a guy or two off their active roster. So that was the rumor trade. So, here’s where, you know, I’m kind of curious when you look at what Cleveland could be with the idea of course now being if they had done that trade that maybe they flip Mackenzie Gore to Boston because, you know, he’s two years out and this team has a lot of depth. Um, and Gore would be kind of, you know, being two years out would be someone who’d make sense. So, here’s a a projected lineup if they had done this trade. Uh leading off CJ Abrams at at shortstop or second base. Left field is still Steven Quan. Abrams gives you a little more speed. James Wood or Jackson Merrill is your three hitter in that uh right field center field spot depending on uh you know who it is. Wood isn’t really a center fielder but he is more of a hitter. Uh Merrill had some health last year but you know had a fantastic rookie season. Menardo at first base at four. Again, this is, you know, just me doing a just a random. It’s not verse righties or lefties. Then trading for Duran to play center field or right field with the Gore deal. Some other pieces in place sets you up where we’ve talked about. We think that Chase the Lauder is going to make this team out of camp this year. Pencil eliminated DH in this situation. You got Bo Naylor at catcher. Uh third base. We’re going to lose people. What a drop off to Gabby Arias. They don’t. and then Rokio would either shortstop or second base at nine. Uh I thought when they actually acquired Gabby in that first deal, it was to be the eventual Jose replacement. They don’t have a lot of guys with the arm strength and system to play third base. So third base would go from a massive strength to a massive weakness. And you also don’t have anyone who is the Joseé caliber in the lineup. You’re more spreading it around to a few other spots. But that’s kind of where you’d get. That’s kind of if we had a fun look at alternative history. Again, I think that’s probably a stronger lineup even with losing Jose just especially if you get someone like, you know, James Wood who has a lot of talent, but Jackson Mal does as well. And then you’re adding in, you know, multiple other starters. Of course, the other side of it is you’re probably at this point also looking at the idea of having to flip someone like Abrams, um, as well as like already having done a pre Gore flip. But I I still would take Jose even though I think the lineup’s better. I have so much PTSD of stars leaving this team as a fan of this team that I I can look at that lineup and say on paper that’s probably a better lineup, but I would still rather have Jose Ramirez. What about you? What do you think? What did you hear? Maybe you heard something different from me. Put that in the comments below. Which lineup would you have preferred and uh are your heart and your head in unison? Because they certainly aren’t for me. We’re going to come back from the break and dive into finances. We’re going to look at available information to try to figure out what the expectation should be for the Cleveland Guardians in terms of spending on today’s lockdown Guardians. The World Cup is coming back to North America for the first time since 1994. I remember that. I was uh 12 going on 13 when that happened. And with 48 teams for the first time ever, it’s going to be massive. Let’s be honest, getting tickets is usually the hardest part. That’s why the game time app is clutch. finally giving fans a real advantage when it comes to snagging seats. 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Again, download the app, make an account, use the code lockdown mob for $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. Game time. Thank you all for joining me, especially on a solo edition of Lockdown Guardians. I know we can read, we read the comments. You know, we know some people have favorites, so there’s always uh a few people who don’t tune in when one of us isn’t present. So, thank you to everyone who is joining us today. Uh looking through, you know, this week on the show, we’re going to talk about, you know, the rule five draft. we’re going to have, you know, lotto lottery reaction because it it will have effect on Cleveland um with that first pick that they have moving up potentially or staying where it is. Uh we’ll talk about, you know, any and all movement that occurs. So, we’re going to have you covered. A lot of this week is going to be in reaction to the events of the week um here on Lockdown Guardians. But one of the hot topics as always when you are a Cleveland baseball fan is money. And you know when we are looking at how much does this team spend and people get mad and people say we carry water or that we’re on the payroll. Um, which is always funny to me because like the same people want to say that they don’t have the money, that they won’t spend any money, but then they’ll say that they’re paying us to be on the payroll, which I I don’t think it can be both. But the problem with Major League Baseball, honestly, is that they’re disingenuous and they don’t show things. Um, they don’t provide, you know, all the information on the table. They don’t give you all of the data except for with two sources. One is the Braves. They’re a publicly traded commodity, so they have to do it. And the same story is with uh Toronto. So, I I go with the Braves over Toronto because the Braves give us an American market. And I think that’s a little bit easier. And I didn’t get the 2025 data. I don’t think all of that has been pushed out there yet, but I thought it’d be interesting to look at the 2024 data and try to figure out um exactly where things are. Um, when you’re looking at Atlanta Braves and uh 2024, they had a $238 million payroll, which balloons up to with luxury tax um a little bit higher than that. We’re looking at maybe closer to 279 million. So, that gives us a basis for what the Brave spent. And then knowing the additional information, let’s work our way backwards to see, you know, maybe what is logical for Cleveland to do. So the first thing you have to subtract is the Braves data has them making 67 million last year from their battery project. Those who don’t know, it’s essentially a stadium village. It’s all the money they make from the businesses and everything else around the stadium. It’s what Justin very strongly believe David Blitzer is trying to do. Um, if he buys his team, he wants the village because it is another way to make money. it’s a way to make money throughout the year and that um again it generates $67 million in revenue. You can see why other people would be interested in doing it. The next thing you have to pull off is the Braves lost $ 31 million by their own reports. I don’t believe this franchise will operate at a deficit. So when you pull that off of the totals here, you would then go down to 181 million. Still sounds good, right? Well, let’s do the next thing. Um, the Braves in 2024 sold about a million more tickets than Cleveland did. And the average ticket price for a Braves game is $38. So, if we subtract out another 38 million, let’s do again so we can get figure out our overall value. It gets us down to 143 million. Okay, still sounds good. Still gladly take that payroll. So, everyone else. Um, again for those who moving too quickly started at 279. That’s what it’s that’s again more of an estimate with luxury tax. Their payroll was 238. The looks like you know they with with everything else that maybe they spent closer to 279 though they report 238 in their own paperwork. I decided to give the wiggle of that extra 40 million put their spending a little bit higher. So, I’m actually going in the way of favoring the payroll should be higher in this way. Subtracting off from the battery because Cleveland doesn’t have that. Subtracting off the lost money because I don’t think they would do that. And subtracting off the fact that they sold a million more tickets and their ticket values are at 38 million. Uh the other problem now you have to face is the average ticket price in Cleveland is 31 million. Average ticket price for the Braves is 38. So that’s for the 2 million that was the similar that year, um a $7 difference. So you have to subtract another 14 million off and that then gets us down to 129 million. Now they had a $71 million TV contract. Cleveland, our estimate at best is 20 million. So we have to take off another $51 million now because TV is such a driver and Cleveland just does not have that. That gets you down to 78 million. The loss of TV money is huge. Like if we were having this discussion a few years ago when Cleveland was making $50 million from their TV contract it’d be a different story like then yeah 120 130 million payrolls I think should have been more the expectation. Um but with the loss and 20 million I even feel like I’m being generous there but 51 million off takes you to 78. But we have some things to add back on. one since the Braves are that public uh public traded they have a board of CEOs um multiple CEOs make multi-million dollars I’m going to round up a bit but I’m going to say not having a board that is CEO based that is not just you know everyone’s paying their coaches managers but not having that board let’s give Cleveland another 10 million that gets you about 88 million the other thing is taking last year there was and I wrote this in another location the the money you get from the luxury tax, the money that gets distributed out from the luxury tax was you take all of the the money that there is and you divide it by two and half of it I believe goes to player retirement funds and the other half goes to teams and the total amount of money is $37 million divide by two and then I believe the teams that get it are the 15 teams that get the competitive balance pick. So you divide out that and that gets you like another 10 to 11 million. So if I add in 11, be generous, that would get us up to 99 million. So the reason I use the Braves again is the idea that they’re going to have the same revenue sharing money as Cleveland outside of this luxury tax bonus. Um, I know in a previous year Cleveland had gotten some extra money from, you know, uh, M MLB baseball helping make up the deficit between TV and money by reports that didn’t happen last year. But when I’m looking overall, you know, it’s the Braves, they lost a little bit more, but they have to pay into all the same things Cleveland has to pay into. I, you know, added a higher starting value because of the luxury tax. then you subtract off the differences, it gets you to about 100 million, which is where Cleveland has been. Um, and it just again, it’s it’s a logical approach. Um, you know, I wish they had John Sherman as a minority owner who is willing to pony up and lose a little bit of money like he was back when he was the owner uh the minority owner before he became the owner of the Royals. Um, that’s what not what they’ve had with Blitzer. I I wish that TV money was what it was um so we could see a little bit more. But unfortunately that is completely falling apart and upended. And you know, even with those estimates of money, I would bet that the Atlanta Braves generate more revenue in general being more of a um I mean, they were they were the baseball team of my generation because they’re on TV everywhere. Um given them a bit of a wider base and they probably get more from their merchandising than Cleveland does, but I give them same merchandising values here. So yeah, I think for an average Major League Baseball team, you’re looking at about a hundred million dollar payroll. Uh maybe there’s something I’m forgetting. Maybe there’s something I left off. Maybe there’s something that someone smarter than me can figure out that I am obviously missing. I mean, it’s very possible. I’m not an econ major. I’m just someone who teaches seventh grade math uh occasionally when there is a need um and likes to play around with numbers. But I just thought it was interesting because we hear a lot of complaints and then we hear a lot of people who defend it and let’s just look at the numbers. It it’s just looking at a logical progression and trying to figure out what is the expectation where should this team be. Now saying this when I did um you know a earlier in the year money data sheet I had them at about 70 million in spending. I think sometimes people don’t always count everyone on the 40man roster and things like that. So the other question becomes, you know, I I don’t think they’re going to have to pay um class A his money even though that um is until May. We had some people ask that the because he is going to be in court and that is a legal situation. Often that means that that money can be um delayed uh e in terms of paying to the players or they’ll have to pay them later. They did not for instance the raised didn’t pay Wander Franco during his situation. So we’ll have to see but if you eliminate class A Ortiz it gets him closer to 65. So that still gives them a $35 million window potentially um for this year even to a degree next year. Like some of the contracts are going up, don’t get me wrong, but we’re not going to have too many huge jumps in in year one of ARB. At least typically it’s like it’s kind of more year two year three where you see the bigger jumps. So, a two to threeear contract for the right player at a higher price point would make sense. Again, if this team I’ll throw this back out there. We learned they were trying to get Taylor Ward. It still might make sense to chase a one-year guy like say Suzuki as well. So, we’ll have to see. I hope you enjoyed a episode that a little bit all over the place. We handled the new the day. We talked about Hall of Fame. We talked about um losing a player in the waiver system. We talked about money. We talked alt history. What part was interesting? What part should I never approach again? Thank you all for joining me. Please remember to rate and review. Uh put a comment, you know, thumbs up, like. We appreciate all of that. Uh we know it is a bit of the lull, but trust me, the storm is coming. There will be things to talk about. The winter meetings always means some degree of action. Thank you all for everything you do being everyday right here. And go Guardians. Go.

Cleveland Guardians face a pivotal offseason as the MLB Winter Meetings kick off. Will a bold move shape their 2024 season or does a Rule 5 draft gem await? Jeff Ellis dissects the latest rumors swirling around Cleveland, including intriguing targets, the impact of Zach Kent’s release, and the hot relief market highlighted by Jose Ferrer’s three years of team control.

The episode explores alternative history—what if José Ramírez was traded to the Padres for a blockbuster package of C.J. Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, and James Wood or Jackson Merrill? Jeff Ellis breaks down payroll constraints, Atlanta Braves financial data, and the painful realities of small-market survival. Guardians fans get expert insight on possible lineup scenarios, money matters, and what roster moves could be next. Will the Guardians spend big, or are they banking on clever transactions to keep the team competitive?

And yes I misspelled Finances

Timestamps

2:25 – Winter Meetings Moves & Rule 5 Draft

Explains Cleveland’s history of making moves during the Winter Meetings, Rule 5 draft opportunities, and the impact of recent minor-league acquisitions.

3:40 – League News: Jeff Kent and Trade Rumors

Covers Jeff Kent’s Hall of Fame news, trade memories, and broader MLB hot stove rumors.

4:23 – Jose Ferrier Trade & Prospect Assessment

Breakdown of the Guardians’ recent trade for Jose Ferrer, why the deal happened, and deeper insight into Harry Ford as a prospect.

7:26 – Zach Kent Waiver Decision

Why Zach Kent was waived now, strategy behind the timing, and what it signals for the Guardians’ 40-man roster and depth.

12:02 – Alternate History: Jose Ramirez Trade That Almost Happened

Explores how close Jose Ramirez was to being traded, possible trade packages, and how the Guardians’ lineup would look now if the deal had gone through.

14:51 – Small Market Challenges & Fan Attachment

Reflects on Cleveland’s small-market limitations, player retention difficulties, and why keeping Jose Ramirez was meaningful despite tempting returns.

22:23 – Guardians Payroll & Revenue Breakdown

In-depth analysis of Cleveland’s financial situation, MLB’s uneven economic landscape, and realistic expectations for team payroll versus fan hopes.

30:34 – Offseason Flexibility and Closing Thoughts

Wraps up with how much the Guardians can realistically spend, player contract nuances, and a look ahead to what’s next for the team.

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