Jose Ramirez SECURES His Future in Cleveland | Guardians Plan To Help Him Seems QUESTIONABLE

22 comments

1. This team front office is not that great it’s decent

2. Could be great if we can get players that help Jose

3. Why cant they overpay by $2 mil? You said thats the only way to get someone here. It's not like they are paying anyone else

4. The Guardians front office will never lie to you. Pay close attention to what they do. If you understand their basic strategy, you will find everything they say and do supports that strategy. You can verify that by watching their actions. Don't ask them questions along these lines, they will squirm and dodge those questions every time. That is how you can glean their strategy.

   Understand they are smart and they are stategical (not tactical). They are always a step ahead of the rest of MLB.

   There vision is that the Guardians will be a dynasty. They will dominate MLB every season for the foreseeable future. They will have perennial All-Stars at every position. They will do this with the lowest payroll in MLB.

   The best way to do this is with100% homegrown talent. They are focused on raising the floor every year, until the floor gets so high, it will surpass the ceiling of every other team in MLB.

   They have developed and continue develop the best pipeline from raw talent to polished major leauger in MLB. Regardless of financial resources, developing homegrown talent is a better strategy than free agency or trading to fill gaps.

   Driving payroll down is a competive advantage. It pressures the organization to do more with less. It forces every person in the organization to continuously strive for excellence.

   Each team that tries to compete with them on payroll will break their team. Those teams don't have the resillence to respond to that pressure.

   When you look at their roster moves you'll notice only non-homegrown talent and expired talent are gone. Carlos Santana was a blast from the past. A friend who came to the rescue in a time of need.

   Gone: Josh Naylor, Andres Gimenez, Myles Straw, John Means, Louis Ortiz, Lane Thomas
   On the Brink: Emmanuel Clase' (Prove it …)
   Pending: Shane Bieber (Contract structured to bring him back after being traded). Bieber knows the terms. He can choose more money or career value plus a 50-60% discounted salary.

   The Lineup:

   Stop gap: Carlos Santana
   Lost: Francisco Lindor
   Jettisoned: John Kensie Noel
   The floor: Nolan Jones, Gabriel Arias, Angel Martinez, Bo Naylor, Daniel Schneeman.
   Talent above replacement: Brayan Rocchio, Stephen Kwan, Kyle Manzardo, David Fry?
   Perennial All-Star: Jose Ramirez

5. Does anyone have a projected batting lineup? I’d love to see the young guys get more ABs.

6. Great Chris A. impression, Justin! Who needs Chris AI-tonneti when you’ve got Justinneti?

7. Let's see if CDL makes it out of spring training healthy. Otherwise, who should be in the dugout.
   It is definitely cold in Columbus. I walked the dogs this morning in negative one temperature.
   Thanks for this podcast. It allows me to dream of warmer temperatures.

8. They need to DH Delauter initially to get his bat in the lineup. Play him 4 times a week and maybe once or twice in the field. This won’t eliminate injury but could help.

9. Surprised y'all didn't mention Antonetti saying that they are not afraid to go out and acquire pieces to help the roster mid-season. I feel like that's verbiage that I haven't heard in a bit. That gives me hope that maybe in March-May we'll be testing our guys and by the ASB we might be trying to capitalize on another team's mid-season woes to make a deal.

   I see Valera's ceiling somewhere near Dexter Fowler. Pretty similar lefty stroke, though I know Fowler swung it both ways. That is, if he can sustain. I like his swagger, his mindset. Hopefully he can sustain and cover the holes in his game.

10. If the Guardians don't at least get their payroll near $100M it's time for all Cleveland fans to BOYCOTT this team. Following them is still fine, rooting for them is still fine, but don't give Dolan 1 cent of your money. Money is a two-way street, if we give ours to him, he is supposed to spend it on our team, not just pocket it and laugh. Especially when he also has the nerve to fleece the city for tens of millions more for "renovations" to his private sector place of business.

    Even if there aren't great free agent opportunities, then give young guys extensions. Spend the money. The never-ending turnover of young stars, plus the lack of extensions, plus the ever-shrinking payroll budget are non-tenable. We as fans can not support this, and every time we fill up that stadium we are sending him the signal that it's all OK. Locking up one star player isn't trying to win, it's trying to be marketable.

    BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT, BOYCOTT this ridiculously cheap jerk off of an owner

11. Really loved the shows this week. Great stuff. Interesting content, cool topics, this week cooked.

    Please don't spend time throwing shade on the World Baseball Classic. Jeff doesn't like it, but I do. It's think it is fun and interesting. It will drain my enjoyment of Locked on Guardians if there is constant shade about the WBC.

    I really appreciated Jeff's Dodger trade ideas. The Guardians rarely make the trade everyone expects. So, looking only at the Donovan, for example, wouldn't be useful. Jeff looking at outside the box candidates was really interesting. How about this idea: Kristian Campbell (BOS). He is a righthanded bat but an awful defensive 2B. BOS has given up on him at 2B and are moving him to the OF. But they have a full set of OFs. So, he is a big league ready righthanded OF, a post-shine prospect, and blocked at his present team.

12. Sanchez and Call is a TNT/TBS tv law firm.

13. The “help” are the FOUR current/recent Top 100 prospects, who should all play the majority of the season on the MLB roster, none of whom have played more than 50 MLB games. That’s as much as 45% of the lineup being replaced by guys who have significantly higher pedigree/tools than the recent rookies who have played big roles on this team. We aren’t worried about skill for the most part with these guys, just health (which is the same concern you’d have with a 10 year vet). We are talking about replacing 100+ games each from guys like Noel, Brennan, and Martinez (none of whom were nearly as vaunted of prospects as the guys incoming). I have faith that at least 2 of DeLauter/Bazzana/Valera/Kayfus playing 120+ games and being far more productive than the guys we played last year. This isn’t going to be a top 10 offense, but it doesn’t HAVE to be in order to make a deep playoff run. Hell, I even think Ralphy could be called up in time to make an impact in the postseason. These type of prospects aren’t “risks” or dice rolls. When guys ranked this high get to MLB, they don’t often miss. Maybe they won’t all be all stars, but I can easily see any (or even all) of the four being 100+ wRC plus contributors, which is about 15-30% better than the guys they’ll be taking reps from. That’s a MASSIVE difference in lineup production if only 2 of them do it for 100 games or more.

14. Dude, I love Van Halen!

15. I don’t think DeLauter/Jones/Valera impact the ability to keep Kayfus rostered. I think CJ will play the bulk of his games at 1B while Manzardo is DH.

16. Im an avid Dolan-hater, but we have such a roster logjam that I understand why they aren’t going to overpay for anyone right now. Midseason acquisitions are where this front office shines anyways. They have to thread the needle and choose the absolute right time to spend/trade. Now is not that time. Figure out what you have in-house and let the injuries come in before you reallocate your assets

17. Another great show, LoG! Appreciate the meetup last night and the talk on MLB big issues. (Frankly, given the point in the year, that was more interesting to me than conjuring up lineups or guesses about who makes it out of spring training. The time will come for that.)

    In any event, I do agree that the final arbiter for this year is to play the young guys aggressively. I was heartened by Antonetti once again saying yesterday that the players who are going to help us are i the org ALREADY. That's a bitter pill for people who spend more time on social media than watching games and thus have a virulent case of FOMO, but with the potential of the players you mentioned today, its right move.

18. I think Manzo must “man” 1B vs RHP and LHP. It greatly eases the insane platooning that will occur between 2B/1B/CF/RF/DH otherwise.

    If Manzo can hold down 1B, you can start Kayfus in AAA, giving him everyday reps (currently Columbus has no 1B), create a rotating DH/RF spot for Fry/CDL/Valera (who are all injury-prone), make CF a strict platoon with Jones/Martinez, and give 2B to Arias, with Schneeman being UTIL. I would love to see Brito over Arias, but I just do not see it happening with how badly he was injured all last season. He likely starts the year in AAA to get everyday reps, where they would rather test him at 1B/RF anyways, with Bazzana playing 2B. Arias gets 1 more chance.

    If you start platooning 1B amongst Manzo/Arias/Fry, while having a LHH-OF logjam, I think it just becomes a nightmare. Manzo must step up defensively at 1B, and I think that is a huge reason C-Los was brought in last year, to mentor Manzo defensively. He holds this team back as a DH-only player and has stated publicly his desire to play everyday 1B.

    CDL is too fragile to play CF everyday. DH must be a rotating “rest” spot for this team filled with tired legs (Valera, CDL, Fry, Kwan, Jones, even JRam come to mind).

    Brito, Kayfus, Fairchild, Kieboom, Bazzana, and Halpin all start the year as AAA depth.

19. Thanks for the shoutout!

20. Regarding missed trades this offseason, how about Isaac Collins? I think he would’ve been a great fit for the Guardians and the Royals got him for a song. Also, Eugenio Suarez is absolutely a stud. Maybe not to the Dodgers, but certainly to a power deficient team like the Guardians!

21. Nolan Jones. 🤮

22. Stoked about 5 days a week again!! Thanks for the hard work boys 🫡