TARGETS: How the Cleveland Guardians Can BOLSTER Roster With Non-Tenders and Trade O
Today is the non tender deadline. We’ll know the full scope of the free agent market at 4pm I’ve got some ideas for the Guardians to improve their offense with trades and non tender candidates. You are Locked on Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians. Part of the Locked On Podcast network. Your team every day. What is up Guardians fans? Thanks for hanging out with us for the next half hour. Unlocked on Guardians, the only daily podcast that covers your team every day from the majors, the minors, the draft and everything in between. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day and now the number one sports podcast network. Thank you. I’m just the latto one of your two hosts for the last three years and counting here my friend and coach Jeff Ellis who’s off today but he has been hosting this podcast since day one and we’ve both been writing about the Guardians farm system and prospects in the draft since 2007. Thanks for making us your first listen today. Every day, wherever it is, you get podcasts and a big shout out to all the everydayers and the insiders who left great comments about Thursday show and Jeff Ponce’s insights about Bazana La Violette and the Guardian system. Go back and take a listen if you haven’t yet. But we didn’t get to do trade talk Thursday because of that. So today we’re going to call it Fantasy Friday. We look at some players that might be on the trade block, the free agent market for the Guardians to target. So we’ll start with some non tender candidates, roster casualties who the Guardians could pick up maybe on the cheap. I’m going to propose some trades for hitters that are on the trade block, maybe some pictures too. And later on we’ll talk about the landscape of Major League Baseball’s new TV deal, what it means for the Guardians, you, the fans and how Rob Manfred goofed up the media rights once again. Today’s episode brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account. You can use code locked at MLB to get $20 off your first purchase. All right, so let’s run through the Guardians list of tender non tender. Today we have Nolan Jones, Will Brennan, Sim Henches, David Fry, Matt Festa, of course Stephen Kwan. The Guardians chose not to non tender or DFA Nolan Jones on Tuesday at the 40 man protection deadline. So he’s on the roster for now. I thought he’d be an easy casualty. I just still can’t see the guardians paying $2 million to Nolan Jones given their outfield depth chart now it’s not like it’s a great outfield depth chart. Like, you know, we’re still talking about Quan and Dilaudo and Valeria, your best three. And then you’ve got Halpin and Watson and there’s Martinez and Schneemann and Brennan and Jones and Noel and Rodriguez. It ain’t pretty, but $2 million just for Nolan Jones, just what he did last year. 72 WRC plus. I know like he hit the ball hard but like everything else was poor and, and I just don’t see the reason to do that again this year. You know, I, I can’t see him getting 2 million. But maybe, maybe they think they need the depth because, you know, Quan gets a little broken down and then the Lauder and Valera, you know, could play 50 games each maybe. But you’re gonna have Will Brennan and honestly like Brennan doesn’t give you power. But you know, Dolan Jones only hit five home runs. Brennan’s hit more than that. I want to say in a season. Obviously Jones is hit 20 in the season, but you know, Brendan hit eight in 2024. So I, I got a 90 WRC plus and he’s a good defender as well and he runs better. I don’t know. I’d rather pay Will Brennan is depth for 900k and the fact that Will Brennan’s gonna have an option. I’m sorry, yeah, he will have an option in 2026, so I’d rather do that. Obviously guys like I think David Fry and Festa are pretty much guaranteed to have 10 contracts tendered. David Fry’s arbitration projection is only 1.2 million. I’d be very surprised if they didn’t do that. They spent all year talking about how they missed him early on, they missed them catching and that flexibility. So we’ll see there. I mean I, I can’t imagine they’re not playing planning that for 2026 and manifested a million dollars for what he did. I think that’s very valuable. I don’t, I don’t see why you would turn that down. It’s just a million dollars. And then Sam henches is at 1.33. They spent money on him, basically the same salary in 2025 to rehab him. It would be very silly for them to decide to non tender him at about a 300000 raise after wasting the money on him last year not to pitch. And they knew he wouldn’t pitch so I would go for it that way. That’s the guardians, obviously. Like I said, Quan Colby Howard, Ben Lively and those other guys were already let go, so not sure about those in terms of arbitration, but Quan obviously will get tender to contract and we’ll see what happens there. Let’s talk about other guys who were roster casualties on Tuesday as a result of 40 man decisions that could be of interest for Cleveland. Let’s start with J.J. bade, the Athletics center fielder from 2024 and part of 2025. He has.761 OPS in 2024. This is a Vanderbilt guy hitter and you know Vanderbilt guys kind of iffy. I used to really like this guy in 2024 he finally had a great year. He had an OPS over.700. He didn’t chase, he walked, he didn’t strike out. But the only only things that really backed his offensive profile were the launch angle sweet spot thing, which Quan does well. Doesn’t hit the ball hard, doesn’t barrel, it, doesn’t have good exit velocities. What I’ve seen if you look at the stat cast data is you can get value out of guys whose only good offensive contact quality is the launch angle sweet spot, which basically means they’re finding the right launch angle every time, even if they don’t hit the ball hard. Like basically you’re saying, well, this guy’s really good at hitting 89 mile an hour singles because they’re about 17 or 18 degrees so it’s hard to catch them. So they’re falling for singles. So those are guys who don’t hit the ball on the ground. They don’t hit the ball too high. They’re not hanging drives, they’re getting the ball over the infielder’s head to fall in on the green and that’s a good skill. That’s Stephen Kwan, Luis Arise, right? Those guys are good, but if you’re going to maintain production, it’s very hard unless you’re a unicorn if you don’t hit the ball hard. So the launch angle sweet spot on its own is very un unclear how much it can and build your profile. You need a lot of other things to contextualize it. Jason but I has good arm strength with bad range in center field. In 2025 he didn’t chase, he walked, but everything else went down for him. The arm value is good because he has a good arm, but his range got worse. I’d probably pass on JJ at this point because he’s left handed, there’s bad defense and the 2024 numbers that I like so much. We’re not backed by Any real strong evidence. So this is about what we say for guys who come back to earth. They have a good year and then some of those metrics that that didn’t help them sustain, they come back to earth. Chris Morrell is another guy out there who everybody wanted him and the Rays targeted him when they traded Isaac Paretis because he hit the ball hard. He was coming off some good seasons in Chicago. I know a lot of Guardians fans wanted to trade for Chris Morell, but he said back to back years now with an OPS below.700, it was a 90 WRC plus in 24 and 25, it was an 81 WRC plus. Now he’s got great bat speed, he hits the ball hard, he’s got great exit velocities. He barrels the ball. Those are good contact quality data pieces that can back up good numbers that can make give you confidence he can repeat it. But the problem for Morales, he does Chase, he does whiff, he doesn’t walk. The approach is very poor defensively. All he gives you is nothing but his throwing arm, which Cleveland technically has liked more recently and for the last couple years. I think what teams have figured out is Chris Morrell struggles with velocity, he’s getting a lot more fastballs and he’s not catching up to him. Now Morrell’s only 26 years old so there is some control left. So this is a guy who is going to be is a free agent. I’d be interested in more of a minor league deal because just two years in a row, a very bad production, a very bad approach. There’s nothing here that tells me he can start because the approach is bad and I’m not getting him much out of the defense besides his throwing arm. So I’m not committing a major league roster spot, major league dollars to Chris Morell when there’s no backing data that tells me he can rebound. Like the approach is what holds him back and the approach is why this is essentially John Kenzie Noel, basically a guy who hits the crap out of the ball but has zero approach to play. It has a great arm and isn’t great defensively. So I don’t, I don’t see a reason to go with a younger Noel or another Noel. Jake Fraley was a guy I’ve seen some guys point out he was with Tampa Bay at the end of the year. He’s had good numbers in the past. He’s been a great platoon outfielder in terms of hitting righties and plays good defense. Another guy who walks doesn’t Chase but there’s really no quality contact data here. Launch angle sweet spot again is his only underlying metric. He does have good arm strength, the range is okay, he runs well. He does have a 720 OPS against right handers, but there’s, there’s no power in it. So even though he previously hit right handers pretty well, the contact quality doesn’t back it up. It’s just the launch angle sweet spot. I would pass on him too without a skill that really fits what the Guardians need to upgrade. So we’ll see there. All right, so we’ve got a reliever and a couple other hitters that could be non tender today that could be of interest to the Guardians. I’ll tell you who they are and what to know about them next. The NFL playoff races are heating up and honestly, there’s nothing better than being at a stadium surrounded by fans cheering on your team. No matter what sport. No matter what team. And to be honest, buying tickets for these things, they’re a pain cues. Login screens. Prices are jumping at checkout. That’s no fun. That’s why I use Game Time. It’s the app that gives advantages back to fans like you and I. It’s fast, easy and backed with a game time guarantee. You’ll always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time and the best price and all fees are always included. So the price you see is the price you pay. I’m going to another concert next week. I’m going to see Maroon 5 and you know what? Found great deals on these tickets on game time. A little more excited to go to this one than the Jonas Brothers concert, but these were easy to find. As always on game time, I’ll be looking for sports tickets in the future as well. Download the Game Time app, create your account and use code locked on MLB. That’s going to get you 20 off your first purchase. Terms applied again. That’s promo code. L O C K E D O N M L B for 20 off swipe tap ticket goes Download Game Time today. As always, want to thank you for making Lockdown Guardians your first listen tonight. Every day, whatever it is you get. Podcasts, not even bigger. Thank you for making Locked on the number one sports podcast network. It’s number one because you made it number one, not us. So keep up today with all things Guardians. In the off season you can hit the bell on YouTube and that’s going to get you notified of any reaction videos we post. We did that for the the news about who was added to the 40 man roster. We’ll do it if there’s any notable non tenders or other moves this off season and that gets you notified of when the episodes go live and always auto download wherever you get podcasts. We are free everywhere. You know, keep the show in your feed no matter what you’re doing on a day to day basis and especially during the holiday season when you might be a little bit busy. All right, let’s get back to some guys who might get non tendered on Friday. The first one I want to go one more guy who was let go and that was Jason Foley from the Tigers. 30 year old reliever who obviously was very good for the Tigers in 2024 until he had arthroscopic shoulder surgery. So he hasn’t pitched since 2024. He had the surgery in May of 2020 25. It’s unknown he’ll be ready in 2026 but he’s only 30 so he could be an interesting buy. Low rehab target strikeout rates were was down in 24 but he’s never been a big strikeout guy. What Jason Foley does really well is he’s got extension, he avoids barrels, gets ground balls so he’s not a bat misser, but he’s a guy who’s throwing strikes and and can keep the contact quality down. Those are all sustainable skills. If he’s healthy I would maybe give him a bridge contract and see if I can rehab him and make it a cheap bullpen by low. Very interested there. All right, so these are the guys that as recording are still on teams but I think are pretty much headed for a non tender on Friday as their teams want to dump this money. So let’s talk about Alec Bohm who’s been a big name first round pick of the Phillies years ago. This is the guy they’re hoping to trade before they have to tender him a contract. He’s got one year of control left and he’s arm eligible at $10.3 million. So that price right there is pretty abhorrent and makes it a pretty rough acquisition cost. Hits the ball decently hard, has good exit velocities, doesn’t chase a ton. A high contact guy but he doesn’t walk. Not a great defender, can probably pass at first base and that’s where the guardians would play them because obviously third base is taken. Better contact quality in 24 and 25 but the approach is very aggressive but he has the contact quality numbers to back it up. So when you hit the ball hard when you make contact and you don’t strike out. That’s good even if your approach is bad. This is like the antithesis to Oscar Gonzalez who just could not hit the ball hard when he chased too much. But he didn’t strike out. So Bomb can really only play first base. I guess he can moonlight at third. I don’t think he has any experience in the outfield. I’m not interested in Alec Bowman at anywhere near $10 million personally because of positional lack of flexibility. And this is the guy who has an iffy approach even though the contact quality supports things. I, I would wait till he’s non tender and then see what what you can do there. Jesus Sanchez is on the block for the Astros to non tender. He’s going to make about 6.5 million arb this year. He’s got two years of control left and he had a.739 ops against right handers in 2025. You might recall if you’re an everydayer, Jeff and I both wanted if the Guardians to trade for him. There’s really good bat speed there. He hits the ball hard, he can barrel the ball. Everything else is pretty mediocre at best. He can throw the ball hard, but he doesn’t really like the approach is bad. He doesn’t. He chases, he whiffs, he strikes out, he walks a little bit but not a lot. Arm strength is good, no range but that’s kind of a Guardians outfielder these days. But he has all good contact qualities. I, I would want to trade for him and try to avoid arbitration because the two years of control left. This is a guy I can see fitting on the roster against righties and you could hedge your bets with him and Valera and all that those kind of guys so you’re not stuck banking on their health. And you have a guy who can play almost every day against right handed pitching and, and give you some pop in the, in the lineup. But I’m not really. No, I’m not really sure if I want to pay him six and a half mil. I, I trade for him and try to negotiate but that’s a. All you got to do is tender a contract. You know, you can still avoid arbitration. So I would, I would trade for him and tender to him and try to avoid the six million. I might try to get them down to six or five and a half and see what you can do. That’s not a bad price considering the outfield market is pretty iffy below. You know, Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger. So here’s another name you’re going to remember it’s Ryan Feltner. Jeff and I have talked about Ryan Feltner a lot as well on the podcast over the last two years. He is going to be due $2.3 million in arbitration this year and he has three years of control left. So he’s entering arm one and MLB trade Rumors thinks he might be a non tender candidate. I think it’s hard to say because you know Paul D. Podesta is the new GM of the Colorado Rockies, so we don’t know what he’s going to do, but he’s been pretty active so far and if he’s let go now he had shoulder issues in 2025. He only pitched about 30 innings, but he had a.416 FIP in Colorado in 2024 and a.393 ERA away from Colorado in 2024. So when he got out of Colorado in 2024 he was good. This is a kid who’s from Ohio. He went to Walsh Jesuit, he’s an Ohio State Buckeye and his brother is a some kind of pitching coach in the organization now. He also has an option left which is great. So I would trade for him in a heartbeat and tender that contract. I think that’s totally the 2.3 million for Ryan Felner is totally worth the money because I think this is a guy that’s really ripe for some Cleveland development. If he’s non tendered, I’m I’m jumping even further into that one. Let’s go to the bullpen here. I’ve got Yener Cano. For some reason MLB trade rumors thinks that 1.8 million canoe is also a non tender candidate now. He didn’t have a great year in 2025. A.512 ERA.427 FIP. That’s down from a 315 ERA in 2024 and a.355 FIP. Strikeout rates was down. The walk rate remained the same. But this is a guy who doesn’t get hit hard. He misses barrels, keeps the ball on the ground. He is going to be 32 next year, but he comes to three years of control. I don’t know if this is a guy you want through your age 35 season. He does have options and is only going to get about 1.8 million. That’s not a lot for this type of reliever. I would probably give a shot at a trade here and go get him if the Orioles are considering non tendering him just to jump out in front. Kevin Kelly, former Guardians prospect who was Picked by the Rays in 2023 in the Rule 5 draft. Had a pretty bad year. 590 ERA, didn’t strike out guys, doesn’t walk anybody. He’ll be 28 next week. Another guy who avoids getting hit hard, gets a lot of ground balls as an extension monster. He’s got four years of control and two options. Only gonna get about a million dollars in arbitration or so. I don’t know if I’d want to commit $2 million to Kevin Kelly because, you know, last year was kind of rough. So I don’t know how that’s going to work out. But I would be interested in seeing what you can do to get him. The last guy on my non tender list is AJ Puck. This is an interesting one. So he’s going to miss all of 2026 because of elbow surgery and he’s a free agent after 2026. He’ll be 31 this year, which means he won’t pitch until he’s 32. Now he doesn’t have any options left. But this guy is a monster when he’s healthy. If you go to look at his baseball savant page, everything is red. Throws the ball hard, misses bats, gets chases, doesn’t get hit hard. The only thing he really does is walk guys. There’s some walk issues there. I if he, if the Diamondbacks decide they don’t want to tender him a contract because he’s hurt, I would be calling him immediately and trying to get a rehab deal here and say hey Matt Boyd came back and we, we rehabbed him. We’ve done it to other relievers before, other pitchers before I be bringing AJ Puck in and trying to get him a bridge deal and, and see if you can keep him for 20, 27 now because this guy was a monster one healthy. All right, so he talks about trade non tender candles. Let’s talk trades. Who’s on the block and who should the guardians target? We’ll talk about that next. And MLB’s new nightmare TV deal. NBA action is heating up and there’s no better place to get it on the action than FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. If you’re missing the start of some of these games, you got stuff going on for the holidays and you’re tuning in late. You want to ride the hot hand, you want to see who’s going to make a comeback. FanDuel has live bets on everything from who is going to score next to those fourth quarter comebacks. And you can combine those live bets into, into a same game parlay. Go big or go home, but do it responsibly. Always be responsible, especially the holiday season. Cavs entertaining the Pacers. That should go much better for the Cavs. Even though the Pacers were their nemesis in the playoffs a year ago, they are off to a terrible start in 2025 so that one might make you feel better. I would stay away from Browns Raiders. That could get ugly. A lot of sacks could be happening on that game, so if you want to throw that as part of your parlay, there you go. Right now FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus pets when your first $5 bet win. So head over to FanDuel.com to sign up a player game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Stay warm during the holiday seasons with some baseball talk, some Guardians baseball talk. You can follow Jeff at MLB Jeff Only Draft. You can follow me at Jail Underscore Baseball or Jail Baseball and you can also join the Lockdown Guardians Insiders club. We text daily with the community, we drop some news, some rumors, ask for mailbag questions and about monthly video chats which I think will be coming up after the holidays. Plus some bonus content that is joinsubtext.com lockdown guardians to tap in all right, I got some trade candidates to go over and then I want to talk about Rob Manfred’s latest bungle. So the biggest name I think on the block is Brandon Lowe from the Rays. I think the Rays are pretty into make moving him because he’s gonna make 11 and a half million dollars in his final contract year. Injury has always been an issue for this guy. I’ve always been a fan because of the power at second base as a left handed hitter, but this guy’s only played over 100 games twice and he did it 134 times this year which was his second most played games ever. Get 31 home runs and the contract, the contact quality metrics and data is all good. Bat speed’s good, exit velocity is good. This guy barrels the ball but the approach not so good. He whiffs a lot, he chases and this guy is a butcher in the field. The outs above average, the range all very bad defensively. So this is bad second base defense with a bad approach and historically he cannot hit lefties. He’s had some success but for the majority of his career he has been really bad against lefties. At eleven and a half million dollars I don’t think I can justify the defense and platoon issues overall for him. Plus the Injuries and the reason Tampa wants to trade him is because they want to make the money go away. So. And it’s not worth asking them to pick up half the money because then you’re giving him more prospects. I think you can get a cheaper option. It’ll platoon. If he’s only gonna platoon if he’s gonna have injury issues. I wouldn’t give up the prospect capital or spend the money. I would consider it maybe if he helped you in the outfield or maybe he was a right handed hitter. But I don’t see the necessary pieces here. As much as I’ve always liked Brandon Lowe, I just don’t see it. Brandon Nimmo is believed to be maybe on the block. This is another guy who’s not going to be cheap though. He sold $100 million over the next five years. He’s going to be 33 in 2026. On this other guy who hits the ball hard, has good evs. Now he doesn’t chase, which is what the Guardians have been looking for recently. This guy’s who don’t chase. Hit the ball hard and he will whiff the Guardians don’t care about as long as it’s within the zone and you’re not chasing. But he doesn’t walk. So the approach is kind of iffy. And while he was once good defensively, it’s more mediocre now. He’s. He’s a very average defender, which is fine if you think the ball. I’ll take average defense if you can hit the ball first career, the platoon splits have been okay. He’s hit lefties fairly well enough that he can start pretty much every game. I don’t. How much money are you gonna ask the Mets to pay on $100 million? Considering he’s gonna be under contract until he’s age 37? I just don’t see any amount of money being worth it for Brandon Nimmo. I think at age 33 he’s gonna fall off at some point here in the next two years. And at that price, I just don’t see how it makes sense for you. I got two more names on this list and they’re gonna be names you’re familiar with. So there’s Adoles Garcia. I’ve seen so many comments who people want people to say go get Adoles. Garcia and the Rangers are trying to trade him before they have to tender him a contract. They are trying to get out of this. He’s owed $12.1 million through arbitration this year or about there. This is A guy who is not the same player. Though he had a great year in 2023 when the Rangers won the World Series. He has been well below league average offensively for the last two years. Now this is a guy who also hits the ball hard, he barrels it, he hits good exit velocities. But this is another guy whose approach is terrible. We’re talking a guy with spongebob Noel esque issues. There’s decent range in the outfield, he’s got a great arm. He has not hit lefties or righties the last two years. So not even a platoon bat. I just at his age 33, I just can’t justify the issue of paying him around 12 million and maybe negotiate for 11 or 10. I don’t know. I’m still not paying $10 million for a 33 year old outfielder who has had two poor years in a row and has a very poor approach. This is when you see these kind of profiles start to decline. When you have a poor approach because things start to degrade a little bit, your eye degrades and you. When you start out the poor approach, the floor is even lower. So I would maybe buy low as a free agent if the Rangers can’t trade him and they decided non tender him. But at that, at the about $10 million. I can’t pay that price for a guy who has not been good in two years and and doesn’t give you any platoon benefits. And the approach is just is cratering worse than it was. And so I think anybody that wants Adoles Garcia wants 2023Adoles Garcia and probably hasn’t seen what he’s done in 2024, in 2025 or think he can rebound. He’s not that guy anymore. He’s just not Tyler o’. Neill. I’m really curious about Tyler o’ Neill because I’m wondering if he’ll get traded. Now that the Orioles have Taylor Ward and they have Dylan Beavers and they have Colton Kauser, we’ll see what they do with Heston Kirstad. There’s rumors that they’re gonna go in after Kyle Tucker, which would be surprising. So that could make o’ Neill expendable for them. This is another guy who’s got injury issues. He’s played 100 games two times in his career and one of those years was this year, but not a lot. He’s gonna be 31 next year and he’s due 16 and a half million over the next two seasons because he picked up his option because he had a poor 20, 25 season. So this is a total of $33 million over the next two years. So the question you have to ask is how much money will the Orioles pay him to go away if they can add pitching? Because if I’m the Guardians, I am not giving this guy 16 and a half million. I thought that was a bad deal for the Orioles in last off season. Everybody was like, oh, Odeo hits the ball hard. Yeah, athletic guy. He’s always been hurt. And he was hurt again this year. And he was not good either. Like, would you move Logan Allen for him and say, okay, Orioles, you got to pick up half his contract each year. So the Guardians are paying him 16 and a half million over the next two years. I. I could talk about that a little bit because this is a guy who has good bat speed. He barrels the ball, he will walk, he does chase more than I’d like, and he does swing and miss. But if he’s healthy, he’s generally productive. And there’s a great arm, too, in the outfield. Doesn’t have good range, but, you know, fits the Guardians. Iffy range, good arm. I don’t know if I could, at $8 million a year, I could justify Tyler O’ Neill and give up Logan Allen, but I couldn’t do much more than that personally. But the other issue is too, if you bring in Tyler o’, Neill, that’s another injury prone outfield to go with Delauder and Valera. That’s a bit iffy. That three goes. Guys, this is why I don’t want to bring Lane Thomas back. Because how many injury prone outfielders can you have and expect to get a decent amount of games in production before you’re relying on, you know, Will Brennan and Daniel Scheman and Angel Martinez again. Now, historically, o’ Neill crushes lefty, so that’s a great fit for Cleveland. But you want to pay a platoon bat $8 million a year? I don’t know about that. Maybe, maybe. But 8 million and Logan Allen’s platoon bad, who might get hurt. There’s a lot to consider there. I. I just don’t know. You know what help might help more teams, afford better players, better TV money. But Rob Manfred, he goofed that up. So there’s been some questions finally answered about where Cleveland streaming rights are headed. You’re still gonna be able to get the Guardians games on MLB tv. Sounds like you’ll still be able to get them on cable, DirecTV. So wherever you watch the Guardians last year, you should be able to watch them again at the same place in 2026. But they’ll also be available on ESPN app because ESPN will be a streaming partner and they’re paying to have that. So I think the same path to purchase the money is supposed to be the same. So if you watch the Guardians game somewhere last year, I think you’re going to be able to do it the same way at the same price. Unless you’re, you know, DirecTV or cable provider jacks up the price, which that’s out of their control. But money wise, all of Major League Baseball is taking a hit on this and it’s because of Rob Manfred. And by the way, I believe Matt Underwood, Rick Manning and Andre not are expected to be back next year and MLB is still going to produce the games. So MLB is still in control of the Guardians broadcast. It’s just they’ll be on ESPN app as a way to have another purchase thing and they’ll have more games there too. But the original ESPN MLB deal was 1.65 million over three years. But Rob Manfred wanted an opt out of that original contract. It was a four year, seven billion dollar deal. But Rob Manfred insisted that there was an opt out after three years. And ESPN said sure, but we want the option opt out. And MLB and Rob Manfred said okay, sure, we can do that. And they did. And let’s be clear, ESPN sucks as a platform for Major League Baseball. Baseball tonight is gone. None of their back and forth arguing shows talk about baseball anymore. They really don’t. Maybe they talk about Otani and that’s about it. There’s not much else going Judge, maybe Cal Raleigh this year. There’s not much else going on. It’s not anything they lead Sports center with anymore. ESPN is like everybody else. It is quarterbacks and the NBA all the time. That’s, that’s what it is. So what they have left is, you know, Jeff Passon and Buster only. And then I like Jeff. Buster’s fine. It is what it is. But now NBC and Peacock have Sunday night baseball for 200 million. Netflix paid $50 million for the home Run Derby. Some Opening Day games will leave the Yankees and the Field of Dreams game. The total deals now between ESPN picking up more, more games and going to NBC. Peacock and Netflix gave them $750 million over the next three years. They were supposed to get $1.6 billion from ESPN alone. That deal cost them $900 million. Almost a billion dollars less going into MLB’s pockets which should be going to the teams. And the Guardians are one of those teams that would benefit from that extra TV money. Because the Dodgers have a massive TV deal. Because they’re the Dodgers. The Yankees have yes, Boston has nesn. The Guardians are controlled by Major League Baseball. So that money would have been able to allow MLB to pay some of what the Guardians lost from their previous deals. And Andrew Marshan of the Athletic called it falling off a 30 pitch terrible. And they had to sell off their best piece, MLB tv. That is their crown jewel to make the money back on the opt out. And they still came out in the red. $900 million off the table. The way Rob Manfred could save face in this is that after 2028 the deals with Fox and TNT are up. Fox does some Saturday games, they do some weeknight games. TNT does playoffs. Obviously Fox does the World Series and some of the NFL NLCS’s. So in 2029, because of the the viewership and ratings, he could argue they have to pay more if they want to keep it. Or he could shop around and that could bring in a whole lot of money. But if the lockout in 2027 cost major league Baseball games, is that going to hurt viewership and interest? It might. And that sets you up for some rough negotiations heading into that. You’re having this all the support progress in terms of interest and ratings and viewership and you want to keep that path going. So you can tell Fox, tnt, whoever wants your playoff schedules, you got to pay up for it. We need the money. And if you want that money to go back to the Guardians or anybody else, you can’t have the lockout. So more pressure should be on Rob Manfred to avoid a lockout because he costs the league money in the TV deals and he could cost more future money if this lockout hurts viewership. That TV money is very important to Cleveland. All right, thanks for tuning in today. Appreciate it. Thanks for sticking with us all week. We’re back on Monday to talk about some weekend headlines. We’ll be talking about the non tenders, some players we talked about today. We might talk about Monday if the Guardians might go in on them. We’ll see if any trades happen in. We’ve got to do our prospect Tools draft coming up this week too. So we’ll have more prospect content for you coming up this next week. Have a good, warm, safe weekend. We’ll catch you next time on Monday. In the meantime, go ahead and leave us a review on itunes or Apple podcasts, whatever it’s called the Days. We could appreciate that. And go, go Guardians. Go.
Cleveland Guardians face key offseason decisions as the non-tender deadline shapes the 2026 roster. Will Nolan Jones and Will Brennan remain key depth pieces, or will they be used to make room for new faces in the lineup? This episode spotlights trade targets like Jesus Sanchez and Tyler O’Neill, while weighing the risks of acquiring big bats with questionable approaches or injury histories. Is podcast favorite Ryan Feltner the perfect buy-low pitching opportunity, and would Alec Bohm or Adolis Garcia truly spark Cleveland’s offense?
We also break down the Guardians’ evolving TV situation, revealing how Rob Manfred’s media rights missteps cost MLB $900 million—and what this means for fans’ access and team payroll. Are new deals with ESPN and streaming partners enough to keep the right price of TV money flowing and the league competitive? With free agency, arbitration, and trade season nearly here, every move will shape the Guardians’ chances in the upcoming season.
05:10 DFA Candidates for cheap pickups, starting with JJ Bleday
08:03 Skepticism Over Chris Morel’s Potential
16:16 Is Ryan Feltner finally an option?
18:54 AJ Puk Rehab Potential
25:19 Avoiding Overpriced Struggling Outfielder
29:14 MLB Guardians Broadcast Update
32:24 MLB Broadcast Deals in 2029
Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.
FanDuel
Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA and NFL seasons are here, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.
FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)
Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-guardians/
Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More
🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/
#Guardians #ClevelandGuardians #MLB