NEWS: Cleveland Guardians Tender Contacts to Nolan Jones, 3 More: Non Tender 3 Players

NEWS: Cleveland Guardians Tender Contacts to Nolan Jones, 3 More: Non Tender 3 Players

The second roster deadline of the week has come and gone for the Cleveland Guardians. And some more surprising decisions on Friday, the non-tender deadline than the 40man protection deadline on Tuesday. So Matt Festa, David Fry, and Nolan Jones all have avoided arbitration to come back to the Guardians in 2026. They tended a contract to Steven Quan. They have not avoided arbitration with him at this point yet. gone are Will Brennan, Sam Henches, and Nick Enright who were non-tendered and granted free agency. Very much a surprise for Nolan Jones. I don’t think he was projected to get $2 million in arbitration. I’m sure they settled below with him. Um Brennan has been recovering from a hernia surgery on top of Tommy John, so his his comeback is a little bit delayed from all of that. He had Tommy John middle of the year last year. So, he might not be back until spring training anyway, if not after. Sam Hench is very confusing because they decided to pay him a million dollars a year ago, even though they knew he wasn’t going to pitch all last year. Um, and now they spent that million dollars for him to be a free agent, non-tenering him this year. It’s always possible they could resign these players to minor league deals, lesser deals. But if they were going to avoid the arbitration today, they would have. And it’s possible they could come back and resign these players later without adding him to the 40man roster. They’re 38 on the 40man roster right now. But kind of surprising to see them pay Sam Henches to rehab a year ago and let him go this year. Will Brennan, you know, had to rehab anyway and then Nick Enright becomes a free agent. That’s not really a surprise instead of going through waiverss or maybe he didn’t have to go through waiverss, but also a surprise that Nolan Jones is back on this roster, too. We’ll see how the Guardians approach this going forward. The winter meetings coming up after Thanksgiving and we’ll have it all covered for you on Monday on Lockdown Guardians.