Bo Bichette contract just changed Guardians’ future with Steven Kwan
January 17, 2026
Bo Bichette contract just changed Guardians’ future with Steven Kwan
26 comments
I don’t think it was ever realistic we would be able to afford his extension. Unless we are cruising into the playoffs come deadline time – he’s gone.
Baseball is going to destroy itself right after doing all the right things to get it back into the public eye.
Kwan was never going to take a discount to stay playing for a minor league organization. He’ll go to the dodgers, Yankees or Mets. We’ll get a couple pitching prospects and a SS prospect who will be good enough to keep the delusional fans coming to the ball park because the seats are blue instead of green.
The Guardians were not extending Steven Kwan anyway. This team extends guys early to buy out pre-arb and arb years to get a discount on free agent years. Kwan only has 2 years of arb. Theres no discount to be had now. Its pretty apparent Kwan and representation view his value different than the Guardians. If Kwan gets anything close to what Bichette got, more power to him. Hes a below average bat at the lowest value defensive position on the field. I, for one, think the Guardians are correct not to be interested in signing him into his free agent years. I just dont think hes gonna age real well.
No the Dolans just need to stop being cheap bastards and actually pay their talent.
I understand not paying FA, I truly do because there is a level of uncertainty of what goes behind the scenes and what was actually happening to make the player successful with the organization they are leaving.
When it is your own home grown talent, you drafted and developed them and you know everything about them…FUCKING PAY THEM!!!
There isn’t a “future with Steven Kwan” beyond this season. If both sides wanted an extension it would have happened by now.
Enjoy him while he’s here.
I’m not sure I agree with the assertion that Bichette and Kwan are particularly similar. Kwan is already older than Bichette and still 2 years from free agency: that’s going to hurt his bottom line a lot, especially a teams willingness to pay him more for a short term deal. Bo played bad defense at SS but should positively improve his defensive value by moving to 3rd. And then on top of that, despite their average WAR being about the same, defense doesn’t really get players paid the same way offense does, especially at a position more associated with offense.
I’d be moderately surprised if Kwan gets much more than 20 million a year barring a huge couple years.
How did this clown get a job writing for yahoo lol.
I’ve never once remotely thought of Kwan as a Bichette Lite. They can both hit for contact but that’s where the comparison ends.
Sorry but this is fucking dumb and shows a complete lack of understanding how contracts work.
Bichette is a career 122 WRC+. Kwan is 112.
Bichette is a career 3.6 fWAR/600. Kwan is a career 3.4 fWAR/600.
So Kwan is making up a huge amount of value from his defense, which pays you worse than offense does.
So bichette is gonna make more money
Second, bichette is a 28 year old free agent. Kwan is 6 months older and still has 2 years of control. He will not be a free agent until he is 30. His next 2 years are heavily cost controlled through the arb system.
So bichette is gonna make more money
One of two things is going to happen: the Guards contend for the playoffs so Kwan plays out the year here and is traded in the offseason. Or they are out of it badly by August and he’s traded this year and the Guards get a nice package of prospects for him.
We can stop writing “Extend Kwan” in half of the posts here because it’s not happening. The organization screwed up by not doing it YEARS ago. They could’ve extended him through a couple free agency years had they done it back in 2023 or maybe even 2024 but the ship has sailed.
Who thinks Kwan is worth that kind of money? Honestly, he is a ++ fielder and a decent contact batter. I love the guy as a Guardian and hope he stays.
That said, he’s not un-replaceable.
MLB don’t realize that being predictable is boring and bad in the long run even if it’s the Dodgers winning every year. Eventually this will kill all the other 29 teams one by one.
Modern baseball is going to turn into something akin to some of the European soccer leagues that basically have the same two teams that fight for a championship year over year because those teams spend the most money.
Best anyone else can hope for is a top 5 finish.
Shit sucks.
Based on this article. The Brewers will have to pay Brice Turang $60M a year because he has similar numbers to Kyle Tucker.
This sub vastly over inflates Kwans value. He’s a nice piece on a competing team. He’s faded at the plate as the season goes on the past 2 season. Almost certain hes going to bounce around from contender to contender on short term deals after he leaves Cleveland.
The only player on this roster with a chance to get a contract >20mil for multiple seasons is Gavin Williams.
Time for the lockout as long as it takes for a cap and floor
They don’t have a future with kwan because of the way they choose to do business.
Bichette would have led the league in hits if he didn’t miss a month with injury but even so he finished in 2nd losing by 3. Kwan is a .280 hitter who is a pest, fouls pitches off, but doesn’t get as many hits which for a contact hitter, hits are valuable.
What is their best offer to Kwan? 10 mil a year? They had to salary dump Gimemez on a 15 mil/year AAV contract. I don’t anticipate them signing another “big” contract after Gimmy because when you don’t spend money your couple big contract players need to carry the team.
The Guards have not been in the conversation for any free agents (even the Pirates gave a serious offer to Schwarber). They aren’t just missing out on players because they’re getting outbid, they aren’t even making attempts because they make more money from revenue sharing than winning games. Even their home grown players, they were perfectly happy not even making an offer to Jose and letting Kwan walk in 2 years.
Baseball has entered a new era and it will not be kind to many teams, I think it is about to get worse. If the Tigers lose in arbitration to Skubal for 32 million, I think they trade him, most likely to the Dodgers, Skennes is not long in Pittsburgh either.
For years I had the Rays and Marlins on cable, I lost them in 2024 when Bally’s folded, got them back in 2025 only to just lose them again now that FanDuel has folded. Shut it all down in 2027, I would rather have no baseball at all than this shit. Gavin Williams is a client of Scott Boras, enjoy him while you can, he is not staying no matter how many are clamoring for an extension.
I agree with what most on here are saying about Kwan’s playing value to this team. A decent hitter and excellent fielder.
I just love him as a player and person. (From what he shows us in public)
Excellent teammate, humble, plays hard. He has all the intangibles.
If he had a better lineup around him, I definitely wouldn’t want to see him go.
Unfortunately, we need hitters.
No offense, but Kwan is not in the same conversation as Bo Bichette, or really any of the most recent top free agents.
Their bats are not comparable almost at all. Kwan’s upside is heavily capped by his lack of power. Ironically, he also puts up worse batting averages than Bichette as well.
Also, while Kwan is an elite left fielder, that doesn’t really mean that much. Its like being an elite 1B, it’s still a low impact defensive position. Kwan also doesn’t really have the footspeed or health track record to move over to center at this point.
He also doesn’t have age or health on his side. And he is already slower than the average player. His plate discipline has been slowly degrading, and who knows what he looks like if he loses literally any bat speed at all.
I’m not trying to hate on him, I like him as a personality and he is definitely a solid role player. But I would be shocked if he made over $100m in 2 years. If he has another down year with the bat and loses any defensive value, he honestly might not even be worth the QO in 2 years.
Bring on 2027. Shut this shit down for a long time. I’ve all but lost interest. We wasted Jose’s years and will never be a serious team as long as the Dolan’s strategy is to just pocket revenue sharing money every year.
Let’s just take a few seasons off and finish this absurdity for good and forever.
Yeah, we were never going to re sign him. He’s a guy who could be an everyday player on most teams. That’s alone makes him too expensive.
26 comments
I don’t think it was ever realistic we would be able to afford his extension. Unless we are cruising into the playoffs come deadline time – he’s gone.
Baseball is going to destroy itself right after doing all the right things to get it back into the public eye.
Kwan was never going to take a discount to stay playing for a minor league organization. He’ll go to the dodgers, Yankees or Mets. We’ll get a couple pitching prospects and a SS prospect who will be good enough to keep the delusional fans coming to the ball park because the seats are blue instead of green.
The Guardians were not extending Steven Kwan anyway. This team extends guys early to buy out pre-arb and arb years to get a discount on free agent years. Kwan only has 2 years of arb. Theres no discount to be had now. Its pretty apparent Kwan and representation view his value different than the Guardians. If Kwan gets anything close to what Bichette got, more power to him. Hes a below average bat at the lowest value defensive position on the field. I, for one, think the Guardians are correct not to be interested in signing him into his free agent years. I just dont think hes gonna age real well.
No the Dolans just need to stop being cheap bastards and actually pay their talent.
I understand not paying FA, I truly do because there is a level of uncertainty of what goes behind the scenes and what was actually happening to make the player successful with the organization they are leaving.
When it is your own home grown talent, you drafted and developed them and you know everything about them…FUCKING PAY THEM!!!
There isn’t a “future with Steven Kwan” beyond this season. If both sides wanted an extension it would have happened by now.
Enjoy him while he’s here.
I’m not sure I agree with the assertion that Bichette and Kwan are particularly similar. Kwan is already older than Bichette and still 2 years from free agency: that’s going to hurt his bottom line a lot, especially a teams willingness to pay him more for a short term deal. Bo played bad defense at SS but should positively improve his defensive value by moving to 3rd. And then on top of that, despite their average WAR being about the same, defense doesn’t really get players paid the same way offense does, especially at a position more associated with offense.
I’d be moderately surprised if Kwan gets much more than 20 million a year barring a huge couple years.
How did this clown get a job writing for yahoo lol.
I’ve never once remotely thought of Kwan as a Bichette Lite. They can both hit for contact but that’s where the comparison ends.
Sorry but this is fucking dumb and shows a complete lack of understanding how contracts work.
Bichette is a career 122 WRC+. Kwan is 112.
Bichette is a career 3.6 fWAR/600. Kwan is a career 3.4 fWAR/600.
So Kwan is making up a huge amount of value from his defense, which pays you worse than offense does.
So bichette is gonna make more money
Second, bichette is a 28 year old free agent. Kwan is 6 months older and still has 2 years of control. He will not be a free agent until he is 30. His next 2 years are heavily cost controlled through the arb system.
So bichette is gonna make more money
One of two things is going to happen: the Guards contend for the playoffs so Kwan plays out the year here and is traded in the offseason. Or they are out of it badly by August and he’s traded this year and the Guards get a nice package of prospects for him.
We can stop writing “Extend Kwan” in half of the posts here because it’s not happening. The organization screwed up by not doing it YEARS ago. They could’ve extended him through a couple free agency years had they done it back in 2023 or maybe even 2024 but the ship has sailed.
Who thinks Kwan is worth that kind of money? Honestly, he is a ++ fielder and a decent contact batter. I love the guy as a Guardian and hope he stays.
That said, he’s not un-replaceable.
MLB don’t realize that being predictable is boring and bad in the long run even if it’s the Dodgers winning every year. Eventually this will kill all the other 29 teams one by one.
Modern baseball is going to turn into something akin to some of the European soccer leagues that basically have the same two teams that fight for a championship year over year because those teams spend the most money.
Best anyone else can hope for is a top 5 finish.
Shit sucks.
Based on this article. The Brewers will have to pay Brice Turang $60M a year because he has similar numbers to Kyle Tucker.
This sub vastly over inflates Kwans value. He’s a nice piece on a competing team. He’s faded at the plate as the season goes on the past 2 season. Almost certain hes going to bounce around from contender to contender on short term deals after he leaves Cleveland.
The only player on this roster with a chance to get a contract >20mil for multiple seasons is Gavin Williams.
Time for the lockout as long as it takes for a cap and floor
They don’t have a future with kwan because of the way they choose to do business.
Bichette would have led the league in hits if he didn’t miss a month with injury but even so he finished in 2nd losing by 3. Kwan is a .280 hitter who is a pest, fouls pitches off, but doesn’t get as many hits which for a contact hitter, hits are valuable.
What is their best offer to Kwan? 10 mil a year? They had to salary dump Gimemez on a 15 mil/year AAV contract. I don’t anticipate them signing another “big” contract after Gimmy because when you don’t spend money your couple big contract players need to carry the team.
The Guards have not been in the conversation for any free agents (even the Pirates gave a serious offer to Schwarber). They aren’t just missing out on players because they’re getting outbid, they aren’t even making attempts because they make more money from revenue sharing than winning games. Even their home grown players, they were perfectly happy not even making an offer to Jose and letting Kwan walk in 2 years.
Baseball has entered a new era and it will not be kind to many teams, I think it is about to get worse. If the Tigers lose in arbitration to Skubal for 32 million, I think they trade him, most likely to the Dodgers, Skennes is not long in Pittsburgh either.
For years I had the Rays and Marlins on cable, I lost them in 2024 when Bally’s folded, got them back in 2025 only to just lose them again now that FanDuel has folded. Shut it all down in 2027, I would rather have no baseball at all than this shit. Gavin Williams is a client of Scott Boras, enjoy him while you can, he is not staying no matter how many are clamoring for an extension.
I agree with what most on here are saying about Kwan’s playing value to this team. A decent hitter and excellent fielder.
I just love him as a player and person. (From what he shows us in public)
Excellent teammate, humble, plays hard. He has all the intangibles.
If he had a better lineup around him, I definitely wouldn’t want to see him go.
Unfortunately, we need hitters.
No offense, but Kwan is not in the same conversation as Bo Bichette, or really any of the most recent top free agents.
Their bats are not comparable almost at all. Kwan’s upside is heavily capped by his lack of power. Ironically, he also puts up worse batting averages than Bichette as well.
Also, while Kwan is an elite left fielder, that doesn’t really mean that much. Its like being an elite 1B, it’s still a low impact defensive position. Kwan also doesn’t really have the footspeed or health track record to move over to center at this point.
He also doesn’t have age or health on his side. And he is already slower than the average player. His plate discipline has been slowly degrading, and who knows what he looks like if he loses literally any bat speed at all.
I’m not trying to hate on him, I like him as a personality and he is definitely a solid role player. But I would be shocked if he made over $100m in 2 years. If he has another down year with the bat and loses any defensive value, he honestly might not even be worth the QO in 2 years.
Bring on 2027. Shut this shit down for a long time. I’ve all but lost interest. We wasted Jose’s years and will never be a serious team as long as the Dolan’s strategy is to just pocket revenue sharing money every year.
Let’s just take a few seasons off and finish this absurdity for good and forever.
Yeah, we were never going to re sign him. He’s a guy who could be an everyday player on most teams. That’s alone makes him too expensive.
Enjoy him while you can…