CLEVELAND, Ohio — Despite significant offensive struggles that saw them rank 28th in runs scored, the Guardians are doubling down on their core philosophy of developing young, internal talent as they look to build on their 2025 American League Central Division title.

The team’s front office made it clear during Tuesday’s end-of-season session with reporters that while improvements are needed, particularly on offense, they believe their successful model of pitching development provides the blueprint for addressing those shortcomings.

“As we look ahead, clearly the place that stands out is just our offense,” said general manager Mike Chernoff. “We know how we have to build teams, and that’s from within. We saw a lot of young players emerge towards the end of the year to take really quality at-bats.”

The Guardians’ pitching staff emerged as one of baseball’s best by season’s end, the absence of ace Shane Bieber for the entire season and having starters Ben Lively (elbow surgery) and Luis Ortiz (gambling investigation) plucked from the rotation mid-season. The team finished with a top-five rotation ERA in the second half, with almost all contributors developed internally.

“Starting pitching was a huge success story of our season this year,” said president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti.

This pitching development success serves as the model the organization hopes to replicate with their young hitters. Players like Brayan Rocchio and Bo Naylor showed significant improvement in the second half of the season after early struggles, providing evidence that their development approach can work.

The front office emphasized that patience remains a cornerstone of their philosophy, pointing to the early career struggles of franchise cornerstone José Ramirez as a prime example.

“One of the things we’ve tried to learn over time is that as hard as it can be, patience is often the best thing to have,” Antonetti said. “Go back and look at (Ramirez’s) first 600 plate appearances in the big leagues. They weren’t very good.”

That patience extends to the coaching staff, led by manager Stephen Vogt, who completed his second season at the helm. The team acknowledged the difficult balance Vogt and his staff must strike between winning now and developing young talent.

“What we ask of (Vogt) and the coaching staff is almost unfair because we’re asking them to not only find ways to help the team win games, but help a group of players continue to develop,” Antonetti said. “Winning games while developing players at the major league level is incredibly hard to do and takes an incredible amount of work.”

Looking ahead to 2026, the Guardians will continue emphasizing proper off-season preparation for their young core, something they believe is crucial to sustaining success through a full season.

“The number one message that we sent to all of our players was the importance of the offseason,” Vogt said. “The foundation that you build physically for yourself coming into Goodyear is of utmost importance because if you don’t build that engine ready to sustain eight months of work… then it’s a moot point.”

While executives didn’t rule out external additions, particularly in the outfield where production was lacking, the clear emphasis remains on their internal pipeline and the continued development of players already in the system as they seek to improve an offense that held back an otherwise successful season.

Generative AI was used to organize information for this story.

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