{"id":154606,"date":"2025-07-05T21:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/154606\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T21:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T21:38:12","slug":"guardians-urged-to-trade-fan-favorite-slugger-after-terrible-start-to-season-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/154606\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardians urged to trade fan favorite slugger after terrible start to season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Cleveland Guardians are in the middle of a rocky season. Despite sitting within reach of the postseason still, it&#8217;s not been pretty. One of the biggest issues has been in the outfield, and specifically, with one of their fan favorite players.<\/p>\n<p>Jhonkensy Noel, otherwise known as &#8216;Big Christmas&#8217;, got off to a terrible start this season. With his poor start, but clear potential, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justbaseball.com\/mlb\/mlb-best-change-of-scenery-trade-deadline-candidates\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Clay Snowden of Just Baseball;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Clay Snowden of Just Baseball<\/a> named Noel as a player in need of a change-of-scenery.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If they are on the fringes,&#8221; Snowden writes. &#8220;They could elect to move Noel in order to upgrade the team while keeping their prospects and ridding themselves of a player that doesn&#8217;t fit the mold of what they typically like. Plenty of teams would love to get his power in their building and see what they can do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Guardians&#8217; fan favorite has incredible power, but can&#8217;t consistently tap into it. While he was solid in 2024, hitting .218 with a .774 OPS, this season has been significantly worse.<\/p>\n<p>Through 46 games, Noel hit just .146 with a .168 on-base percentage and a .223 slugging percentage. His .392 OPS and nine OPS+ are, to not mince words, terrible numbers.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/cleveland-guardians\/news\/guardians-urged-call-top-prospects-amid-brutal-losing-streak\/4a7fddaa2d1d22d05f2dd49e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Guardians urged to call up top prospects amid brutal losing streak;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Guardians urged to call up top prospects amid brutal losing streak<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>His struggles this season sent him down to the minor leagues, and while he&#8217;s been fine in the minors, hitting .280 with five home runs, his Major League statistics have been terrible.<\/p>\n<p>Snowden mentions that the team should look to move him and find a new organization that could work with him through his struggles. Noel may not fit the Guardians&#8217; mold in Snowden&#8217;s eyes, but he could be a fun fit elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>With his power, he could hit massive home runs with the Colorado Rockies. Or he could go to an offensive superpower like the Los Angeles Dodgers as a reclamation project.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of where he ends up, Snowden still believes in his potential and is urging the Guardians to ship him off. &#8216;Big Christmas&#8217; is a fan favorite, but his struggles have put him in a spot to be moved.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Snowden wants to see the 23-year-old Noel get traded. A change-of-scenery could lead to Noel becoming one of the game&#8217;s most entertaining sluggers, thanks to his incredible power.<\/p>\n<p>MORE MLB NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cleveland Guardians are in the middle of a rocky season. Despite sitting within reach of the postseason&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,29798,135,51,2565,52,29833,538,29834,4577,57,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-154606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-clay-snowden","10":"tag-cleveland","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-colorado-rockies","14":"tag-fan-favorite","15":"tag-guardians","16":"tag-incredible-power","17":"tag-jhonkensy-noel","18":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","19":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114802793301606215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}