So long, 2025, we barely knew ye.<\/p>\n
Before the year fades away, let me quickly review my favorite Guardians moments off the top of my head:<\/p>\n
-Chase DeLauter briefly going nuclear in Spring Training- Every time we see him, he reminds us that if he can be healthy, he can be great. And make Keith Law look dumb yet again.<\/p>\n
-Jose Ramirez setting multiple franchise records- Every time he steps on the field, he is a delight. We are so lucky to be watching the greatest Cleveland baseball player of all time.<\/p>\n
-Gavin Williams taking big steps toward being a staff ace- The rotation was a great story this season but biggest of all was Big Rig becoming a front of the rotation arm.<\/p>\n
-Cade Smith and the bullpen of dads who aren\u2019t step-dads, they\u2019re the dads who stepped up- This bullpen lost the best closer in baseball… and somehow lowered its ERA. That was a miracle. Thank you, Matt Festa. Oh, and K\u2019d Smith.<\/p>\n
-Breaking the spirits of all Twins fans… again.- I just delight in Twins\u2019 fans\u2019 suffering so much. It\u2019s probably wrong.<\/p>\n
-Every Guardians game I got to go to with my kids- This is the highlight of each and every season for me. I love seeing their delight and growing love for the game.<\/p>\n
-Seeing Parker Messick make the big league team and be an absolute dawg- Messick looks so special, guys. He looks like the kind of guy who locks in at a different level when lights are brightest.<\/p>\n
-George Valera\u2019s long-anticipated big league debut- Valera worked so long and fought so hard to get to the big leagues and then he was a needed spark for the team. Beautiful.<\/p>\n
-Catching the Tigers for the division title after falling back 15.5 games- Just so funny, so miraculous and so memorable. And every player on that amazing team played a role!<\/p>\n
-Seeing the Guardians be aggressive enough to start Chase DeLauter in centerfield for two playoff games- I am pretty sure had they started him in the FIRST two, they would have won the series. It\u2019s not scientific, but just a feeling. Putting him on the roster was so refreshingly aggressive and a real acknowledgement of how bad we knew the offense was. May they be just as aggressive with Juan Brito and Travis Bazzana and, hey, Ralphy Velazquez (as needed) in 2026!<\/p>\n
I know a lot of other memories are standing out to you as you read this – feel free to share in the comments below! Happy New Year, CtC!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So long, 2025, we barely knew ye. Before the year fades away, let me quickly review my favorite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,38929,2565,538,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-500387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis-editorials","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-guardians","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115814994278664765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500387","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=500387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}