It\u2019d another offseason so it\u2019s another round of Steven Kwan trade rumors.<\/p>\n
Kwan had a wild 2026 season. From Opening Day until July 1st, he put up a 72 wRC (.214\/.320\/.266 slashline). From July 1st to the end of the season, he put up a 158 wRC+ (.352\/.445\/.441 slashline). Which hitter is he? Most likely, he\u2019s something like the 107 wRC+ he has put up as a major league hitter. That\u2019s a valuable player, but his value is always going to be volatile given he has very little bat speed and raw power, and his slight frame invites injury risk concerns.<\/p>\n
However, the biggest news about Kwan for 2026 is that he gamely offered to play centerfield and was very good there. He had 6 DRS and 6 OAA in 637 innings in centerfield. The Guardians don\u2019t have a clear centerfield replacement for Kwan ready as of yet. Could it eventually be Aaron Walton, or Jaison Chourio, or a position change for Angel Genao, Travis Bazzana or Welbyn Francisca? All of these possibilities seem at least a year away.<\/p>\n
Unless the Guardians have done some groundwork on a trade for a centerfielder, I suspect they will keep Kwan for 2027. If they assume something similar to the current economic system, they can revisit the potential of a trade at the deadline or offer him a qualifying offer after the season. They could also at least revisit the idea of something like a 5-year\/$60M extension, but I doubt Kwan is interested in that (understandably).<\/p>\n
The big unknown in these considerations is the lockout. If Guardians ownership is convinced they need to get some value from Kwan before he walks, I could see them trading him to avoid paying his projected arbitration salary of $11M as well as getting prospects in return. I am not opposed to this idea (intellectually -emotionally, I hate it), but, again, they need to have a clear replacement plan that is not Petey Halpin\/Kahlil Watson\/and a basketful of hopes.<\/p>\n
I rank the likelihood of Kwan staying in Cleveland at about a 6.5 out of 10. If there were no lockout looming, I\u2019d put it as an 8 out of 10. But, the Guardians have graded plenty of players at the end of their arbitration years, so it\u2019s always going to be a possibility. I suspect Kwan is starting in centerfield when the 2027 season starts around Memorial Day (my guess), but it\u2019ll be an anxious wait for Kwan fans until then. For me, I am fine with keeping him for 2027, extending him if he is open to something team-friendly or trading him for a solid prospect return if there is a centerfield replacement lined up. I can justify any one of those three paths, but my preference is for the option of keeping him for 2027 and letting him walk afterwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019d another offseason so it\u2019s another round of Steven Kwan trade rumors. Kwan had a wild 2026 season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,2589,2565,538,4],"class_list":["post-836124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-guardians","tag-baseball","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-cleveland-guardians-analysis","tag-clevelandguardians","tag-guardians","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117491674849053529","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836124","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=836124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}