The Cleveland Guardians are back at .500 after dropping another game to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday and with the trade deadline just a couple of days away and the American League wide open, it’s time to get aggressive. This team needs a few reinforcements to push it across the finish line, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
The Guardians may not have made that big move yet, but they haven’t sat on their hands doing nothing. POBO Chris Antonetti made a different type of move on Saturday and sent catcher Bo Naylor and righty Codi Heuer to the Milwaukee Brewers for outfielder Blake Perkins and reliever Craig Yoho.
Mason Horodyski of WEWS shared a clip of Antonetti’s recent press conference where he talked about the Naylor trade. He noted that he still believes in the young catcher but expressed some disappointment that the organization was unable to get consistent offense out of him.
“I continue to believe that he is going to be a good major league player. And we saw that at different points in time… But we weren’t able to help him be as consistent offensively as we think he can be,” said Antonetti.
" I continue to believe that he is going to be a good major league player. And we saw that at different points in time… But we weren't able to help him be as consistent offensively as we think he can be"#Guardians Chris Antonetti discusses trading Bo Naylor#GuardsBall @WEWS pic.twitter.com/wVACmowxQU
— Mason Horodyski (@MasonHorodyski) August 1, 2026
Perkins has spent the last four years with the Brewers and was a Gold Glove finalist in 2024, but he has just a .636 career OPS. Perhaps Antonetti believes they can unlock another level of offensive production from him, but it’s likely that this was just a swap of two lackluster offensive players between two teams that were fed up with the inconsistencies.
It’s not exactly an exciting trade because the last thing this team needs is another outfielder who can’t hit. It gets to a point where it’s tough to get fired up for moves like this because the Guardians have needed some offensive thump for years and Antonetti continues to bring in more glove-first players who provide nothing at the dish.
It doesn’t fix the issue, but it’s a nominal trade that is more about Naylor than Perkins. Naylor was supposed to be the long-term solution at catcher, but he just kept regressing at the plate and was made redundant after the Patrick Bailey trade.
Hopefully, this isn’t Antonetti’s only move before the deadline, because there are plenty of options out there to go get a bat.
NEXT: Former Guardians Outfielder Traded To Braves
