Fans have been somewhat frustrated with the offseason the Cleveland Guardians experienced following the team’s AL Central championship and ALCS appearance last season, as the team hasn’t made any significant moves to strengthen a lineup or rotation that could have benefited from the addition of elite talent.
Most of the improvements will have to come from in-house solutions, and one insider believes it would be smart to extend the contract of one of the team’s young foundational players.
Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes recently wrote an article discussing the team’s projections for 2025 and outlining how the team can improve from last season.
He believes signing catcher Bo Naylor to an extension would help lock the team’s future into place.
“I think that would be a smart move. Naylor, 24, has fewer than two years of big league service time, which is when the Guardians usually approach players about an extension. The Guardians can’t say enough good things about Naylor’s defense, but offensively he has to improve. You can only have so many dead spots in a lineup,” Hoynes said.
Cleveland’s offense was the primary reason for its shortcomings in the postseason last year, and without making any significant moves to acquire a powerful hitter, improvements will need to come from within.
Naylor is one of the players who needs to improve the most.
This past season, he was an offensive liability, with a .614 OPS in 123 games.
He had a .809 OPS in 2023 across 198 at-bats, so if he can even settle in somewhere in the middle of those two numbers, it would be a huge win for this lineup.
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