It didn’t take very long for the concerns about the Cleveland Guardians’ offense to become evident. They were almost no-hit in just the fourth game of the season, when they were shut out by the Seattle Mariners.
In splitting that opening series at T-Mobile Park, the Guardians also lost a game when they scored just one run. As a team, they are batting just .195 with a .600 OPS, and if you remove history-making rookie Chase DeLauter from the equation, those numbers are much worse.
It’s obviously very early, and Cleveland should have enough talent to turn things around, with analyst Justin Lada pointing to catcher Bo Naylor as a key to the Guardians’ offensive growth.
“If they could just get league-average offense, if you could just get a 90 wRC+ for Bo Naylor, that would be a huge win. You could go from 28th in offense to 20th. That would be a big improvement for this team when you combine the fact that their pitching staff should be pretty rock solid and they made it to the playoffs last year on a way worse offense,” Lada said.
Bo Naylor is 1-11 with four strikeouts to start the season. Can Bo recover and return to his late 2025 form? #GuardsBall
"If they could just get league average offense from him… That would be a huge win."
– @JL_Baseball pic.twitter.com/vHZf8VT970
— Matt Fontana Show (@MattFontanaShow) March 30, 2026
In three games this season, Naylor has just one hit in 11 at-bats with four strikeouts. That is somewhat discouraging after he had a tremendous spring training coming off a breakout offensive performance in September of last season.
With a 100 wRC+ representing the league average for that metric, having Naylor simply approach that this season could be a significant boost for the Cleveland offense. Last year, thanks to a late-season surge that was helped along by a batting adjustment, his wRC+ was 85. So far this year, it is minus-18.
The Guardians cannot afford that after finishing last season ranked among the worst offenses in baseball. Despite that, they were able to mount a historic comeback to win the AL Central for a second straight year.
Austin Hedges is a defensive specialist as a backup catcher, but David Fry is now available to play the position after being limited to DH duties in 2025 as he recovered from elbow surgery. Fry is 2-for-6 in two games played this season, and his career wRC+ is 110, so manager Stephen Vogt could turn to him more often if Naylor falters.
The best-case scenario would be that Naylor replicates his production from the final month of last season, but he has to start doing so sooner rather than later.
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