The Cleveland Guardians need to find some solutions right now.
The team is free-falling, and with the AL Wild Card race heating up, something’s got to change.
With that in mind, Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report made a case for the Guardians to bench Angel Martinez.
“The 23-year-old had multihit performances in three of his first four games back, and [Martinez] was still sitting on a .372 batting average and .852 OPS after a dozen games. Since then, though, it has been a slow but steady fall from grace,” Miller wrote. “The Guardians have bounced him all over the lineup, trying anything to rekindle some of that April magic. It hasn’t helped, though, as he has been mired in a funk, providing negative WAR to a team whose limited offense and negative run differential has become a debilitating problem.”
Martinez opened the season playing for the Columbus Clippers, but he only needed eight games in Triple-A to convince the Guardians that he was ready for a bigger challenge.
Unfortunately, as encouraging as the early results were, his success at the plate was short-lived.
As Miller points out, in the next 41 games since his offensive breakout, he’s made 35 starts, yet he’s hit just .187 with a .529 OPS.
Of course, it’s also worth noting that the team has struggled to find production from their outfield all season long, so it’s not like anybody else is miles ahead of him in terms of production.
Nevertheless, having him start in center field means another struggling outfielder has to get the nod in right field, giving manager Stephen Vogt even more offensive issues to deal with.
Martinez is clearly a talented player, and he could have a long and successful career in the majors.
However, he’s not living up to that potential right now, and with the trade deadline looming, the Guardians can’t afford to continue this free-fall.
They don’t have much time to bounce back and salvage this once-promising season before they choose to be sellers at the trade deadline.
NEXT: Analyst Predicts Guardians' Stance At The Trade Deadline
