The Cleveland Guardians’ deadline strategy and execution left a lot to discuss for media and fans on Monday and Tuesday. The team officially welcomed five players, quite a haul considering that most of them, except outfielder Blake Perkins, are expected to contribute to the MLB roster right away.
Craig Yoho is already helping in the bullpen, Foster Griffin has already been activated, and Jo Adell is already in the lineup for Tuesday’s game. Nathaniel Lowe should be available soon, too.
The new arrivals forced the Guardians to remove David Fry, Franco Aleman, and Kyle Manzardo from the active roster. Gabriel Arias, however, is still firmly in Cleveland’s plans, having retained his roster spot amid speculation that he could lose it.
In fact, the murmurs about Arias being left out have been going on for months. He can be maddeningly inconsistent; he tends to mentally disconnect from games, and he is prone to baserunning mistakes, but there’s something about him that makes the Guardians attracted to him.
Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga jokingly said in the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast that “Arias has proven that when there’s a nuclear war, the only survivors are going to be cockroaches, Twinkies, and Gabriel Arias. Somehow he’s made it through past trade deadline day, and he’s still on the roster.”
Insider Paul Hoynes explains why Cleveland is so fond of Arias, despite a below-average 91 wRC+ and a 42.3 percent strikeout rate in the majors this year.
“Arias isn’t surviving on his bat alone. He’s surviving because he does something that is quietly essential and chronically undervalued in major league baseball: he plays multiple positions at a high defensive level, he has an elite arm, and when the roster gets reshuffled — through injury, trade, or development decisions — he is exactly the kind of Swiss Army knife a manager needs,” he said.
There you have it. Manager Stephen Vogt values Arias’ ability to play across the diamond, mainly at third base, shortstop, and second base. He even played a couple of innings at first base in 2026.
Vogt knows that as frustrating as Arias can be sometimes, he guarantees a solid glove and the possibility of hitting one of the longest home runs you will see. That’s Arias in a nutshell: he is capable of the best and the worst.
NEXT: Analyst Reveals Why Guardians' Trade Deadline Was A Success
