The Cleveland Guardians aren’t the highest-spending team.
They won’t spend big bucks competing with the most prominent names and biggest markets in the game.
However, for the most part, they’ve been a competitive team.
With a few exceptions, the Guardians have been mostly competitive since the Dolan family acquired the team more than two decades ago.
With that in mind, Zachary D. Rymer of Bleacher Report ranked them as the No. 13 best owners in Major League Baseball right now:
“The Dolans had a hard act to follow when they took over the Guardians franchise in 2000. The Cleveland teams of the 1990s had been a powerhouse, winning two pennants in five years between 1995 and 1999. It was initially a struggle to live up to that fine example, but the Guardians look better if the scope is narrowed to their last 12 years with Paul Dolan as their control person. They’re No. 4 in MLB in wins for this span, with only five failures to make the playoffs,” Rymer said.
An underrated aspect of the Guardians’ ownership is that they’re not usually all over the news.
Ironically, that’s usually a positive thing to say when it comes to sports.
It’s one thing to have a hands-on approach, but owners in pro sports have a negative tendency to overstep, and that prevents the people they hire from actually doing their jobs.
That’s not the case in Cleveland.
Of course, most fans would rather watch the team spend big bucks to get the most prominent names in free agency.
However, at the end of the day, as much as everyone would love to have the Los Angeles Dodgers’ unlimited payroll and resources, that doesn’t always lead to success.
The Guardians stunned the world last season by reaching the American League Championship Series, even with one of the lowest payrolls in the league.
Hopefully, that will be the case again in 2025, even though some aren’t as optimistic after watching some of the moves they made in the offseason.
NEXT: Analyst Names Guardians' Biggest Question Heading Into Spring Training
