The Cleveland Guardians need to figure out what to do with their offense. The front office has actively ignored its need for power and has yet to make any additions to address its woes. With that in mind, panelists from the Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast discussed their potential options at this point in the offseason.
In the latest edition of the show, they concluded that Eugenio Suarez might be the team’s best solution:
“While the Guardians have been aggressively loading up their bullpen this offseason, a glaring need remains unaddressed: a power-hitting right-handed bat. One name that could perfectly fill that void is Eugenio Suarez, the free agent third baseman who smashed 49 home runs last season between Arizona and Seattle. But will Cleveland’s front office be willing to tolerate his astronomical strikeout numbers to get that power?” Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast wrote.
Truth be told, it’s hard to argue with this. Strikeouts or not, we’re talking about a well-known, hard-hitting slugger who would solve some of this team’s woes.
As things stand now, it seems that the front office and the coaching staff are putting all of their hopes in the young players. That could backfire tremendously.
Of course, we’ve already seen glimpses of what Chase DeLauter, George Valera, and C.J. Kayfus can do. They should also get some production from Travis Bazzana, a former No. 1 pick.
That being said, three of those four players have struggled with injuries, either for most of their careers or last season. Even if that weren’t the case, they’re young and unproven players first and foremost.
The Guardians can’t just throw them into the fire and hope for the best. It might work out, but they still need to learn the ropes of the game and, more importantly, stay consistent and healthy throughout the course of a long and taxing regular season.
This team has always been reluctant to spend big bucks or engage in bidding wars with big-name free agents. Getting Suarez might not be that hard at this point in his career. Even if he’s going to strikeout a lot, he’s also going to put the ball in play a lot.
This team lacks power at the plate, and they cannot afford to have a 49-home run-hitter free agent lurking around and not even get him on the phone.
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