The Cleveland Guardians need someone to step up on offense next season.
If everything goes according to plan, it might be one of their prospects.
According to Zack Meisel of The Athletic, the team has high hopes for Chase DeLauter for this upcoming campaign:
“The Guardians are banking on him to contribute — and soon. The more pressing question is if he can stay healthy. Since the Guardians snagged him with the 16th overall pick in 2022, he has appeared in a whopping 96 games. Now he has destroyed pitching in those 96 games, to the tune of a .317/.387/.517 slash line, and he impressed Cleveland’s decision-makers last spring when he wasn’t even technically in big-league camp but performed so well he stuck around until the final cuts,” Meisel said.
DeLauter has always been a beast at the plate.
He’s got the pitch recognition skills of a veteran, and his combination of power, contact, and plate discipline projects him as a middle-of-the-lineup star for years to come.
Of course, that’s only going to happen if he can stay on the field.
Availability is the best ability in professional sports, and he hasn’t been the most durable young player in the Minors.
He played a grand total of 39 games last season after dealing with a toe injury and a broken foot.
The writing is already on the wall, and he might have a clear path to take and hold onto the starting right fielder spot in Spring Training.
Given the team’s need for power and an offensive shakeup, not to mention his impressive talent and promising trajectory, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Stephen Vogt give the 23-year-old a shot right away.
He’s a homegrown talent and has all the tools to be an elite hitter at the next level, and it’s been a long while since the Guardians last had a reliable offensive player at right field.
Again, it will all depend on whether he can finally stay healthy, which is a big ‘if.’
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