Why the Cleveland Guardians should (but won’t) trade José Ramírez
Cleveland Guardians third baseman José Ramírez is one of, if not, the best third baseman in the American League.
In five of the last six seasons, he has garnered MVP votes and, in four of the last five seasons, he has come in at least sixth in AL MVP voting, including three top-three finishes.
He could get the Cleveland Guardians a haul in return, but they will not trade Ramírez this offseason for a number of different reasons.
Cleveland Guardians’ third baseman José Ramírez should be traded this offseason, but won’t.
There are a lot of reasons why the Cleveland Guardians should trade José Ramírez and there are a lot of reasons why they won’t. First, we’ll tackle why they should trade him.
In recent years, the Guardians have tried to be a competitive team. After all, since Ramírez first played 100+ games in an MLB season, the Guardians have been to a World Series once and made the playoffs three other times, and won 93 games another season.
But the Guardians are likely not going to be a competitive team in 2022. In 2021, they went 80-82, which was their worst record since 2012.
Part of that was because their pitching staff was so depleted for most of the summer as they did not have a single pitcher make more than 25 starts. The reigning Cy Young Award winner, Shane Bieber, missed half of the season, plus Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale missed extended time too.
The problem with the Cleveland starting rotation going forward is that they don’t have the depth that they used to and their pitching guru who was a big key to the success of these pitchers, Rueben Niebla, left the organization this offseason to become the pitching coach for the San Diego Padres.
The Guardians, even with Ramírez, have one of the worst offenses in all of baseball, though. In 2021, they had a team OPS+ of 93, which was 21st in baseball … and that is with Ramírez’s 141 OPS+. Franmil Reyes and Myles Straw (who they acquired at the trade deadline) were the only two players to have an OPS+ of league average (100) or better among players that ended the season with the team and at least 200 at-bats with the team.
Is this the time for the Cleveland Guardians to start a rebuild?
The Chicago White Sox are already the class of the American League Central, but the Detroit Tigers have already made some big moves this offseason and are poised to make other moves, including signing one of the big name shortstops on the free agent market this offseason.
Unless Cleveland spends a lot of money this offseason (which they don’t often do), then they need to start their rebuild.
Ramírez only has two years left of team control as he has a team option for $11 million in 2022 and a $13 million team option for 2023. He then becomes a free agent. Right now is the perfect time to get a haul for him.
It should also be noted that the free agent market for third basemen is sparse. There’s Kris Bryant (124 OPS+ in 2021) but Ramírez is better. After Bryant, the next best options are Eduardo Escobar or Kyle Seager, both of which are far inferior to Ramírez.
Ramírez can also play second base and shortstop, although he hasn’t in recent seasons as he told Cleveland that he wants to play one position and not bounce around between positions and Cleveland wanted him at third. But showing the willingness to play another position could attract some other teams to him as well.
As Jim Bowden of The Athletic noted in this piece, Ramírez ranked in the 94th percentile in Statcast’s outs above average for third basemen, showing that he is a great defender at third too. But Bowden thinks that Cleveland will trade them. They should … but they won’t.
The Cleveland Guardians have a long history of not maximizing the return on the players that they are trading
Instead of trading two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber away after the 2018 season when he was entering his final two seasons before free agency, the club kept him. He got injured in 2019 and then they traded Kluber to Texas before 2020. At the time, the deal was widely panned as being a light return, but Kluber only pitched in one inning with them before he was hurt again.
The Guardians traded Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati with one year and two months remaining on his contract and they got Franmil Reyes in return, but the other pieces haven’t panned out.
They traded Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco (both in the same deal to the Mets) after Lindor saw his trade value dip and he had one year left before free agency and they traded other players like Edwin Encarnacion, Mike Clevinger, and Justin Masterson at inopportune times for the team or after the player was at their best value.
Cleveland also thinks they are a “competitive” team. However, unless you have a team that you think can win the World Series, you aren’t truly a competitive team. After all, there’s a reason why the 2015 Kansas City Royals are the only team to win a World Series among middle- or small-market teams since 2004: The winning teams spent money.
Cleveland did spend some money in 2017 and 2018, in particular. The last time they won a playoff game was in Game 2 of the 2017 ALDS. They lost games three through five of the 2017 ALDS, were swept in the 2018 ALDS, and got swept in the 2020 Wild Card Series.
Cleveland hasn’t won a World Series in more than 70 years for a reason: They don’t maximize the value for their trade chips and when they get to the postseason, they choke. It’s really as simple as that.
For this offseason too, there will almost certainly be a shorter window for trading. If a lockout happens on December 2 and the lockout lasts a long time, Cleveland could face a case where they have just a few weeks to trade him before spring training begins.
dark. Next. The Guardians are already off to an inauspicious start
So unless the lockout period is short and Cleveland has learned their lesson on trading players at their peak value, José Ramírez will not be traded this offseason, but rather during next season or next offseason, as the Cleveland Guardians always have with their top talent that they deem they can’t afford for the long term.