Antonetti and Chernoff: Grading the Cleveland Guardians front office at season’s midway point

With president Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff jointly in charge of operations since 2016, the Cleveland Guardians have one of the most stable front office teams in the current game.

The Guardians hit the 81-game mark of the 2023 season at 39-42, which doesn’t sound very good … unless you’re in the AL Central. Since the Guardians are in the AL Central, they find themselves only one game out of the division lead and even with the Minnesota Twins in the loss column.

By Guardians standards, this has been a normal first half. A year ago, they were 40-41 (just one game worse) and they went on to win the Central in a breeze. That means it will be interesting to see how the Guardians approach the season’s second half.

Grading the Cleveland Guardians at the midway point of the 2023 season

What follows is a mid-term assessment of the Guardians’ personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the team’s performance.

The standard of measurement is Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Antonetti and Chernoff impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how Antonetti and Chernoff stack up by those five yardsticks.

Acquired or traded

Antonetti and Chernoff could hardly have been less active in their pursuit of other teams’ talent. Since the end of the 2022 postseason, they have not acquired a single major league player via trade, waiver claim or purchase, and they’ve lost only two via the same methods.

One of the moves may be regretted before long; the other is likely to be forgotten by nightfall.

The departures were outfielder Will Benson at season’s start and reliever Touki Toussaint just this week. The Benson decision has by far the more likely long-term implications.

Benson was sent to Cincinnati in mid-April for a pair of minor leaguers. At the time, the deal looked like a case of Antonetti and Chernoff doing a favor to a kid who had little chance of making his mark in their outfield. Keep in mind that the Guardians were coming off a 2022 season in which Steven Kwan, Myles Straw and Oscar Gonzalez — all of them 27 or younger — gave every indication of having settled in for the long haul.

Benson started slowly in Cincinnati. But with an athletic 6-foot-5, 230-pound body his potential was obvious, and in June it began to show. Since June 1, he’s hit .369 with four three-hit games, his fourth three-hit game coming Saturday.

Benson hasn’t done quite enough to make the Guardians regret that trade already, but he’s trying.

Toussaint is a journeyman reliever who tried to make it with Atlanta and the Angels before being signed by Antonetti and Chernoff as a free agent in January. He only worked four innings, and two weeks ago Cleveland waived him to the White Sox. Unlike Benson, Toussaint is does not appear to be in the process of showing people that he belongs in the majors long-term.

Free agency

Antonetti and Chernoff focused on the second and third tiers of the offseason free agent market, the headline name probably being Josh Bell. A 30-year-old with a reputation for more power potential than actual power, he had been granted free agency by the Nationals, to whom he had been traded in the summer of 2021.

In Cleveland, Bell has generally filled the DH role, and not especially well. He’s hitting .232 with eight homers and a .712 OPS, all of that good for a -0.8 WAA.

The Toussaint signing, which preceded his departure, has been previously noted. The Guardians also signed veteran catcher Mike Zunino as a semi-regular. Zunino never hit much for average, but he had a power reputation. In Cleveland, he lived up to half of that profile, batting .177. As for the power, well his slugging average was .306, about what you or I would do.

Antonetti and Chernoff released him two weeks ago.

The other part of the catching tandem was turned over to free agent Cam Gallagher. No improvement; Gallagher is batting .138 in 34 games and splitting time three ways with rookies Bo Naylor and David Fry. If either or both of them begin to hit a little, Gallagher’s days may also be numbered.

Farm system

Antonetti and Chernoff have made ample use of Cleveland’s farm system, mostly in the search for effective yet controllable talent.

The Guardians have to date utilized 15 first-year farm system products, which is probably a major league high. A wise major league executive never expects the bulk of rookies to produce positive benefits immediately, but Antonetti and Chernoff have done okay in that respect.

Of the 15, nine have generated some level of positive benefit to the team. Because those benefits have been small and because the two most consequential are also negative, the overall rating is slightly to the down side. That’s to be expected.

The biggest productivity issue has involved first year utility player Gabriel Arias. The Guardians have given the 23-year old every opportunity, keeping him on the active roster all season and using him in 61 games. But he’s batting .189 with a .318 slugging average and negligible fielding numbers. That translates to a -1.0 WAA.

Starter Peyton Battenfield got an early April promotion from Triple-A, and made six starts. But, by mid-May Battenfield, along with his 5.19 ERA, was headed to the injury list with shoulder inflammation. A final prognosis on that damage is awaited.

Fry and Naylor, younger brother of first baseman Josh Naylor, will probably be given a full shot at filling the gaping hole behind home plate. Logan Allen is a rookie pitcher who got a dozen starts and produced a 3.47 ERA before the Guardians for some reason decided that wasn’t good enough; they shipped him to Triple-A last week.