Bradley Zimmer will go down as one of the biggest “What Ifs?” in Guardians history

The Cleveland Guardians traded Bradley Zimmer to the Blue Jays.

Bradley Zimmer is no longer a member of the Cleveland Guardians. He hit just .156 in spring training and was on the shortlist of not making the team coming out of Spring Training. Since clubs can carry a few extra guys, that likely saved him. Zimmer didn’t play in the opening day game against the Royals, and nearly as soon as the game ended, was shipped off to the Toronto Blue Jays for a right-handed relief pitcher, Anthony Castro.

Casto is a 26-year-old with little value to his name, but somehow, it still feels like the Guardians fleeced the Blue Jays mostly because Zimmer is just that bad. He wasn’t supposed to be, however, in fact, the Guardians viewed him as untouchable for a long time while he was coming up in the minors.

When he got to the main club in 2017, the year after the team’s failed World Series run, he was supposed to be the key piece in getting them over the hump. He didn’t help them over the hump, in fact, his poor play and injuries over the next five years further made the hump taller.

Frankly, if you look at his figures, most of the hype came because he hit .368 in his last year in college at San Francisco. He never put it all together in the minors, one year in 2016 he had 15 home runs but hit just .250, and in another year, 2015, he hit over .300 but just six home runs.

He had potential, and a lot of that came with his legs. He was touted as one of the fastest players in baseball, so fast that he could transition sports and be a pro. Yet, injuries to his legs zapped him of a lot of that speed. He was no longer a five-tool player and was barely hanging on in 2019 as a pro. How he managed another three seasons is beyond me.

Bradley Zimmer is one of the biggest “What Ifs?” in Guardians history

When talking about the Guardians cutting payroll, what fans always forget is that the team expected guys like Zimmer to step up and fill in. He was supposed to be a franchise player, and instead, all he became is fodder for a trade involving a mid-tier middle reliever.

There were other guys like Brandon Phillips, Brian Giles, Jarrett Wright, and others who were given up on, or were sent away that you think about and wonder how they might have changed the course of the franchise.

Zimmer is on that list. More so in the Wright section of it, the injured-young-stud-who-never-rebounds category but he’s there nonetheless.

His failure as a member of this club and as a reliable bat will go down as one of the biggest busts in this club’s history and not since Matt LaPorta has a player come in, with such hype, and failed so hard.

I wish Zimmer all the best in Toronto, and I hope he carves out a decent second act, but those of us in Cleveland will simply be reminded of what could’ve been every time we hear his name.