Past trades pay off as 3 Cleveland Guardians get named to 2022 All-Star Game

The Cleveland Guardians have several All-Stars this year.

The Cleveland Guardians may be teetering near .500 after a disastrous stretch early in the summer but all is not lost. The team may finally be moving on from albatross slugger Franmil Reyes, the team is swimming in talented rookies who will likely challenge if not win, the AL Rookie of the Year Award and now they have three All-Stars to call their very own.

Joining the 2023 All-Star game will be Jose Ramirez, Emmanuel Clase, and Andres Gimenez. Ramirez will be returning to the Midsummer Classic for the fourth time in his career, while Gimenez and Clase will be joining the squad for the first time in their career.

Gimenez was pranked a bit when the team announced earlier in the day the players going to the annual summer event. The team’s manager Terry Francona announced Ramirez and Clase as members of the squad and as the team celebrated and congratulated them, Francona interrupted to also announce Gimenez was going to the game as well.

Three very deserving members of the squad are going to the All-Star Game.

While there are other topics we’ll address in the not-so-distant future like if Shohei Ohtani deserved to take a spot over a Guardians pitcher, or what other Guardians had an All-Star-worthy season who got passed over, we’re not mad at who got picked.

Ramirez, Clase, and Gimenez are among the most consistent performers on the team, and their stats don’t lie about how good they’ve been. Ramirez has 17 home runs, 66 RBIs, and some impressive splits .291/.372/.585, while pulling in a .958 OPS. Gimenez has nine home runs, 40 RBIs, splits of .300/.355/.481, and an OPS of .836

Clase is 2-2 with a .153 ERA and 19 saves while throwing 39 strikeouts in 35.1 innings pitched. This is an impressive trio of players, made even better by the fact that they were the center-pieces of two separate trades that saw the Guardians trade Francisco Lindor and Corey Kluber for them.

Lindor will miss the All-Star Game for the third straight season while hitting just .240, and getting paid $34 million per year to do so. Kluber, who didn’t leave in such an ugly fashion has been dealing with injuries since 2019 but is having a solid if unimpressive year in Tampa Bay. He’s currently 4-5 with a 3.62 ERA.