What should Cleveland Guardians fans expect from Tyler Freeman?

The Cleveland Guardians have brought up Tyler Freeman, but now what?

The Cleveland Guardians have promoted top prospect, Tyler Freeman, to the Major League club after having a heck of a 2022 season in Triple-A Columbus. Freeman made his Major League debut in the finale of the Arizona Diamondbacks game and with the recent trend of minor leaguers getting the call-up, it doesn’t seem likely that this is a short-stint for Freeman.

Assuming he doesn’t struggle too much.

In his first outing with the Guardians, he went 1-3 with a walk, so not a bad outing. He joins another top 10 prospect, Nolan Jones, on the Major League level. Both men were at one point considered the top guy in the Guardians farm system but now Daniel Espino is the top guy. Espino, however, has only four starts under his belt so far in 2022.

There could still be some more movement to the Majors, though it seems unlikely that it’d be anyone from the Top 30 in the Guardians farm system.

What are the Cleveland Guardians getting from Tyler Freeman?

Freeman can be a very good hitter. Yes, his .279 average in 2022 isn’t impressive, but he’s had a .311 average in the minors, hitting over .300 three times, and having one season where he hit .352. Granted it was over just 72 games but that’s impressive regardless.

He also isn’t a huge strikeout monster either, so he’ll put the ball in play quite a bit. He’s capable of getting a lot of doubles, having smacked 29 in just 270 at-bats in 2018, and knocking 32 of them around in 2019 in 493 at-bats.

He won’t hit for any raw power, however. He’s not a home run hitter, and most of his doubles are due to his speed, rather than bouncing them off the outfield wall. In a perfect world, he’d become the Guardians two-hitter, sitting right behind Steven Kwan, but the Guardians seem content with Amed Rosario there.

Rosario has been a topic of trade talk as of late, so it may be a situation where the Guardians are seeing what they get out of Freeman before making a decision on Rosario. Rosario only has one year of controllability left, so if the Guardians opt not to try and re-sign him, he could get dealt and Freeman would step in to take his place.