Chris Antonetti deserved the Executive of the Year Award for the Cleveland Guardians season

Don’t ignore reality, the Cleveland Guardians very won Chris Antonetti deserved to win the Executive of the Year.

Congratulations go out to Chris Antonetti who won the Sporting News Executive of the Year, for the MLB’s 2022 season. The Cleveland Guardians marched out a horde of young rookies, but really only relied on a few for the whole year. The strategy worked, however, and with a few key rookies in the lineup, as well as a few key pitchers, the Cleveland Guardians had a great year.

They even won the AL Central title. Not bad for the youngest team in Majo League history to ever make it to the playoffs. Yet, some people don’t believe that Antonetti deserved to win the award. People within the fanbase.

And frankly, you have to wonder if people are baseball fans or sports fans. Unlike most sports, baseball takes years to see results in moves. You don’t retroactively give out awards for past years. If so, Antonetti would have won this award every year he’s been leading the Cleveland Guardians.

Chris Antonetti’s decisions paid off in 2022 for the Cleveland Guardians

The argument for Antonetti not getting the award is, “ugh, who did he trade for”, or “ugh, who did he even bring in this past offseason”. If this is the NFL or even the NBA, that would be a more fair but wrong argument.

Firstly, let’s look at the two obvious moves that helped gift him this award; Steven Kwan and Oscar Gonzalez. Now, it’s never just Antonetti or Mike Chernoff who makes these calls, Terry Francona signs off on it too. Yet, the decision to call up those guys falls on Antonetti’s desk.

Not only did those moves pay off, but this entire team is seemingly built on the backbone of the Mike Clevinger, Corey Kluber, and Francisco Lindor trades from 2020 and 2021. For that six-month span, Antonetti re-made the team’s future and acquired Amed Rosario, Andres Giminez, Cal Quantrill, Josh Naylor, Austin Hedges, Gabriel Arias, Owen Miller, and Emmanuel Clase.

Eight key players to the teams’ success in 2022 came from three trades. Without those trades, the Cleveland Guardians don’t make the playoffs this year. Does he not deserve credit for those trades? Of course, he does. Now, this is where the lack of retroactive awards comes into play. He can’t get the 2020 or 2021 award for these key trades, because they didn’t come to fruition until 2022.

So he earned the award on the back of those key trades. It didn’t matter when those trades occurred, only when they delivered.

Lastly, he re-signed Jose Ramirez to a sweetheart deal, which fortified the team’s future even more so.

I’m not sure how you can look at all the moves that were made in the years before, and in season and not think Antonetti deserves this award.