The Cleveland Guardians look like the best team on paper to land Bryan Reynolds

The Cleveland Guardians landing Bryan Reynolds would make them World Series favorites.

The Pittsburgh Pirates star player Bryan Reynolds has already asked to be traded. He wants to win, but mostly, he wants a new deal. According to Jon Heyman of the New York Post, the Pirates offered him a deal worth over $70 million but Reynolds turned it down. Now we know what Reynolds was apparently asking for, according to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

According to Mackey, the deal that Reynolds wanted is around $120 million. The belief is that it’d be around five or six seasons, which would be the perfect end point at around 33 or 34 years old, right when players generally start to decline.

This is where the Cleveland Guardians come into play. Jon Morosi claims that the Pirates want a top pitching prospect back in return for Reynolds. The Guardians have six pitching prospects in their Top 15, one of which could easily be sent to Pittsburgh for Reynolds.

A deal built around Tanner Bibbee and Will Brennan may be enough to get the deal done, and considering that Brennan is looking for a deal that is less than Jose Ramirez’s, then a deal and an extension are beyond possible.

Moreover, with the offseason the Cleveland Guardians have had, landing Reynolds and extending him would put the Guardians into title contention for years to come.

Bryan Reynolds would cap off the Cleveland Guardians’ resurgence

The Guardians, truly, haven’t had to rebuild in over a decade. They keep reloading. Sure, they may have a season where they aren’t as good as they were, but they always get better after seasons like that. You don’t want to get your prospects, obviously, but not every prospect pans out. Plus, Reynolds is 28, while Brennan is only three years younger. So you’re not sacrificing much from your minor leagues.

I think Reynolds could be worth around $20+ million per year, and if he’s willing to accept a deal like that for the next four or five years, to avoid his arbitration in 2024, then the Guardians will have cemented themselves the best possible offseason maybe ever.

It’s still a long shot that it happens, but no one thought the team would go all out this offseason and they largely have. They were interested in Jose Abreu and Sean Murphy, but other teams made bigger offers. The team still walked away with Josh Bell and Mike Zunino, however, and reportedly they’re not “done”.

Adding Reynolds would cap off easily the biggest offseason in some time, if ever, and one that keeps the team solvent, and able to make future moves if necessary. All while not raiding the minor leagues.

It’d be a huge move for the future of this club.