3 concerns for the Cleveland Guardians that may not go away
By Chad Porto
Josh Bell and Mike Zunino are done as everyday players
Josh Bell was coming off of a bad 2022 and we warned you that his play could suffer in Cleveland. Mike Zunino had a bad 2022 due to his constant injuries, and we warned you that he may not bounce back due to them. It turns out we were right to be wary of Bell and Zunino.
Once again backing up the belief that teams should never spend big money on baseball free agents. They’re free agents for a reason, and the Guardians may be wise in trading away both Bell and Zunino as soon as possible. There’s always the potential that they could turn around their seasons, but they are just not good hitters anymore.
They are first (Zunino) and third (Bell) in strikeouts on the team for a reason, and despite them being “big bats” that you will suffer through the strikeouts for, they’ve only hit five home runs between them, with an additional 17 extra-base hits combined.
Bell at least has been serviceable as a defensive player, but Zunino has been outright bad, and if it wasn’t for Bo Naylor being even worse than Zunino on defense this year, it’s very likely that Naylor would have already taken Zunino’s spot.
The club needs to trade these two for whatever they can get back from them and see if there aren’t better options in-house.