The Cleveland Guardians struggles won’t be fixed with a change at catcher
By Chad Porto
The Cleveland Guardians have more issues than just catcher.
The current hot-button topic around the Cleveland Guardians is this “demand” that they call up Bo Naylor, a highly-touted, but inconsistent prospect from Triple-A Columbus. Naylor, who’s hitting just .254 in Triple-A, with 52 strikeouts, has tremendous upside. He’s wildly inconsistent at the plate, as you can see by his walks-to-strikeouts ratio. He walks a lot. He also swings at junk a lot. This is one of the most inconsistent hitters in Triple-A, and can have days where he goes 3-4 and comes a triple away from the cycle, and then follow it up with a three-strikeout game.
He’s, hopefully, going to be a good hitter but the team can’t risk rushing him to the majors just because Mike Zunino has regressed as a hitter. Naylor still needs more time, he’s only been in Triple-A for about a full season. This desire to rush a clearly incomplete prospect just because of some struggles is maddening, mostly because it’s not going to fix things.
The Guardians need more than just a catcher at the moment, and ruining Naylor’s development because you don’t know how to be patient certainly won’t help things.
Bo Naylor’s call-up is not the biggest issue the Cleveland Guardians have currently
The Guardians haven’t had a good hitting catcher since Yan Gomes, and this team has won a lot of games since he left Cleveland. So why is it now that everyone thinks Naylor, who is reported to have issues controlling the pitching staff in Columbus, would come in and fix things with Cleveland this year? Naylor needs more time.
He’s incomplete, but a valuable prospect. The Guardians need someone who can come in and fix the biggest issue the club has; it’s inconsistent pitching. The bats have been much better the last three or four weeks, but the pitching hasn’t been.
They optioned Zach Plesac and James Karinchack, two of the team’s most talented pitchers to Triple-A, the highly vaunted prospect callups for 2023, Logan Allen and Tanner Bibee have struggled as of late. Allen has given up back-to-back five-run games, while Bibee just had a six-run outing. They’re not bad players, but they’re experiencing growing pains.
As any rookie does.
The problem is, their growing pains are exacerbated by Shane Bieber’s struggles, Cal Quantril and Peyton Battenfields’ disappointing year of poor play and injuries, and not having Triston McKenzie for most of the season. Not to mention that Emmanuel Clase is tied for first in the league with five blown saves.
These things on their own aren’t a huge issue, but coupled together and you can see why the Guardians are struggling. The bats are turning around, Josh Naylor is hitting the MLB approved-mud off the face of the ball. The offense is finding its grove.
The issue is that now the pitching staff is starting to struggle. So no, Bo Naylor isn’t going to come in and fix that problem. I’d rather make a trade for a veteran catcher who can help stabilize the pitching staff than risk calling up Naylor, rushing his development, and asking him to do something that isn’t really in his skillset, yet.
Give the younger Naylor brother time, and let the veterans fix the mess they created.
It might be too soon to say it but it looks like the Cleveland Guardians are back. dark. Next
- Published on 06/16/2023 at 23:00 PM
- Last updated at 06/16/2023 at 23:00 PM