5 Guardians Playing Their Last Game in Cleveland This Week
By Tyler Maher
3. Myles Straw
If the Guardians' front office cares about its fans at all (and I'm not totally convinced that it does), it will stop making us watch Straw try to hit the ball.
Because frankly, he's just not very good at it. While he was a decent hitter when he first came over from the Houston Astros in 2021 (.696 OPS that year, including .739 with us), he's been absolutely abysmal over the last two seasons.
In 295 games since the beginning of 2022, he has 1 home run. That's almost impossible to do in today's game with so many players tailoring their swings to produce long balls. Apparently Straw didn't get the memo.
The lack of power would be more palatable if he hit for a good average or got on base, but he doesn't do those things either. He's a .224/.291/.279 hitter over the last two seasons, becoming a literal black hole in our lineup. That's terrible production for any position, but it's especially unacceptable for an offense-first one like center field.
Straw still provides value with his speed and Gold Glove-winning defense, but we need to replace him with a more potent bat if we want to upgrade our lineup this offseason. He still has three more years of team control at only $5 million per season and he's going to be 29 next year, so he could still have some value on the trade market.
At this point, we just need to take whatever we can get for him.