9 Guardians Who Won't Return in 2024
By Tyler Maher
4. Cam Gallagher
Gallagher was an absolute trainwreck this year, putting up one of the worst offensive seasons in recent memory. He was essentially an automatic out every time he stepped to the plate.
In 56 games this season, Gallagher slashed an anemic .126/.154/.168 with no home runs and more than twice as many whiffs (46) as hits (18). His OPS+ was -9 (the MLB average is 100), and he was worth a full win below replacement level (according to Baseball-Reference) despite only playing 1/3 of the season.
Seriously, it's hard to be much worse than that, not to mention do that much damage in such a limited amount of playing time.
Gallagher still has one more year of team control before reaching free agency, but there's no way Cleveland's letting him weigh down the roster again. He's going to be 31 next year and isn't worth a bag of balls, let alone an actual salary that would likely exceed $1 million.
Literally anyone else would be better than Gallagher, so the Guardians are certainly going in a different direction this offseason when it comes to their backup catcher.