Richie Palacios barely missed a beat when he returned to action last year. Sidelined for two seasons due to a torn labrum followed by a minor-league summer that never happened, the 24-year-old Brooklyn-born infielder/outfielder came back to slash .297/.404/.471 over 428 plate appearances between Double-A Akron and Triple-A Columbus. His wRC+ was a healthy 141.

Palacios had gotten off to a strong start after being taken by Cleveland in the third round of the 2018 draft out of Towson University. Playing at the lower rungs of the minors, he batted .361 with a .960 OPS in his 45-game introduction to pro ball. He arrived with baseball bloodlines. His older brother, Josh Palacios, made his major league debut with the Toronto Blue Jays last year and is now with the Washington Nationals, while their uncle, Rey Palacios, played for the Kansas City Royals from 1988-90.

Richie Palacios — No. 32 our newly-released Cleveland Guardians Top Prospect list — discussed his post-injury learning curve, and his “Let The Kids Play” approach to the game he grew up with, during a November stint in the Arizona Fall League. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cleveland Guardians. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the second year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to KwanGraphs, your source for everything… wait, no, that’s not right. Welcome to FanKwan, your … no, still not it. This part is definitely true, though: today I’m here to talk about Steven Kwan, the Guardians phenom who swung for our hearts and didn’t miss. He was our No. 57 prospect heading into the season, and ZiPS concurred, calling him its No. 62 prospect. He’s been better than that so far — a top 10 hitter in baseball, more or less. Can he keep it going? Will he bat .330 with more walks than strikeouts? I crunched data and watched film to come up with some educated speculation.

Let’s start with the great news: Kwan’s phenomenal bat control is as real as it gets. He’s swung and missed either one or two times (and hey, good news for pedants everywhere, I’ve even thrown in a special postscript at the end of this post so everyone can whinge about foul tips in the comments) in his major league career so far, which is obviously great. Even better, this isn’t something new. In 2021, he was the best contact hitter in the minors, bar none.

Over 1,388 pitches I captured, Kwan swung 551 times. He swung and missed 39 times, and had another seven foul tips. That’s a swinging strike rate of either 2.8% or 3.3% depending on your definition, both of which are otherworldly. The contact rate is no joke, either: he made contact on more than 90% of his swings, which led the high minors and would have placed him in a dead heat with David Fletcher for best in the big leagues.
Read the rest of this entry »

Last week may have been highlighted by the start of the 2022 regular season, but it also featured a spate of contract extensions. Today I’m going to take a closer look at two such extensions, both involving glove-first outfielders entering their age-27 seasons.

We’ll begin with Myles Straw, the center fielder for the Cleveland Guardians, who signed a five-year, $25 million extension, according to Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The extension includes club options for the 2027 and ’28 seasons that would bring the total to $41.5 million over the next seven years. Remarkably, this is the Guardians’ third extension this month with the potential to keep a player in Cleveland through the 2028 season — the team also inked deals with star third baseman José Ramírez and closer Emmanuel Clase.

2021 was Straw’s first full season as an everyday player. He came over to Cleveland from the Astros at the trade deadline in exchange for Phil Maton and Yainer Diaz. After the trade, he continued to build on his breakout campaign. He ended the having posted stellar defense (11 OAA), great baserunning (30 steals in 36 attempts), and about league-average offense (98 wRC+). That well-rounded production quietly placed him among the best center fielders in baseball last season, finishing sixth in WAR at the position with 3.7:

That chart does a good job of showing how unusual Straw’s profile is compared to his peers’, as he’s the only center fielder on the list without a clearly above-average bat. These offensive limitations mostly come from a lack of power, and it is a serious lack of power at that, with Straw posting an ISO, Barrel% and HardHit% all below the fifth percentile. His max exit velocity is actually above average, which could be a sign that more consistently hard contact is hidden away somewhere, but there’s just not a lot to suggest that he’ll be putting up double-digit home run totals anytime soon. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite yearly preseason pieces is also my most dreaded: the breakout list. I’ve been doing this exercise since 2014, and while I’ve had the occasional triumph (hello, Christian Yelich), the low-probability nature of trying to project who will beat expectations means that for every time you look smart, you’re also bound to look dumb for some other reason.

Let’s start things off with a brief look at last year’s breakout hitter list and see how they fared.

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: .311/.401/.601, 166 wRC+, 6.7 WAR
• Alex Kirilloff: .251/.299/.423, 93 wRC+, 0.3 WAR
• Kyle Schwarber: .266/.374/.554, 145 wRC+, 3.1 WAR
• Gary Sánchez: .204/.307/.423, 99 wRC+, 1.5 WAR
• J.P. Crawford: .273/.338/.376, 103 wRC+, 3.1 WAR
• Nathaniel Lowe: .264/.357/.415, 115 wRC+, 1.6 WAR
• Ryan McMahon: .254/.331/.449, 95 wRC+, 2.5 WAR
• Luis Urías: .249/.345/.445, 111 wRC+, 2.7 WAR

On the plus side, nobody really embarrassed me. Alex Kirilloff came closest, but in his defense, he was playing with a wrist injury that eventually required surgery. Read the rest of this entry »

José Ramírez is subtly bending the fabric of space and time. It’s the only way I can explain it. How else can you square the particular details of his hitting prowess? He’s impossibly quick to the ball, creating consistent loud contact. That should require a wild swing, but it doesn’t. He’s one of the best contact hitters in baseball. He has one of the best approaches in the game; sometimes it seems like he knows what’s coming before the pitcher throws it. He’s one of the best defenders in the game. It all feels vaguely magical.

Until today, he was also the most underpaid star in baseball. A five-year, $26 million extension he signed before the 2017 season (with two team options for another $26 million) immediately preceded his ascent to one of the best players in the game. That’s no longer true; today, he more than tripled his career guaranteed earnings by agreeing to a five-year, $124 million extension with the Guardians.

BREAKING: Star third baseman José Ramirez and the Cleveland Guardians are in agreement on a five-year, $124M contract extension, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. Deal includes full no-trade clause. With this year and pickup of a 2023 option, Ramirez is guaranteed $150M.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 6, 2022

This deal, which starts after the 2023 season, should keep Ramírez in Cleveland for the rest of his peak, and quite possibly the rest of his career. For fans of a franchise that had seen its home-grown stars leave quite a bit of late, it’s a welcome turn of events. For Ramírez, it’s financial and — thanks to a no-trade clause — workplace stability.

I know this article is about a contract, but I can’t help it: I just want to talk about how great Ramírez is. I wasn’t exaggerating up above; I really do struggle to wrap my head around his talent. Most hitters have identifiable holes, places where they sacrifice one thing to gain greatly in another area. Level, four-seam-punishing swing? You likely struggle with sinkers low in the zone. Patient approach that hunts fastballs and waits out secondary pitches? Breaking balls in the zone will be your Kryptonite. Whip-quick pull hitter? You might struggle with pitches away. Read the rest of this entry »

It arrived stressfully, chaotically, and slightly late, but the 2022 season is here. And that means it’s time for one last important sabermetric ritual: the final ZiPS projected standings that will surely come back and haunt me multiple times as the season progresses.

The methodology I’m using here isn’t identical to the one we use in our Projected Standings, so there will naturally be some important differences in the results. So how does ZiPS calculate the season? Stored within ZiPS are the first through 99th percentile projections for each player. I start by making a generalized depth chart, using our Depth Charts as an initial starting point. Since these are my curated projections, I make changes based on my personal feelings about who will receive playing time, as filtered by arbitrary whimsy my logic and reasoning. ZiPS then generates a million versions of each team in Monte Carlo fashion — the computational algorithms, that is (no one is dressing up in a tuxedo and playing baccarat like James Bond).

After that is done, ZiPS applies another set of algorithms with a generalized distribution of injury risk, which change the baseline PAs/IPs selected for each player. Of note is that higher-percentile projections already have more playing time than lower-percentile projections before this step. ZiPS then automatically “fills in” playing time from the next players on the list (proportionally) to get to a full slate of plate appearances and innings.

The result is a million different rosters for each team and an associated winning percentage for each of those million teams. After applying the new strength of schedule calculations based on the other 29 teams, I end up with the standings for each of the million seasons. This is actually much less complex than it sounds. Read the rest of this entry »

While the period for extensions is usually longer, this year’s circumstances have made it a brief one, squeezed between a flurry of arbitration hearings and the upcoming baseball season. That doesn’t mean there’s been a shortage, though; according to Spotrac, the 32 extensions signed so far in 2022 marks the highest total since 40 were agreed to in 2019. While I first assumed a much lower number, it’s important to remember some were signed pre-lockout, like with Byron Buxton and José Berríos.

Anyhow, here’s one I found interesting. Having completed his rookie campaign in 2021, Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase was slated to become arbitration-eligible ahead of ‘24, followed by an entry into the open market in ‘26. But an extension has wiped those years out and possibly more. Per Joel Sherman of the New York Post, Clase is guaranteed $20 million over five years. There are two options, worth $10 million apiece, that can either cover his first two years of free agency (2027 and ’28), or be bought out for $2 million each.

Some minor details include a $2 million signing bonus and escalators that can take the options to $13 million. The main point, though, is this is a long, affordable commitment made at the genesis of a player’s career, starting at pre-arbitration and possibly ending several years later. From the Guardians’ perspective, they’ve locked up a star reliever for cheap. But from Clase’s perspective, one has to wonder if he’s leaving money on the table. The future is hazy this early in someone’s career, but when said career has been brilliant thus far, the “what could have been” takes over. Read the rest of this entry »

Current work on the team-by-team prospect lists is being complemented by lots of live looks in Arizona as we work on the West Valley cluster of teams (Reds/Guardians/Dodgers/White Sox), so the info in those lists is fresh out of the oven. As I’ve been targeting teams with West Valley facilities who come east and talked to scouts on my side of town, some players have popped up this spring from clubs whose prospect lists we’ve already done, and I’m not wasting time adding them to their org lists just because others aren’t finished. Those changes are noted beneath some notes on Daniel Espino and are indicated on The Board’s “Trend” column, as they’re the only players to have “up” arrows at this stage.
Read the rest of this entry »

Job Title: Minor League Bench Coach – Cleveland Guardians

Primary Purpose
The Cleveland Guardians are currently seeking a Minor League Bench Coach to join the Player Development Department. The main purpose of this position will be to serve as a coach for a Guardians’ Minor League Complex Team and provide support to Guardians’ field staff, coordinators, special assistants, and front office personnel – with an emphasis on implementing player plans, monitoring and reporting on baserunning and defensive progress, and participating in all pre- and post-game work. This position will be located in Arizona or the Dominican Republic.

The ideal candidate will possess a passion for player and personal growth, experience integrating multiple information sources to create and implement player plans, and a thorough understanding of skill acquisition principles. Excellent applicants will demonstrate curiosity, creativity, and a drive to learn new concepts to problem solve. First and foremost, we are looking for great people!

Application deadline for submission: March 22, 2022

Responsibilities & Duties
The Bench Coach will work hand-in-hand with the rest of the coaching staff and coordinator group to provide quality instruction within our current fundamental framework and philosophies.

Domain-Specific Programming & Communication

• Implement programming specific to individual player plans as it relates to your assigned defensive domain(s) and baserunning.
• Document progress within your defensive domain and baserunning.
• Maintain consistent contact with applicable coordinators about the development and plans of each player as it pertains to your defensive domain.

On-Field Work

• Assist in the set-up and coordination of all hitting and defensive activities and related matters with the manager and other staff at the complex.
• Be an on-field resource for duties including but not limited to: throwing batting practice, hitting fungos, managing cage routines, throwing with pitchers, and other on-field activities as they relate to the development or rehabilitation of Guardians players.
• Coach first/third base as needed with emphasis on reinforcing organizational baserunning philosophy.

Game Preparation & Reflection

• Communicate with other staff on planning and executing game-review meetings and reflecting on game play. Help players reflect on their game play.
• Assist the Manager in any and all administrative duties as it relates to running a successful minor league team – including but not limited to daily schedules and educational initiatives.

Education & Experience Requirements and Preference
The Cleveland Guardians are committed to developing and maintaining an environment that embraces all forms of diversity to enrich our core values, enhance our competitive position, strengthen our impact within our community, and foster a greater sense of belonging for our employees.

In this spirit, we know studies have shown that people from historically underserved groups – including women and people of color – are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications as described in a job description. We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job and understand that candidate may bring certain skills and experiences to the role that are not listed above, but that would add tremendous value to our organization. We would encourage you to apply, even if you don’t believe you meet every one of our qualifications described.

Minimum of two years related experience and/or training required. Previous experience with a Major or Minor League Baseball organization or collegiate baseball program is preferred.

• Candidate is willing to potentially work at one of our developmental complexes in either Arizona or the Dominican Republic.
• Ability to communicate effectively with a wide range of people and backgrounds.
• Interest in personal and professional development with a desire to be involved in internal continuing education opportunities.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Office and Outlook.

Preferred Experience
We are looking for a variety of skill sets. If you have demonstrated experience with any of the following, you may be who we are looking for to join our team.

• Fluency in Spanish is a plus but not required.
• Proficiency in SQL is a plus but not required.
• Strength & conditioning experience.

Organizational Requirements

• All applicants for employment with the Cleveland Guardians will need to comply with the Cleveland Guardians Vaccination Policy as a condition of employment. Potential candidates for employment will be notified of the requirements of this policy prior to the start of employment.
• Reads, speaks, comprehends, and communicates English effectively in all communications.
• Represents the Cleveland Guardians in a positive fashion to all business partners and the general public.
• Ability to develop and maintain successful working relationship with members of the Front Office.
• Ability to act according to the organizational values and service excellence at all times.
• Ability to work with diverse populations and have a demonstrated commitment to social justice.
• Ability to walk, sit or stand for an entire shift.
• Ability to work extended days and hours, including holidays and weekends.
• Ability to move throughout all areas and levels of the Ballpark.
• Ability to work in a diverse and changing environment.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Cleveland Guardians.