Previewing the Guardians’ March-April 2024 Lineup and Bench

Looking at the hitters going to Oakland on March 28th

With the news of Myles Straw’s placement on waivers in the interest of moving him off the Guardians’ 40-man and of Deyvison De Los Santos’ impending return to Arizona, it’s now possible to analyze the Opening Day roster for the season’s start in Oakland on March 28th.

First, the Athletic’s Zack Meisel tweeted out the plan for the Opening Day roster today:

Deyvison De Los Santos is, thus, set to end up back in Arizona, unless claimed by another team that would agree to keep him on their 26-man roster first. Admittedly, this announcement could be a last-ditch attempt by the team to get Arizona to accept a theoretically offered trade package for his full-rights, but the better way to get leverage in that scenario would seem to be to communicate that De Los Santos’ roster spot is secure and the Guardians don’t need his full rights (something the team SEEMED to be communicating through their Cleveland dot com reporters all Spring). Perhaps, De Los Santos will be returned now and the Guardians will revisit a trade with Arizona later in the season and target De Los Santos at part of the return (Shane Bieber? Scott Barlow?).

In any case, with the players remaining, I’d like to take a look at the lineup I hope to see against RHP the majority of the time, the lineup against LHP and then talk about how I’d like to see the rest of the bench incorporated:

Against RHP:
1. Steven Kwan, LF - ZiPS projected OPS: , career 121 wRC+
2. Jose Ramirez, 3B - ZiPS projected OPS: , career 132 wRC+
3. Andres Gimenez, 2B - ZiPS projected OPS: .771, career 100 wRC+
4. Josh Naylor, 1B - ZiPS projected OPS: .816, career 119 wRC+
5. Will Brennan, RF - ZiPS projected OPS: .708, career 100 wRC+
6. Bo Naylor, C - ZiPS projected OPS: .751, career 126 wRC+
7. Ramon Laureano, DH - ZiPS projected OPS: .706, (Arias who has a career 119 wRC+ vs RHP, Fry and Freeman will get lots of AB’s here, as well as Jose, Bo and Josh on days they aren’t in the field), career 104 wRC+
8. Brayan Rocchio, SS - ZiPS projected OPS: .682, projected 92 wRC+. Not enough MLB sample to say much here yet.
9. Estevan Florial, CF - ZiPS projected OPS overall is .702 and 94 wRC+. I can’t find splits projections for him, but my guess is you can probably add about 20-30 points of OPS here and maybe 10 wRC+ (and subtract similarly to his numbers against LHP). So, my eyeballing projections would put him at around .730 OPS and 100 wRC+ vs RHP.

Against LHP:
1. Steven Kwan, LF - ZiPS projected OPS: .685, career 89 wRC+
2. Jose Ramirez, 3B - ZiPS projected OPS: .835, career 119 wRC+
3. Ramon Laureano, RF - ZiPS projected OPS: .735, career 121 wRC+
4. Josh Naylor, 1B - ZiPS projected OPS: .750, career 84 wRC+
5. David Fry, DH - ZiPS projected OPS: .715, career 110 wRC+
6. Andres Gimenez, 2B - ZiPS projected OPS: .746, career 117 wRC+
7. Tyler Freeman, CF - ZiPS projected OPS: .680, career 86 wRC+
8. Bo Naylor, C - ZiPS projected OPS: .675, career 82 wRC+
9. Brayan Rocchio, SS - ZiPS projected OPS: .678. Not enough of a sample size for a career number here, but it should likely be expected to be around 87 wRC+.

Bench Notes: Obviously, two-three starts a week at catcher for Hedges and Fry to keep Bo fresh. If three, I’d like to see Bo get at least one DH start a week. I expect Tyler Freeman and Gabriel Arias to get regular starts at short and at third and second base to get Jose and Gimenez days off in the field. I’d like to see heavy platoons for players like Florial and recognition of Arias’ severe reverse-splits, but I do recognize that both players need to see AB’s against LHP to see if they can improve their poor performances there so far. I also wouldn’t be opposed to giving Steven Kwan the fairly regular day off against LHP to get Freeman or even Fry in LF, as Kwan has less than stellar numbers versus lefties as seen above. That should help Kwan stay fresher during the season.

It’s important to note that despite Austin Hedges’ great spring, we should expect him to be the 40-45 wRC+ hitter he has been for a while, and hopefully Fry will be pinch-hit for him in high leverage scenarios whenever possible.

Overall Notes: Again, it looks like an average MLB lineup vs. RHP and a pretty poor lineup vs. LHP. Good thing the two star prospects (Kyle Manzardo and Chase DeLauter) we are expecting to arrive shortly are both left-handed hitters! Juan Brito and Angel Martinez have both been good against left-handed pitching in the minors, so hopefully they can help there if the Rocchio and Arias experiences aren’t going well this year. I do believe that David Fry is a certified lefty masher and I think Tyler Freeman and Bo Naylor’s numbers will improve there, also. I think it’s fair to wonder, however, if Josh Naylor can repeat his 127 wRC+ vs LHP he put up in 2023. It’s probably safer to put him in the 85-90 wRC+ range, which should probably drop him in the order against LHP (or provide him the occasional day off when a southpaw is on the hill).

With Meisel and Mandy Bell both mentioning a potential reliever acquisition, I do wonder if we may finally see a middle infielder dealt for a reliever from a rebuilding team (Arias, Jose Tena, Martinez?), which could adjust the roster or depth chart in the week ahead. I also think the plan will be to get a good look at Florial, Brennan and Freeman in the outfield until mid-June and if Chase DeLauter is still hitting everything in sight at that point, they may either DFA Florial or demote Brennan or Freeman and get DeLauter up after the Super-2 deadline. I’d expect to see Manzardo by the end of April, probably booting either Gabriel Arias or David Fry back to Columbus.

I applaud the Guardians for moving on from Straw as a starter and even making room for more upside on the bench by moving him off the roster. I also like the plays for upside on Florial and rewarding Rocchio and Brennan for good springs. It’s a positive start to the season for me, and I hope a sign the team will be aggressive in making changes as needed during the season.

I plan to take a look at the projected pitching staff in a follow-up post tomorrow, so stay tuned!