Three Things That Will Make for a Deep Guardians Postseason Run

Who or what will create the perfect storm for an October to remember?

Cleveland, you will have an October to remember.

Those long awaited words from the legendary voice of Tom Hamilton were enough to ascend every fan to cloud nine last Thursday, and since then, the Guardians have done nothing but bathe in champagne and win the Ohio Cup...again.

Cleveland gave the rest of the AL Central a chance in 2023 after surprising everyone and winning the division in 2022, and though they took the Yankees to five games in the ALDS, they ultimately fell short. The core of that team and the core of this current 2024 Guardians squad are similar, but not congruent. It’s a deeper lineup now but with thinner starting pitching, and the bullpen is now historically dominant.

Over the next 1,500 words or so, we’re going to look at the three ingredients that will make for a recipe to a deeper run than the ‘22 team, and we’ll begin with two big bats added to the roster late in the season.

1. Lane Thomas and Kyle Manzardo must stay the course

Despite the Guardians rolling into the All-Star Break at 58-36, it can be argued that this month of September has been the best, most sustainable form of this division-winning contender heading into October. At 15-8 in the month of September, the Guards have been a complete array of winning baseball. The dependence on José Ramírez and Josh Naylor this lineup had in the first half simply isn’t there anymore. Need evidence of this? Naylor has only been a 109 wRC+ bat since September 1st, and while José has been his typical 130 wRC+ self, 15-8 across a month’s worth of games simply doesn’t happen with José doing it on his own. So who has helped? Look no further than the Trade Deadline.

In a move that looked to be a great train robbery early on for the Nationals, Lane Thomas has been Cleveland’s best hitter since late August, and since September 1st, just nine AL players have posted a higher fWAR than his 0.9. Thomas is rocking a 147 wRC+ since August 25th after being one of baseball’s worst hitters across the previous 50 plate appearances in Cleveland, and it’s all in the launch, baby. From July 30 to August 24, Lane Thomas was hitting just 11.4% of his batted balls in the air to the pull-side, and none of those were barreled. Since then, his pulled flyball/line drive rate has climbed to 20%, and 46.2% of those batted balls have been barreled, resulting in five home runs and three doubles.

It’s not just Lane, however. It’s also been Kyle. While Cleveland seems to have cornered the market on milquetoast first names, they’ve also found a major bat for the future of the ball club, and the future begins now. Kyle Manzardo was not great his first time up. To his own admission, the game was moving incredibly fast, and the lack of everyday at-bats caused him to squeeze a little bit. Since he was called back up on September 1st, only two primary designated hitters have been more valuable than Manzardo: Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani. He has been a godsend to this lineup, and it came at the right time. With Minnesota’s season collapse all but complete, it was Manzardo who put the first nail in the coffin, crushing a Griffin Jax fastball in the bottom of the eighth inning last Wednesday to give the Guardians the lead and subsequent win.

Thomas and Manzardo has changed the complexion of this lineup. In September, Cleveland has had four bats at 120 wRC+ or better: Thomas, Manzardo, and José are three of them.

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...Brayan Rocchio is the fourth. As we all expected.

Manzardo can now comfortably be slotted into that two-hole every postseason game should Stephen Vogt choose to, and it would take a solid top of the lineup and make it urgently dangerous. From Kwan and Manzardo 1-2 to Ramírez and Naylor 3-4, it was what we all dreamed it would look like in March, and those dreams have come true. As for Thomas, he may just be the biggest cog in what makes this lineup feel more optimized for Postseason success. From Tyler Freeman spinning tires in centerfield for four months, Cleveland has been able to trot Thomas out there every day, and he’s been far more serviceable than his defensive metrics had made him seem earlier in the season. Cleveland hasn’t had consistency in centerfield since I was in elementary school, so this has been a welcomed addition.

That being said, we’ve now seen two stretches from Thomas. One being extremely hot, but the other being extremely cold. Those first impressions were bleak, and they stick in your head. The thought of Lane turning into a pumpkin come October lingers, and if he does, the road becomes increasingly difficult for this team. If he can keep up the hot bat, however, this is a legitimate World Series contender with five legitimate bats and a bullpen as dominant as we’ve seen this century.

2. Follow Milwaukee’s roadmap

Let’s take a trip down memory lane to the 2018 Milwaukee Brewers. Christian Yelich was the best player in the sport on a Milwaukee team that clinched the top seed in the National League, and they rolled into an NLCS against the Dodgers. In Game Five of that series, Craig Counsell and the Brewers pulled a fast one on the Dodgers, who had put out an all-right-handed lineup to face the lefty Wade Miley. Now, at the time, there wasn’t a three-batter minimum for pitchers. Miley faced one batter, walked him, and Counsell made the move to the bullpen.

Now, I will take any excuse to talk about this game that I can get because Milwaukee subsequently lost this game anyways, and with the three-batter minimum, no one can do this anymore, but I bring this up because Milwaukee in 2018 and Cleveland now are very similar teams. Milwaukee and Cleveland both had just one pitcher eclipse 150 innings (Jhoulys Chacín and Tanner Bibee), both relied on chunks of innings from a starting pitcher who had been hanging onto a Major League roster spot by a thread beforehand (Junior Guerra and Ben Lively), and both had absolutely dominant bullpens anchored by untouchable closers, unhittable rookies, and failed starters turned dominant relievers (Knebel and Clase, Josh Hader/Cade Smith, Corbin Burnes/Hunter Gaddis).

On top of those glaring similarities, both teams also had great long men, capable of giving the team multiple innings of quality pitching on any given day to get a close game to the lights-out back end of the ‘pen. For Cleveland, it’s been the combination of Pedro Avila, whose 2024 story cannot merely be summed up in one paragraph, and Eli Morgan, who finally carved out a role in this bullpen and has thrived since being called back up. From there, both Milwaukee and this Cleveland team have found the late-season additions of starting pitchers to a depleted rotation to be incredibly fruitful. For Milwaukee, it was the return of an injured Wade Miley. Miley returned from injury in early July, and across 14 starts, he posted a 2.66 ERA to anchor the middle of a Milwaukee rotation in need of someone capable of delivering quality innings. For Cleveland, it’s been Matthew Boyd, who missed most of 2023 and 2024 due to Tommy John. Since being activated, Boyd has tossed 39.2 innings across 8 starts for a 2.72 ERA, stabilizing what had been (and sort of still is) a tumultuous rotation. The days of Spencer Howard are long gone at least.

Now it’s time; let’s go full circle. This might be an overreaction to what we saw against Cincinnati on Wednesday night (TJ Friedl, we will find where you live), but picking a spot for a bullpen game could be a huge lift in October for the Guardians. Deploying the one unit that no one in baseball has been able to touch all season for a full nine innings sounds great in theory, but let’s talk about in practice for a moment. When would it happen? Game 2 of the ALDS. With a day off between games one and two, and two and three, the Guardians are in perfect position to utilize their biggest weapon with impunity.

Bibee is the guy for Game 1 of that series at home, but Game 2 should start with either Erik Sabrowski or Andrew Walters (lineup dependent...postseason eligibility dependent) and roll into Pedro Avila and Eli Morgan for the middle to bottom of the lineup for hopefully three more innings. This, again, in theory, should stretch across 4-5 innings. Hopefully, by then, the bats have plated a couple runs, and then the lockdown arms of the bullpen can stretch across the final four to five innings. This is a recipe for success, and with how spaced out the ALDS is, it works heavily to the advantage of the Guardians.

3. Steven Kwan HAS to find it again

Steven Kwan returned from the injured list with a leadoff home run against Cincinnati, and suddenly, the World Series run was back on. In all seriousness, with the resurgence of Lane Thomas and the breakout of Kyle Manzardo, it still all starts at the top of the order, and until anyone says different, that remains Steven Kwan. Kwan put together a great night against Cincinnati, but the three months of extremely poor hitting, which I talked about here, leading up to his injured list stint are hard to shake. From looking like the second coming of Tony Gwynn to turning into Tony Gwynn Jr, it’s been an up and down 2024 to say the least. That being said, we saw this from Kwan in 2022. A cold streak was followed up by a hot stretch to end the season, and it carried into the Postseason for the then-rookie.

At that point, the lineup was boiled down to whether or not Amed Rosario was going to produce out of the two-hole to set up José and Naylor. Now, there’s actual depth behind Kwan and José, and there’s less pressure on Ramírez because of the parts that make the sum now, and there isn’t a more valuable piece to it than Steven Kwan.

Kwan doesn’t have to hit .500 or tap into his newly-found power stroke. He just has to get back to what makes up his identity: total control of the strike zone with the barrel. He is the engine that runs this car, and despite his struggles, the Guardians are 10-1 over Kwan’s last 30 games when he reaches base multiple times. Every team needs a tone setter, and the Guardians’ is Steven Kwan.