The Guardians Just Threw In The Towel On Their Season

CLEVELAND.com -- The Guardians have traded right-hander Aaron Civale to the Rays for first baseman Kyle Manzardo

Civale leaves the Guardians as their hottest starting pitcher. He’s 5-2 with a 2.34 ERA. On Sunday he threw six scoreless innings in a 5-0 win over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Manzardo was the Rays’ second round pick in 2021 out of Washington State. He’s currently recovering from a left shoulder injury at Class AAA Durham where he was hitting .238 (63 for 265) with 11 homers and 38 RBI. He is expected to be back in the Triple-A lineup in a few weeks.

The left-handed hitting Manzardo, 23, hit .327 (106 for 324) with 22 homers and 81 RBI in 81 games in 2021 at Class A Bowling Green and Class AA Montgomery.

Manzardo was ranked as the fourth best prospect in Tampoa Bay’s system. MLB Pipeline ranked him as the 37th best prospect in all of baseball.

The Guardians entered today as a .500 baseball team and just .5 games back of the Twins for first place in the dog shit AL Central. After trading Aaron Civale, they are now a team with a pitching staff made up of rookies and whats left of Noah freaking Syndergaard's noodle arm. Those two things just don't add up to me.

So it certainly feels like they are throwing in the towel on this season, which is absolutely infuriating. 

It's not that they traded Civale. They 100% should have because his value will never be higher. It's that they traded him for a 23-year old first baseman that hasn't seen the majors yet. A guy that plays a position currently occupied by our highest paid player and arguably our best current player. And in return we sent a 28-year old starter with a 2.34 era, multiple years of cheap contract control, and some injury history, to a team that has a history of smoking teams in trades...straight up.  

 The Guardians have never been able to draft and develop power hitting prospects so sure, this is basically a game genie cheat code to the 4th level when you have never been able to beat the third. But to only get one prospect back in a season where expectations were sky high after advancing in the playoffs and giving the Yankees all they could handle in the ALDS is wild. 

Back to Manzardo...the kid has a stick. He can flat out mash and in three seasons we could very well look back at this trade and say, "holy shit they got HIM for AARON CIVALE?!" But that's not the point. The point is Cleveland fans have bought in and showed up to games. They have been engaged and spending money on the team just like ownership asked and now it seems as though they have zero shot at competing this year.

Both Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie are aiming for September return dates but any type of elongated losing streak could lead to the team just shelving them for the season. And they are rapidly approaching dangerous innings pitched territory on all three rookie starters. They are in a tough spot offensively and with arms now. And unless there are a few more major moves to accompany this trade then I think we know how the Guardians front office feels about their chances.

I didn't need them to go trade for Ohtani but it would have been nice to actually bring in a bat that could help right now. To actually try and not waste another year of Jose Ramirez's likely Hall of Fame career. To try and capitalize on Josh Naylor's best season as a pro. 

Instead it's the same conservative, kick the can down the road approach which keeps the Guardians relevant every season but never good enough to win a championship. Maybe that's all we can ask for as fans of a mid market team owned by cheap fucks, but it's getting really old. 

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So we won't be watching any meaningful baseball in October, but at least we can watch videos of Manzardo mashing baseballs and hope he's doing it in a Guardians uniform sooner rather than later.