Cleveland Guardians: 3 reasons Cleveland won’t extend Jose Ramirez

3 reasons the Cleveland Guardians won’t extend Jose Ramirez

The Cleveland Guardians are a team that no one expects to spend money. Even when the ownerships says they will pay to make the inaugural season of the new moniker a success it becomes a “believe when we see it” statement. However, the team is sticking to their statement, at least so far.

We’re not at a point yet where the team has had a chance to prove that statement to be true, but when you look at the roster it starts to become clear that spending money is the only way to go. Whether it be keeping talent in Cleveland or filling gaps, the Guardians can’t be successful in 2022 and beyond unless the team can spend more money. One clear path to doing that is in-house extensions.

Plenty of players will be in the arbitration process for Cleveland during the upcoming season and that alone will cause payroll to increase. Shane Bieber, Franmil Reyes and others will start to warrant a higher price, but the one name that continuously is brought up in contract talks in fan circles is Jose Ramirez.

Following the Francisco Lindor trade, and perhaps even before, Ramirez has been the face of Cleveland baseball. The runner-up in the 2020 MVP voting, Ramirez has quietly become one of the top players in the game, and it’s been at a bargain price.

Ramirez’s original contract was a four-year deal worth just $26 million, averaging $6.5 million a season. Given his MVP production, that price will surely go up on his next deal. However, Cleveland’s history eludes to the idea that Ramirez’s next deal will be with a different team.

Whether or not Cleveland is set to spend money moving forward, Ramirez simply doesn’t fit the bill for what this organization typically extends or signs. Even with his high level of production, the long-term outlook for Jose Ramirez to remain in Cleveland might not be as bright as some might think.

Jose Ramirez current bargain backfires on Cleveland Guardians

There’s no question that Jose Ramirez has been the best bargain in baseball for majority of his current contract. Since 2017 he’s been named an All-Star three times, has been a Silver Slugger three times and has finished in the top three of the MVP voting, you guessed it, three times, including a runner-up finish in 2020. All of that for the low price of $26 million over four seasons.

Now, the club options are starting to kick in for Ramirez and while his price will jump and most likely remain the highest number on Cleveland’s payroll, Ramirez will still be quite the bargain. He’s set to make $12 million in 2022 and $14 million in 2023.

While Ramirez’s bargain will help in the short-term, it could actually hurt in the long-term. The front office in Cleveland won’t want to risk losing the next two seasons of bargain play from Ramirez and Ramirez could very easily ask to make up for money missed.

Ramirez is still playing at a high level and is clearly the best offensive player on the roster. Odds are he will want to be paid to those standards. Jose Abreu, who beat out Ramirez for the 2020 MVP award, is making $18 million in 2022. Freddie Freeman, who took home the NL MVP in 2020, made $21 million in 2021 and is set to bring in a massive deal this offseason as a free agent.

Ramirez could very easily wait to see what Abreu and Freeman sign for in the next couple offseasons and ask for a similar number. For that reason alone, an extension this offseason seems like a reach and perhaps even an extension at all.

Cleveland Guardians have rising prospects for third base

If Cleveland had no options in the minors ready to take over third base, then extending Jose Ramirez would be a near no-brainer. However, that’s not the case. One of the club’s best prospects in Nolan Jones is a natural third baseman and he’s not the only player capable of playing the position.

Cleveland has a plethora of infield talent coming up through the system and while majority of talk has been about who will fill the middle infield spots, some of those players could shift over to third in a few seasons if Ramirez is no longer with the team.

Amed Rosario has shown his ability at the plate and his glove has improved, making the middle infield race even more complicated. That leaves top prospects Tyler Freeman and Gabriel Arias vying for one spot. Unless, third base opens up. If that were to happen, then there are just as many options to play third as there are for second right now, if not more.

That paired with the money the club would save from not extending Ramirez and pushing that money towards younger players like Bieber and Reyes and Jose Ramirez is all of a sudden an expendable asset in Cleveland, at least in terms of a contract extension.