Blue Jays explosion shouldn't distract from Guardians' Andres Giménez reality

The Toronto Blue Jays are the hottest team in baseball right now. Not only do they hold a 2-0 lead over the Yankees in the American League Division Series, but they’ve combined to score 23 runs across their two victories. 

There have been plenty of Guardians who have put their fingerprints over those wins. Ernie Clement slugged a big home run. Myles Straw’s scored two runs. Andres Giménez has gone 3-for-8 with a big two-run single in Toronto’s Game 1 win. 

While all of that stings a little more since the Guardians bowed out to the Tigers in the Wild Card Series, Giménez doing well for the Blue Jays doesn’t automatically mean the Blue Jays “won” the trade. 

The Cleveland Guardians were right to get rid of Andres Giménez

Just because Giménez is playing (and contributing) in October doesn’t mean this season has been a successful pairing between him and the Blue Jays. Even if he played well through the first two games of their trip to the postseason, the Blue Jays also played in 162 games before that. 

Giménez finished the regular season with a .210/.285/.310 slashline with seven home runs and 35 RBI in 101 games. So not only did he play in a career-low number of games due to injury, but he also produced at a career-low clip. 

Even though Giménez’s lack of production at the plate was frustrating during his time in Cleveland, he still finished every full season in Cleveland with 4+ bWAR thanks to his contributions on defense and his ability to play every day. This year he was worth just 1.1 bWAR. 

He’s still a great defender (97th percentile in outs above average), but he’s still in the eighth percentile or worse in average exit velocity (86.6 miles per hour), barrel rate (3%) and hard-hit rate (27.7%). All of the frustrating trends that were there during his time in Cleveland are still there; they just didn’t seem as magnified thanks to the Blue Jays’ powerful lineup. 

It’s also not like he set the world on fire in his at-bats. He picked up his first RBI on a single off Luke Weaver that came with the infield in before recording an opposite-field double on a little inside-out swing off Paul Blackburn. Weaver has an ERA of 135.0 while Blackburn’s is 35.0, so it’s not like he did his damage against Randy Johnson. 

Yes, none of that changes the fact that Giménez is playing in the Division Series and the Guardians aren’t, but it’s some important context to consider when thinking about Giménez’s situation. 

And there’s the fact that he’s still owed more than $86 million over the next four seasons. He’s one of the most overpriced infielders in all of baseball, and the Guardians front office was smart to get out from under his contract. 

The Guardians still haven’t found Giménez’s heir at shortstop, but being in this situation is better compared to being on the hook for his bloated contract.