Carlos Santana unfairly given harsh title

When assessing the roster and payroll of the Cleveland Guardians, there are not a lot, if any, contracts that anyone would consider as bad. The Guardians are not heavy spenders, and any contract that would have qualified that description was shipped out this past offseason, as Andres Gimenez and Myles Straw both coincidentally ended up being traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. With those out of the picture, someone had to be named as Cleveland's worst contract, even if it is pretty unfair for this player to be tagged with this title.

Guardians first baseman Carlos Santana and his one-year $12 million deal was listed as the organization's worst contract by Bleacher Report's Tim Kelly. This is rather harsh, considering that it's only a one-year commitment, and the dollar figure is low when compared to some of the other deals on this list.

Kelly even admits that due to Cleveland's preferred method of operations and absence of bad contracts on this payroll as a reason why Santana is sort of the default option here, but there is something else at play that cannot go unmentioned.

"...a year after reaching the ALCS, the Guardians traded away Josh Naylor—who homered 31 times with 108 RBI and 105 walks last season—ahead of his contract year, rather than trying to build off of what they had last season.", wrote Kelly, appearing quite critical of Cleveland's decision to swap out Josh Naylor for a third go around with Santana.

Naylor has been a key component of Cleveland's lineup for the past three seasons, averaging 29 doubles, 23 home runs, and 95 RBI during that span. The only issue for Naylor is his injury history, as he has missed an average of 30 games per season since 2022, and that's a pretty sizeable chunk of time to miss and could even be the difference between a team making or missing the postseason.

While Naylor's potential to miss time is a concern, counting on an almost 39-year-old Santana to provide a similar level of offensive production may not be the best idea. There is going to come a time when Santana is no longer able to be an everyday player, and at his advanced age, the chances of that happening only increase with time.

The real unfortunate part of all this is that Santana should still be able to provide average offensive production, which usually keeps players from ending up on lists such as this one, but someone had to be Cleveland's entry, and there are no other players that could reasonably take his place at this time.