Did the Cleveland Guardians make the right decision with Andrés Giménez? 

The Toronto Blue Jays’ run through the postseason has resulted in plenty of discourse through the Guardians fanbase due to the amount of familiar faces on the roster.

And, for the most part, none of the former Guardians making an impact for the Blue Jays feel like the one who got away. Ernie Clement has become a postseason star, but he had to navigate through the baseball wilderness first. 

Shane Bieber’s had some solid starts for the Blue Jays in the postseason, but his trade made sense and the Guardians were able to get a solid pitching prospect in return for him. Myles Straw was redundant on the Guardians’ roster. 

But then there’s Andrés Giménez. 

While Giménez struggled in his first regular season with the Blue Jays, he’s been an incredibly productive player this postseason. That production has led to some retconning of Giménez’s time with the Guardians. 

Although he was (and still is) a great defender, his struggles at the plate became too much to ignore, which is why the Guardians’ front office decided to trade Giménez to the Blue Jays in the offseason. 

And that ended up looking like a clear win for the Guardians because of those aforementioned regular season struggles. After hitting three home runs across the Blue Jays first five games, Giménez hit .203 across the final 96 games of the season. 

He’s still struggled with his offensive consistency in the postseason (.228 average), but he’s driven in eight runs out of the No. 9 spot in the lineup while also playing shortstop. 

That positional change is arguably the most interesting part of this equation considering he only played in 60 games at shortstop during his tenure with the Guardians. 

But that doesn’t mean that he couldn’t play shortstop, as pointed out by Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga on a new episode of the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. 

The Guardians made the right decision to keep Andrés Giménez at second base

In 2022, the Guardians had Amed Rosario entrenched at shortstop. After trading Rosario away in 2023, Gabriel Arias and Brayan Rocchio handled duties there. 

But that positional change didn’t hurt Giménez’s defensive ability; he won three straight Gold Gloves at second base during his time with the Guardians and was a nominee at the keystone again this year.

“I think everybody knew that Giménez’s best position was probably shortstop, but you can’t argue with the results of three Gold Gloves and probably the best defensive second baseman at the time they traded him in all of baseball,” Noga said on the podcast.

Giménez and Rosario both came over from the Mets at the trade deadline, and it was easier to shift Giménez to second base than force the defensive-challenged Rosario to move. 

The Blue Jays evidently felt the same way, as they elected to use Bo Bichette at shortstop this year despite the fact that he was worth an eye-popping -13 Outs Above Average at shortstop. 

The only reason the Blue Jays are using Giménez at shortstop in the postseason is because Bichette’s hampered with a knee injury. 

Although there’s a chance that Giménez could end up becoming the Blue Jays’ shortstop of the future if Bichette ends up elsewhere in free agency, it doesn’t change the fact the Guardians were right to keep him at second base during his stint in Cleveland.