Early returns of Andres Gimenez trade are not looking great for the Cleveland Guardians

When the Cleveland Guardians made the decision to trade Andres Gimenez to the Toronto Blue Jays, it was a move aimed at cutting salary while preserving some level of financial flexibility to help their cause of fielding a competitive team. A subsequent trade that saw Cleveland acquire Luis Ortiz from the Pittsburgh Pirates was meant to help solidify their rotation and avoid a repeat of last year's carousel of pitchers that started games for the Guardians. The season is barely a week old, but the early returns of this series of moves have not necessarily worked out in Cleveland's favor.

In his first seven games in a Blue Jays uniform, Gimenez is slashing .308/.400/.731 with three home runs, two doubles, and six runs batted in while walking thrice and striking out four times. The 1.131 OPS and 229 OPS+ are impressive but unsustainable products of an incredibly small sample size. With that being said, Gimenez is looking a lot like the 2022 version of himself that resulted in the Guardians signing him to a seven-year $105 million contract extension rather than the disappointing two years that followed.

Gimenez finding some early success in Toronto is not all that surprising, as it is quite common for players to put together an impressive start once landing with a new team. But, this would hurt a whole lot less if the major league player Cleveland eventually got back after trading Gimenez had been doing something other than raise red flag after red flag.

From positives in the batter's box to negatives on the mound

To be blunt, Ortiz was awful in his regular season debut for the Guardians. Ortiz gave up seven runs on nine hits and four walks in 4.2 innings against the San Diego Padres. Credit where credit is due, the Padres are a very good team, but Ortiz not having any sort of command cost him in this game and could very well cost him again in the future.

It may seem like an overreaction to just one start, but Ortiz was having the very same issues in spring training. Ortiz allowed nearly as many runs as hits (21, 23) and barely struck out more batters than he walked (15,14). This is not just some one-off bad outing, but rather, an extended stretch of bad pitching that only causes more problems than it solves.

More concerns should be raised once realizing that Ortiz's breakout may have been a mirage. A low ground ball and low strikeout rate rarely leads to success, and somehow Ortiz was able to finish the 2024 season with a 3.32 ERA and 1.113 WHIP. Ortiz's 4.25 FIP from last season suggests there is some credidibility to the mirage theory, as he was only about half a run better than his ERA over his first two seasons (4.73).

The season is still very young, and there is plenty of time for Gimenez's offensive production to decrease while Ortiz's pitching numbers experience a correction. For now, you better believe that the level of play that each player has displayed so far is feeling like a pit in the stomach of Cleveland's front office as they are simultaneously experiencing buyer's and seller's remorse. Hopefully, things even out, with any sort of regret over their winter dealings going away, but if not, it would be one of the few times that the Guardians end up on the losing side of a trade.