Ex-MLB player's bizarre Josh Naylor story adds strange layer to Guardians' beef

Over the weekend, Austin Hedges kicked off a beef heard around the world when he appeared to tell Josh Naylor that “no one liked him” after Naylor took expectation to being plunked by a Tim Herrin slider. 

While that instance obviously reverberated throughout Cleveland due to Naylor’s history with the club, it gained new legs on Monday thanks to former MLBer Stone Garrett posting a wild story on social media about his time in the minors with Naylor. 

According to Garrett, Naylor would come over to his apartment during their time together in the Marlins organization when they were both at Single-A Greensboro with weapons, and even hid in Garrett’s closet at one point and ran at him with a knife. 

When the incident first occurred, then-Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill described the event as a “prank that went too far” while also saying that Garrett and Naylor were friends. 

Garrett’s recent comments seem to paint the event in a bit of a different light.

Stone Garrett just added some extra context to the Josh Naylor experience 

Naylor’s time with the Guardians was complicated, which The Athletic’s Zack Mesiel summed up eloquently earlier today in his new story. Naylor endeared himself to his teammates upon arriving in Cleveland midway through the 2020 season, but he eventually wore out his welcome before being dealt to the Diamondbacks after the 2024 season with one year left on his contract. 

The biggest inflection point in Naylor’s time with Cleveland came in 2023 when the Guardians traded Aaron Civale (one of Naylor’s closest friends) to the Tampa Bay Rays for Kyle Manzardo.

Not only did they trade his friend, but they traded him for a player who became his eventual replacement. 

But it’s important to note that things like that happen all the time. Maybe not to the same degree as what happened with Civale (it was such a surprising trade that Mike Chernoff and Chris Antonetti had to come down to Houston to do damage control after the deal), but there is a business side of baseball. 

It’s hard to believe that Naylor’s incident with Garrett didn’t factor into Miami’s decision to trade Naylor to the Padres at the 2016 trade deadline despite the fact he was a year into his time with Miami. 

While Naylor was just 23 when the Guardians acquired him in 2020, they were his third franchise, which always tends to raise some eyebrows. 

That trade helped set up a successful tenure with the club where Naylor became an All-Star and fan favorite, but it seemed like there was some stuff bubbling behind the scenes while that was happening. 

And even if he’s not the Guardians’ problem anymore, Sunday’s incident shows that he’s always going to linger in the periphery of Guardians fandom.

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