Guardians fans' Chase DeLauter frustration has distracted them from a budding monster

There’s no denying the Guardians’ outfield is a mess right now. While Steven Kwan has been playing at a near All-Star level in left field, center field and right field have been black holes due to injury and/or ineffectiveness from players like Lane Thomas, Jhonkensy Noel and Nolan Jones. 

That ineffectiveness has led to even more noise around the Guardians bringing up top prospect Chase DeLauter, who has been raking in Triple-A.

And while calling up DeLauter could potentially fix some of Cleveland’s outfield problems, there may be another Guardians prospect who would be a better pick to fix the team’s sputtering outfield.

Guardians fans' Chase DeLauter frustration has distracted them from a budding monster

On Tuesday, Guardians outfield prospect C.J. Kayfus hit a grand slam for Triple-A Columbus, which is a neat milestone for a guy trying to put himself on Cleveland’s MLB radar. 

And then he did it again on Wednesday. 

That’s right. Kayfus (the Guardians No. 5 prospect per MLB Pipeline) mashed grand slams in consecutive games for Triple-A Columbus.

He’s now hitting .306 on the year with nine home runs and 31 RBI in 46 games with Columbus. At this point, he doesn’t have anything to prove in the minors, but it remains to be seen if/when we’ll see him in MLB. 

Although his bat could be a huge boost, he’d still be a bit of an imperfect fit in the field. He’s a first baseman by trade (Wednesday was his 26th appearance at first base in Columbus) who has been learning the outfield this year. He’s played in 23 games in the outfield this year (it’s all been left and right field) but is still learning the ropes of the position. 

That said, DeLauter has also been dominating Triple-A pitching, as he’s posted a .321/.446/.519 slash line to go along with three home runs and 14 RBI in 23 games at Triple-A. But if the Guardians haven’t called up him now, it’s hard to believe they’d call him up any time soon barring an injury on the MLB roster. 

At a certain point, the Guardians will need to do something about right field. Although there are plenty of solid external options who could help the team, calling up some combination of DeLauter and Kayfus would help the team both in the present and the future. 

Kayfus has already homered off a rehabbing Max Scherzer this year, has added a bit more discipline to his approach (20 walks this year) to go along with his budding power and has quickly adjusted to the jump from Double-A to Triple-A. It's time for the team to see if he can handle the jump from Triple-A to MLB.