Guardians fans wondering why lights out reliever won't get called up from Triple-A

Over the weekend, the Cleveland Guardians asked reliever Will Dion to eat three innings across Cleveland’s two blowout losses to the Red Sox.

Dion’s presence on the roster was largely due to the situation the Guardians were in, as they eventually settled on Dion for the final spot in the bullpen after Cleveland DFA’d Peyton Pallette last week to add a fresh arm to the ‘pen. 

While Dion helped save the pen in two games that had already been decided, his inclusion on the roster is still confusing given Cleveland has a bonafide relief demon lurking in Triple-A in the form of Franco Aleman. 

The Guardians need to call Franco Aleman up to MLB

Aleman appeared in two games for the Guardians at the beginning of the month and allowed one earned run across 2 1/3 innings before being demoted in place of Codi Heuer, who has posted a 2.84 ERA in 6 1/3 innings (though he’s coming off his worst outing of the year on Sunday). 

Those Sunday struggles spread across the entire bullpen, as Colin Holderman, Tim Herrin and Heuer authored a disastrous seventh inning that blew Tanner Bibee’s chance to earn his first win of the season. 

That bullpen meltdown shined even more of a light on the team’s decision to keep Aleman in Triple-A given he’s thrown 17 scoreless innings at Triple-A while Cleveland’s bullpen had a nightmarish weekend. 

While Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis are entrenched at the back of the Guardians’ bullpen, there’s still some room for improvement in the middle-and-low-leverage roles. 

Tim Herrin is the team’s top left-handed option but he’s looked lost over the past month, while Matt Festa and Shawn Armstrong also haven’t impressed despite being the team’s veteran options. 

The Guardians initially made room for Aleman on their roster by cutting one underperforming veteran in Connor Brogdon, but it remains to be seen if they’d be willing to do the same thing with one of the other struggling veterans on their roster. 

Dion’s roster spot seems like an obvious spot where the Guardians could add Aleman to the roster, but they’ve mostly used that spot on a long relief option, whether it be Logan Allen or Dion. 

We’re far enough into the season where teams are starting to make bullpen decisions based on health and availability as much as stuff, and Aleman would provide them with both. 

The Guardians have largely been able to survive their bullpen’s struggles thanks to some great starting pitching, but Sunday’s game showed how quickly things can change when a bullpen struggles. 

When the Guardians recalled Aleman, we initially wrote that we didn’t think it would be long until he worked his way into the team’s high-leverage equation. While that didn’t happen during his initial stint with the team, that could still be the case whenever he gets his next big league call-up. 

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