Guardians final regular season transaction drops breadcrumb for how postseason roster could be constructed 

Yesterday the Guardians played a largely meaningless season-finale against the Kansas City Royals.

The game may have counted towards standings and overall records, but no matter what happened the Guardians were locked into the AL’s No. 2 seed in the postseason while the Royals knew they were headed to Cancun once the final pitch was thrown. 

But the Guardians gave us at least one tidbit for the postseason before the game when they added Austin Peterson to their pitching staff in place of reliever Craig Yoho. 

That addition was twofold. Not only did it give the Guardians a bulk option to use behind starter Parker Messick (Peterson closed out the loss with five innings in relief), it also helped tighten Cleveland’s postseason roster since Yoho’s demotion means that he can’t be added back to the big league bullpen until after the Division Series. 

That may not give all the intel on the Guardians’ postseason roster, but it does provide a bit of intel on who could be sitting in the home bullpen at Progressive Field come Saturday. 

The Guardians removed Craig Yoho from their postseason pitching plans

Messick’s start became meaningless once the Guardians clinched the American League Central on Saturday, but Cleveland ended Saturday night without a logical longman option to work behind him (especially since Slade Cecconi closed out Saturday’s win). 

Enter Peterson, who made his big league debut at the start of September and had been working in Cleveland’s “stay ready” camp since the minor league season ended. 

His stint on the roster may not be for long, however. His biggest asset is the length he’s able to provide, but the Guardians should have that in spades in the Division Series thanks to the fact it’s a truncated best-of-five series with a variety of off days built in. 

That closes the book on Yoho’s season, who recorded a 6.87 ERA in 18 1/3 innings with the Guardians after coming over at the trade deadline. He showed some flashes with his loopy changeup, but he also had some rough outings that stemmed from a lack of command. 

He likely won’t join the postseason roster unless there’s some kind of injury. 

Messick and Gavin Williams are locks to start the first two games of the series, while the Daniel Espino/Joey Cantillo tandem will likely work at least one game behind them. 

That leaves Tanner Bibee and Foster Griffin on the outside, which could lead to one (or both) of them working out of the bullpen. 

The Guardians also have Colin Holderman working at their stay ready camp after he missed the end of the season with a wrist injury. He missed the end of the minor league season after he suffered a wrist flare-up on Sept. 17, but he received an injection not long after and is back to throwing bullpens. 

Cleveland carried 12 pitchers on its roster when it was in the Division Series two years ago, and they could very likely do the same this year. 

Removing Yoho (and, by proxy Peterson) from the roster cuts their bullpen down to 13, and they could easily free up another spot by removing Cecconi.

It would be a bit tougher for them to add Holderman, but they could always keep him on the injured list for the division series and add him for the ALCS. 

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