Guardians reunite with little-used reliever with extensive AL Central history

Carlos Hernández is back. 

After appearing in five games with the Guardians in 2025, Hernández, a right-handed relief pitcher, re-signed with the Guardians today on a minor league deal, per Just Baseball’s Aram Leighton. It's unclear if the deal includes an invite to major league spring training.

Hernández joined Cleveland’s system last July after being designated for assignment by the Tigers, and pitched seven innings for Cleveland before being designated for assignment. He spent the rest of the season at Triple-A for the Guardians before becoming a minor league free agent halfway through October. 

In the end, he decided to come back to Cleveland, where he'll have an outside shot to work as a depth arm in 2025. 

Carlos Hernández could be a solid depth option for the Guardians bullpen in 2026 

In the end, Hernández posted a 3.86 ERA in seven innings for the Guardians while mostly working in mop-up duty. Four of his five appearances came in the ninth inning of a game the Guardians were losing, while the fifth was in the middle innings of what turned into a nine-run loss. 

Hernández’s time on the roster was also overshadowed by Emmanuel Clase’s suspension, as the Guardians claimed him two days after Clase was suspended. 

But just because he was arguably the lowest-leverage arm to work for the Guardians in 2025 doesn’t mean that he couldn’t carve out a path to make an impact in 2026. 

He finished the year with an average fastball velocity of 97.7 miles per hour (97th percentile) and he also held hitters to a batting average of .176 on his splitter. The biggest problem was that his fastball, while fast, wasn’t getting hitters out (.315 batting average against). 

We saw flashes of that in 2021 when Hernández had a 3.68 ERA in 85 2/3 innings with the Royals. He also picked up four saves with Kansas City in 2023. 

He opened the 2025 season with the Phillies before being DFA’d and claimed by the Tigers. He made 11 appearances for the Tigers before being cut from there and ending up in Cleveland. 

Hernández finished the season strong in Triple-A (he allowed just one run over his final 6 2/3 innings of the season), and will look to build upon that once spring training rolls around. 

He’ll have a bit of an uphill battle to make the Guardians’ roster since he won’t be on the 40-man roster, but injuries impact the bullpen every year. If Cleveland does end up needing to dip into his bullpen depth in 2026, Hernández would have the best chance to nab that open spot.