Guardians’ roster move confirms team’s obvious mistake in last year’s postseason

Last September, the Cleveland Guardians began their (short) postseason path with a home game against the Tigers in the Wild Card Series. 

And while they had budding ace Gavin Williams on the mound, the Guardians lost the first game of the series thanks to an underwhelming lineup that featured two players who finished the regular season hitting under. 200. 

One of those players was outfielder Johnathan Rodríguez, who hit cleanup in that lineup thanks in large part to the Tigers starting a left-hander in the form of Tarik Skubal. 

Normally the player who hits cleanup for a team in their postseason opener is a guy who is a long-term staple. On that same day, the Padres opened their postseason with Jackson Merrill hitting cleanup while Aaron Boone wrote Giancarlo Stanton and his 453 career home runs into the cleanup spot of the Yankees’ lineup. 

Meanwhile, Stephen Vogt turned to Rodríguez. And while that decision didn’t look great at the time, it looks even worse now, as the Guardians all but confirmed Rodríguez won’t be on their Opening Day roster by sending him down to Triple-A on Sunday. 

Guardians’ demotion of Johnathan Rodríguez frees up one outfield spot 

ended up finishing last season with a .197 batting average in 30 games. He boasts a career batting average of .176 in 44 games despite being a career .185 hitter with 114 home runs in the minor leagues. 

In some ways the demotion was a long time coming for Rodríguez since he always seemed like the odd man out in the Guardians’ revamped outfield picture (though he did hit a big home run in the final series of the year last September). 

While he held some value early in the offseason as the team’s only right-handed hitting outfielder, he dropped a couple rungs thanks to the signings of Stuart Fairchild and Rhys Hoskins. 

Fairchild arguably stands as the Guardian who could benefit the most from Rodríguez’s demotion since it frees up both a roster spot and spot in the outfield picture. 

He still needs to be added to the 40-man roster (as does Hoskins), but one way to do that could be by designating Rodríguez for assignment. 

Rodríguez had clearly already been lapped by Chase DeLauter and George Valera, and now it seems like he’s also been lapped by some of the newer options the Guardians added to their roster. 

While the Guardians’ decision adds another level of frustration to last fall’s disappointment, it provides some present day joy in that it opens up a roster spot for a new and intriguing option in the Guardians' outfield logjam. 

Even if the Guardians’ outfield inaction this offseason was a bit frustrating, it looks like they’re not going to repeat at least one mistake from last season.