It's time for the Cleveland Guardians to cut bait with Matt Festa

Matt Festa is not cutting it for the Cleveland Guardians.

While the 32-year-old veteran reliever has appeared in 45 games this year for the Guardians, he hasn't provided much positive production, as he's posted 3-2 with a 4.91 ERA. He's struck out just 36 batters while allowing 31 hits and three home runs.

The Guardians are in the midst of a big postseason push and Festa keeps failing to meet the moment, which means that it might be time for the Guardians to cut their losses and designate Festa for assignment.

It's time for the Cleveland Guardians to cut bait with Matt Festa

The Guardians acquired Festa at the end of April when they acquired him from the Texas Rangers in exchange for cash considerations. Festa was tearing it up in the minors with Texas (14 2/3 scoreless innings), which made the Guardians' acquisition of him seem like a solid move.

And he made a strong impression in his first two games in Cleveland when he tossed two scoreless innings, but it didn't take long for that bubble to burst.

Festa allowed three runs in 2/3 of an inning his next appearance, and allowed two runs in 1 1/3 innings a little more than two weeks later. He ended up finishing May with a 4.15 ERA across 13 innings.

Those struggles carried over to June (7.88 ERA in eight innings) before he turned things around in July (3.18 ERA in 11 1/3 innings). That success hasn't carried over to August, however, as he's posted a 5.63 ERA in eight innings. His latest lowlight came on Wednesday when he took the loss in the Guardians' extra innings loss to the Diamondbacks.

While he's already recorded 10 strikeouts this month (which is one away from tying the most he's had in a month this year) he's also given up five hits and two walks.

This is the norm for Festa, who has a career 4.68 ERA across 157 2/3 innings and has been "worth" -0.9 bWAR in his career.

He set a career-high in innings in 2022 when he posted an ERA of 4.17 across 54 innings. He recorded 23 2/3 innings last year with the Mets and Rangers and posted an ERA of 5.70.

It's clear that Festa is the weak link in a dominant Guardians bullpen, but that hasn't stopped manager Stephen Vogt from running him out game after game. But that shouldn't stop the team's front office from making a decision about Festa.

Not only could the Guardians give Festa's innings to Hunter Gaddis, Jakob Junis and stud reliever Erik Sabrowski, but getting him off the roster would give them an avenue to move Joey Cantillo back to the bullpen to serve as another bulk guy/one inning weapon alongside Kolby Allard.

While the Guardians would need to designate Festa for assignment to get him off the roster since he's out of minor league options, they have enough pitching in their minor league system that the potential loss of Festa wouldn't hurt the organization long-term.

That move could also allow the Guardians to give some more to pitching prospect Parker Messick, who made his major league debut for the Guardians on Wednesday. Cantillo's already proven he's comfortable pitching out of the bullpen, so this would allow the Guardians to get a good look at both of them through the postseason stretch run.

Although Festa has done a good job eating some innings for the Guardians this year, it's clear that he's not an option the Guardians should trust going forward.