It took one inning for the Guardians-Brewers trade to look like a Cleveland steal 

By the time Craig Yoho took the mound for the Guardians in the seventh inning of their eventual win over the Diamondbacks on Sunday, most of the 24.869 fans in the announced attendance had headed elsewhere due to the nearly two hour rain delay earlier in the day (that came complete with a benches-clearing incident). 

That lack of spotlight didn’t limit Yoho’s nastiness, however, as he set the Diamondbacks down quietly with a scoreless inning that came with a pop out, groundout and strikeout. 

Even if the Guardians’ trade for Yoho and outfielder Blake Perkins in exchange for Bo Naylor and Codi Heuer may not have been the biggest move from a wild trade deadline weekend, his team debut showed why he could quietly become an X-factor for the Guardians down the stretch. 

Craig Yoho dazzled in his Guardians debut 

Although Yoho doesn’t have a ton of MLB experience, he’s done nothing but dominate in the minors. He has posted a stellar 1.10 ERA in 131 minor league innings with 193 strikeouts, and had allowed just two earned runs in 23 Triple-A innings with Milwaukee prior to getting traded.

But the Guardians decided to give him a shot with their big league club, and he wasted no time making a positive impression for the Guardians. 

His arsenal is led by a loopy changeup, and he relied on it heavily in his Guardians debut by throwing it nine out of the 12 pitches he threw. 

He got his lone strikeout on a changeup that danced around Tim Tawa’s bat and induced a silly-looking whiff.

There’s always a bit of fear whenever the Brewers trade a pitcher, Cleveland’s pitching development pipeline is among baseball’s best. Plus Yoho was about to be pushed off Milwaukee’s roster thanks to Kyle Harrison’s impending return. It’s not like the Brewers gave up on him. 

Yoho's arsenal gives the Guardians a clear path for him to get better since his changeup is already a plus-pitch; now it’s just about getting him to a point where it’s able to induce strikeouts in the big leagues in the same way it does in the minors. 

The Guardians clearly took a gamble by trading Bo Naylor to the Brewers as a part of this deal, but they did a great job by essentially swapping Heuer for Yoho. 

The Guardians signed Heuer to a minor league contract in the offseason and ended up turning him into a big league contributor who then helped net them a reliever who could be a part of the Guardians’ core for the foreseeable future. 

Heuer’s signing ended up becoming found money for the Guardians, and trading him is the kind of move that winning franchises make.

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