Jo Adell leads list of Guardians who could be X-factors in their first career postseason

One of the latent benefits from the Guardians’ recent run of success is the shared amount of connective tissue across the roster. 

While there’s been some year-to-year change, you could turn on pretty much any Guardians game over the past three seasons and know that you’re going to see Steven Kwan and José Ramírez in the lineup while knowing that pitchers like Tanner Bibee, Cade Smith and Gavin Williams are going to be on the mound at some point.

And that connective tissue also means that almost all of the players on Cleveland’s roster have appeared in the postseason. 

Kwan already has 84 postseason at-bats under his belt thanks to his time atop both Terry Francona and Stephen Vogt’s lineup, while Smith and Hunter Gaddis have already combined for 23 1/3 postseason innings. Chase DeLauter made his big league debut in last year’s postseason.

Heck, even Petey Halpin made his postseason debut in last year’s series against the Tigers. 

But there are also some new players on the roster who will be making their postseason debut for the Guardians this season. With that in mind, here’s a look at three Guardians who could make an impact in their first taste of October baseball. 

The Guardians have some impact players who are going to be making their postseason debut this fall

OF Jo Adell

The immediate reaction to their postseason clinch on Friday looked a bit more muted than in seasons prior. Cade Smith greeted Patrick Bailey behind the plate. Austin Hedges bounded out of the dugout and turned toward his teammates. 

But those all paled in comparison to the celebration from Adell, who put his hands up in celebration while having some high fives for everyone in sight. 

As The Athletic’s Zack Mesiel pointed out, Adell hasn't played in postseason baseball since he played for the Angels’ now-defunct Rookie League team in 2017. Now he’s going to get a chance to play under the bright postseason lights for the first time in his career, and he’s going to need to play well if the Guardians want to play deep into October. 

Adell has largely been the middle-of-the-order bat the Guardians expected him to be when they traded for him, and they’ve been using him as an everyday player even if he’s much better against lefties. 

It won’t be long until he records his first signature postseason moment. 

Daniel Espino

On Thursday, Espino set the tone for the Guardians’ clinching win over the Red Sox with a scoreless first inning before Joey Cantillo threw five scoreless innings in bulk relief. 

Espino missed three-plus seasons due to a variety of injuries, but he made his big league debut earlier this year.

It hasn’t been a perfect journey (he allowed three innings in an inning in the outing prior to his one against the Red Sox), but he’s recorded 24 strikeouts in 14 1/3 innings out of the bullpen. 

The Guardians are still figuring out their postseason pitching plans (more on that in a second), and Espino and Cantillo made a clear statement with that outing. 

Foster Griffin 

Speaking of pitching plans. Griffin’s time with the Guardians also hasn’t been a perfect journey, but he capped off his regular season with a six inning start on Wednesday where he recorded a never-before-seen pitching line. 

The Guardians acquired Griffin to be their No. 3 postseason starter, but that was before he recorded a 5.19 ERA in his nine starts with Cleveland. 

It always seemed like there was going to be some regression with Griffin (and that happened a bit in his time with Cleveland), but he’s also run into some bad luck. 

All that is to say that Griffin should still fit into the Guardians’ pitching plans even if it’s not as a starting pitcher. But even if he does fit into the postseason plans as a starting pitcher, it’s hard to believe he’ll go deep into a game due to Vogt’s aggressiveness. 

That shouldn’t stop him from having a solid three-inning outing that helps set the Guardians up in a good spot for the middle innings. 

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