MLB’s looming CBA lockout is having frustrating impact on Guardians’ prospect pipeline

While the Guardians always seem to earn the top of the MLB debut leaderboard thanks to a frugal attitude toward roster development, this year’s team has featured plenty of games that included a Guardians player wearing their MLB debut patch. 

In total, the Guardians have had 10 players make their regular season big league debuts this season, ranging from Cooper Ingle and Daniel Espino making a single-digit number of appearances to Travis Bazzana and Chase DeLauter becoming lineup staples. 

But it seems like most of the conversation around the Guardians’ prospect pipeline has been based around one prospect the Guardians haven’t called up yet: First baseman Ralphy Velazquez. 

And for good reason, as Velazquez entered play on Tuesday with a .280/.361/.559 slashline with 20 home runs and 50 RBI in just 69 games at Triple-A Columbus despite being five years younger than the league’s average age. 

The slugging first baseman was just named the International League Player of the Week thanks to a 10-for-22 showing with six home runs and 12 RBI last week, and is in the midst of a stretch where he’s hit 16 home runs in 20 games. 

He’s one of the hottest hitters on the planet, and is a clear part of the Guardians’ future. While all those stats make the fact he’s still in the minors even more baffling, he may not get called up this season due to a variety of factors outside of his control. 

Ralphy Velazquez has an uphill battle to make the Guardians roster

The topic of Velazquez’s potential promotion was broached up earlier this week when Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes wrote that he doesn’t expect Velazquez to get promoted when roster expand next week due to the looming CBA expiration and the Guardians lack of roster flexibility. 

The current CBA between MLB owners and the Players Association is set to expire at the start of December, which almost everyone expects will lead to a lockout. If that lockout lasts until the spring and results in the loss of games, any player of a team’s 40-man roster won’t be able to play in the minor leagues (which wouldn’t be affected). 

The Guardians won’t need to add Velazquez to their 40-man roster in the offseason, so adding him now comes with the caveat that he may not get a chance to play next season should the lockout last the entire winter. 

That likely isn’t the only reason that Velazquez hasn’t played at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario yet, but it’s hard to believe it hasn’t been some kind of factor. 

The biggest positional roadblock for Velazquez on the Guardians roster is trade deadline acquisition Nathaniel Lowe, who is also a left-handed hitting first baseman. 

The Guardians are one of the most platoon-heavy teams in baseball, and it’s hard to believe they’d call Velazquez up just for him to sit on the bench while getting a majority of his at-bats in platoon mismatches. 

Plus they also have Kyle Manzardo (who is already on the 40-man roster) also lurking at Triple-A. If Lowe were to suffer some kind of injury, Manzardo stands out as an obvious insurance option. 

At some point in the next 12 months, Velazquez will get a chance to make his big league debut. But each passing day that goes by without a call-up makes it harder and harder to imagine that debut is going to happen in 2026.

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