5 Cleveland Guardians that must improve with Steven Kwan out of the lineup

After the immediate doom and gloom feeling following the announcement that the Cleveland Guardians were going to be without the services of Gold Glove left fielder Steven Kwan, the focus quickly turned to who was going to step up to help replace his offensive production in his absence.

While the Guardians have only played a handful of games without Kwan and own a 3-1 record during that time (4-1 if the majority of the game he exited is being factored in), they are still going to need a few other hitters in the lineup who have mostly disappointed this year to turn things around at the plate. There are five players in particular that can be identified as possible solutions to the Guardians' problem, but before we get into those names, there are a few that should be mentioned that are not going to appear on the following list.

Bo Naylor and Austin Hedges

Would it be great if the Guardians were able to get more offensive production out of these two? Absolutely. However, focusing squarely on these two rather than other options is simply an incorrect evaluation process. Naylor is a young catcher still finding his way, and Hedges is his backup and mainly a positive clubhouse presence. The focus should be placed on others rather than the top two backstops on the roster. 

Will Brennan

The inclusion of Will Brennan here follows a similar logic to the above-mentioned catching duo. Brennan is a very average bat in the lineup who is going to produce very average results. With an OPS+ of 100 through 32 games played, Brennan has performed exactly average so far, and more of that should be expected moving forward. Now, if Brennan's performance craters as time goes on, it would be time for a discussion to take place. But until then, Brennan's performance is acceptable for the time being.