Guardians officially eliminated from playoff contention

Despite finding a way to rally and walk-off the Baltimore Orioles Friday night, the Cleveland Guardians have officially been eliminated from playoff contention. The Minnesota Twins won Friday night, which led to Cleveland's elimination and subsequent continuation of the longest active World Series drought and second-longest in all of sports.

It was only a matter of time before the Guardians were eliminated. This was a team that never truly clicked offensively and lacked any sort of consistent home run power outside of two players (Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor). While Cleveland is fifth in doubles (284) and triples (29), that is not enough to overcome being dead last in home runs with just 117 on the season, trailing the 29th team by 27.

Compounding the issue this year was injuries to the pitching staff of the Guardians. Triston McKenzie missed the majority of the season, while Shane Bieber went down with an injury just ahead of the trade deadline. Cleveland leaned on a trio of rookies in the absence of McKenzie and Bieber, with Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams, and Logan Allen ushering in the new era of Guardians pitching.

The shortcomings of this season be attributed to the massive whiffs in free agency in addition playing a style of basball, which manager Terry Francona has stated is unsustainable. Winning as many games in the manner of which they did last year is not something that should be counted on.

What is truly unfortunate is that this Guardians team was not able to put together another run to the postseason in what is more than likely Tito's last season as the team's manager. Even though the chances of this team making deep playoff or run to the World Series was not likely, it would have been nice to at least have an outside chance for it with Francona still at the helm.

Next season should bring some change to the ballclub, not just for who will reside in the manager's office, but who will make up the roster. This is a team that has some obvious needs, and it is time for this front office to not be scarred from their mistakes of this past offseason and find a way to be aggressive when it comes to adding talent.