This Guardians free agent misfire looks worse by the day

The Cleveland Guardians have long been known as a pitching factory, but the assembly line hasn't been working as well this year.

The Guardians entered Friday's action 19th in MLB in starting pitcher ERA (4.09), which is backed up by their 23rd-ranked FIP (4.51). They aren't getting a lot of length out of their rotation, which has only given the team 347 2/3 innings this year (22nd in baseball).

The starting rotation's struggles are proving to be a difficult hurdle to overcome, similar to their inability to beat teams over .500 or their ongoing search for quality role players. Gavin Williams (3.86 ERA) and Tanner Bibee (3.81) have been decidedly average leaders of what has been an average-at-best rotation.

All of this is to say: Cleveland really shouldn't have let Matthew Boyd walk in the offseason.

Cubs' Matthew Boyd pitching like the ace the Guardians desperately need

Considering the Guardians let Boyd leave without much of a fight (he signed a two-year, $29 million deal with the Chicago Cubs), it wasn't surprising that most insiders panned the $14.5 million AAV the southpaw received.

Turns out, the Cubs knew what they were doing. They're currently managing some injury troubles in their rotation — co-aces Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga are both out for extended periods, as is right-hander Javier Assad — but their losses have been mitigated by Boyd stepping up to become the de facto ace of the staff.

And calling him the "de facto" ace is really a disservice to his performance thus far in 2025. He's been a stud on Chicago's North Side.

In 13 starts (74 2/3 innings), Boyd has pitched to a 2.89 ERA (3.52 FIP). He's got a 22.7% strikeout rate compared against a laughably low 5.8% walk rate, and he's continued to follow Cleveland's teachings of staying down in the zone and avoiding hard-hit fly balls.

He'd be the clear No. 2 starter in the Guardians' rotation this year, and has the kind of profile and moxie the team desperately needed earlier this year.

He's made a few slight tweaks to his game, including effectively abandoning his sinker in favor of more four-seam fastballs, but for the most part, this is still the same southpaw that the Guardians saved from baseball purgatory following his Tommy John surgery in 2023.

And all of that makes it difficult to understand why the Guardians simply let Boyd leave without a fight. He was dominant in his small sample size last year (2.72 ERA in 39 2/3 innings) before allowing just one earned run with 14 strikeouts across three postseason starts.

There's nothing to be done about it now — Boyd and the Cubs appear positioned for a deep postseason run this year — but Guardians fans will certainly be left wishing the veteran lefty was still toeing the rubber at Progressive Field.