What does the future of the Guardians’ middle infield look like?

The minor league pipeline 

Travis Bazzana and Juan Brito

While the Guardians have a lot of outfield prospects who have seemed to be on the cusp of earning an MLB spot for years (looking at you Chase DeLauter and George Valera), they don’t have a ton of MLB-ready middle infield prospects. 

That said, the two middle infield prospects who are close to MLB are exciting. 

First is Bazzana, the No. 1 pick in last year’s MLB Draft, who is currently playing at Double-A Akron. While he’s only hitting .252, he recently came in as the No.12 prospect in baseball in MLB Pipeline’s re-rank of the Top 100 prospects, so he seems to be getting more MLB ready by the day. 

While Bazzana has only played at second base in the minors, recalling him from the minors couldn’t tighten the Guardians middle infield picture. They wouldn’t call him up unless he could play everyday, so that would take one spot away from Arias/Schneemann.

His path to the MLB roster took a hit last month, however, when he was diagnosed with a right internal oblique strain that will keep him out until the second half.

The only other middle infield prospect who could theoretically fit into the MLB shortstop picture this year is Brito, who is currently on the 7-day injured list with Columbus. 

Brito has played all over the diamond in his career, and logged 78 1/3 career innings at shortstop last year. Brito was hitting .291 in 16 games before being injured, and he likely would have already earned a callup with the Guardians this year had he not gotten hurt.

They have some other talented options in the minors like Angel Genao and Welbyn Francisca, both them are still a couple years away from being MLB-ready.

The outside options 

Bo Bichette, Luis Urías and Isiah Kiner-Falefa

The weirdness of the names on this list speaks to the uncertainty around this year’s trade market. 

There are only five teams that entered play on Monday who were 10+ games out in their division (the Orioles, White Sox, Athletics, Marlins, Pirates and Rockies), and it remains to be seen if the Orioles will punt on their season and become sellers. 

That said, it’s not hard to imagine the Guardians targeting one of Bichette, Urías or Kiner-Falefa — all of whom are impending free agents. 

There have been plenty of trade rumors surrounding BIchette over the past couple years due to his lack of extension talks with the Blue Jays, but it remains to be seen if Toronto will actually pull the trigger on trading him. 

Bichette’s hitting .277 this year as the Blue Jays’ leadoff hitter and has been one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball (.313 expected batting average), but he’s a subpar defender (-5 Outs Above Average). 

He’d also require the biggest amount of prospect capital, so the Guardians may not be inclined to give up a lot for a rental when there are cheaper options available. 

One of those options is Urías, who signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Athletics in the offseason. 

The former Brewer is slashing .252/.342/.417 this year with six home runs after only managing to hit .191 in 41 games with Seattle last year. 

While he doesn’t hit the ball hard, he’s in the 92nd percentile in whiff rate and the 84th percentile in strikeout rate. In other words, he’s the kind of pesky hitter the Guardians love. 

While he hasn’t played shortstop since 2022 (and wasn’t very good when he did), he can fill in at second base easily. 

Lastly there’s Kiner-Falefa. He’s hit .303 in 48 games with the Pirates this year and has primarily played as a shortstop this year. While the Pirates have the best pitcher in the world in Paul Skenes, they’re still 16 games under .500 and seem to be barreling toward another summer spent as a seller. 

It would make sense for the Pirates to trade Kiner-Falefa since he’s an impending free agent, and these are two front offices that know each other very well. Kiner-Falefa would be a band-aid at the position, but that might be just what the Guardians need.