Why Guardians recent lineup change could be cause for Chase DeLauter's struggles

Cleveland Guardians rookie outfielder Chase DeLauter wowed not only his fellow Cleveland teammates and fans the first month-plus of the 2026 regular season, but amazed outside observers while confounding many – myself included – about how he can power a baseball with the unorthodox mechanics in his left-handed stroke.

A few weeks after the Guardians promoted another top prospect, second baseman and the first overall selection in the 2024 MLB Draft in Travis Bazzana, the team decided to make a big move in the batting order.

While many of us are accustomed to seeing José Ramírez batting third, Cleveland wound up flipping the franchise icon up to DeLauter's No. 2 spot and the rookie young gun was charged with protecting Ramírez as the new three-hole hitter.

Bazzana has thrived in the leadoff spot ahead of Ramírez. While Ramírez has started to take off after a sluggish start for his standards, the switch has had the opposite effect on DeLauter.

Batting order change has caused dip in Chase DeLauter’s production

When prominent Guardians fan social media account, Always the Jake (ran by AJ Baez) posted the following query, the researcher in me had to go stat-diving.

I first went with some of the more basic stats and tried to figure out anything with his splits, pitch types and the whole works.

In trying to figure out what could be causing DeLauter's slump, his position in the batting order came in lower in the priority order in my research.

As interesting as his reverse splits against right-handed pitching – far worse than versus southpaws – that was where most of his power came from in the earlier portion of the campaign.

Getting warmer

I knocked out a few other possibilities, knowing there wasn't any publicly known injury at the root of his struggles.

I didn't find anything when looking through splits for DeLauter in his first 29 games – all coming prior to May 1. There wasn't any major flag to pin down yet, but an interesting data point came up following a road series in Kansas City.

On May 7 against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, DeLauter was lifted early from the game, which caught my attention.

That still didn't quite answer all of my questions, as a few minor discrepancies didn't bring about a logical conclusion.

After all, the downturn in production could also have been connected to Angel Martínez and Daniel Schneemann – both of whom have tapered off following scorching starts at the dish.

Survey says…

When I finally got down to the batting order position, everything fell into place.

I was in utter disbelief, particularly given I didn't go with this first. Other causes needed to be ruled out first when the simplest answer stood right in front of me.

If you take a look at the game logs and look at his numbers from May 13 through June 5, it all started to make sense.

Such a sharp drop in statistics across the board set off alarm bells. The massive power drop, a major upswing in strikeouts and a nearly 500 point drop in OPS over the last three-plus weeks set off the alarm.

While the intended result of igniting Ramírez's engine was achieved, it came at the cost of DeLauter's efficiency and production value. 

The Guardians organization is more than likely aware of something like this. Among the teams that rely on analytics the most, this had to stand out.

The issue for the team at this point now has to come from within: Do you move Ramírez back to the No. 3 spot and DeLauter up to No. 2 after the former has begun to tear the cover off the ball?

That could be a hard sell, particularly given that giving Ramírez more plate appearances has also coincided with him finally having the kind of production that matches up with his expected numbers.

DeLauter has also struggled hitting fourth and sixth in the batting order, with a minimum of 16 plate appearances or more.

Even if you do swap the two players back to where they were prior to the middle of May, that move goes in the face of all the analytics and removes valuable protection behind your franchise cornerstone.

Whatever the decision the Guardians end up making about their lineup, it'll be done with tons of care and thought put into it.

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