CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Guardians have six Cactus League games remaining, with split-squad games on Tuesday and an off day Wednesday, we could see some movement with the training camp roster before they return to the field Thursday. Right now the club has 51 players in big league camp. They have to get down to 28 by the time they head to Oakland for the season opener on March 28.
On Monday’s podcast, Paul Hoynes and Joe Noga look at when the cuts could take place and why keeping rookies like Kyle Manzardo and Chase DeLauter around this late in camp could benefit both players and the big league club.
Listen and read along with an AI-generated transcript of the podcast below.
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Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.
Joe Noga (00:15):
Welcome back to another edition of the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hoynes Hoey, the Guardians got past the St. Patrick’s Day holiday with a win against the Reds Sunday night. Shane Bieber again looks like he’s heading towards or trending towards where he needs to be to open the season as the guardian’s number one starter.
Paul Hoynes (00:41):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Joe five and two. Third innings, he strikes out eight allows one run, two hits, retired. The first 11 batters he faced just really a dominant performance. He has one start left in the Cactus league and then he’ll be ready for March 28th against the A’s. So he’s really trending well. He’s had a great spring knock on wood, and he came to camp ready, Joe, and it looks like it.
Joe Noga (01:13):
What if we get to opening day, if we get to the start of the season and Bieber is the guy, what can we expect over those first couple of starts out of him as he’s put all the trade rumors and everything behind him it looks like just if we get this Ace Shane Bieber, what we’ve seen him in the past for that first month, how good can he be?
Paul Hoynes (01:44):
Well, I think he can really roll back to clock here and we’re probably looking at a guy from two years ago when he pitched 200 innings and maybe even back to the Covid year when he won the Cy Young, not to put too much weight on three or four spring training starts, but his velos up. He’s come up with a kind of split change now that he really didn’t throw the change up before. Now he has a lot more confidence in it. I like what Carl Willis, the pitching coach said, and Shane went to a driveline baseball in Scottsdale this past winter to improve on his velocity, but along the way a lot of his other pitches improve. He’s picked up power on his curve ball. He started getting a little more confidence in the changeup, so I think we’re starting to see maybe a more well-rounded Shane Bieber and a guy that knows what’s in front of him. This is his walk year. People are going to be watching him and I would think the first month or so, the Guardians and the 29 other teams in the big leagues will be watching just to see how healthy he is and just to see how much he’s progressed from last year and the elbow injury.
Joe Noga (03:12):
Well, I mean the reason I ask and what I’m trying to sort of lead us into in a circuitous sort of way is if Shane Bieber comes out and he’s dominant in that first month, and you can just see the value, the trade return, if they want to make a trade, if they want to make a deal early in the season, if the Yankees wind up desperate because Garrett Cola is on the shelf and they were not able to get Dylan cease from the White Sox, he ends up with the Padres and we had heard that the White Sox were demanding this Spencer Jones, their top outfield prospect in the Yankees organization and an outfield prospect would be somebody that would be appealing to the guardians in exchange for a Shane Beaver type, especially a prime Shane beaver type who’s not dealing with injuries and anything like that. Could the guardians pry away the Yankees number one outfield prospect if Shane Bieber his lights out in April and May?
Paul Hoynes (04:21):
That’s a great question. I would think the Yankees have probably already talked to Cleveland about Bieber, about their other pitchers,
Joe Noga (04:33):
And I would imagine it has probably been a pretty brief conversation then because I’m sure Antonette and Chernoff are asking for a Spencer Jones or something of that value.
Paul Hoynes (04:44):
Yeah, no doubt about it. I think we found out over the winter that they put a high bar on Bieber that because they did get a lot of interest in him, even though he was really questionable health-wise because he had missed so much time last year with the elbow injury. Now he’s shown well in spring training, I would think that the more interest teams will be in Bieber as long as he keeps pitching well, and I think a lot of it depends too on Joe, on how the guardians are doing. How are they playing? If they have two good months, do you pull the plug and trade your number one starter? We went through that last year and it didn’t sit well with the fans.
Joe Noga (05:40):
Yeah, just in looking at and scouting, going through a couple of posts about this Spencer Jones 22-year-old outfielder with massive raw power is how he’s described. The White Sox were very hard line about wanting that as the return for Dylan cease, they didn’t get it and so they moved on. Now that forces the Yankees to sort of look elsewhere to fill that hole that Garrett Hole leaves in the rotation. So it’s all a matter of how desperate the Yankees become and we’ll see if something, I know it’s very specific to talk about just these two teams, but like you said, there’s 29 other teams that are 28 other teams that are going to be watching Shane Bieber very closely, and as of right now, he looks to be in the kind of shape and the kind of form that the guardians need him to be in order to get a return on him. Same could probably be said for Tristan McKenzie to this point. He had a little bit of a stumble on Friday night, gave up his first runs of the off season, but to this point, Bieber and Mackenzie have both ostensibly answered all the questions about their injury history from last year and looked like they’re ready to go for the start of the regular season.
Paul Hoynes (07:04):
Yeah, it’s really encouraging I think for Guardians fans and the Guardians organization the way Bieber and Mackenzie have pitched this spring. Carl Willis, the pitching coach, said that he was surprised at how advanced Mackenzie is. He said if he would’ve taken what Mackenzie has shown him right now a week from now, just be when the season opened, but he’s a little farther ahead than they thought he would be with his velocity and his slider. So they’ve been, I know Willis has been impressed.
Joe Noga (07:45):
Yeah, it’s all positive coming out of the Guardian’s camp when it comes to Mackenzie, even when he was knocked out of the game or roughed up in the game on Friday night, I believe, against the Rockies. This team right now, there are questions about the rotation with Gavin Williams being hasn’t really thrown as much as we needed to see him because of the elbow. It’s really been a team of mystery in terms of dealing with illnesses in camp and who’s sort of trending towards being a starting pitcher in the rotation. Who are they thinking about roles in the bullpen and where, because we just haven’t really seen a lot of guys like Avion Curry, guys like Har Carasco. It’s been extended periods since they’ve pitched and we don’t really hear much from the club about the reasons why. So where do you see that shaking out? Who do you see competing for that open spot in the rotation and who’s sort of for the bullpen if they don’t go for the starting job?
Paul Hoynes (08:59):
Yeah, Joe, you’ve got guys going and coming. I mean guys that are kind of dual threats, I mean they can pitch in a bullpen. They could start right now with Williams starting the year on the IL for the fifth starter’s job. There’s Carrasco, there’s Curry, Ben Lively, hunter Gaddis, Tyler Bebe Beatie pitched very well his last time out, five scoreless innings and the same thing goes. Almost all those five guys can pitch out of the bullpen as well. And the bullpen has four openings, so it’s kind of a mess right now because Carrasco hasn’t pitched since March 11th. Curry hasn’t pitched since March 10th. Curry’s been sick with the flu that is going around the Guardian’s Clubhouse. He is going to play long tos today and throw a bullpen session later in the week. He has already thrown eight innings, but I still don’t know if he’s built up enough to be that fifth starter and they’re going to need the fifth starter because they only have one off day until they get home. Joe, once the season starts on the 28th,
Joe Noga (10:18):
Yeah, it’s a long opening road trip of 10 games and there’s only one off day sort of in between stops on that three city trips. So we’ll be interesting to see how the rotation, I mean guys at the front of the rotation, beaver and McKenzie and ostensibly Tanner Bibe will probably have pitched multiple times before they get back to Cleveland to open the home portion of the season on April 8th. Eli Morgan, I just wanted to mention him and he is had a rough camp. He’s been bitten by the long ball a couple of times. Steven Vo talked about him the other day, but this is a guy who, like you and I were talking, they’re going to need him to pitch and they’re going to need him to be in a role in that bullpen. What have we seen out of Eli Morgan thus far in camp?
Paul Hoynes (11:15):
Yeah, I think Eli’s kind of stubbed his toe a little bit. He struggled. He’s one and oh with a 9.00 ERA seven innings. He’s given up three home runs. The opposition’s hitting almost 300 against him, and this is kind of a veteran guy per se on this team. He’s a veteran third year in the bullpen, and you just don’t know if in the desert the changeup isn’t working. That’s his pitch. If he’s hanging it, it’s going to get hit out of the ballpark. So you really have to go on track record more than what your eyes are telling you in spring training right now. I think if your vote and the coaching staff and you’ve already, I mean your bullpen is down to, he’s one of four guys, four reliable guys that are still active in the bullpen. Everybody else is hurt. So I think you’ve got to nurse him through this last week to 10 days of camp and get him ready for the season.
Joe Noga (12:22):
And we have seen Eli Morgan in stretches be very effective over the last two, three seasons at times. Terry Fona would call him the most important guy in that bullpen besides Emmanuel Classe just to the innings and the value that he gave them. So we know that he’s capable of doing it. It’s just a matter of getting him to that point. And like you said, being out in the desert with the dry air and that does funky things to the changeup and that’s his bread and butter pitch. So just to keep an eye on that, to keep an eye on everybody out there in the bullpen and all the moves that we’re expecting to see here in the next couple of days. They’ve still got 51 bodies in camp right now as of 10 30 in the morning Eastern time on Monday. So we’ll be looking for cuts and shuffling to happen. There’s a sort of a bottleneck point coming up with split squad games in the off day, right?
Paul Hoynes (13:25):
Yeah, Joe, they’ve got a split squad on Tuesday with Colorado and Milwaukee, then they’ve got an off day Wednesday, and I would think either perhaps today or Tuesday after that Tuesday split squad, I would think the roster gets thinned out and we’re going to get a much better sense of what this 26 man roster is going to look like.
Joe Noga (13:52):
And it also, it’d be interesting to get to those games, the game on Thursday at least, to see if guys like Chase de Lauder. If guys like Kyle Manto and Davis and Los Santos are still in camp, I would imagine Los Santos and Esteban Florio will still be there pretty much up until the end of camp. But this is the point where you say, okay, do Chase the Lauder and Kyle Mando really have a chance to make the opening day roster? Well, if they’re still around on Thursday, you know that they’re going to continue to get a serious look. I would expect that maybe both of those guys will be optioned or sent down to not option, but sent over to minor league camp and the real focus will be on getting guys ready for the opener on the 28th.
Paul Hoynes (14:49):
That would not be surprising, Joe. Both guys need time in the miners, especially DeLauder. I know he’s had a great spring. He’s done something exciting every time he plays, even in the spring breakout game, him and PD help and worked a double steel and sparked a rally late against the Reds and then, so he’s really been an exciting player to watch. The same with Manardo who hit a home run in the spring breakout game, but I would not be surprised if they got sent down. I would not be surprised, Joe, if they let them stick around until the team breaks camp with Frank Kona. He would always tell the reporters that around this time of spring training, there were certain guys that they really liked that they wanted to keep watching, and they let ‘em stay in big league camp until the team left Arizona and then either they would go back to their minor league clubs.
Joe Noga (15:54):
And that’s a possibility too, just because they’ve got games that they’re going to continue playing. You don’t want the starters or the full-time guys to get too burned out before they open the season. So a guy like a cow, even if he’s not going to be on the roster, he can give you at bats and give you innings out there that are valuable to him. And then also sort of take the pressure off and take the strain off of guys like Josh Naer and in the outfield. You continue to give as many opportunities to DeLauder and see what he’s able to do with him because he’s been pretty exciting so far. Like you said, as far as exciting, if you want to keep getting updates on The Guardians and all the roster moves and all the changes out there in camp, you can sign up for Guardian Subtext.
(16:49):
It’s 3 99 a month to subscribe. You get text messages sent directly to your phone from Hoey and from me. The best way to do that is to go to cleveland.com/subtext or send a text message to 2 1 6 2 0 8 4 3 4 6 and you can get signed up that way. Zi, you mentioned spring breakout. Just what were your impressions of the spring breakout initiative and having all of the top prospects from each club play against each other over the course of a four day weekend in Florida in Arizona? Some of the matchups were great, but as far as the guardians and Reds were concerned, that was a pretty fun thing to sort follow there.
Paul Hoynes (17:39):
Yeah, definitely. Like we were saying, Mando really performed well. So did Lauder, Brito did a nice job, PD help and had a
Joe Noga (17:52):
John Kenzie Noel hit a home run as well.
Paul Hoynes (17:53):
John Kenzie Noel. Yeah, right. I forgot about that. He hit the first of two home runs that the guardians hit in that game. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. To you, it seemed like those guys kind of took a deep breath, Joe and relaxed a little bit. They were out of the big league camp. They were playing against their peers. I know. It seemed like Noel and Mando just, it looked like their confidence, I think that they’ve gained in Big League camp really showed in that game.
Joe Noga (18:28):
And one of the stories of that game, Doug Nicky, the second round pick in 2021, left-Hander for the Guardians, I believe he struck out six over three innings, gave up a run, but looked real strong. This is a guy who’s not ranked in the top 30 prospects for the organization, but Doug NCA went out there and looked pretty good on the mount. Actually, all of Cleveland’s pitchers in that game looked pretty good, but NCA was definitely one to talk about,
Paul Hoynes (19:01):
And he was one of those high, I think he was drafted what, third round pick maybe
Joe Noga (19:07):
I think second. I think he was the second round pick in 21
Paul Hoynes (19:10):
After Williams, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that pitching class, that’s what they drafted, 19 pitchers out of 20 rounds or some crazy thing like that all
Joe Noga (19:22):
Out of college too. Yeah,
Paul Hoynes (19:23):
They were all out of college and so exciting. That’s exciting to see the progress there and maybe he can make a move here because they’re going to have some openings in that pitching pipeline pretty soon.
Joe Noga (19:39):
Yeah, pretty soon. As far as the birthday boy, we got to talk about Emmanuel Kloe. He turns, I mean, how old is he? Hang
Paul Hoynes (19:50):
On one second. 26. I
Joe Noga (19:51):
Think he’s 26. You don’t think about that, but I mean when Cleveland acquired him, me was, he was super young now 26 veteran. Here’s a guy who is sort of in the same position as Shane Bieber is. If he goes out and he’s dominant over the first couple of months of the season, there’s a possibility he could get traded or they just stick with him, take advantage of that team friendly contract that he’s on. What are your thoughts on Emmanuel Clase on his 26th birthday?
Paul Hoynes (20:25):
Yeah, I think the guardians have found, they found a pot of gold the day after St. Patrick’s Day. They’re like the leprechaun that found a pot of gold. I think with one class A really has led to big leagues and saves the last two years. And two, like you were saying, I mean he’s on the best contract in baseball in terms of money versus talent. I mean they’re really getting a lot of production out of Emmanuel. And like you were saying with Bieber and Mackenzie, there were some questions about Class A coming into this season. Yes, he had saved 44 games the most in the big leagues last year. He’d also blown 12 saves the most in the big leagues. His batting average against jump from what, 1 61 to I believe about 2 40, 2 46. There was some concern people were hitting his slider and his velo had dropped off a little bit, but then he regained it as the season went along.
(21:39):
So there were some questions. He’s been used, what, over 220 appearances over the last three seasons. Everyone is wondering how long can a pitcher pitch that many games? But he’s looked strong this spring. I think he’s had one outing where he gave up a three run homer, but the rest of the time he’s looked great and he’s pitching in the second or third he’s pitching against big leaguers, like most teams use their closers in spring training. He’s not coming in the ninth inning against a single A and AA guys. So I think he’s in a real good spot.
Joe Noga (22:16):
Yeah, it’s been good to see throughout camp and throughout working the Cactus League games, that Class A has been able to be effective like that. I think last year, especially with the amount of one run games that the Guardians were playing and then the amount of close games that the Guardians were playing, I think that might’ve had a lot to do with some of the numbers for Class A as well, as well as obviously the velocity and the different Statcast metrics on his pitches trending in the wrong direction. But we’ll see what they do with the Fresh Start this year. And like you said, he’s going to be very important because two of the big guns in front of him in that bullpen, the guys that sort of set things up for him aren’t going to be there. Trevor Stefan won’t be there all year, and who knows how long Sam Heche is going to be out as he’s been sort of shut down and it’s going to take him a while to get built back up and join the Major league club at some point. It doesn’t look like he’s going to be ready to open the season, so it might be a matter of the bullpen, sort of shaky and getting the ball to him in situations where he is again, facing one run leads latent games. And if he’s able to come through, it’s going to be the difference of the season here for the Guardians.
Paul Hoynes (23:43):
Oh yeah. And the question, can they get the ball to ‘em, Joe, like you were saying, can you get the ball and the lead to Class A in the ninth inning?
Joe Noga (23:54):
Yeah, that’s a big question. As we open the season, that will be a major sort of talking point, is this Laden bullpen and how they can get the ball to Class A. Alright, Hoey, one more item before we get going here. Came across our desk just as we were about set to record the announcement that Fatheads Brewery is now going to be the official craft beer of the Guardians. Obviously Hoey, you’re a Budweiser guy, right? You’re not much of a
Paul Hoynes (24:31):
Craft beer guy
Joe Noga (24:33):
Guy. Not big on the craft brew. Cause I wanted to ask you what your favorite Fat Heads Brewery beer is? I have my personal favorite, the seasonal beers. I like the Pimp. My sleigh is my favorite beer that they make. My wife is actually kind of fond of the Bumble berry. We get that in the summer, so not like I’m doing a free commercial here for Fatheads, but there are some really good beers that they come up with and it’ll be fun to see that at the ballpark. But Hoey, we will let you stick with your Budweiser and your Bud Light. Right.
Paul Hoynes (25:08):
Alright, Joe. Yeah, I’m a simple guy that way.
Joe Noga (25:11):
Yeah, you’re a simple guy in a lot of ways, Hoey. But the Budweiser is a pretty obvious one and we’ve shared many over barbecue at SLOs in Detroit. That’s a good place to get the party started. Alright, ho. That’s going to wrap up today’s edition of the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. We’ll check in with you and hopefully have some cuts and some roster moves to talk about in the next couple of days here on the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. We’ll check in with you then.
Paul Hoynes (25:43):
Alright, Joe.
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