Cleveland Sports Forum

I can't find Josh Bell's wife online; I did find however that he is a reader and has some of the favorites that I do. This from a year ago.

Long before Josh Bell ever set foot on Half Street SE in Washington, the capital of the United States of America had been on his mind for years. Decades, in fact. These days, the kid from Texas who plays first base for the Washington Nationals has come full circle with one of his first loves not named baseball: reading.

Last week, the franchise announced the launch of the Josh Bell Book Club, a monthly virtual event that will feature a different selection each month until September. It’s an idea that has developed from his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who traded Bell to Washington on Christmas Eve of 2020.

In Pittsburgh, his group’s focus had more of a social justice bent. In June, he was among the panelists in the MLB-sponsored roundtable discussion: Being Black in Baseball and America. In Washington, the goal is to communicate — along with local libraries — with adults, for the overall betterment of themselves as individuals. “Books – Betterment – Progress” is the tagline, which is as much an indication of Bell’s personal growth as anything.

“I got to the end of that book club, we read Just Mercy [the book by Bryan Stevenson which later became a feature film starring Michael B. Jordan], we read The New Jim Crow [by Michelle Alexander] and we get to the end of that and I was like, man, I educated myself,” Bell recalled last month. “There are a lot of things wrong with the world. Like, what can I do? I talked to my parents, talked to my girlfriend about it, and they were like, why don’t you inspire others the same way that you are inspired? Like, what are the books that, you know, made you who you are today?”

I lived in New Middletown for a few years.

just around the corner from Poland.

Christian Vázquez Reportedly Nearing Deal With Unknown Team
By Darragh McDonald | December 12, 2022 at 5:08pm CDT

The market for catcher Christian Vázquez is “heating up” and he’s making progress towards a deal, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Per Cotillo, it’s unclear if the Red Sox are still involved.

It appears that the dominos are falling in the catching market. The top free agent, Willson Contreras, was signed by the Cardinals a few days ago. Earlier today, the top trade option came off the board when Sean Murphy was traded to Atlanta. Now it seems that teams are quickly turning to Vázquez, generally considered the second-best free agent this offseason behind Contreras.

More to come.

If Vazquez doesn't go to the Guards then I have to wonder if they have a Blue Jay catcher in mind.

Twins To Sign Christian Vázquez
By Darragh McDonald | December 12, 2022 at 6:01pm CDT

6:01pm: It’s a three-year contract, reports Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe (on Twitter).

5:55pm: The Twins are in agreement with catcher Christian Vázquez, according to Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Chris Cotillo of MassLive had tweeted that Vázquez’s market was heating up earlier this evening.

Vázquez was the top remaining free agent catcher once Willson Contreras came off the board last week. The A’s moved Sean Murphy to Atlanta in a three-team blockbuster this afternoon. Minnesota now jumps in to land the catcher they’ve sought all offseason.

A longtime member of the Red Sox, Vázquez now changes uniforms for the second time in five months. Boston dealt him to the Astros at this past summer’s trade deadline, bringing back prospects Wilyer Abreu and Enmanuel Valdez for the final half-season before he hit free agency. That left Vázquez in an unfamiliar role splitting time with Martín Maldonado, but it positioned him for his second World Series title.

More to come.

Full trade, per ESPN sources:

Atlanta gets: C Sean Murphy

Oakland gets: LHP Kyle Muller, UT Esteury Ruiz, RHP Freddy Tarnok, RHP Royber Salinas, C Manny Piña

Milwaukee gets: C William Contreras, RHP Justin Yeager, RHP Joel Payamps

Twins, Christian Vazquez Agree To Three-Year Deal
By Anthony Franco | December 12, 2022 at 7:17pm CDT

The Twins have jumped into a fast-moving catching market, reportedly agreeing to terms with Christian Vázquez on a three-year contract. The deal, which is pending a physical, will guarantee him $30MM. Vázquez is represented by MDR Sports Management.

A longtime member of the Red Sox, Vázquez now changes uniforms for the second time in five months. Boston dealt him to the Astros at this past summer’s trade deadline, bringing back prospects Wilyer Abreu and Enmanuel Valdez for the final half-season before he hit free agency. That left Vázquez in an unfamiliar role splitting time with Martín Maldonado, but it positioned him to secure his second World Series title.

Vázquez, 32, is one of the better all-around catchers in the game. A light-hitting defensive specialist for his first few seasons, the Puerto Rico native has taken a step forward with the bat over the past four years. He hit .276/.320/.477 in 521 plate appearances in 2019, popping a career-best 23 home runs. Vázquez hasn’t replicated that kind of power outside a season with perhaps the liveliest ball the league has ever used, never reaching double digit longballs in another season. Still, he’s been an adequate hitter in two of the past three years. Vázquez stumbled to a .258/.308/.352 mark in 2021, but he was an above-average hitter during the abbreviated 2020 campaign and roughly league average this past season.


Going back to the start of 2019, he owns a .271/.318/.416 line in slightly more than 1600 plate appearances. That’s five percentage points below league average overall, by measure of wRC+, but it’s above par for a catcher. Backstops have a cumulative .232/.304/.390 mark over that stretch. Vázquez doesn’t draw many walks and, 2019 aside, rarely hits for power. His high-contact approach differentiates him from most of his positional peers, as he owns the fifth-lowest strikeout percentage among catchers (minimum 750 plate appearances) since the start of 2019.

The 2022 season was generally par for the course. Among 29 catchers with 300+ trips to the dish, he had the fourth-lowest strikeout rate (16.2%) and fourth-best rate of contact per swing (85.1%). Overall, Vázquez posted a .274/.315/.399 line in 119 games. He carried an impressive .282/.327/.432 mark with the Red Sox before the trade but stumbled to a .250/.278/.308 showing in 35 regular season games as an Astro. Vázquez also did very little offensively in his six-game playoff showing.

The Twins clearly aren’t deterred by that slow finish to the year. That came in an unfamiliar role dividing his reps with Maldonado, and Minnesota presumably anticipates he’ll more closely approximate his production from his time in Boston moving forward. Offense is only part of the story and Vázquez has an excellent reputation with the glove.

For his career, Vázquez has nabbed just under 34% of attempted basestealers. He had a more modest 27.1% mark this year, but that’s still narrowly above the roughly 25% league average. Statcast also credits him with a better than average arm, placing him 20th among 73 catchers with 10+ throws in pop time (average time to throw to second base). Vázquez consistently draws strong grades from public pitch framing metrics. Pair strong receiving with his ability to control the running game, he’s been rated as an above-average catcher by measure of Defensive Runs Saved in all but one season of his career. DRS pegged him 11 runs above par in 2022 and has rated him as 51 runs above average over his eight years in the majors.

That wealth of experience calling games certainly added to Vázquez’s appeal to the Minnesota front office. The Twins have young backstop Ryan Jeffers on hand already. The 25-year-old will continue to see a fair amount of run at Target Field, but president of baseball operations Derek Falvey and GM Thad Levine have each spoken of a desire to add another starting-caliber catcher to pair with Jeffers. They’ve done just that, leaving manager Rocco Baldelli to decide how to divvy up playing time.

Jeffers, a right-handed hitter, has been far better against lefty pitching (.263/.344/.450) than same-handed opponents (.185/.256/.361) through his first couple MLB campaigns. Vázquez also hits right-handed and is better against southpaws, but his career splits aren’t so drastic. He has a .257/.309/.422 line against lefty arms and a .263/.310/.372 mark against right-handers. Falvey has already suggested the Twins don’t plan to relegate Jeffers solely to the small side of a platoon, but the presence of a more balanced hitter in Vázquez gives Baldelli some more flexibility in matching up against opposing pitchers.

It’s the first meaningful dip into free agency for Minnesota this offseason. Vázquez’s contract lands right in line with MLBTR’s prediction of $27MM over three years. The specific financial breakdown hasn’t yet been reported, but an even distribution of $10MM annually would bring Minnesota’s 2023 payroll around $107MM, in the estimation of Roster Resource. There’s a fair amount of room before getting to this past season’s approximate $134MM mark, and the Twins surely aren’t finished. Addressing shortstop — where the organization awaits Carlos Correa’s decision — is the big question, but the Twins also could stand to upgrade both areas of the pitching staff (especially the bullpen) and potentially shake up their outfield.

Vázquez’s signing follows last week’s five-year agreement between the Cardinals and Willson Contreras and this afternoon’s blockbuster that sent Sean Murphy to Atlanta. As a result, the catching market is drying up quickly. The Blue Jays can still dangle one of their three backstops, with Danny Jansen seemingly the most likely to move. Free agency is without many obvious solutions at this point, with glove-first players like Austin Hedges, Tucker Barnhart, Roberto Pérez and Mike Zunino (the latter two of whom saw their 2022 seasons cut short by surgery) among the options.

Josh Bell hits ground running with Guardians; making sense of missing out on Sean Murphy

By Zack Meisel
3h ago
8

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CLEVELAND — It happens every winter: A player joins a new team and delivers a string of clichés about how excited they are about their new home.

Josh Bell, however, has done his homework. No clichés, only specifics.

During his introductory news conference on Monday, Bell mentioned how he followed the Guardians’ playoff run, how he marveled at their scrappy style of offense, how they boasted the league’s lowest strikeout rate at the plate and how they racked up a bevy of comeback wins. He expressed his eagerness to bat behind a top-third of the order comprised of base-stealers and, as he noted, that’s before Major League Baseball installs larger bases and limits pickoff attempts.

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Here’s more on what Bell had to offer, plus thoughts on the Guardians missing out on top catching trade target Sean Murphy.

Like many of his new teammates, Bell enjoyed his first taste of the postseason in October, an opportunity afforded to him when the Nationals dealt him to the Padres at the trade deadline.

“Every expectation I had was blown out of the water,” Bell said. “We all have that same taste in our mouth of what the postseason can bring and how close we were (to the World Series).”

Cleveland’s chances for a deep playoff run will increase if Bell supplies steady hits in the middle of manager Terry Francona’s lineup. So, how about a self-evaluation from the 30-year-old slugger?

“When I’m right, I hit for average and power,” he said. “When I’m wrong, I don’t hit for either.”

At least he’s honest. To his credit, even when he’s “wrong,” he does draw a ton of walks. His on-base percentage has a pretty high floor. He had a Jekyll-and-Hyde 2022 season, as he felt he “could do no wrong” with Washington, and then was “a step behind in some of the approaches and some of the attack plans” with San Diego.

The numbers confirm as much.

With the Nationals: .301/.384/.493 slash line
With the Padres: .192/.316/.271 slash line

He still produced enough overall to receive his first Silver Slugger Award as the most prolific designated hitter in the National League.

Bell isn’t the prototypical power hitter, the all-or-nothing threat fixated on launching the ball toward the outfield seats. He topped out at 37 homers in 2019, but he has a vastly different hitting profile than, say, the guy he’s replacing, Franmil Reyes. Bell reduced his strikeout rate to 15.8 percent last season. That’s a better rate, for instance, than Amed Rosario’s 16.6 percent.

“If I can leave the yard, then so be it,” Bell said. “But if we’re winning a ton of games and I’m leading the league in doubles, I think I’ll be just as happy.”

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He’s also intrigued by what he might be able to achieve with the league imposing limits on defensive shifting. Bell said he expects to be rewarded more for making hard contact when he pulls the ball between first and second base while batting left-handed. He said he shied away from such an approach in the past because of how opposing teams aligned their infield against him.

“I feel like a lot of lefties have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Bell said.

And that played a part in why his new contract — a two-year, $33 million deal — includes an opt-out after the 2023 season. If he excels, he can test free agency again and attempt to land a more lucrative salary than the $16.5 million the Guardians would pay him in 2024.

His agent, Scott Boras, compared the setup to the contract pitcher Carlos Rodón signed with the Giants last offseason. San Francisco handed the lefty a two-year deal (outbidding Cleveland in the process) worth $44 million that included an opt-out clause. Rodón opted out in November and now stands to earn a long-term pact worth nine figures.

“It’s an incentive where, if I can do what I think I can do,” Bell said, “regardless of numbers or anything like that, I’m going to have another crack at getting a raise next year.”

Pairing Bell with José Ramírez in the middle of the lineup could equip Francona with consecutive, patient switch-hitters who are averse to striking out and wield plenty of power.

“It’s tough to not get that itch … to play with José Ramírez,” Bell said. “Prodigious, best switch hitter in the league for a long time there. So, hopefully we can learn from each other, I can hit behind him, and what did he have, like, 120 RBIs last year?”

Again, the man did his homework. One-hundred twenty-six, to be precise.

“Hopefully he saved some for me,” Bell said. “But if we’re both over 100, I think we’ll be in a good place.”

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Bell said his wife, a native of Poland, Ohio, outside of Youngstown, has been “grinning from ear to ear” since he signed with the Guardians.

How many times did you read over Oakland’s return for Murphy and assume you accidentally skipped over the name of a top 100 prospect or two? It’s OK. You’re not alone.

The return certainly seems light, like more of a bundle than a haul. The Athletic’s Keith Law declared the Brewers made out the best of the three teams involved in the trade, and suggested Oakland’s side seemed underwhelming.

So, how could the Guardians’ front office, anchored by team president Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff, who have publicly voiced the team’s desire to land catching help to ease Bo Naylor’s transition to the majors, not top the offer made by the Braves (with an assist from the Brewers)?

Be careful comparing the return from Atlanta/Milwaukee with the reported return Oakland wanted from St. Louis and what that might have meant for a package from Cleveland. Teams value players — especially prospects — differently, so as you try to compare Lars Nootbaar to Steven Kwan or Esteury Ruiz to Will Brennan or George Valera or anyone else, just know one team might completely overvalue or undervalue a player, relative to how that player’s own team values him.

Cleveland once pursued Todd Frazier to play third base, but the Reds asked for Cody Allen or Danny Salazar. Cleveland refused, and the Reds ended up with (what appeared to be at the time, and what ultimately turned out to be) a far worse return in a three-way deal with the White Sox and Dodgers.


Sean Murphy is headed to Atlanta. What will the Guardians do to fill the void at catcher? (Darren Yamashita / USA Today)
Industry sources indicated the A’s have sought one of the Guardians’ top pitching prospects since the teams discussed a Murphy trade over the summer. Cleveland had no desire to move Daniel Espino or Gavin Williams, and even demonstrated reluctance to part with certain young position players.

Still, the Guardians boast one of the league’s deepest farm systems. They should have had the ammunition to top any offer for Murphy if they desperately wanted to pair him with Naylor. They preferred to deal from their wealth of middle-infield prospects, which has been the case for a year now as they continue to search for what they deem is the right deal. If they wait too long, the prospects who don’t fit onto their major-league roster might waste away in Triple-A purgatory. Nolan Jones went from being the organization’s top-ranked prospect on public lists to being traded for a low-level prospect in a matter of a couple of years.

As for their catching situation, they’ve backed themselves into a corner. Keep an eye on free agent Mike Zunino, who has recovered from thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. The Blue Jays could still move one of their three catchers. Austin Hedges is still out there somewhere, hairy chest and all. The Guardians were never going to hand Christian Vázquez a three-year deal, as the Twins did.

One other thing to ponder: Which team led the majors in offensive production from its catchers in 2022? The same team that just added Murphy. Braves catchers posted a 128 wRC+ and a .273/.335/.485 slash line last season. Guardians catchers posted a 55 wRC+ (29th in the league) and a .178/.265/.265 slash line.

Law: Oakland trades Sean Murphy to Atlanta, and the winners are … the Brewers?


By Keith Law
Dec 12, 2022
172


Sean Murphy’s trade was foretold by scripture, by which I mean we all figured out he was a goner when the A’s traded for his replacement in March as part of the near-total teardown of a roster that made the postseason for three consecutive seasons before falling short in 2021. He ends up going to Atlanta, but in a more complicated, three-team deal that lacks huge prospect names but may have ended up delivering more value not to Murphy’s former employers in Oakland but to the third team that sneaked its way into the trade.

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Atlanta has now traded away two young catchers who are/will be major-league starters in the span of 10 months, sending Shea Langeliers to Oakland in March and now William Contreras to Milwaukee in this trade, but they got their backstop for the next three years. Murphy is an elite defensive catcher, at least on the short list of the very best in baseball right now, with an 80 arm, strong framing and receiving skills, and a good reputation (for whatever it’s worth) for working with pitchers. He’s got plus power that has been dampened by playing in a septic tank for half his games the last few years, hitting 18 homers in 148 games in 2022. I think he’s going to hit 25+ now that he’s free, maybe with some of those 37 doubles he hit last year going over the fence now, so to speak, enough that he’ll look like he’s improved a lot as a player even if it’s just the change in venue. Contreras had a very credible season for Atlanta last year, so this is only about a 1-2 win improvement, but it gives them more certainty behind the plate, improves the team defensively and frees them up to trade Travis d’Arnaud ($8 million in 2023) to clear a little salary.

The A’s get quantity without quality, at least in terms of high-end prospects — there’s nobody here who has appeared on my top 100 prospects lists in the past or will appear on this year’s, and I don’t feel like there’s anybody who’s that close. Esteury Ruiz is a center fielder and former infielder who went from San Diego to Milwaukee in July’s Josh Hader trade, bringing speed (85 steals in 101 attempts in 2022), patience and high contact rates, although he doesn’t make very much hard contact. That even carried over to his brief time in the majors, where he hit fastballs better than offspeed stuff — same as in the minors — but without much high-quality contact. Because of the speed and defensive value, he could still find his way to becoming a regular, especially if he can keep his walk rate up over 10 percent, but his upside is that of a soft regular unless he improves in that area. It’ll be very interesting to see what the A’s do with Cristian Pache, a plus-plus defender in center with power that he won’t see because he’s completely stalled out as a hitter in the last two years, with an approach that hasn’t progressed at all since Double A.

Kyle Muller has had a couple of go-rounds in the majors already, showing four pitches but working primarily fastball/slider, with above-average velocity but no out pitch, not by results or by Statcast metrics. He’s also long had issues with fastball command, even though the pitch is pretty true, and leaves a lot of them middle-middle. The fastball does have a high spin rate, however, and if the A’s can work with him on getting that out of the middle of the zone and up toward the top, he’d have a viable swing-and-miss pitch against left- and right-handed batters. His curveball should be a more effective pitch than the slider, due to its spin-based direction, but he was more slider-heavy this year. Oakland is a great park for pitchers in general, depressing offense overall and home runs specifically, so while Muller has a lot of reliever risk, being with the A’s improves his chances to stay a starter, and there’s at least size, stuff, and very good extension in his favor.


Freddy Tarnok (Brett Davis / USA Today)
Right-hander Freddy Tarnok is the best prospect in the deal, a very athletic pitcher who was a two-way guy in high school and has mid-rotation stuff but hasn’t shown the control or command he’ll need to be a No. 4 starter or better. Tarnok is 93-96 mph, touching 98 mph, with a plus changeup and fringe-average curveball and slider, throwing the fastball for strikes but struggling to do the same with his other pitches. He’ll pitch at age 24 this year, and was a 2017 draft pick, but still has less than 400 professional innings because of the pandemic and workload limits. I think he’s a starter, with further growth in his command/control coming, more of a No. 4-5 now but with the clear upside to be more.

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Right-hander Royber Salinas has a huge fastball up to 99 mph with power to a slider, with a rough, arm-heavy delivery and a very high slot that — along with his lack of a third pitch — point toward a relief future. He’s a very big kid already and may have to work on his conditioning as well. He struck out nearly 38 percent of batters faced between Low A and High A in 2022, but walked 13.5 percent, and I’m not sure that delivery is going to let him cut that to a level that would let him start, even if he does find a better weapon to get lefties out.

Oakland also gets catcher Manny Piña, who I presume becomes the backup to Shea Langeliers, who lost his prospect eligibility at the end of 2022. Langeliers is a lot like Murphy, a plus defender with a plus arm (Murphy’s is better, though) who has 20-homer power but probably won’t hit for a high average or OBP. Langeliers, who came over in the Matt Olson trade with Pache, Ryan Cusick and Joey Estes in March, made Murphy expendable for the rebuilding A’s, and I’d argue put real pressure on the team to trade Murphy now rather than waste Langeliers in Triple A for another half or full season. I’m not sure this deal gets them enough for Murphy, however, given the veteran’s value and three full years remaining (at depressed salaries through arbitration) before free agency.

Milwaukee makes out extremely well by inserting themselves into this trade, nabbing catcher William Contreras, who’s about to turn 25 and just hit .278/.354/.506 in 97 games, by sending Ruiz to Oakland. Contreras isn’t the defensive catcher Murphy is, but he’s a better hitter, with just as much power, a better hit tool and a better eye. He strikes out more than Murphy does, although he’s three years younger and should bring his K rate (which was over 27 percent last year) down going forward. But I’m not entirely sure I’d rather have Murphy than Contreras in a vacuum, and I think it’s easier to argue for Contreras in reality given his youth and additional two years of control. Murphy gets about a win of extra value over Contreras from his framing, although we know framing can improve with coaching, and there’s always the chance that will go away if and when MLB goes to some sort of automated strike zone.

The Brewers also get right-hander Joel Payamps, an intriguing middle reliever due to his high-spin four-seamer and big-breaking slider, from Oakland; and sleeper relief prospect Justin Yeager, who is in the mid-90s with an above-average slider, from Atlanta. Yeager was a 33rd-round pick out of Southern Illinois in 2019, and reached Double A this year, with a few too many walks but a lot of swing-and-miss, as well as weak contact. Hitters whiffed just over a third of the time they swung at his slider, and just under a third of the time at the fastball, which can touch 100 mph and looks like it gets on hitters very quickly. It’s a bit odd to say the team that did the best in the three-team deal neither traded nor received the best individual guy, but I think the Brewers might just have done so.

r William Contreras, who’s about to turn 25 and just hit .278/.354/.506 in 97 games, isn’t the defensive catcher Murphy is, but he’s a better hitter, with just as much power, a better hit tool and a better eye. He strikes out more than Murphy does, although he’s three years younger and should bring his K rate (which was over 27 percent last year) down going forward. But I’m not entirely sure I’d rather have Murphy than Contreras in a vacuum, and I think it’s easier to argue for Contreras in reality given his youth and additional two years of control.

Braves improved themselves a little behind the plate. Big deal.

Jim Bowden

10. Michael Brantley, OF/DH
Age: 35
Bats: Left Throws: Left
WAR: 1.3 OPS+: 125
2022 salary: $16 million

Michael Brantley did not play after June 26 and underwent season-ending surgery on his right shoulder in August. Contending teams, including the Astros, Blue Jays, Guardians and Mariners, are lining up for his services because of his elite hitting ability but also his leadership and impact on young, developing players.

Who could object to adding Michael Brantley to their team. He is a Guardian-type player. Way back long ago when we traded for him and the great Matt LaPorta for Sabathia he was described as not good enough defender to play the OF but more of a 1st baseman. A decade later that may now be true

Guardians To Sign Mike Zunino
By Steve Adams | December 13, 2022 at 9:56am CDT

The Guardians are in agreement on a contract with free-agent catcher Mike Zunino, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). It’s a one-year, $6MM contract for the Wasserman client, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided.


Zunino, 32 in March, should continue the tradition of high-quality defense behind the plate in Cleveland, though like many of his recent predecessors, he’s seen his fair share of struggles at the plate. The former No. 3 overall draft pick (Mariners, 2012) has batted under .200 in five of his ten Major League seasons, though he’s partially offset his penchant for punchouts with strong glovework and enormous power.

The 2022 season was perhaps the worst of Zunino’s career, as he turned in a .148/.195/.304 batting line in 123 plate appearances before undergoing season-ending surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome. Just one season prior, however, Zunino mashed a career-best 33 home runs through just 375 plate appearances while batting .216/.301/.559. He’s had several seasons in which his power and defense have made him a valuable all-around asset even in spite of his perennially low batting averages and on-base percentages. All told, Zunino is a career .200/.271/.410 hitter with 146 home runs in 2958 plate appearances.

While the Guardians had a clear need for help behind the plate, Zunino is somewhat antithetical to the general hitting philosophy the Guardians relied on in 2022 when surging to the AL Central crown. Cleveland emphasized hitters who put the ball in play above all else, even designating struggling and strikeout-prone DH Franmil Reyes over the summer, and finished out the season with an MLB-low 18.2% strikeout rate as a team. Zunino, however, has a career 34.7% strikeout rate — one of the highest levels of any hitter during his decade in the big leagues.

Defensively, Zunino has been about average in terms of throwing out potential base thieves, with a career 28% caught-stealing mark that sits narrowly ahead of the 27% league average during his MLB tenure. That said, he’s consistently rated anywhere from above-average to excellent in terms of pitch framing, and Defensive Runs Saved credits him with a hearty +51 mark over his 6894 career innings behind the dish.

Zunino might not be quite on the same defensive level as the man he’ll be replacing, free agent Austin Hedges (arguably MLB’s best defensive catcher), but even if the pair both struggle to keep their average north of .200, Zunino trounces Hedges in terms of career power output and (to a lesser extent) on-base percentage. There will likely be even fewer balls in play off the bat of Zunino than with Hedges (career 27.7% strikeout rate), but the pitches on which Zunino does connect will be put into play with considerably more authority. Zunino’s career 89.7 mph average exit velocity and 41.6% hard-hit rate tower over Hedges’ marks of 86.4 mph and 29.8%, and Zunino has been particularly strong in this regard since 2021 (91 mph average exit velocity, 44.9% hard-hit rate).

Of course, all of that assumes good health, which is a lot to presume in the wake of an ominous TOS procedure. Thoracic outlet surgery is far more common among pitchers than position players, so there’s not much of a precedent for how a hitter — particularly a catcher — will recover from the ailment. Symptoms of TOS often include numbness in the hand/fingertips and weakness in the shoulder area, so there’s certainly some medical risk.

Zunino becomes the second free-agent addition to the reigning AL Central division champions, who recently signed slugger Josh Bell to a two-year, $33MM contract that allows him to opt out of the deal after one season. Bell and Zunino will unquestionably add some thump to a Guardians club that ranked 29th in baseball in both home runs (127) and ISO (.129). They’ll also boost the Guards’ projected payroll to a bit more than $92MM, which is miles away from the franchise-record mark of $135MM In 2018 but still a far sight north of last year’s $68.2MM Opening Day mark.

The one-year term of the deal is reflective both of Cleveland’s general aversion to long-term free-agent deals and to the fact that the front office hopes to have its catcher of the future on the cusp of MLB readiness. Bo Naylor, selected with the No. 29 overall pick in 2018, made his big league debut briefly in 2022, though he did not reach base in a tiny sample of eight plate appearances. Naylor, however, hit .271/.427/.471 in 52 Double-A games before ascending to Triple-A and batting .257/.366/.514 in an additional 66 games.

Scouting reports on Naylor, the younger brother of Cleveland first baseman/outfielder Josh Naylor, cite a need to improve his defense behind the plate and improve his bat-to-ball skills at the plate — he fanned in 25.9% of his Triple-A plate appearances — so it seems likely that Cleveland will hope he can continue to work on those areas of his game in the upper minors to begin the season.

There’s little sense in carrying the younger Naylor brother as a backup catcher when he’s viewed as a potential long-term regular, and the typically low-payroll Guardians likely wouldn’t commit $6MM to Zunino in order for him to serve as a backup. Cleveland has fellow catcher Bryan Lavastida on the 40-man and recently invited former Royals and Rangers backstop Meibrys Viloria to Spring Training. Either could open the season as Zunino’s backup, and it remains possible that the front office will add another name to that backup competition between now and Opening Day.

Who -- besides you -- is the best manager in baseball?

Lots of opinions, including Bud Black's:

Black: Terry Francona. From managing against him, watching his games, watching him in the playoffs, I think he has great feel as the game moves on. I think he has great feel for his players. That's something that stands out. And I've known him for a long time. His instincts are outstanding, and I think he combines his head and his gut in the right way.