The Guardians made it through the first 81 games of the season in astounding fashion. Standing 27.5 games ahead of the Royals in the division. The team had been considering an extension for Steven Kwan but there were speedbumps behind the scenes.
He started the season by batting well over .400 for the first month and a half. By the time Mid-June arrived, he was raking .347 with 17 home runs. The question on most minds was how much the extension would be. However, ownership was looking at it differently. They saw this as the greatest outlier situation in recent memory. Regardless, they were getting calls and as Kwan started to slump a bit in late May they started to get itchy.
The announcement of the biggest trade of the year came late at night after a hard fought game on June 24.
The Dodgers seemingly felt like Teoscar Hernandez wasn’t enough in LF and wanted to make a move for Kwan. The asking price for Kwan via trade was considered a non-starter by most teams. However, the Guardians were floored when LA offered their top OF and IF prospects as well as Roki Sasaki and the Utility Maestro, Enrique Hernandez. The deal was done almost as soon as it was offered.
It didn’t stop there.
Cleveland needed a corner OF to replace Kwan, so they started by bringing back Jhonkensey Noel for a package of RPs and Carlos Hernandez. Knowing that Noel had trouble hitting right handed pitching, they went to the trade block and found a division foe scrambling to make the wild card. The Royals hadn’t called up Jac Caglianone all year. The prospect was angry as seemingly every other guy in his class had been called up. Cleveland made the call…
As we enter the final stretch to the draft and All Star Break, the Guardians are suddenly moving forward with one of the most impressive farm systems and potentially a team built to become a juggernaut potentially better than any we have seen.
While we think the big moves are over, rumor has it that the Reds are about to make a trade of their own.
What a great season this has been so far.
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