Three Guardians Who Should Watch the Playoffs from Home

Nothing against these fine gentlemen

When the Cleveland Guardians begin their playoff experience on Saturday, some players on the 28-man roster they ended the season with will have to stay home. Who should be holding pom-poms and a clipboard on October 5th?

I want to begin this discussion by saying that every player I’m talking about in this article is an amazing athlete. I will never be 1/100th as talented at anything I do as these gentlemen are at baseball. With that said, the goal of being a baseball team is to win a World Series and the Guardians need to choose every superior option to put on a roster who can help further an organization toward that goal. This will require some difficult and emotional decisions to be made because every player on this list has helped the Guardians get to this point and wants nothing more than to help them advance to the next stage.

With those caveats aside, here are the four players I’d be leaving off the 26-man roster in a week.

1. Ben Lively, RHP 4.02 xERA, 4.66 FIP, 4.57 xFIP (4.97 FIP and 5.05 xFIP since August 1st).

Analysis: First of all, this decision is based on the (shaky) assumption that Alex Cobb is healthy enough to pitch and give the Guardians 60 pitchers or so. If Cobb isn’t healthy, I am sure Ben Lively will make the roster as someone the team hopes can give them three competitive innings. Lively has been absolutely crucial to the Guardians’ success this season; I am thrilled they have him under team control through 2028 because he looks to be a reliable fifth starter for years to come. I also wouldn’t put it past him to improve performance in 2025 with another year under the Guardians’ pitching lab’s tutelage.

With all that said, Lively isn’t someone who should be pitching for the Guardians in a short playoff series. He doesn’t offer swing-and-miss, he’s been getting hit hard especially over the past two months, and his competitive fire isn’t enough to make me feel confident in him getting even one time through a playoff team’s order. Joey Cantillo is a better choice in this spot should the Guardians’ decide they want to go with 13 pitchers on the roster (10.24/3.49 K/BB/9, 3.88 xERA, 3.46 xFIP, 4.07 FIP). Cantillo has also been quite effective against RHP (3.20 FIP) which should help neutralize some of the Astros strong splits vs LHP should the Guardians face Houston in the ALDS.

2. Nick Sandlin, RHP 4.40 xERA, 5.23 FIP, 4.23 xFIP (6.30 FIP since returning from injury on July 4th)

Analysis: Let’s face the facts, Guardians. Nick Sandlin isn’t a particularly good pitcher right now. He can’t reliably command the ball and he’s leaving pitches up in the zone far too often for a player whose main role should be to get right-handed hitters to hit groundballs. Sandlin. For the first six weeks of the season, Sandlin had a 3.40 FIP and got tons of groundballs in crucial spots. Turns out, that was a small sample size thing because he’s gone back to who he has been for his career: a 4.41 FIP guy. Thank you for your 68 innings this season, Nick. You are welcome to sit on the bench and encourage other relievers as they try not to allow anything like your 18.2 home run per fly ball rate from this season. Let’s give Andrew Walters, Erik Sabrowski and/or Pedro Avila the Sandlin spot on the Guardians’ playoff roster.

3. Daniel Schneemann, IF/OF, Stats after his torrid first 14 games, so 6/22-9/28: 74 wRC, 33.3/9.4 K/BB/9. -3 DRS and -3 OAA at shortstop during the season.

Analysis: It was the right call to bring Daniel Schneemann up and see what he could offer after he was lighting Triple-A on fire. But, we have arrived at a place where we all knew we would likely end up: Schneemann isn’t a major league player. He hasn’t looked like a major league baseball player for three months. Now, admittedly, getting sporadic playing time is a challenge but Schneemann was never going to be a full-time player anywhere. If he wants to succeed in the big leagues, he will have to be effective with two starts a week. Most importantly, Schneemann is not a good shortstop defensively. His primary role on this roster would be as a pinch-hitter for Brayan Rocchio, at which point he would play shortstop. The problem, of course, is replacing Schneemann. Should it be Gabriel Arias who went down to Columbus as dominated with a 130 wRC+ but where he still had only a 4.5% walk rate and a 52% groundball rate? Should it be Angel Martinez whom the team seems incredibly reluctant to play at shortstop? Should it be Tyler Freeman who also looks to be a poor defensive shortstop but offers a .303 to .279 xwOBA improvement over Schneemann? I can’t make a strong case for any ONE of the three, but I can make the strong case that the field is an improvement over what Schneemann offers as a bench bat who can’t hit and a glove who isn’t good at shortstop. Schneemann does offer 76th percentile sprint speed (74 for Freeman, 50th for Arias, 57th for Martinez), but he registers as -2 baserunning run value because he is much worse going station-to-station than running to first base. I don’t think he should be viewed as a bench asset for baserunning speed and acumen.

This isn’t a time to choose “doing right by a guy” over what is best for a team’s competitive chances. There will absolutely be times that the team should pinch-hit for Brayan Rocchio and you want to have another infield bat that can give you a fighting chance and, at bare minimum, a glove that you trust to make the plays you need at shortstop if Rocchio is out. For me, though I am neither an Arias or a Freeman believer, I would choose one of those two to fill the Schneemann role and I’m leaning Arias because I do still believe his shortstop abilities are superior to just about anyone in the organization not named Andres Gimenez.

Having offered these suggestions, I look forward to Lively, Sandlin and Schneemann emerging as unlikely playoff heroes for Cleveland and making me look bad. I also recognize that the clubhouse culture is important in all this. I just hope if any of these three players make the roster that the vibes they bring are indeed sufficient to compensate for their likely lackluster onfield production because I want to see this team go all the way.