Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Analyst
FOX Sports’ 26-and-under power rankings are a new spin on the classic prospect rankings. Yes, prospects are important, but with all the game-changing young talent already in the bigs, farm systems alone can’t tell the whole story. So we’re diving deep into every single MLB club, ranking them all by the players in an organization entering their age-26 season or younger — from the bigs to the farm. Each weekday through March 27, we’ll count down from last to first.
No. 4 Cleveland Guardians
26-and-under total score: 22 (out of 30)
The 2022 Guardians were a children’s birthday party: soda for everyone, no adults allowed. MLB’s youngest team partied its way to an AL Central title, outlasted the Rays in an unforgettable Wild Card Series and pushed the big bad Yankees to the brink in ALDS. A 29th-place finish on the team home run leaderboard meant bupkis to a horde of young contact merchants led by Steven Kwan, Andres Gimenez and Josh Naylor. And now these pesky youths are back and hungry for more.
Only three players over 30 years old (Bryan Shaw, Anthony Gose and Luke Maile) played more than eight games for the 2022 Guards. Their 26-and-under hitters had 1330 more plate appearances as a group than the second-place team. Quite simply, this is a big-league club built on youth; a huge reason why Cleveland rates so highly on our young talent rankings.
Young Hitters: 7 (out of 10)
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Per Baseball-Reference, Cleveland second baseman Andres Gimenez was the sixth most valuable player in MLB last season (7.4 bWAR). The only players ahead of him were Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Sandy Alcantara, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. Despite middling power, Gimenez turned in a magnificent offensive performance (.297/.371/.466 with a 141 OPS+) and played elite defense. That earned the free-swinging infielder, a key piece of the Francisco Lindor trade, a sixth-place finish in the AL MVP race.
So why aren’t people completely freaking out about a 24-year-old second baseman who just torched the American League in his first full MLB season? Gimenez swings too much. More importantly, he offers too often at bad pitches. Only five qualified players swung at pitches outside the strike zone at a higher rate than Gimenez last season. When he did make contact, Gimenez posted the fifth highest batting average on balls in play. Some of that can be attributed to his elite speed, some to his legit feel to hit, but there’s also a hefty amount of good fortune involved.
It’s hard to fluke your way to a 7.4 bWAR season and Gimenez’s defensive ability raises his floor, but the offensive numbers should take a step back in 2023. Even if they do, Gimenez is still an outstanding player and a key part of Cleveland’s present and future.
What hasn’t been said about Steven Kwan, the game’s singular singles slinger? The diminutive outfielder took MLB by storm right away in his debut season, not swinging and missing at the first 116 pitches he saw, reaching base 15 times in his first four games, collecting a five-hit game in his first week, etc, etc, etc. But Kwan proved himself more than a flash in the pan, finishing the year with a 124 OPS+ and a third-place finish in the AL ROY behind two can’t-miss uber prospects in Julio Rodriguez and Adley Rutschman.
Kwan is downright abysmal at one aspect of hitting (making hard contact) and downright elite at two (making contact and not chasing). That offensive profile, combined with spectacular outfield defense and great baserunning, makes Kwan a prototypical throwback leadoff guy and one of the most entertaining and unique players in the league.
Oscar Gonzalez (your buddies know him as the SpongeBob Theme Song Guy who hit the walk-off in the Wild Card Game), is the opposite of Kwan — he makes horrible swing decisions, but absolutely blisters the ball whenever he makes contact in the zone. Also, Gonzalez is 6-foot-4, 240 — seven inches and 70 pounds above his outfield mate. In his rookie year, the massive Gonzalez swung at a whopping 48.3% of pitches outside of the strike zone, but still managed to hit .296/.327/.461. Even though he’s a plus plus runner with a 99th-percentile throwing arm, Gonzalez fares poorly in the outfield because he stinks at tracking down fly balls. It’s one of the more bizarre profiles in the game, but if Gonzalez can elevate the ball more often in 2023 and turn some of those doubles into taters, watch out.
Josh Naylor finally applied his prodigious offensive potential and hit well over a full season, providing Cleveland with another much-needed power bat alongside José Ramírez. And while he plays like a hyena on fire, Naylor’s profile is pretty straightforward: he’s a legit first-division first baseman with good-not-great power who walks less than you’d like, but does enough damage to make up for it.
Will Brennan debuted in late September and caught such fire at the plate that he started five of the Guardians’ seven postseason games. He’s a splendid contact hitter who doesn’t K a lot, but lacks impact power. He’ll start the season as a capable, plus defensive fourth outfielder on Cleveland’s bench. Gabriel Arias will join Brennan there. A consensus Top 100 prospect last year, Arias struggled to cut down his strikeout rate in Triple-A and a brief stint in the bigs. Unlike many of the prospects in this system, Arias has big hit tool and swing decision questions, but can absolutely smoke the baseball. A plus infield glove gives him a great base to build upon and he’ll serve as the team’s utility infielder while seeing if he can make some adjustments in his first full season.
Young Pitchers: 8 (out of 10)
Consider Triston McKenzie fully broken out. The stick-figure right-hander chucked 191 1/3 innings in ‘22 with a 2.96 ERA and just under a strikeout per inning. But the biggest development? McKenzie cut his walk rate in half without sacrificing his stuff. He’s now squarely one of the best 30 hurlers in the sport, and at just 25 years old, should only continue improving now that he’s figured out how to control his yards of limbs on the mound.
The Cleveland Guardian’s Triston Mckenzie talks approach to game
Triston Mckenzie talks to Ken Rosenthal about how he approaches each MLB game.
With Edwin Díaz likely out for the year after his freak WBC injury, Emmanuel Clase is now the consensus best reliever in baseball. Clase, still only 25, doesn’t have the otherworldly strikeout rate you’d expect from an elite closer, but his 100-mph cutter elicits so much weak contact that it doesn’t really matter. The pitch was barreled up only three times all season. Clase rules.
Sam Hentges, Cody Morris and Nick Sandlin are all 26-year-old relievers you’ve never thought too much about who combined for a 2.57 ERA in 129 2/3 innings of relief. Spencer Strider had a 2.67 ERA in 131 2/3 innings last year (albeit with way more strikeouts than this fake three-headed monster). Hentges is a huge lefty with a good four-seam/sinker combo and a beautiful, touch-the-sky curveball, all of which helped him to the eighth-best groundball rate in MLB last year.
Morris debuted late last year and made the playoff roster thanks to a 2500 rpm (91st percentile) fastball, but has a checkered injury history. Sandlin is a righty sidearmer who throws almost 50% sliders and dodges barrels Steve the Pirate-style. That trio, alongside solid spot starter Konnor Pilkington, should spend most of 2023 in one of baseball’s best bullpens.
Prospect Hitters: 3 (out of 5)
Bo Naylor, Josh’s little brother, came up for the season’s final week and got just eight plate appearances in his first taste of The Show, which is why little Naylor is on this part of the list. After a horrific 2021, Bo exploded in ‘22, becoming the first catcher in the last decade to hit 20 homers and steal 20 bags in the same season. Even though he’s a below-average hitter right now, the low offensive bar at catcher means that Naylor projects as an everyday backstop thanks to burgeoning power. He is a phenomenal athlete with a superb work ethic that should enable him to stick behind the plate even if he’s a bit unrefined back there right now. So even though he’ll start the year in Triple-A and play second-fiddle to Mike Zunino once he gets the call up, Cleveland sees Naylor as their catcher of the future.
Brayan Rocchio is also set to reach Progressive Field at some point this season. A switch-hitting shortstop with average tools across the board, Rocchio looks like a solid big-league infielder. There’s nothing sexy about the profile, but he’s yet another high-contact Cleveland hitting prospect who should have a long big league career.
George Valera’s offensive future is a bit hazier. Mechanically, the Dominican outfielder’s swing looks a lot like Robinson Canó’s, but Valera doesn’t have the same hand-eye and feel for the barrel that made Canó one of the best hitters of his generation. According to evaluators, Valera’s raw, pull-side juice is undeniably real, but his propensity to swing and miss in-zone limits the ceiling. He’s still only 22 and Cleveland has a phenomenal track record of developing hitters so there’s still room for change.
Prospect pitching: 4 (out of 5)
Daniel Espino threw 18 1/3 innings in April of ‘22 then spent the rest of the season on the shelf with a knee and then shoulder injury. As he ramped up his workload this past winter, Espino felt some shoulder discomfort. An MRI showed he’d torn the anterior capsule in his right shoulder. He’s unlikely to even throw a baseball for another month or so.
Even still, this is a name you need to know. In that April amuse bouche, Espino flashed an elite heater that sat at 100 with outrageous amounts of carry. In one start, he punched out 14 hitters in five innings. If he’s healthy by the All-Star Break he will be in the Futures Game and will throw a pitch 103 miles per hour while striking out the side and everyone will lose their minds.
Cleveland boasts perhaps the game’s most respected and productive pitching-development group. The Guardians helped turn McKenzie into McKenzie, Shane Bieber into Shane Bieber and Corey Kluber into Corey Kluber. But it was still a massive shock to hear that Tanner Bibee, a run-of-the-mill mid round control-command right-hander who didn’t even get drafted when eligible in 2020, was suddenly sitting in the mid-90s and touching 98. In 132 2/2 minor league innings last year, Bibee K’ed 167 with his newfound heat while posting a 2.17 ERA. He could be a rotation contributor as soon as the end of this year.
Gavin Williams is another arm to know. The club’s first-round pick back in 2021, Williams fell in the draft thanks to a shaky medical. Cleveland scooped him up with the 23rd pick and sent him to High-A, where he absolutely dominated. A mid-season promotion to Akron didn’t slow him down, either. In 115 innings he punched out 149 hitters with a 1.96 ERA. If he can stay on the field — something that opposing evaluators obviously have concerns about — Williams could contribute to Cleveland’s rotation at some point this season as well.
Summary
Cleveland’s ranking is a testament to its organizational depth. Most of the other teams in the top 10 of this list boast a no-doubt MVP level under-26 year old player. Atlanta has Ronald Acuña, Michael Harris II and Austin Riley. Seattle has Julio Rodriguez. Houston has Yordan and Kyle Tucker. Baltimore has Adley Rutschman.
But what the Guardians lack in true top-shelf talent, they make up for it with a magnificent amount of organizational depth. Few teams in baseball can tout such a symbiotic relationship between the acquisition and development side. Scouts in Cleveland know what type of clay their player-development folks like to mold from and purposefully target players accordingly.
They’ve developed a reputation for being particularly stingy with their own prospects, which is perhaps why Cleveland has never really capitalized on their stacked system to acquire an All-Star type via trade.
Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He played college baseball, poorly at first, then very well, very briefly. Jake lives in New York City where he coaches Little League and rides his bike, sometimes at the same time. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.
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