"Swing and a high fly ball, left field, way back, ball game!"
Cleveland Guardians fans may have assumed they were watching one of the key members of the outfield for years to come when they heard Jon Sciambi call Oscar Gonzalez's walk-off home run against the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2022 ALWS.
However, it's been almost a year since this play happened and there are many more questions than answers regarding his role with the team.
Gonzalez hit the ground running in his rookie year as he had a slash line of .296/.327/.461 in his first Big League season. His production along with a loveable walk-up song quickly made Spongebob a fan favorite.
But year two was not kind to the playoff hero.
Oscar began the season with the Major League club but was optioned to Triple-A after a rough start. He played well and showed progress with the Columbus Clippers hitting .275 with an OPS of .789 over 65 games. This was good enough to be called back up to the team for the final two months of the season.
Gonzalez had a nice stretch through the first two weeks of August However, there's still one main flaw holding his game back. That's the plate discipline.
Oscar swings at a lot of pitches. Opposing pitchers know this which is why he has a K% of 25.1 percent this season. His Whiff% of 35.1 percent on offspeed pitches and a K% of 56.3 on curves are eye-popping statistics.
This isn't a new issue for Gonzalez either. He had a strikeout rate of 19.6 percent in 2022 as well. The only difference was he was also making a lot more contact and got on base when he put the ball in play (.345 BABIP) in a lineup that made a lot of contact.
Gonzalez holds a number of fond memories in the hearts of fans and is a very likable player. However, his inconsistency and struggles at the plate are hard to overlook when it comes down to it.
Cleveland has a number of questions to answer this upcoming offseason and one of them will be whether Oscar has a future spot on their roster.
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