Cleveland Guardians Blasted for Contentious Offseason Moves

The Cleveland Guardians were very active during the MLB offseason, but not in the way that their fans wanted. Instead of making moves to improve their roster, the Guardians traded away some significant pieces in spite of winning the AL Central and making it all the way to the ALCS last year.

Perhaps the most notable move Cleveland made was jettisoning All-Star first baseman Josh Naylor to the Arizona Diamondbacks for pitcher Slade Cecconi, and the Guardians' decision to trade both Naylor and Myles Straw has been named Cleveland's most regrettable moves of the offseason, especially taking into account who the Guardians added.

"The actual series of events here was trading Josh Naylor to Arizona for Slade Cecconi, signing Carlos Santana a few days later, trading Myles Straw to Toronto for a player to be named later and signing Paul Sewald a few days later," wrote Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller. "As far as the balance sheet is concerned, though, it might as well have been a straight two-for-two swap, the combined outgoing salaries ($17.3M) almost equal to the incoming costs ($18M)."

While Santana has come on of late, he has struggled overall, and Sewald — who had dealt with injury issues before arriving in Cleveland — is already sidelined.

"For their trouble, Santana has given the Guardians an OPS 180 points below what Naylor is doing in Arizona, Sewald had a 6.14 ERA before landing on the IL and Straw has been worth 0.9 bWAR in Toronto while the Guardians outfield (save for Steven Kwan) has been a trainwreck," Miller added.

Cleveland is a respectable 26-22 on the season, but the Guardians are well off where they were at this time last spring, and they are playing in a very competitive division in which the Detroit Tigers hold a six-game lead over them (five in the loss column).

Naylor has been terrific with the Diamondbacks, and while it's hard to fault Cleveland for giving up on Straw, he has certainly been impressive with the Blue Jays.

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