Guardians' Top Addition Lands Scathing Prediction for 2025

The Cleveland Guardians definitely puzzled their fan base with one of their biggest moves this offseason, trading first baseman Josh Naylor to the Arizona Diamondbacks and then replacing him with old friend Carlos Santana.

Santana actually had a solid year with the Minnesota Twins in 2024, slashing .238/.328/.420 with 23 home runs and 71 RBI. He also won a Gold Glove for his work at first base.

But here's the thing: Santana turns 39 years old in April, so a significant regression could be coming.

Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs recently ran ZiPS projections for each Guardians player in 2025, and his model seems to indicate that Santana is indeed due for a decline.

Santana is being predicted to slash just .219/.315/.374 with 16 homers and 57 RBI. That's good for a .689 OPS, which is well below the .776 OPS Naylor posted last season.

It's also important to keep in mind that between 2020 and 2022, Santana registered sub-.700 OPSes each year before finally bumping it up to .747 in 2023.

The question is whether or not Santana rediscovered something with his mechanics that allowed him to log respectable numbers the past couple of seasons, because this is certainly appears to be a risky move by a Cleveland squad that just made the ALCS.

Of course, Guardians fans are very familiar with Santana, who is now heading into his third stint in Cleveland. He broke into the bigs with the club back in 2010 and spent the first eight years of his career with the Guardians before bouncing back and forth since.

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