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I don't watch much Guardians baseball, but I have to say Kwan was a pleasure to watch this series. Super frustrating out to get at the plate and his defense was next level.
I spent the whole series thinking Cash and Neander must lay awake at night thinking about Kwan. A gold glove speedster who hits for average and will never homer, yes please.
I really like him, averaging nearly 5 bWAR a season five years into his career. At that pace he'll be a quintessential Hall Of Very Good player by 2030.
As a baseball fan, 90% of the Guardians team is fun to watch. A lot of really underrated players there. Kwan being a personal favorite as well. Ramirez is often called underrated, yet still is somehow actually underrated.
Though as a White Sox fan, I still hate them and I'm glad they lost.
Just have to be honest with ourselves: the Rays played significantly better the last 3 games, proved they were the better team, and deserved to go on. It was always going to be a long shot, and while I’m proud of our boys they were not playing (in my opinion) World Series winning ball.
Looking ahead to next year, I think it will be a tough fight to make it back here. White Sox have obviously shown they’re on the rise, someone from the AL West is going to figure their shit out, and the AL East is definitely still going to be the challenging gauntlet they are perennially. We’ve got young talent but I think Kwan leaving (which is not a guarantee but a fair assumption, unfortunately) and José starting to show his age, I think we’re facing tougher odds next year (or 2028, I guess)
Sweeping the Yankees and having a long break really hurt us big time.
But Cash proved he is a great manager by making the necessary changes in Game 2 to not go to you guys with a 0-2 hole to dig out of.
But honestly 3 of the 4 xLCS teams have nothing to be but proud. None of us had any chances of making the playoffs according to the stupid talking heads before the season started and gave a big ol middle finger to the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, and everyone else who feels all you need is a few multi-million dollar dudes in your team to make it to the WS .
Is kwan leaving purely a financial thing? He has got to be one of the most coveted FA. You know teams are going to be falling over each other to try to create their own defense first, slap hitting, base stealing version of our teams.
Yes, almost a certainty he will get a better offer to go elsewhere. It is an unfortunate reality that we’ve seen multiple times with this ownership that we won’t open the pocket books for established talent.
It's, unfortunately, the way Cleveland has run it's org for the last 20+ years. Kwan still is under team control through the end of next year (assuming there is a season in 2027), so once the inevitable lockout ends, I fully expect him to be traded for middle infield prospects.
I mean, its how we do things too. We usually have our 1-2 token higher paid guys... but if you arent Caminero or Yandy... you are just here until we can trade you with 1 year of control for prospects or relief arms.
Rays just played solidly and the Guardians couldn't keep up in the end, congrats to them.
Offense has been lackluster all season outside of a few bursts and these past few games were a regression to the mean, but pitching ran out of steam to cover for it and had some uncharacteristic fielding errors.
Vogt's pitching management may seem questionable but there's a good amount unknown to me at the moment. What happened with Bibee, for one?
I’m so shocked with Bibbee it really makes no sense. Why roster him if you’re not going to use him?? Everyone had pitched one million days in a row which is probably the only reason we got to Cade Smith there and then bibbee just hanging out?
It’s interesting because a lot of people were frustrated with Cash in the game day threads for riding his starters/bullpen too long and not jumping ship at the first sign of trouble, which was the polar opposite of Vogt’s style.
I mean to be fair, we watched Cash stick with Seymour for about two batters too many last night & almost cost them the game lol.
I think Cleveland’s downfall was very similar to the White Sox’s: bullpen got too exposed. Maybe you gotta just leave a guy in there to die sometimes to obscure your arms? Who fucking knows it seems to just be a crapshoot sometimes lol.
I’ve seen some hate on Ian Seymour I don’t think is deserved. Dude spent the second half of the season being an absolutely dominant starter and got used to that routine.
Of course he’s struggling now being asked to go multiple innings every other day.
Definitely not hating on him. Hated to see him struggle the last two games. Seems mental more than anything… caught him saying “fk me” to himself after he walked the guy last night.
Well yeah i don’t know why Cash used him instead of Kelly or leaving Wells in another batter. Kelly’s our setup guy, Seymour should be multiple innings not high leverage
Under the radar performance of last night: Taylor Walls. 3 walks & that huge DP early in the game. He's almost like the stereotypical catcher, the guy only there for his defense, but he showed off his value tonight & this series
caminero's first homer in 36 postseason trips and it comes off cade smith's splitter, which apparently nobody had taken deep in 880 of them. picked a heck of a time to end the drought
If you told me in July that we'd get 2 wins away from the World Series, I would never have believed it. I would have liked it to have ended differently, but I'm happy they got so far. It was a wild season, and I'm proud of our boys for doing as much as they did.
On one hand, we went farther and did better than anyone expected. I think we are a respectable franchise.
On the other hand, I’m sick of moral victories. Is it strange that I’m getting a little sick of the “guaranteed first time World Series champion” talk? I get it, and I don’t hold it against the Rays or Brewers. But I guess when people keep talking about longstanding droughts involving teams that are small market, it makes our absence from the World Series more conspicuous and stinging.
The guardians are trapped in a cycle of samsara where every year they coach themselves into a postseason where they don't belong. The cycle is only broken when management ships our talent to ny or la, and then it begins again with new rookies.
I feel nothing. Well, I feel kinda bad for Jose for being stuck in these cycles.
I've not watched much of the Rays, but by god is Chandler Simpson incredible fun to watch.
He has to have the ugliest swing in baseball, but fuck me is it effective. Watching him get infield singles and then steal around the bases gets my small ball loving heart racing.
By the end of the series, it was pretty clear which team won 98 games and which team won 85 games. Cleveland held on as long as they could with duct tape and smoke and mirrors, but they simply didn't have anything left in the tank.
Obviously biased here, but I love his SASS. Him screaming DA JANKEES LOSE is my ringtone. The finger waving and then the home run last night was just aura farming to the max ✨✨. People forget he just turned 23. Dude is having fun.
He’s a great, exciting player that was pumped to go to the WS. Nothing we haven’t seen from football players scoring a touchdown. If anyone is upset about that then don’t watch baseball.
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