{"id":215326,"date":"2025-10-10T22:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215326\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T22:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:31:07","slug":"four-former-cleveland-guardians-headed-to-alcs-with-toronto-blue-jays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215326\/","title":{"rendered":"Four former Cleveland Guardians headed to ALCS with Toronto Blue Jays"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays advanced to the ALCS <\/a>for the first time since losing to the Cleveland Indians in 2016. The 2025 Jays secured the No. 1 seed in the American League and a first round bye before defeating the New York Yankees in four games. <\/p>\n

Amongst those celebrating for Toronto were four former Cleveland players; Ernie Clement, Myles Straw, Andres Gimenez and Shane Bieber. Let’s take a look at each of their performances and how it compares to their time in Cleveland. <\/p>\n

Ernie Clement <\/p>\n

Clement was a 2017 fourth round draft pick by Cleveland and made his debut in 2021. Spending the majority of his playing time as a utility infielder, Clement slashed .214\/.273\/.548 in parts of two years for Cleveland, before being designated for assignment in 2022. This season Clement is enjoying a career year, posting a 4.3 WAR (more than 50 percent of his career total), and was dominant in the ALDS series against the Yankees <\/a>going 9-14 with a homer and 5 RBI.<\/p>\n

Myles Straw<\/p>\n

Straw came to Cleveland in a 2021 deadline deal for Phil Maton and Yainer Diaz, before signing a five-year $25 million dollar contract extension in 2022. A defense first outfielder, Straw<\/a> across four years in Cleveland slashed .240\/.308\/.610 before being traded to Toronto this past offseason. Straw has been enjoying a nice bounce back season, and although seeing limited playing time in the ALDS got his revenge against the Yankees driving in a clutch RBI in Game 4.<\/p>\n

Andres Gimenez<\/p>\n

Gimenez was a piece of the return for the Francisco Lindor trade in 2020, and was a three time Gold Glove winner at second base for Cleveland and slashed .261\/.321\/.714 across his four years as a Guardian. Following a trade<\/a> to Toronto for Luis Ortiz and Spencer Horwitz this offseason, he has had a down year however, including hitting just .197 in the second half. <\/p>\n

Shane Bieber<\/p>\n

And last but certainly not least, the most recent Guardian to fly north of the border, Shane Bieber. Bieber was brilliant across seven seasons in Cleveland compiling, a Cy Young victory, a pitching triple crown, two All-Star Game appearances, including winning the 2019 All Star Game MVP at home, and nearly a league MVP in his brilliant 2020 campaign. <\/p>\n

With the Guardians record, and losing two pitchers to gambling allegations at the deadline Bieber was dealt to Toronto where he went 4-2 with a 3.57 ERA over his seven starts. Although his Game 3 start against the Yankees was a little subpar Bieber will certainly help Toronto in the ALCS and the World Series should they get there. <\/p>\n

With so many former Cleveland players on their roster, it’s hard for fans not to imagine what might have been, and rooting for the Blue Jays to win it all this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays advanced to the ALCS for the first time since losing to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-215326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}