{"id":360735,"date":"2025-12-20T22:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360735\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T22:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:26:11","slug":"are-guardians-keeping-up-with-their-al-central-neighbors-the-week-in-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/360735\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Guardians keeping up with their AL Central neighbors? The week in baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 There\u2019s still a lot of offseason left for the Guardians. The voluntary spring-training reporting date to Goodyear, Arizona for pitchers, catchers and injured players is Feb. 10. Participants in the World Baseball Classic will probably report a few days earlier.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s time for the Guardians to add to the team that won the AL Central on the last day of the regular season with an 88-74 record.<\/p>\n

Presently, they\u2019ve been focusing on the bullpen. They\u2019ve already added relievers Shawn Armstrong, Connor Brogdon, Colin Holderman, Justin Bruihl and Rule 5 pick Peyton Pallette. Chris Antonetti, president of baseball operations, felt the pen needed to get stronger and the Guardians are trying to make it so.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like the pen was a weakness. Cleveland relievers finished tied for the second most saves (47), third best ERA (3.44) and threw the second fewest innings in the big leagues last year. But the potential loss of closer Emmanuel Clase, scheduled to go to trial in May after being indicted for fixing pitches during games, was something the front office couldn\u2019t ignore.<\/p>\n

In the weeks to come, they are expected to turn their attention to a run-starved offense while still giving their top prospects enough at-bats to prove, or disprove, they belong in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rest of the AL Central has been busy.<\/p>\n

\"ClevelandRight-hander Jack Flaherty will be back with the Tigers in 2026.Joshua Gunter, cleveland.comWhat about the Tigers<\/p>\n

In Detroit, the Tigers have been concentrating on pitching. They signed right-hander Drew Anderson after he spent the last two years in Korea. He\u2019s in line to join Tarik Skubal, if he\u2019s not traded, Jack Flaherty and Casey Mize in the rotation.<\/p>\n

The Tigers faltered in the regular season, squandering a 15 1\/2 game lead to let the Guardians catch and pass them. They rebounded nicely in the postseason to eliminate the Guardians in the wild-card series.<\/p>\n

The players apparently still feel that vibe. Flaherty exercised his $20 million player option for 2026, while second baseman Gleyber Torres accepted the $22.025 million qualifying offer to stay with the Tigers for 2026.<\/p>\n

In the bullpen, the Tigers signed veteran closer Kenley Jansen, who has 476 saves, to a one-year deal with a club option. They also re-signed Kyle Finnegan, who came over from Washington in a deadline deal last season.<\/p>\n

\"ClevelandThe Royals signed former Cleveland outfielder Lane Thomas to a one-year, $5.25 million deal for 2026.John Kuntz, cleveland.comWhat about the Royals<\/p>\n

Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City made the postseason in 2024. Last season the Royals slipped to 82-80 and failed to qualify.<\/p>\n

Royals GM J.J. Picollo has spent the offseason looking to improve Kansas City\u2019s offense, which was almost as bad as Cleveland\u2019s. The Royals finished 26th in runs, while the Guardians finished 28th last season among MLB\u2019s 30 teams.<\/p>\n

Picollo turned his attention to the outfield. He traded lefty Angel Zerpa to Milwaukee for outfielder Isaac Collins and right-hander Nick Means. Collins, a switch-hitter, can play left and right field and some infield. He slashed .263\/.368\/.411 last season to help the Brewers finish with the best record in the big leagues.<\/p>\n

Picollo also signed former Guardians outfielder Lane Thomas to a one-year $5.25 million deal. Thomas played 39 games for the Guardians last season because of a bruised right wrist and plantar fasciitis that required season-ending surgery.<\/p>\n

The Milwaukee trade left the Royals in need for a left-handed reliever. Picollo replaced Zerpa by acquiring Matt Strahm from the Phillies for right-hander Jonathan Bowlan.<\/p>\n

The Royals also gave All-Star third baseman Maikel Garcia a five-year, $57 million extension.<\/p>\n

\"DerekDerek Falvey, Twins president of baseball operations.Getty ImagesWhat about the Twins<\/p>\n

The Twins are getting a late start on the offseason after the Pohlad family, who have owned the team for over 40 years, brought in minority ownership. The Twins traded just about every player that wasn\u2019t nailed down at the deadline last season to save money.<\/p>\n

Derek Falvey, president of baseball operations, just recently received word from ownership that he would not have to trade the Twins\u2019 remaining high-priced players and could add to the roster. In fact, they just signed switch-hitting free agent Josh Bell to a one-year $7 million deal.<\/p>\n

Just how much Falvey will have to spend the rest of the winter is unclear. The Twins, however, did win the third pick in the draft lottery at the winter meetings.<\/p>\n

\"willManager Will Venable and the White Sox have the No.1 pick in the 2026 draft.APWhat about the White Sox<\/p>\n

The White Sox, speaking of draft lotteries, won the No.1. pick for 2026. It\u2019s the third time in the last three years that an AL Central team has won the No.1 pick. The Guardians won it in 2024.<\/p>\n

Chicago, despite losing more than 100 games in each of the last three years, seems to be moving in the right direction. They\u2019ve done a lot of work with their rotation that keeps getting deeper and deeper.<\/p>\n

Lefty Anthony Katz returned from Japan to sign a two-year $12 million deal, while they selected two pitchers in the big-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft in Jedixson Paez and Alex Alberto.<\/p>\n

It could be challenging to keep them both on the 26-man roster all season, but the 2024 Rule 5 Draft, they selected Shane Smith, who made 29 starts for them last season to become a big part of the rotation.<\/p>\n

In another unique move, second year manager Will Venable has added seven new coaches to his staff this offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 There\u2019s still a lot of offseason left for the Guardians. The voluntary spring-training reporting date…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[76875,363,99,178048],"class_list":{"0":"post-360735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-cleveland-guardians-2025","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-toronto-blue-jays-2025"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360735","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=360735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}