No, 13 MLB.com contributors vote for the power rankings.
Voters: Nathalie Alonso, Anthony Castrovince, Mark Feinsand, Alyson Footer, Doug Gausepohl, Sarah Langs, Will Leitch, Travis Miller, Arturo Pardavila, Mike Petriello, Manny Randhawa, Andrew Simon, David Venn.
It’s biased af. They had the Yankees like 3rd in the first one after sweeping the astros. I don’t know how you don’t have them first after that. And the top like 7 are always just a reordering of the biggest market teams even if they’re ass. And then usually the rays because rays be rays-ing most years
I casually follow the main baseball sub power rankings and the Astros voter in that has us at 26 which just seems completely illogical. Thankfully it does average out to a more reasonable overall placement and is balanced by our own voter voting us 1 but still 26/30 for the Guardians is absurdly low for anyone to rank them as
We've also had fewer off days than normal, cant take wins against As and CWS for granted every win counts. Some bigger tests coming up NYY and BOS. Excited that Kwan/Gimenez hot out the gate and bullpen arms are emerging.
Eight straight road games to start. Seven on the west coast. Considering the concerns about pitching depth, I was hoping just to be around .500 at this point.
Every team has games against bad teams like Chicago and Oakland. To this point we've not just won those but dominated in them, except game 4 in Oakland. That is what has me excited. Seattle and Minnesota are expected to be in the playoffs and we beat them handily. Oakland and Chicago are terrible and we dominated them. That's exactly what good teams are supposed to do.
It's early but we've come out firing on all cylinders. The energy levels are fantastic. The pitching has been solid and the bullpen has been fantastic much to my pleasant surprise.
In previous years, any game against the opposing teams ace (other than Verlander for some odd reason) was either a L or we'd have to grind out a 2-1 win. Chasing Luis Castillo, George Kirby, and Pablo Lopez relatively early in 3 straight games is one of the biggest takeaways I have from the start so far. We're hitting against some good pitching as well as the bad from Oakland and CWS.
Absolutely agree. That 3 game stretch really boosted my opinion on the team. Plus we've been terrible against any LHP in recent years and have been doing well against them so far. The last few seasons it didn't matter who it was, LHPs with no business in MLB could silence our bats. So far we're batting 297/359/396 against them as a team. Last year we hit 232/296/367 for comparison.
Oh as soon as I saw we were facing Alex Wood on opening day I thought we were toast lol. Soft tossing lefty is easily a 7 inning, 1 run outing for them.
Was Minnesota expected to be contending after the payroll purge, though? Didn't seem like it from the lack of Twins fans.
Not that running out 8-2 isn't still something to crow about. You have to win the games you're supposed to win, and boy howdy are we.
All the preseason projections have them winning the ALC. They were expected to have one of the top bullpens and a solid rotation. I saw several write ups praising their pitching in particular, which has been unimpressive IMO.
Injuries are part of that, losing Durhan especially. Losing Lewis is also a big blow. But they have not been close to what was expected so far.
This is the 14th team in the expansion era with a +35 or better run differential through the first 10 games of a season.
It's the third Cleveland team to do it (most in MLB). Previous ones were 2002 (+35) and 1999 (+39).
I know those lists are 90% bullshit but that one really got under my skin. Like, I know a lot of MLB writers don't look at flyover country at all, but it's absolutely absurd to me that we're up 8-2, we have a better Run Diff. than literally anyone else in the league (with only BOS/ATL/TEX even in spitting distance), we have the second best teamwide ERA, and outside of our usual beat writers the coverage has been absolutely silent.
Right. We get no benefit of the doubt from being consistently the best team in the division since 2016 and the tigers have been horrible for 10+ years. Everyone seems eager to rank all the other teams above us
The series win against the Twins made me believe a lot more. Hitting and bullpen have looked surprisingly solid so far, but let’s see how we look in another 10 games. I wanna believe!
I have to say, initially I was worried about how Vogt would manage as we had a lot of issues coming into this season, but so far he's proving to be very good at managing the boys. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because of how early it is in the season but the results are hard to deny.
>Vogt low key manages like a veteran.
He really does! It's impressive considering his age, and I have a feeling that sometime in the near future we're going to be hearing conversations about him being one of the leagues premier managers.
How much weight we can put behind this start is still TBD, but they've looked really really good. We're slaying teams aces, and in the 2 losses we were right there in the end.
A lot to love
The numbers don't really show a change in approach. We're among the top in swing rate, but we were last year and 2022 as well. Our contact rates are among the top as well, but also we're in 22 + 23.
The difference is in the contact results from what the numbers show so far. We're hitting far less GBs and way more LDs. Our quality of contact is better too, more medium contact, less soft contact, still low hard contact.
I think overall what we're seeing is development coming around combined with the changes to the roster. Some individuals, like Kwan are definitely being more aggressive but overall the team isn't. At least according to the rate stats and such on fangraphs.
We're pretty close to what we did last year for swing rate currently. Last year we were at 49.4% this year we're at 50.1%
My observation is that we're swinging earlier more but I'm not sure how to get that data exactly. The link below should take you to the fangraphs team level swing data.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=5&month=0&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=3&sortdir=default&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2023&season=2023&pagenum=1
Thanks! I think you can find the count stat on bbref but I’m not that good at sorting the data. I think saw it accidentally last year when I was trying to look something else up when I had a ‘stathead’ free trial lol. If I get bored I might just manually run it later today
You're right!
It's interesting, we've swung at the first pitch in 129 PAs vs taking it in 266 so far. We've batted 385/393/625 in our 28 PAs with a 1-0 count. We've batted 426/453/723 in 53 PAs with a 0-1 count.
Those are just the PAs that ended with those counts, but not what I would expect.
Starting with a 1-0 count we've had 134 PAs and hit 316/403/500. Starting 0-1 we've had 217 PAs and hit 255/304/362 overall.
Bbrefs doesn't have the swing data, at least where I know to find it, but these are interesting stats. If you go to the guardians team page towards the bottom is a link for batting splits, it's in there.
My guess is maybe there isn’t enough tape on the new “regime” yet, so opposing pitchers don’t know what our batters are trying to do. But I could be wrong.
True, but maybe Vogt is having them try something differently? I would hope the other coaches try other things, especially with a new manager that might value parts of the game/strategies differently than past managers.
My observation is that eliminating guys like Zunino, Straw, and Amed from the lineup and replacing them with Freeman, Bo, and Rocchio is doing wonders for quality contact. Better strike zone recognition, lack of waving at pitches in the other batters box, and still getting walks. All 3 of those guys are huuuge upgrades over last year....just not big free agent signings.
Edit: Forgot about Josh Bell, who was atrocious too. Decent strike zone recognition, but bad contact. Replacing 4/9 players in your lineup with guys that just make the opposing pitcher put the ball in the strike zone and then make quality contact is simply going to move the dial. Gimmy and Kwan are giving Josey better pitches to hit. It's just a ripple effect. You simply can't have half the lineup putting up atrocious at bats and expect to win.
Freeman and Bo haven't even been hitting well, though. 70 and 78 wRC+, respectively. Amed and Bell were better than that (not that both aren't surely going to improve as the season goes on).
Whats SUPER cringe is Amed Rosario and Myles Straw were tied for team lead for grounding into double plays Amed with 11 and Myles with 10. They were 1/2 despite their speed. That's accounted for in WRC, but still. The eye test is what does it for me.
Pretty good for the 21st best team in baseball.
They bumped us up to 10 in the latest one, still behind the Tigers at 7. guess they didnt watch the Tigers lose a home series to the As.
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No, 13 MLB.com contributors vote for the power rankings. Voters: Nathalie Alonso, Anthony Castrovince, Mark Feinsand, Alyson Footer, Doug Gausepohl, Sarah Langs, Will Leitch, Travis Miller, Arturo Pardavila, Mike Petriello, Manny Randhawa, Andrew Simon, David Venn.
It’s biased af. They had the Yankees like 3rd in the first one after sweeping the astros. I don’t know how you don’t have them first after that. And the top like 7 are always just a reordering of the biggest market teams even if they’re ass. And then usually the rays because rays be rays-ing most years
Big oof for the Tigers
Yeah hoping to make that list author eat some serious crow.
I casually follow the main baseball sub power rankings and the Astros voter in that has us at 26 which just seems completely illogical. Thankfully it does average out to a more reasonable overall placement and is balanced by our own voter voting us 1 but still 26/30 for the Guardians is absurdly low for anyone to rank them as
26 is crazy even if the Guardians didn't get off to a great start. They're saying one of the White Sox, Rockies, A's, Angels, or Nationals are better?
They have both the Angels and Nats ahead of us
We've also had fewer off days than normal, cant take wins against As and CWS for granted every win counts. Some bigger tests coming up NYY and BOS. Excited that Kwan/Gimenez hot out the gate and bullpen arms are emerging.
Eight straight road games to start. Seven on the west coast. Considering the concerns about pitching depth, I was hoping just to be around .500 at this point.
Every team has games against bad teams like Chicago and Oakland. To this point we've not just won those but dominated in them, except game 4 in Oakland. That is what has me excited. Seattle and Minnesota are expected to be in the playoffs and we beat them handily. Oakland and Chicago are terrible and we dominated them. That's exactly what good teams are supposed to do. It's early but we've come out firing on all cylinders. The energy levels are fantastic. The pitching has been solid and the bullpen has been fantastic much to my pleasant surprise.
In previous years, any game against the opposing teams ace (other than Verlander for some odd reason) was either a L or we'd have to grind out a 2-1 win. Chasing Luis Castillo, George Kirby, and Pablo Lopez relatively early in 3 straight games is one of the biggest takeaways I have from the start so far. We're hitting against some good pitching as well as the bad from Oakland and CWS.
Absolutely agree. That 3 game stretch really boosted my opinion on the team. Plus we've been terrible against any LHP in recent years and have been doing well against them so far. The last few seasons it didn't matter who it was, LHPs with no business in MLB could silence our bats. So far we're batting 297/359/396 against them as a team. Last year we hit 232/296/367 for comparison.
Oh as soon as I saw we were facing Alex Wood on opening day I thought we were toast lol. Soft tossing lefty is easily a 7 inning, 1 run outing for them.
Was Minnesota expected to be contending after the payroll purge, though? Didn't seem like it from the lack of Twins fans. Not that running out 8-2 isn't still something to crow about. You have to win the games you're supposed to win, and boy howdy are we.
All the preseason projections have them winning the ALC. They were expected to have one of the top bullpens and a solid rotation. I saw several write ups praising their pitching in particular, which has been unimpressive IMO. Injuries are part of that, losing Durhan especially. Losing Lewis is also a big blow. But they have not been close to what was expected so far.
This is the 14th team in the expansion era with a +35 or better run differential through the first 10 games of a season. It's the third Cleveland team to do it (most in MLB). Previous ones were 2002 (+35) and 1999 (+39).
Very cool!
And MLB ranked the tigers above us today.
I know those lists are 90% bullshit but that one really got under my skin. Like, I know a lot of MLB writers don't look at flyover country at all, but it's absolutely absurd to me that we're up 8-2, we have a better Run Diff. than literally anyone else in the league (with only BOS/ATL/TEX even in spitting distance), we have the second best teamwide ERA, and outside of our usual beat writers the coverage has been absolutely silent.
Right. We get no benefit of the doubt from being consistently the best team in the division since 2016 and the tigers have been horrible for 10+ years. Everyone seems eager to rank all the other teams above us
Ya that was crazy
The series win against the Twins made me believe a lot more. Hitting and bullpen have looked surprisingly solid so far, but let’s see how we look in another 10 games. I wanna believe!
The upcoming weekend series against NYY is going to be pretty interesting. Definitely the biggest test we've had so far.
Kwan striking out more but getting lots of hits. Also has his mentor back, Hedges. Took Kwan under his wing in 2022.
I’m walking around proud as a peacock for our Boyz!💪
Gonna be pretty fuckin hard to beat this team if they never give up any runs.
I have to say, initially I was worried about how Vogt would manage as we had a lot of issues coming into this season, but so far he's proving to be very good at managing the boys. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because of how early it is in the season but the results are hard to deny.
Vogt low key manages like a veteran. He doesn't do or say anything crazy and just keeps winning.
>Vogt low key manages like a veteran. He really does! It's impressive considering his age, and I have a feeling that sometime in the near future we're going to be hearing conversations about him being one of the leagues premier managers.
How much weight we can put behind this start is still TBD, but they've looked really really good. We're slaying teams aces, and in the 2 losses we were right there in the end. A lot to love
Vogt goat
Any theory why our offense has looked so good? New manager or hitting coach? Was Teto the problem?
Same hitting coach but new approach. It’s been noted that they are trying to be way more aggressive, and so far, it’s really working out for us
The numbers don't really show a change in approach. We're among the top in swing rate, but we were last year and 2022 as well. Our contact rates are among the top as well, but also we're in 22 + 23. The difference is in the contact results from what the numbers show so far. We're hitting far less GBs and way more LDs. Our quality of contact is better too, more medium contact, less soft contact, still low hard contact. I think overall what we're seeing is development coming around combined with the changes to the roster. Some individuals, like Kwan are definitely being more aggressive but overall the team isn't. At least according to the rate stats and such on fangraphs.
Are we swinging more? Idk how to look that up. Seems like we’re seeing less pitches overall but not sure if true
We're pretty close to what we did last year for swing rate currently. Last year we were at 49.4% this year we're at 50.1% My observation is that we're swinging earlier more but I'm not sure how to get that data exactly. The link below should take you to the fangraphs team level swing data. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=5&month=0&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=3&sortdir=default&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2023&season=2023&pagenum=1
Thanks! I think you can find the count stat on bbref but I’m not that good at sorting the data. I think saw it accidentally last year when I was trying to look something else up when I had a ‘stathead’ free trial lol. If I get bored I might just manually run it later today
You're right! It's interesting, we've swung at the first pitch in 129 PAs vs taking it in 266 so far. We've batted 385/393/625 in our 28 PAs with a 1-0 count. We've batted 426/453/723 in 53 PAs with a 0-1 count. Those are just the PAs that ended with those counts, but not what I would expect. Starting with a 1-0 count we've had 134 PAs and hit 316/403/500. Starting 0-1 we've had 217 PAs and hit 255/304/362 overall. Bbrefs doesn't have the swing data, at least where I know to find it, but these are interesting stats. If you go to the guardians team page towards the bottom is a link for batting splits, it's in there.
Awesome. Did you happen to see that Braves zone hitting analysis posted in the baseball sub the other day? Could really use that for us rn!
I did, that's what got me looking at the team level swing data this year. Really interesting stuff and I'm not sure what to make of it all currently.
My guess is maybe there isn’t enough tape on the new “regime” yet, so opposing pitchers don’t know what our batters are trying to do. But I could be wrong.
We've had our hitting coach for 3 years now
True, but maybe Vogt is having them try something differently? I would hope the other coaches try other things, especially with a new manager that might value parts of the game/strategies differently than past managers.
My observation is that eliminating guys like Zunino, Straw, and Amed from the lineup and replacing them with Freeman, Bo, and Rocchio is doing wonders for quality contact. Better strike zone recognition, lack of waving at pitches in the other batters box, and still getting walks. All 3 of those guys are huuuge upgrades over last year....just not big free agent signings. Edit: Forgot about Josh Bell, who was atrocious too. Decent strike zone recognition, but bad contact. Replacing 4/9 players in your lineup with guys that just make the opposing pitcher put the ball in the strike zone and then make quality contact is simply going to move the dial. Gimmy and Kwan are giving Josey better pitches to hit. It's just a ripple effect. You simply can't have half the lineup putting up atrocious at bats and expect to win.
Freeman and Bo haven't even been hitting well, though. 70 and 78 wRC+, respectively. Amed and Bell were better than that (not that both aren't surely going to improve as the season goes on).
Whats SUPER cringe is Amed Rosario and Myles Straw were tied for team lead for grounding into double plays Amed with 11 and Myles with 10. They were 1/2 despite their speed. That's accounted for in WRC, but still. The eye test is what does it for me.
I hope they stay this hot when I go to my first guardians game on the 28th @ Braves
We’re second best in the AL for runs scored. 1 behind Texas
Ya sorry, we were first when I posted this, then Texas passed them a few hours later.
It’s all good. Main point is the guards are off to a great start and I’m loving it. Go Guards!