The Guardians are open to trade offers on first baseman Josh Naylor and outfielder Lane Thomas, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. It’s unclear at this point which teams may be involved or if substantial offers have already been received.
The fact that the players are potentially available is not surprising. At the end of October, just as the offseason was getting going, MLBTR put both on our list of potential trade candidates for this winter. Like many lower-spending clubs, the Guardians are generally willing to consider trades of players as they get more expensive and their window of club control shrinks. These two players are just one year away from free agency, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projecting Naylor for a $12MM salary and Thomas for $8.3MM.
Those are perfectly acceptable prices for those players but considering trades at this juncture is how clubs like the Guardians, Rays and Brewers operate. By consistently trading a year or two of a solid but somewhat expensive player for younger, cheaper and more controllable alternatives, the organizations stay continually well stocked with talent. That allows the clubs to stay fairly consistently competitive despite a lack of spending in free agency. The Guards have gone down this path before with players like Francisco Lindor, Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber and others in previous years.
Naylor, 28 in June, has been a consistent spark in the Cleveland lineup for three years now. He doesn’t walk a ton but avoids strikeouts and has popped at least 17 home runs in each of the past three campaigns, including 31 in the most recent season. He has a combined .267/.330/.465 batting line over those three years for a 121 wRC+, indicating he was 21% better than league average in that stretch.
Defensively, the metrics have been fairly kind to him overall. With almost 3,000 innings of first base work under his belt, he’s produced 10 Outs Above Average. His mark of -4 Defensive Runs Saved is obviously less impressive but that metric had him above average before a -6 grade in 2024, which might be an odd outlier.
Putting the offense and defense together, plus a few steals here and there, Naylor has been worth about two or three wins above replacement per year in that stretch. For his salary, that should give him plenty of appeal this offseason.
The free agent market features some big-name first basemen like Pete Alonso, Christian Walker and Paul Goldschmidt, but each of those will be costly. Alonso and…
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