SCOTTSDALE, AZ — The Cleveland Guardians are one of baseball's most fascinating teams. In similar fashion to many small-market ball clubs in the MLB world, Cleveland often sits back and watches the heavy-spenders go head-to-head in free agency. Plenty of analysts and prediction-makers consistently count the Guardians out in spring training. And then, like clockwork, the Guards often end up in the postseason nonetheless. So, how do the Guardians keep winning without spending big in MLB free agency?
Guardians general manager Mike Chernoff does not have as much financial room to work with as compared to big-market teams' GMs. He's done a phenomenal job, however. Chernoff does not take all of the credit, though.
During Spring Training Media Day in Arizona, Chernoff explained the Guardians' approach to building a contender.
“In today's economic system in Major League Baseball, we can't compete in free agency. So, we have to do things very differently,” Chernoff told ClutchPoints. “And I understand that in an offseason, we may not be the team that wins an offseason. But our scouts, and our analysts, and our coaches, are second to none. And that group works so hard to make sure that the guys are just consistently improving, and that's what it comes down to.
“We have to win with our own players. We know who we are. We've put all of our effort in developing those guys, and we've been, you know, really fortunate that we, you know, won, whatever, six division titles in the past, whatever, decade or something like that. Postseason seven out of 10 years. Yeah, but we know we have to do it very differently.”
The Cleveland Pitching Factory?
Another thing the Guardians do well? Develop starting pitching. There's a reason they've been called the “Cleveland Pitching Factory” in the past.
“To me, it's a combination of all of the factors,” Chernoff said of the Guardians' pitching development. “I think our group, our pitching group, is so collaborative. And it has to be a joint effort. You have to be acquiring players that you feel like you can develop and have that upside. I think our scouts and our analysts do a great job of helping to do that.
“But that transition is seamless, you know, our coaching group is very involved in the acquisition process… As soon as a guy gets here, we know that player inside and out, and we meet them where they are. We hit the ground running. We have a great group of coaches that finds a way to get the best out of players.”
Guardians don't pay attention to outside noise
As mentioned, the Guardians are not always included among the top contenders in preseason predictions. One may imagine that Cleveland uses that as motivation. Manager Stephen Vogt explained that the ball club simply attempts to tune out the outside noise, however.
“I don't know if it puts a chip on our shoulder. We try really hard not to pay attention to that,” Vogt told ClutchPoints. “We focus on us. We know that we have an objective, that's to go out every night and win. Chris (Antonetti, Cleveland's president of baseball operations), Mike, they've built this organization to win… Obviously taking over for somebody like Tito (Terry Francona), you just pick up where they left off.
“You just try to get better every day. Our group does such a great job… We're worried about us. We're not worried about anything outside of us. I'm thankful that our players are like that.”
The Detroit Tigers had a big offseason. The Kansas City Royals have steadily improved. Many of the experts are already taking those teams over the Guardians in the American League Central.
Will history repeat itself once again? Only time will tell, but it would not be surprising to see Cleveland playing meaningful baseball in October once again in 2026.
