The Cleveland Guardians have spent the past couple of weeks stuck in a familiar middle ground, trading wins and losses while hanging onto the third and final AL Wild Card spot. Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins kept that pattern going, and now Cleveland heads into Sunday’s series finale trying to avoid dropping back to .500.
The bigger issue has been finding someone to grab this team by the throat and push it forward. The pitching staff has once again been the foundation, but the rotation has been uneven lately, and that has fed into the Guardians’ inconsistency over the last two weeks.
Even so, there’s one thing this group has had going for it all season: availability. Cleveland has rolled with the same rotation for most of the year, with Parker Messick, Gavin Williams, Joey Cantillo and Tanner Bibee all set to make 30-plus starts.
The fifth spot moved from Slade Cecconi to Foster Griffin at the trade deadline. Because of how young and settled that group is, a major overhaul in the near future looks unlikely.
That’s why a rumored reunion with Shane Bieber feels like such a stretch. Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com recently addressed the idea in a mailbag answer, and he didn’t exactly sound bullish on the fit.
“I’d never say never, but I think that would be a longshot. Bieber had a great career in Cleveland, but he’s had injury problems the last two years stemming from the Tommy John surgery he had with the Guardians,” Hoynes wrote.
Bieber is set to hit free agency, but his recent track record makes the picture complicated. He has made only 11 starts this season for the Toronto Blue Jays and hasn’t gotten through a full year since 2022, when he was still in Cleveland.
Since then, his last four seasons have been defined by arm issues and uneven results. That would probably keep his price tag down, but it also makes the Guardians’ interest hard to see.
Cleveland already has a rotation that figures to return next season unless the front office decides to go in a different direction, and Williams and Messick have both established themselves as two of the best young starters in the league. Cantillo and Cecconi are also trending up, while Griffin would be the one entering free agency if the team wanted to keep the door open for a return or look outside the organization.
Maybe the Guardians believe they could get Bieber back on track. But with the state of the rotation and everything Bieber has been through, this doesn’t look like a gamble Cleveland needs to make.
In Other News...
Stephen Vogt Is Giving Guardians Fans One Less Thing To Worry About
In a season that has asked plenty of Cleveland, Stephen Vogt has quietly become one less source of anxiety. Bleacher Report recently placed the Guardians manager in the highest tier of job security among MLB skippers, a reflection of how the organization views the job he has done navigating the roster and steering the pitching staff through the usual grind.
The Guardians have stayed in the mix in the postseason race, and that matters when you start talking about how much patience a front office is likely to show. Vogt has handled the challenge well enough that industry observers see his spot as secure for the foreseeable future, which lets the focus stay on the pennant chase instead of the dugout. [Read more 🡒]
Tanner Bibee Is Creating An October Decision Guardians Fans Didn't Expect
The Guardians went into the trade deadline with an eye on pitching depth, and the addition of Foster Griffin gave them seven healthy options to sort through as October approaches. That kind of surplus usually sounds like a good problem, but it also has a way of forcing hard choices, especially when one of the familiar names in the mix is Tanner Bibee. He was once viewed as a possible ace, the sort of arm a team could build around in a short series, and that still matters when the games get tighter and every inning starts to carry more weight.
Bibees recent regression has complicated the picture, with a higher ERA and more home runs allowed than the club would have hoped for from a frontline starter. Even so, his experience and ability to work deep into games make him hard to leave out of the conversation, and likely hard to leave out of the rotation entirely. For a Guardians team trying to line up its best October plan, the question is no longer whether Bibee belongs in the mix. It is where he fits, and how much trust the team is willing to place in him when the season turns. [Read more 🡒]
Guardians Bullpen Decision Puts Stephen Vogt In A Late-Season Spot
The Guardians made another late-season bullpen adjustment, optioning Franco Aleman to Triple-A Columbus and bringing Conor Brogdon back to the major league roster. It is the kind of move that usually says as much about timing as it does about performance, and in this case the timing matters with Cleveland entering a stretch where every pitching decision carries extra weight.
Aleman had recently run into trouble, with his ERA climbing and his outings not matching the club's needs, so the Guardians chose to reset the bullpen mix. Brogdon, meanwhile, gives Stephen Vogt a familiar option with major league experience after bouncing between Columbus and Cleveland earlier this season, and his role now becomes one more small but meaningful subplot as the Guardians try to navigate the games ahead. [Read more 🡒]