Heston Kjerstad was once the kind of name that kept popping up in Cleveland trade chatter for a simple reason: the power was real, and Guardians fans could see the fit.
Back in 2022, when Cleveland was starting to look like a contender and Travis Bazzana was finishing his freshman season at Oregon State, Kjerstad was still one of the Orioles’ most intriguing prospects. He was the No. 6 prospect in Baltimore’s system, per MLB Pipeline, and even before he had made his MLB debut, his bat had already made him a regular topic in Northeast Ohio. The idea of a deal sending him to the Guardians seemed to surface constantly.
That version of Kjerstad, though, is a long way from where things stand now.
On Monday, he became a free agent after the Orioles granted him his release once he cleared waivers. It doesn’t necessarily close the door on his major league future, but it does mark a quiet and disappointing end to his time in Baltimore.
Kjerstad’s fall is hard to ignore for a player who was once viewed as a consensus top-40 prospect in baseball and part of the Orioles’ next wave. The production never matched the pedigree. In 117 big league games, he hit .217/.280/.359, and injuries kept interrupting whatever momentum he might have built.
The No. 2 pick in the 2020 draft, Kjerstad didn’t even make his organizational debut with Baltimore until 2022 because of myocarditis. That same issue pushed back his big league debut until 2023. The injury problems kept coming after that, too: he missed spring training in 2025 with an unspecified injury and sat out all of April this season because of a hamstring strain.
He spent nearly all of 2026 at Triple-A, where he put up a .289/.337/.462 line. Over 238 career Triple-A games, he owns an .834 OPS.
There’s still a chance another team takes a shot, but Kjerstad could also go unclaimed on waivers. He’s out of options, and after a middling season, that makes the path forward less certain.
For the Guardians, though, that uncertainty could open a door. A minor league contract would give them a low-risk chance to add outfield depth for 2027, and Kjerstad would be the kind of insurance piece that makes sense if Cleveland decides to trade Steven Kwan or Jo Adell, or if injuries hit the group.
The Guardians’ outfield picture already includes Chase DeLauter, Steven Kwan, Jo Adell, Petey Halpin and Angel Martínez, but Kjerstad would give them another layer of protection. And if Cleveland can keep finding value in overlooked arms, bringing in a once-hyped bat like Kjerstad would be a chance to extend that same formula to the lineup.
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The timing of the vote helps explain the disconnect, since ballots were submitted before the postseason and did not account for Clevelands comeback in the ALDS. Still, leaving Vogt off the finalist list gives Guardians fans another reason to revisit how much weight should be placed on a regular season that ended with the division crown and a manager who has already built a strong case as one of the leagues best. [Read more 🡒]