The Guardians’ offense has been fighting uphill for weeks, and Steven Kwan has become one of the biggest reasons why the climb has felt so steep. Cleveland has dealt with a wave of injuries, Chase DeLauter has returned from the IL and given the lineup a lift, but Angel Martinez and Jose Ramirez are still out, leaving the rest of the order to carry the load.
Kwan, though, has not been able to supply the kind of production the Guardians need. Stephen Vogt has dropped him to ninth in the lineup, and the move hasn’t sparked much of a turnaround. His OPS has fallen in each of the last three months, bottoming out at .539 in June, even if he did close the month with six hits over his last seven games.
Mike Petriello of MLB.com pointed to the clearest issue during an appearance on 92.3 The Fan: Kwan’s bat speed has slipped to a level that’s hard to ignore. That was never the strongest part of his game, but Petriello said it has now fallen among the lowest in baseball, and that’s showing up in the quality of contact.
“Even at his best, he was never a bat speed monster. The problem I see here with him is that the bat speed has dropped even more.
He’s coming close to a 60-mile-an-hour bat speed, when the best guys are in the 80s. I have to feel like there is a floor here where if you drop below that floor, you just cannot be a successful major league hitter.
I worry that he’s getting close to it,” Petriello said.
The numbers around Kwan’s season fit that concern. Beyond walks, the rest of his offensive line has collapsed, and he has only one homer and nine doubles. He has also swiped just three bases, another sign that his game has not been able to provide the usual spark.
For a player who has spent so much time in a slump, the uncomfortable question is whether this is simply what Kwan is now. The Guardians may have to plan around that possibility.
His defense remains elite, but the bat is the issue, and it is a serious one. There have been a few small signs of life lately, yet the bat-speed decline Petriello described is the kind of warning light that is hard to dismiss.
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In a recent win over the Rangers, Hedges added his second home run of the season and helped drive in a run earlier in the game, another sign that the bat is no longer just a bonus for the Guardians. His progress has come from steady work on his swing and approach, and while the larger story around his offense still feels like it is unfolding, the early return is enough to make Cleveland take a second look at a player it has long trusted for very different reasons. [Read more 🡒]
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Ralphy Velazquez has surged this season all the way to Columbus and now sits atop MLB Pipelines first-base rankings, while Cooper Ingle has turned a strong run in the International League into a place on the big-league roster. Together, they give the Guardians more evidence that the next wave is arriving, even if the bigger question is how soon that pipeline starts feeding the major-league club in a more permanent way. [Read more 🡒]