The Cleveland Guardians need their young players to make improvements at the plate heading into the 2026 MLB season.
The Cleveland Guardians need to improve their offense. The front office knows it, the coaching staff knows it, the fans know it, and deep down, the players probably know it, too.
Of course, an easy fix could be going out and trading for an already-proven big-league bat or signing one of the better free agent hitters. However, even if the Guardians add an All-Star hitter to the lineup, it won’t be enough to make them World Series contenders in the American League.
Cleveland needs internal improvements from its players to be successful next season.
Stephen Vogt addressed this during MLB’s Winter Meetings last week and acknowledged that it’s not just on the players to improve; it’s on the coaching staff to put them in positions to thrive.
“We're working hard. We're working close with these guys,” Vogt said. “We had great exit meetings with them. ‘What did we learn? What did you learn?’ We’re doing follow-ups.
Cleveland’s skipper continued, “This is an opportunity for everybody to step up. This is an opportunity for us to get better. We're working as coaches to figure out ways that we can help them get better… We had a really good offense the last month of the season, and we need to build on that, and we need to hit the ground running.”
Vogt isn’t wrong; Cleveland did have a better offense through the final month of the season. In September, the Guardians had a .720 OPS compared to their season .669. Still, that isn’t good enough if the Guardians want to be considered one of the elite teams in the American League.
The silver lining in Cleveland’s poor offense is that they’re still super young, and with youth hopefully comes positive progression. The flip side of that is that it can sometimes take young players a while to find their footing and make the necessary adjustments in the big leagues.
Based on what the Guardians' roster looks like right now, they need the rookie core of Chase DeLauter, George Valera, CJ Kayfus, and eventually Travis Bazzana to hit the ground running.
The group of Brayan Rocchio, Kyle Manzardo, and Bo Naylor must also show signs of development, or Cleveland will find itself in the same position it was in the last few seasons: the bottom of many offensive categories.