The View from the Sharp Tank: A look at the Guardians at the All-Star Break

With the 2023 MLB All-Star game being tonight, what a great time to take a step back and take a look at the good, bad and the ugly of the Guardians season thus far at the halfway point of the season.

The Good:  

The bullpen once again has been stellar this season. Has it been perfect? No, and we can’t expect it to be. Too many people look at Emmanuel Clase’s 1-5 record and feel he is slipping a little, but he has an astounding 25 saves at the All-Star break! 

The rookie pitchers have really stepped up when called upon, and it seems we have found a true legitimate starter in Tanner Bibee. 

This Guardians organization just keeps the young pitching coming down the pipeline, and it is great to see.

One of the best things is not something you can see on the field, but something you can see in the stands. If you haven’t noticed, the average attendance for Guards games is up a lot compared to last season, and in my opinion one major reason for that is the introduction of the Ballpark Pass. For $49 per person, you can get standing room only tickets for every home game that month! If this was around when I was younger, even for the old stadium, I would have lived at the ballpark. 

The Bad: 

Most of the time, the offense in general on this team has been frightening and the lack of power is a huge reason for that. Think about this, we are 90 games into the season and our leading home run hitter is Jose Ramirez with 14! We all know that Jose will go on a tear in the second half of the season and will probably get 30 homers this season, but knowing there is only one other Guardian with double digit dingers (Josh Naylor), is scary. Even scarier is that there is only one Guardians player who plays on a regular basis with a batting average above .300 (once again Josh Naylor). It’s really hard to score runs when the team isn’t hitting for power or average. 

The UGLY: 

I understand that not all off-season signings will be a hit (pun intended), but this off-season produced some pretty bad play. The Mike Zunino signing was obviously just a stopgap signing to try to get Bo Naylor some more time in the minors, but Zunino was so bad that he should not have been playing despite Naylor not being ready in the team’s eyes. Another off-season signing, Josh Bell, who was signed for his power, is only batting .230 with a whole nine homers so far this season.