A familiar feeling unfolded for me as I watched the Guardians’ lose to the Twins last night.
Earlier this season, I wrote about how acting Guardians’ manager Tony Arnerich set off alarm bells for Steven Kwan against these same twins by asking him to sacrifice bunt with a runner on, no outs, and a 3-1 count against a bad reliever. After that article, the Guardians dropped Steven Kwan in the batting order and started cutting back his playing time (despite the usual public lies about “We have total confidence
in Steven Kwan”). Yesterday, a similar situation unfolded with Kyle Manzardo, part of a continued pattern with the Guardians’ young hitter.
In the top of the 9th inning, down 3-1, Chase DeLauter, God bless him, put up a great at-bat against left-handed reliever Taylor Rogers and drew a two-out walk. Manager Stephen Vogt decided to pinch-hit for the next hitter, Kyle Manzardo, with the only right-handed hitter available on his bench, Gabriel Arias. Now, this incensed me because, flatly, Arias is a bad hitter. He has a 76 wRC+ for his career, an 80 wRC+ this season, and a career 48 wRC+ against LHP. Now, Vogt may have made this move to get the Twins to bring in their closer, right-hander Yoendrys Gomez. Arias has a career 90 wRC+ against RHP, and the Twins are forced to pitch their closer, which may pay benefits later on down the road in the series. Because of these two factors, I know I was wrong to hyperbolicly tweet during the game that pinch-hitting Arias was a “fireable offense.” I don’t want Vogt fired and I didn’t want to imply that… only to express my incredulity at the move.
This is an incredulity that I still feel, but for perhaps a different reason. Kyle Manzardo has a 97 wRC+ this season and a career 94 wRC+ against RHP, but a 108 wRC+ against LHP. Had you brought Manzardo in to face Rogers, so far, for his career, he would offer +60 in wRC+ against the lefty over Arias, +18 vs Arias against RHP, and STILL +4 against RHP. Does this all mean that I believe Manzardo is good? Absolutely not. Manzardo has been wildly disappointing this season following a 113 wRC+ in his age 24 season in 2025. His ISO is down .070 points. The team DESPERATELY needed him to take a step forward this season and instead, so far, he has taken a significant step back. With all that said, he has still been a significantly better hitter than Gabriel Arias… because Arias is one of baseball’s worst 10 hitters of the past four years. The bar for Manzardo to clear, here, is on the floor.
So, why did Arias bat last night? Aside from the aforementioned “Get their closer in the game” theory above, I would posit, as some CTC commenters have suggested, that Vogt felt like he was rolling the dice with Arias for a better chance of a once-in-a-blue-moon game-tying homer. Take that in – Stephen Vogt felt subbing for his CLEANUP hitter for one of the absolute worst hitters in MLB since 2022 would increase his chances at getting a home run to tie the game. And, you know what? Despite my angry tweets last night, I get it! Arias has an underwhelming ISO of .179, but it’s still .024 better than Manzardo’s current .155. Yes, Arias swung and missed at three straight pitches (I discovered that 10% of his at-bats since 2024 have ended in a three-pitch K, fun fact!) including two sweepers in the zone and a fastball six inches above the zone. But, as just about everyone and their uncle has pointed out to me, I have no confidence that Manzardo would not have also struckout against Rogers. I suspect it would have been on a 2-2 count, but the end result would be exactly the same… and the Twins would not have had to get their closer up. So, on one hand, an apology to Stephen Vogt from me is owed. And, I’m glad this move wasn’t as inexplicable as I thought it was.
On the other hand, however, I am still firmly convinced pinch-hitting Arias for Manzardo was 100% the wrong-move for the longterm. It very, very likely had ZERO impact on the final outcome of last night’s game. But, the issue is on where the Guardians need to go from here. The Guardians NEED to determine if Kyle Manzardo can be a reliable middle of the order hitter or not and that should be one of the top five priorities for the rest of this season, unless the team is planning at least TWO huge moves for proven middle of the order hitters to make a World Series run in August (Oh, what’s that you say, Mike Chernoff? You’re too busy turning down great deals for your veteran players like Kwan like you did last season? Ok, got it). Manzardo is 25 years old. This is the last season where you can say “He’s still young, he may figure this out.” I don’t understand why Manzardo is an automatic pinch-hit against left-handed pitching when he had decent splits against them in the minors and has a 108 wRC+ against them in the majors.
I don’t understand why we are pinch-hitting Manzardo EVERY TIME a lefty is on the mound and even playing these little games with despicable hitters like Arias batting for him instead of saying “Figure this out, big fella, because we are riding you till the wheels completely fall off.” Vogt’s strength is “believing in his guys.” It would seem to me that the only way out for Manzardo is through; to either sink or swim, you need to let that big kid flounder in the deep end until he either figures something out or drowns. You have a chance, here, the rest of the season to see if he can show you something or not, and move him to a team that believes they can fix him before the lockout if he fails.
And, is there anyone here who can say another team would not be able to fix Manzardo? He has useful tools. He looked like a can’t-miss hitter in the minors. The Guardians’ hitting team has been unable to finish his development as they have with numerous other hitters. Is it a pull-lift heavy approach? Maybe. Is it a lack of focus on bat speed development? Possibly. Is it hiring too many Driveline guys instead of some old-school guy with the ability to fix mental struggles from just good vibes? I can’t rule anything out. What I can tell you is that when I see social media influencers ask “What trade would you want your team to make at the deadline?” my answer is, currently, “Trading whoever we need to for the Brewers to send us their hitting development folks.” The team needs to overhaul their hitting development program and pay the money to poach talent from organizations who have figured it out, full stop. And, probably nothing else they do will matter until that happens.
Last night should be an inflection point for the Guardians and Manzardo. Are they really convinced he is a platoon hitter capable of playing slightly below average defense at first? If so, carry on, I guess, and line up a trade for him to someone who thinks they can fix him as soon as possible, at the deadline if it’s there. But, if they still have hope he can find himself at the plate, then stop pinch-hitting for him at the first opportunity. Stick him in the lineup everyday and let him sink or swim so you know the final answer on this hitter. Believe in your guy, Vogter, until he removes all doubt about that belief being wrong. The potential upside on subbing Arias, Hoskins or even Fry in for him is simply not worth it at this point in the game.
