Big Christmas was a big disappointment in 2025. Should the Guardians have any hope that will change in 2026?
In Spring Training, I wrote about why it was possible to have hope that Jhonkensy Noel would
be a good option as a backup outfielder hitting right-handed on the Guardians in 2025. To summarize, while I acknowledged the huge concerns with his whiff and chase rates, I pointed to his ability to pull fly balls as the reason to hope that IF he could just force pitchers to throw pitches in the zone at even a 5% higher rate that he would hit enough balls out of the ballpark to negate a strikeout rate that would still be quite elevated.
Well, for neither the first time nor the last, I was wrong. Noel chased pitches out of the zone at a 48% rate, swung and miss at a 19% rate, and his fly-ball rate declined from around 50% in 2024 to around 40% in 2025. In the first half of the season, he put up a wRC+ of 0. Overall, after a September return, Noel ended with a 28 wRC+, and only a 43 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. For context, Noel had similar whiff and in-zone contact issues to Franmil Reyes but his chase rate was TWENTY percent worse than Reyes’ career numbers. Like Merrill in the movie Signs, it feels wrong for Noel not to swing. This may come in handy if aliens invade his house someday, but it appears set to wreck his potential at staying on a major league baseball field.
However, on returning in September, Noel put up a 103 wRC+ in 42 plate appearances, including this HUGE home run off of Tarik Skubal in a key late-season game for the Guardians:
Does this indicate there is still hope for Noel? Well, in September, Noel did get back up to a 50% fly-ball rate, which, again, is key for his success. However, his chase rate was still 57%, a 20.3% whiff rate, and he still had only a 78% zone contact rate (his overall season rate there was 77%). There really isn’t any reason to look at Noel’s improved September and conclude he made an adjustment that will enable him to be a decent major league hitter, even if it was only against left-handed pitching.
The reasons to continue to hope for Noel are three-fold: 1. He’s still only 24 years old and did not get everyday AB’s, 2. 2. For his career, he has a 95 wRC+ against LHP, and 3. He’s just too darn fun to abandon hope. No one would love being able to have Jhonk be a major league player more than I would. I bought my dimunitive sister who has the first name “Noelle” a Noel jersey precisely because of how delightful that juxtaposition is. I have met Jhonkensy twice and he has been a DELIGHT both times, especially being kind to my two boys the last time I met. I love this guy.
With that said, the Guardians need to upgrade their options for right-handed hitters who play first base and/or outfield this offseason. They absolutely need to find reliable production there, preferably an established presence for the middle of the lineup. They cannot go into 2026 with Noel as their plan-A for their first base/outfield right-handed bench bat. They cannot go into 2026 with Noel as their plan-A in right field (I don’t think that’s in their consideration, thankfully). The problem with assuming that more consistent at-bats for Noel will solve anything is that his numbers in the majors track with his numbers with consistent playing time in Triple-A; his chase rate is still 40%, his whiff rate is still 15%, and his in-zone contact rate remains below average at 82%. If he could bring ALL those numbers to the majors, he’d absolutely be a good right-handed bench bat. But, the issue, of course, is that major league pitching is approximately three-four times as good in average performance as Triple-A pitching. Noel’s issues are all magnified to an unsustainable level as soon as he steps foot on a big-league field.
I don’t think the Guardians can go through this offseason with BOTH Noel and Johnathan Rodriguez on their roster once they make the upgrades necessary to improve this offense. So, they will have to choose between the two, and, I think in that scenario, an argument can be made that they should choose Noel over Rodriguez and give him one more run in Spring Training to try to make the team. Noel was above average at first base and was below-average in right field instead of HORRIFIC (Rodriguez was the worst right-fielder I’ve ever seen and the numbers back that up). If you still have hope for a young player making small adjustments, maybe Jhonk’s September encourages you to give him one last shot.
However, I suspect Rodriguez will get the nod over Noel because FanGraphs lists him with one option remaining. If both players lack options (perhaps FanGraphs hasn’t updated?), I would keep Jhonk, but if Rodriguez has an option, I believe they will value that flexibility more and find a very small trade (probably for cash) to a rebuilding team willing to give Noel those right-field at-bats for a while. I will never forget the home run of a lifetime Noel had against the Yankees in the playoffs in 2024, or his incredible personality, but I suspect we may have seen the last of him in a Guardians’ unifrom, and that’s probably for the best.
