Will Kyle Manzardo become a middle-of-the-order hitter for the Guardians or remain in slightly above average hitting DH territory?
Kyle Manzardo finished 2025 with a 113 wRC+, 25.4/9 K/BB%, and 1.2 fWAR. He had a terrible series in the playoffs, with a -24 wRC+, getting 1 hit and 1 walk in 12 plate appearances. Manzardo had -7 Defensive Runs Saved and -3 Outs Above Average in around 50 games at first base. By DRS, this made him and Lamonte Wade the worst defensive first baseman getting at least 300
innings at first base. By OAA, he was only the fifth worst first baseman to get at least 300 innings at first base – so there’s that. Midway through the season, I thought there was potential for Manzardo to be simply not good at first base. By the end of the season, it is clear he is actively bad defensively at first base and I’m unsure if that can change.
So, there is a pretty good chance that Manzardo is a DH-only type of player. One good news about this reality is that, as a DH in 2025, Manzardo had a 127 wRC+ vs. only a 103 wRC+ as a first baseman. Young players often struggle to adjust to being a DH, but Manzardo seems to have made that adjustment seamlessly. However, as a DH, Manzardo will need to be able to hold his own against LHP. He received limited opportunities to hit lefties – only 95 plate appearances – but only managed an 83 wRC+. Manzardo managed to put up around a .750 OPS in the minors in a larger sample size vs. southpaws, so I think there is still hope he can be around league average without the platoon advantage. Manager Stephen Vogt and the Guardians brass will need to commit to giving him those opportunities, however, as manager Terry Francona and the Guardians front office did with Josh Naylor as Naylor made his way as a big leaguer. It will be impossible for Manzardo to establish consistency as a major league hitter if he is considered to be a strong-side of the platoon DH.
Despite 2025 being slightly below the 120 wRC+ we might have hoped for the 24-25 year-old season for Manzardo, it was still a solid season for him at the plate. He was one of the few Guardians hitters to be above average in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, chase rate, and squared up rate and great in barrel rate. He hit 27 home runs, folks, and only Jose Ramirez eclipsed that number for Cleveland. Yet, 113 wRC+ is more of a sixth hole hitter for a good offense than a cleanup or fifth hitter. Is there any hope for Manzardo to improve as a hitter?
As I look at Kyle Manzardo’s Double-A and Triple-A numbers in comparison to what he has done in the big leagues so far, I notice a consistent 5% decline in most of his offensive metrics that would simply track with facing better pitching. He’s going to chase a little more, he’s going to whiff a little more, and he’s going to walk a little less. The most noticeable differences from his minor league numbers to his major league numbers is a 5% decline in line drive rate and a roughly 10% decline in opposite field hits. Ah, so surely he is pulling too many fly balls. Well, not exactly. He’s actually hitting the ball to centerfield about 10% more often than he did in the minors. So, he needs to hit opposite field more, try to poke more that way? Not exactly. Manzardo for his big league career has a 222 wRC+ when he pulls the ball, a 183 wRC+ when he hits it to center, and an 80 wRC+ when he hits it to the opposite field.
Opposing pitchers realize that Manzardo is best when he can pull the ball or get it to centerfield. 48% of the pitches he has seen as a pro have been on the outer third of the zone or outside the zone entirely away from Manzardo. Except for the middle third of the outer zone, Manzardo put up a weighted on-base average of around .200 on these pitches in 2025. So, if you want to know how Manzardo can improve, it’s without a doubt finding a way to get more offensive production on the pitches he sees on the outside nearly half the time he is batting. Manzardo did move two inches further from the plate in his stance in 2025, so he may want to consider moving back those couple inches in an effort to get the barrel of his bat to more pitches on the outside. He also saw a roughly 1 mph decline in bat speed in 2025, and I’m unsure if that’s related to some back issues or an attempt to make more contact over contact quality on his part. I would encourage Manzardo to focus on trying to hit as many balls as hard as he can (revolutionary, I know) and make sure he recognizes that he is going to see a lot of pitches on the outside of the zone so he can be best prepared to get the barrel of the bat out there as often as possible.
There are a few splits of note for Manzardo that might help him get to another level if he is able to address them. First, for his career in high leverage situations, Manzardo has a 153 wRC+ and in low leverage situations he has a 129 wRC+. But, in medium leverage situations (which 40% of his plate appearances qualify as), he has only a 76 wRC+. What the heck does this mean? Probably nothing. He has only a .215 batting average on balls in play in these situations, and his strikeout and walk rates remain steady, so I suspect it’s mostly luck and when it averages out, that will help his overall numbers.
Secondly, the more noticeable issue for Manzardo is that he has a 125 wRC+ with bases empty but only a 90 wRC+ with runners on base and a 74 wRC+ with runners in scoring position. His walk rate ticks down and his strikeout rate ticks up when runners are on base (with a roughly 3% increase in whiff rate). Again, I think this stat is actually a positive thing. We can see from Manzardo’s high leverage numbers that he is not overwhelmed by big moments. He may be trying to adjust his approach and putting more pressure on himself when runners are on base, especially with the realization that he was really the only threat in the lineup except for Jose Ramirez. As Manzardo enters his second full season in the majors, his 25-26 year old year, he should be able to take a breath and maintain his plate discipline and hitting approach with runners on and improve these numbers. This process will, of course, be assisted if the Guardians are able to improve their lineup externally and internally and relieve a young hitter from the pressure of being the only above average hitter aside from the team’s future hall of famer.
I think 2025 was a very positive season for Kyle Manzardo, aside from the emergence of his defensive issues. Through their first 687 plate appearances in the majors, Josh Naylor and Kyle Manzardo were at almost identical ages. Naylor had a 93 wRC+ and Manzardo has a 109 wRC+. There are no guarantees that Manzardo goes on to put up the 121 wRC+ Josh Naylor has since that point in his career, but there is also plenty of reason to expect growth and continued improvement for one of the few productive hitters the Guardians had in 2025.