Tanner Bibee? Josh Naylor? Gavin Williams? Debating Guardians’ extension candidates
CLEVELAND, OH - SEPTEMBER 16: Tanner Bibee #61 of the Cleveland Guardians pitches against the Texas Rangers during the first inning at Progressive Field on September 16, 2023 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Ron Schwane/Getty Images)
By Jason Lloyd and Zack Meisel
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Every spring, the Guardians hold conversations with players about long-term contract extensions. Last year, they struck agreements with Andrés Giménez and Trevor Stephan. In 2022, after weeks of sputtering negotiations, they reached a landmark deal with José Ramírez. (Well, really, Ramírez forced everyone into a cramped manager’s office at Chase Field and demanded something get done before they boarded their flight to Kansas City for Opening Day.)
That spring, they also signed Emmanuel Clase to an extension. Oh, and, yikes, Myles Straw.
So, as the club readies for camp, we’re taking a look at who makes sense for a new contract this spring and what the numbers might look like. The Guardians discussed deals with Steven Kwan, Triston McKenzie and Amed Rosario last year, but none came to fruition. (For what it’s worth, the Kwan talks never gained much traction. Same with the Rosario talks, though the idea there was for a short-term pact.)
Jason, if you’re Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff, who sits at the top of your wish list?
Lloyd: Tanner Bibee and Gavin Williams. It’s probably now or never for Bibee, who gained a full year of service time for finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting. That means the Guardians control him for six years instead of seven, but it also means that after this season, he’s only one more year from arbitration.
The Guardians are finding it harder and harder to get long-term contracts done with young players. It’s particularly complicated with pitchers given the injury risk. But it might be too late to get something done with Josh Naylor and Kwan already told them no. McKenzie is trying to pitch through a torn ligament in his elbow, which seems to remove a risk-averse team like the Guardians from investing long term right now.
Who does that leave? Bibee, Williams, Bo Naylor and … Kyle Manzardo.
Kyle Manzardo, shown rounding the bases after a home run in the 2023 Fall Stars Game in November, could be worthy of a pre-debut extension. (Norm Hall / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
A Manzardo contract is a fascinating case study in risk tolerance. Two small-market Midwest teams already locked up elite prospects to long-term deals this offseason. Milwaukee signed outfielder Jackson Chourio to an eight-year, $82 million deal and Detroit just signed infielder Colt Keith to a six-year, $28 million contract. Neither has had a single major-league at-bat, although both are also higher-ranked prospects than Manzardo.
The Keith contract gives Detroit a manageable, cost-controlled number through his arbitration seasons. Those deals will also remove the service time obstacle course teams like Cleveland often have to run this time of year. The Guardians, however, have yet to show any interest in doing a deal with a player before he reaches the majors.
Meisel: Right, that’s a key reward in these types of deals: Keith and Chourio should both make their team’s Opening Day roster. There’s no need for service time manipulation, with a silly directive about needing another three weeks in Triple A to improve defensive footwork or secondary leads or sunflower seed spitting.
At the winter meetings, Guardians GM Mike Chernoff voiced the same message regarding Manzardo that we heard Terry Francona repeat over the years, about rookie hitters struggling in the Cleveland elements in April. If the Guardians want to win in 2024 — and I’m puzzled about that — Manzardo is one of their nine best hitters and certainly worthy of joining Josh Naylor as the first base/designated hitter tandem.
I floated the idea of a pre-debut extension to Cleveland’s front office at the winter meetings, but they seemed rather averse to the idea. Maybe they were bluffing. We also have no idea about the player’s preference, what terms would entice him at such an early career stage. Everyone’s different.
Manzardo was a second-round pick and signed below slot, at $747,500. In MLB Pipeline’s latest prospect rankings, Chourio ranked No. 2 and Keith ranked No. 22. Manzardo is No. 59.
Keith’s salary breaks down this way: a $2 million signing bonus, $2.5 million in 2024, $3.5 million in 2025, $4 million in 2026 and 2027, $5 million in 2028 and 2029 and then club options (with escalators and buyouts) for $10 million in 2030, $13 million in 2031 and $15 million in 2032.
If I ran the Guardians, I’d have no qualms about a similar offer for Manzardo, but it’s not my money. It’s also not Paul Dolan’s money, since David Blitzer would be on the hook for the bulk of it. But none of those salary figures should scare them off. Even $10 million in 2030 will look like a pittance, and they’d only pay that if Manzardo is the 25-homer, 35-double slugger they envision.
Or, you know, they can hold Manzardo in Columbus until late April, or mid-June, and then dangle him on the trade market in four or five years when he’s inching closer to free agency.
We should revisit Kwan and Josh Naylor while we’re here. Let’s start with Naylor, who declined to comment at Guards Fest on whether an extension is in the works. He did, however, lay out the reasons why I still think there’s merit to the sides sitting down this spring. He mentioned the factor that few other players ever experience: playing with his brother. That should give the Guardians some leverage. Bo Naylor figures to be the team’s catcher for the next five or six years, at least. Josh has two years of team control remaining. He has never appeared in more than 122 games in a season. You wouldn’t have to break the bank for him.
Lloyd: I dismissed a Naylor extension because of where his contract clock is and the fact it looks like Manzardo is the in-house replacement. But certainly there’s room for both in the lineup, so what does a Naylor extension look like? He is coming off his first .300 season and also set career highs in RBIs, on-base percentage and slugging. He was a 2.5 WAR player and will earn $6.5 million in 2024.
Three years and $35 million? Am I too low? Too high?
Meisel: Terms for a Naylor extension are difficult for me to project. This isn’t your typical player two years from free agency because of the brotherly love, the injury history and the fact that he has really only had one season in which he’s put it all together.
Your price seems reasonable. With another strong year, Naylor would stand to earn $9-10 million through arbitration next winter. If your proposed extension started after this season, it would buy out two free-agent years. Naylor is 26. That would mean he’d still hit free agency when he’s 30 and, if he proved durable, he could land another similar deal. Really, this just boils down to Naylor’s priorities.
Lloyd: As for Kwan, I think you’re the one who has said the Guardians typically drive a post into the ground in negotiations and rarely budge far from it. Kwan didn’t get on base as much last year, but his runs, stolen bases and defense looked awfully similar to his rookie year. I don’t see the Guardians changing their offer all that dramatically. If they are going to come to an agreement, it will be Kwan’s side that has to move more toward the middle, no?
Meisel: The thing with Kwan is, his floor is a solid player. Two seasons in the majors, two Gold Gloves. If he can make more hard contact and not rely on so many bloops falling in, which he has said is his aim this year, I think he can be a perfectly capable leadoff hitter for a long time.
Talks quickly fizzled last spring. I can’t imagine the Guardians will have a much sweeter offer this spring, given Kwan’s offensive numbers dipped a bit. And as he once, um, journaled, he has a clear idea of what he thinks he’s worth.
I’d imagine the two sides will talk again this spring, but when a player moves closer to arbitration (and free agency), his interest in signing usually wanes.
What would be a fair offer at this point? Kwan has four years remaining before free agency but only one until he becomes eligible for arbitration. Five years, $45 million, including a modest signing bonus? The Guardians always like to tack on a club option or two to buy out free-agent years, too.
Lloyd: I wrote prior to last year that a Kwan extension might look like $41 million over six years. Obviously, those numbers would look different a year later. The problem with comps is there really aren’t any other players with his skill set. He dipped from a 5.5 bWAR as a rookie to 3.6 last year. Still, an outfielder with a 9.1 WAR over his first two major-league seasons puts Kwan in the top 20 outfielders all time, according to Stathead. Barry Bonds’ WAR through his first two seasons was 9.3. Bryce Harper was 8.9.
Now, Bonds was 21 and 22 and Harper was 19 and 20 when they were putting up those numbers. Kwan will be 26 this season. Look at the WAR comps based on age, in Kwan’s case his age 24 and 25 seasons, and that 9.1 WAR drops him into the 80s among outfielders. Although it still leaves him slightly ahead of guys like Vernon Wells, Larry Walker and Manny Ramirez compared to their age 24 and 25 seasons. (Kwan ahead of Ramirez?)
This is why there isn’t one great metric at measuring a player with his unique tools.
Two seasons in the majors, two Gold Gloves. Steven Kwan brings a unique set of skills. (Jessica Alcheh / USA Today)
What about the pitchers? Williams, Bibee and even Logan Allen? The last time the Guardians gave pitchers these types of extensions was to Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber in 2015. That was nearly 10 years ago. Will we see this team sign another pitcher to a long-term deal? Or will they continue to get the first 5-6 years out of them one season at a time and then trade them away for another batch of guys who can do it all over again?
Hunter Greene signed for six years, $53 million last spring after his rookie season in Cincinnati. Spencer Strider signed for six years and $75 million. Bibee probably falls somewhere in between.
I have to admit, given this team’s record of developing pitchers, I don’t hate the idea of going year to year with young arms and then trading them with a year or two of control remaining. The injury risk with pitchers, and the amount of players losing a year or more to Tommy John surgery annually, makes the risk incredibly high. With pitchers, I’m not even sure the goal is to buy out their free-agent years. If they pick the right guys and hit big, and they might with Williams or Bibee, just locking them into a set figure during their arbitration seasons is a huge win in itself when the salaries can really start to escalate.
Meisel: Bibee’s the interesting one, since he’s one step closer to arbitration/free agency than the others. Williams is a Scott Boras client, so I’ll just assume he’s testing free agency in November 2029, provided a meteor hasn’t ended us by then. Allen probably doesn’t have the ceiling to need to lock him in long-term at this point.
The issue with Bibee, of course, is he has far more leverage than your typical pitcher entering his sophomore season. His second-place finish in the Rookie of the Year voting, one, proves he’s good at this and, two, earned him a full year of service time. It can’t hurt to initiate a conversation with him. I’m just not sure how desperate he’ll be to jump at the opportunity, and as you pointed out, the Guardians don’t seem likely to overpay any pitchers given how they develop them. I do know, though, that if I were a pitcher, the ever-lurking shoulder or elbow injury would scare me into agreeing to any reasonable offer. The Carrasco and Kluber extensions worked wonders. The club is also fortunate Justin Masterson and Mike Clevinger didn’t sign on the dotted line.
And that leads me to two final questions for you.
Just how aggressive should the Guardians be in securing their young hitters and pitchers to long-term deals? It’s been a bizarre offseason for the Guardians, who have done some minor wheeling and dealing that hasn’t fixed their most glaring needs. Is there anything they can do this spring, from a contract extension standpoint, that would alter your view of their offseason? What if they make it a family affair and ink both Naylor brothers to extensions?
Lloyd: I get why they may be hesitant to do a deal on a guy like Manzardo. There is already a growing list of players who have signed these deals before their first at-bat and busted badly. I’d like to see them move more toward the center on a guy like Kwan, and hopefully, you’re right about Josh Naylor and the familial pull will have an impact on him staying. There just isn’t enough major-league data yet on Bo Naylor to make an extension determination.
This was a thin-hitting market in free agency, so I’m not terribly surprised they didn’t dive into the shallow end of that pool. I was told they tried to get ahead of this weak class last winter by signing Josh Bell for two years and, well, we know how that ended.
I continue to be baffled that they haven’t been able to execute any sort of trade with all of these prospects. We’ve been talking about their glut of minor leaguers for what seems like 3-4 years now and yet, still, nothing. Guardians officials have said the overabundance of prospects who need to be protected has forced them to rush judgment on some other guys who otherwise may have received a longer look here.
I guess that’s a long-winded way of saying no particular extension this spring would change my view of the offseason as much as one or two long-term deals would further amplify what you already alluded to: This is Blitzer’s money they’re likely spending in these future seasons, not the Dolans’.
