Guardians option struggling 1B

Cleveland Guardians first baseman Kyle Manzardo.

The Guardians announced that third baseman Jose Ramirez has been reinstated from the paternity list with first baseman Kyle Manzardo optioned to Triple-A Columbus as the corresponding move.

Manzardo, 23, came into this season ranked as one of the top 100 prospects in the sport and the Guards promoted him to the big leagues in early May.

Unfortunately, his first six weeks in the majors have not gone especially well. In 87 trips to the plate, he has yet to hit a home run while walking just 3.4 percent of the time and striking out at a 26.4 percent clip. His .207/.241/.329 batting line leads to a wRC+ of 61, indicating he’s been 39 percent worse than the league-average hitter.

Those numbers are fairly uncharacteristic for Manzardo and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him get back on track after a bit of a reset. Prospects don’t always follow a linear development path and it’s not the first time he’s needed to adjust to some struggles.

A second-round pick of the Rays in 2021, he produced a monstrous batting line of .327/.426/.617 in 2022, splitting his time between High-A and Double-A. That included 22 home runs and a 14.9 percent walk rate while he was only punched out 16.4 percent of the time.

The Rays bumped him up to Triple-A last year, but he didn’t have much initial success at that level. In 73 games for the Durham Bulls, he hit 11 home runs and still walked at a strong 13.4 percent pace, but the overall line of .238/.342/.442 led a wRC+ of 95 in a fairly heightened offensive environment in the International League last year.

The Guardians decided to take a shot on him, sending Aaron Civale to the Rays in a one-for-one swap at last year’s deadline. After changing organizations, he finished the season on a strong note, hitting .256/.348/.590 in 21 Triple-A games after the deal.

He then went to the Arizona Fall League and slashed .272/.340/.565 in 22 games there. He returned to Triple-A to start this year and hit nine home runs in 29 games while walking in 11.7 percent of his plate appearances, leading to a line of .303/.375/.642 before his promotion.

Unfortunately, the big league audition saw all his numbers move in the wrong direction, so he’ll have to head back to Columbus for now. Since he’s always had strong walk and strikeout rates, it would be quite surprising if he weren’t able to improve those numbers in the major leagues the next time he comes up.

From a service-time perspective, Manzardo was already going to be coming up short of one year of service time since he missed more than a month off the top of the 2024 campaign. He would have been on track for early arbitration as a Super Two player after 2026 if he stayed up, but that will now be less likely, depending on how long it takes him to come back up.

The Guardians are leading the American League Central and should be in a firm buyer position at the upcoming deadline. Manzardo had largely been serving as the designated hitter, so manager Stephen Vogt will now have some ability to rotate various players through that spot.

It could also give the front office some flexibility in perhaps adding a bat-first player to strengthen the lineup for the final months of the season, with guys like Brent Rooker, Eloy Jimenez, Taylor Ward, Miguel Andujar or old friend Josh Bell who could be available toward the end of July.

In the shorter term, guys like Jose Abreu, Daniel Vogelbach, J.D. Davis and Garrett Cooper have recently lost their roster spots with other clubs and should be attainable.

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