We all know that the Cleveland Guardians are one of the worst teams in baseball right now. Everywhere we look on the internet it's “The Guardians are so bad” or “the Guardians are the biggest disappointment this year”. I am not going to lie, I may have been one of those people. They are dead last in SLG% and 2nd to last in OPS this season. This team and lineup is just straight up underperforming. They don’t have a single person batting over .278 and Cal Quantrill looks lost on the mound.
However, this team is only 3.5 games out of the division. They won’t make a wild card spot most likely with how good these other divisions are, but the AL Central is horrible. In the AL East and AL West combined there is only 1 team under .500 and its the A’s. Every other team is in contention for the playoffs. The AL Central however, only has 1 team over .500 and its the Twins at 29-27.
This Guardians team can’t possibly play worse offensively, if you like the law of averages you have to assume guys like Jose Ramirez, Josh Naylor, Steven Kwan, and Josh Bell are going to step it up and figure it out at some point this season. On the bright side, this starting pitching is top 8 in ERA and is expected to get Triston Mackenzie back in just a few days. They also have the 2nd best bullpen in terms of ERA as well. The pitching on this team has kept them in the standings and I fully expect the Guardians to start hitting and I hate making futures bets after teams go on runs and the odds drop, so we are going to make the push now.