The Guardians announced that third baseman José Ramírez 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% of the time and striking out at a 26.4% clip. His .207/.241/.329 batting line leads to a wRC+ of 61, indicating he’s been 39% 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 make an adjustment after 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% walk rate while he was only punched out 16.4% 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% 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 decide 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% 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.
For the Guardians, they are leading the American League Central and should be in 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 Jiménez, Taylor Ward, Miguel Andujar or old friend Josh Bell just some of the guys that could be available towards the end of July. In the shorter term, guys like José Abreu, Daniel Vogelbach, J.D. Davis and Garrett Cooper have recently lost their roster spots with other clubs and should be attainable.
Going 4 for his last 25 with a BA of .207 will do that for you. He needs a few more months in Columbus before he’s ready.
He has a 4 digit OPS in Columbus this year. I don’t think he necessarily needs more time there but the Guardians are trying to win and he’s not helping that currently. Plus there are service time considerations here.
He may also work in the OF in Columbus as Vogt had mentioned a while ago
He could end up being the RF of the near future if that works out. Having two lefty 1Bs on the team was an odd fit. If CLE plans on keeping Josh Naylor into next year or beyond, Manzardo needs to focus on mastering RF.
I’d be curious to see how that goes. He’s not a particularly strong runner, which has kept him out of the OF to this point.
Service time was not an issue. If he were hitting, he’d be with the club and in the lineup everyday.
Service time matters. Yes if he was hitting he would not have been sent down that is most likely true. But a few weeks in AAA and he can avoid being a super 2 that matters.
Of course it matters. It just wasn’t a significant factor in this decision. If they wanted to play the service time game, they wouldn’t have called him up in the first place.
He’s a bat-only player and he wasn’t hitting. Getting everyday ABs in Columbus is the best spot for him right now and I’m sure we will see him again soon enough.
I think they called him up with the service time issue in the back of their minds.
As I said already he has a 4 digit OPS at AAA in 2024. That really doesn’t scream needs more seasoning. But he wasn’t hitting so I don’t blame them.
Bust…. Guardians actually thought they fleeced the rays lmao
It’s a pretty small sample size to call him a bust and Civale is a middle of the road pitcher at best.
Yeah I still like the deal for the Guardians. It’s tough to develop young players while trying to win at the same time.
Civale is 2-5 with a 5+ era.
Imao
Despite his rough start to the season I wouldn’t mind seeing CLE bring him back in a deadline deal. Guardians need at least one more SP. They know him, and his current trade value isn’t ridiculous.
10 doubles in 82 ABs. Time will tell.
Calling a 23 year old top prospect who hasn’t even had 100 AB’s in the majors yet a bust might be one of dumbest things I’ve seen all week. The Guardians did berry well in that trade. They’d bring back a way better asset than Civale if they made him available on the market.
Checked on Civale lately?
Lc38
The Rays and Guardians both have competent front offices, I doubt that either side got fleeced in the end.
He was not seasoned enough
That’s a salty comment.
Sad tormented
Are you channeling your inner Hannibal Lecter?
further yet, the guardians have to burn one of his option years. while you obviously wish for better results in an initial debut, this gives him one less year to figure it out as he gets older and develops into the player he is going to become. hopefully this is not a consideration by that time, but if he becomes a slower burn he may well run out of time.
@pohle; it’s only June and he’s 23. He’ll be optionable in his age 24 and 25 seasons which is normal for a prospect of his stature.
true, although i am regarding his timeline as a little bit less “normal” due to his defensive (in)ability. no idea how he actually is at first, but his inability to play other positions reminds me of matt mervis, another less but still-hyped prospect who now only has one option year and has still not gotten past a quad-a label. manzardo should be better, but he also needs to be for the guardians’ long term outlook. he definitely played his way onto the roster, but maybe he wouldve had more instant success had they played it a little slower with their top (only) power prospect. i really wish they had kept deyvison de los santos around, if not for anything other than to put less pressure on manzardo.
He’s probably one of the team’s 9 best hitters imo, but he’s a 1B/DH only. J. Naylor is taking up first, and Jose (age), Kwan (easing back from injury), and B. Naylor (trying to get his swing right) are taking up a lot of the DH at-bats right now. As of now I just don’t think there is a spot to keep him on the roster and get him enough at bats
Manzardo was not impressive.They gave up the season last trade deadline to get him for then-hot throwing Civale. That move stunk at that. time. They already had LH Hitting 1B anyway and use DH as rotational batting position. They need RH RF with power (hard to find) and a LH hitting C. Naylor pretty far away from that designation. They also need another SP.
I’m not worried in the slightest. Manzardo’s playing time (especially lately) was sporadic at best, and I’m big on young players getting everyday at bats whether it’s in the majors or back in the minors.
He hadn’t hit a homer yet but he showed solid doubles power and looked to at least be putting up better at bats before the recent cold streak he was on. They also hadn’t trusted him to play defense at all yet, so it’s just hard to carry a developmental hitter who needs regular playing time but is only DHing. He’ll probably rake again in Columbus and be back eventually.
Newsflash for other teams, the Rays have pretty much ruined all their prospects recently. Aranda/Mead/JLowe/vidal Brujan/Greg Jones/ Rene Pinto/every pitcher not named Taj Bradley. They destroyed AAA pitching year’s past but never had big success in the Majors. They force these guys to play too much in the minors and are never able to replicate that success in the majors.
You could make a list of failed prospects that’s just as long from any other organization so I don’t think it’s anything they’re doing wrong. The Rays in particular usually have a lot of depth too, so they have the luxury of being patient with guys and not promoting them immediately.
If anything, the gap between AAA and the majors is larger than it’s been in a while so it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a team to keep guys in the minors for longer since you could make the argument that prospects are being rushed more.
I also don’t think any of this is an indictment on Manzardo; I think he’s just a bat first guy that needs consistent playing time but is on a team that’s winning and can’t give him much of a leash to work through his growing pains.
I kind of get your point of view, but ultimately disagree. *Gets on soapbox*
They deliberately keep their top prospects in the minors to manipulate contracts and squeeze one more cheap year out of them. They always have excuses like ‘crowded infield’ ready to go, but keeping less talented players on the roster while making more talented prospects waste away in the minors has not been successful and it’s always always about money (and not about positions being overcrowded). Most of our infielders couldn’t get playing time on most other teams, so why do the Rays decide they are better than prospects who seem ready? The prospects get too acclimated to the minors that they ALL struggle… All of them. There hasn’t been a seamless transition in years and years for this organization. Franco is the lone exception and of course we all know how that turned out. And if they do happen to make it to the big leagues, the hitting coach somehow ruins them. I think there’s a severe lack of discipline by the coaches on the team…and while players must enjoy the freedom, it makes worse ballplayers. The Rays often make trades for prospects that benefitted from development in another team’s system. Arozarena, Siri, Paredes, Ramirez, Pepiot, Diaz… All guys that developed in other systems.
And looking at the current roster…Walls/Siri/Arozarena/Jackson/Deluca have all been terrible and the Rays have better replacements in the minors that they should let play and go through the growing pains. Babying them in the minors didn’t work for the majority of their prospects so maybe throwing them in the fire is a better alternative.
Yes other teams have failed prospects as well and some of them have a long list like the Rays do, but it’s the fact that the Durham Bulls so often dominated competition over the last decade and yet the Rays never came close to sniffing the World Series outside of the COVID Series. How do at least a handful of those guys not at least become decent players? Here’s a list of the prospects that made it out of the minors for the Rays (you can assume the majority of them did not make it out): Aranda (getting older and struggling), Mead (Struggling and sent down), Bradley (usually implodes but seems fine this year) / Pinto (sent down), Merill Kelly (developed in Arizona’s system), Brent Honeywell (injured then traded), Jake Cronenworth (traded and developed with Padres),
Nate Lowe (developed with the Rangers)…the list goes on. In general, the Rays don’t draft very well, but when they find a good player every few years, they seem to ruin them or ship them off in favor of less-talented but more flexible players (Taylor Walls).
I hope Manzardo turns out well for the guardians… I’m sure he will do fine because now he has better hitting coaches and hopefully a team that doesn’t manipulate service time as much as the Rays do.