Frozen in Time

It’s surreal to see photos like this one and know I was there, part of history, engulfed in the roar of one of the most powerful community experiences of my life: That Time Lane Thomas Hit a Grand Slam Off Tarik Skubal in Win Or Go Home Game 5 of the American League Division Series.

That fuzzy teammate in the background? That was the guy on deck -- Josh Naylor. Naylz was going absolutely wild for Lane, a trade deadline acquisition that our front office undoubtedly brought over from the Washington Nationals to do precisely this in the postseason.

Now here we are, a year later, and Josh Naylor has gone from being traded first to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the offseason to being traded to the Seattle Mariners, who are doing exactly what the Guards did last year -- playing in the American League Championship Series after winning Game 5 of the ALDS. And Lane? Poor Lane posted maybe 30 at bats in all of 2025, battling a slew of injuries that included a long bout of plantar fasciitis that essentially sidelined him the entire second half of the season -- and resulted in surgery.

Lane will always have that grand slam off Skubs, though. Naylz will always be the guy freaking out in the background of the shot. Frozen in time, just like all great baseball moments are.

This postseason has been thrilling in some ways, heartbreaking in others. The Guardians making it to the Wild Card round made me feel like they could somehow bamboozle their way to the World Series -- why not?? They’d overcome pretty much every possible obstacle a team can face in a season and still won the division. They had that historic 15.5 game comeback to make that happen. I was at the ballpark when they clinched a playoff spot on the second to last day of the regular season and I was there the next day when they won the division outright. I’d seen it happen with my own eyes.

Baseball is the sport for dreamers -- but, still, seeing is believing.

Even so, the Guards crashed back down to reality with an early postseason exit. I’d argue that Cleveland beat themselves in the Wild Card moreson than Detroit won that series. Game 1, especially, featured two critical defensive errors that led to the Tigers runs scored -- good on them for capitalizing on our mistakes. Had we not had those errors or had we performed better otherwise and still went on to win Game 2, who knows what could have happened in a Guards/Mariners ALDS. It wasn’t meant to be -- and that was easy to accept, given how bonkers it was to think about the often troubling season trajectory and the fact that it ended with José Ramírez miraculously planting the Central Division Championship flag in the Progressive Field grass.

The documentary about the 2025 Cleveland Guardians would still be pure rock-n-roll, even with an early postseason exit.

And, in many ways, that early postseason exit should serve as a pathway for the front office and ownership to know that none of us will be gaslit by their platitudes and excuses this offseason. This 2025 squad made it into October baseball out of sheer force of will -- IMAGINE if they’d had a few more reliable bats in the lineup.

Just get us some reliable bats for the love of god.

But, also? A Come to Jesus about horrendous decisions must be part of this. Last year when the Guardians made it to Game 5 of the ALCS, a series that’s one stop before the World Series, the expectation was that we would build on this success to ensure we not only made it back to the ALCS but this time advanced to the World Series.

Instead, our organization had one of the worst off seasons that I can remember, starting by first trading our Platinum Glove infielder Andrés Giménez to the Toronto Blue Jays only to dump his salary on another organization. In case you’re not familiar, a Platinum Glove means that Gimé was recognized as the best defensive player in all of baseball -- not just at his position -- the best overall. He was mentoring our other young infielder, Brayan Rocchio, and the two of them had become a truly dazzling double play combo at second and shortstop. Losing Gimé meant losing critical infield leadership which impacted not just his teammates on defense but also the pitchers who were used to inducing ground balls hit to this defensive wizard and automatically turned into outs. Is there any wonder that our defense was absolutely atrocious the first few months of the 2025 season? Losing Gimé was brutal from a leadership standpoint as well as a defensive eliteness standpoint.

Plus, he’s very attractive, it must be said -- it takes a lot to be dubbed the Handsomest Man in Baseball, and he undoubtedly is.

The other critical trade last offseason was sending Naylz to Arizona. In some ways, that move was far more expected than the Gimé trade, but only because Josh would have the opportunity to become a free agent after the 2025 season. It’s a terribly kept secret in Cleveland (and frankly in baseball at-large) that players in the final year of their contract are usually going to be traded because it’s the only way a team can get something in return for them. If a player plays out his final contract year with a team and then signs elsewhere as a free agent, it’s basically “thanks for the memories.” But if a team can trade that player, they can get back prospects or up-and-coming talent.

The business side of baseball is honestly so gross.

The thing about Naylz entering his walk year, though, is that I had fooled myself into believing the team valued him enough to get a contract extension worked out. “It didn’t make sense to trade him” was a hot take I agreed with wholeheartedly. Removing Josh from our lineup was removing power -- having him hit right behind José Ramírez in 2024 is undoubtedly why Josey mashed almost 10 more homers than he did in 2025 without Josh there. Removing a threat like Naylz made it so much easier for pitchers to work around Josey. Why would we ever want to screw over our future Hall of Famer by trading his protection?

I let myself believe we’d work something out with Josh even if only for the sake of José. But the team traded Naylz, and I cried.

I’ve been a fan of this cruel, cruel sport for over four decades and have never cried over a trade -- but this past offseason, I cried twice -- once for Gimé and once for Josh.

Not all fans thought these trades were bad decisions. In fact, many still to this day rationalize and support them. Oh, Gimé’s metrics are this or that or Josh’s metrics are this or that. These defenders usually point to the raw, unproven talent of rookies or prospects, claiming we must clear out the debris of proven talent to make way for the kids.

OK, sure, I understand the value of letting young players have their chance.

But do we have to let all of the kids try to make their way in the bigs at the same time with so few substantial veterans around them? Could we get, say, at least half the lineup to be dudes who have more than one year of proven MLB success under their belt? Or must we insist that it’s the best possible move to let unproven players become our entire Major League roster?

As an example, let’s take a look at the final lineup of the postseason -- in a Win or Go Home decisive Game 3 of the Wild Card round:

Steven Kwan - debuted at the start of 2022. Currently our second best player on the team.

George Valera - debuted on September 1, 2025. This was maybe his 20th game ever.

José Ramírez - debuted in 2013 -- future Hall of Famer -- bonafide superstar player.

Kyle Manzardo - debuted in May 2024. Bounced back and forth from AAA. 2025 was the first season he played all at the Major League level.

Chase DeLauter - debuted in Game 2 of the 2025 Wild Card series. You heard that correctly. This was his second career MLB game ever.

Gabriel Arias - debuted in Spring 2022. Bounced back and forth between MLB and AAA. 2025 was the first season he spent all at the MLB level.

Bo Naylor - (hey, that’s Josh’s brother!!!) - debuted right before the postseason in 2022. Started 2023 in AAA and was called up to the majors maybe midseason. 2024 was the first season he spent all at the MLB level.

CJ Kayfus - started the 2025 season at AA Akron before being promoted to AAA Columbus, finally making his MLB debut in August 2025. Quite a year for CJ. His Baseball Reference page photo is still with AA Rubber Ducks hat.

Brayan Rocchio - debuted in May 2023. Split time between the minors and the majors ever since.

And pitcher Slade Cecconi - acquired in the Josh Naylor trade with Arizona. He debuted in 2023 but I believe this 2025 season is the first where he’s only been a starter and not a bullpen guy.

Look, I love seeing guys like CJ Kayfus and George Valera get their shot. I think it’s a cool story that Chase DeLauter will get to tell his grandkids that he made his Major League debut in the Wild Card round of the postseason. But to have all of them in the same lineup in a Win or Go Home game is bonkers.

The reality is that this is the best lineup available to manager Stephen Vogt. He did the best he could with what was made available to him. That is not to disparage the potential of any of these guys. But when they get stacked up against teams with grizzled veterans making up more than 1% of their roster, that shit matters, especially come October.

Cleveland deludes itself into believing this is an acceptable formula to achieve their alleged goal to bring a World Series championship victory to this city for the first time since 1948. There is absolutely no way they can be serious about this if our entire lineup is guys who are new. Not even a “Baseball is Magic” diehard like myself buys that.

Get us some proven bats or stop acting like you care about winning a World Series. Pick one, Cleveland front office and ownership.

To me, when the front office traded Josh Naylor, it sent a loud and clear signal that they didn’t care about winning in 2025. That they had no interest in running this team back to the ALCS (and beyond) this season. That they were protecting some version of self-interest by trading away a team leader with a proven bat. And that made me lose faith in this organization in a way that may take me a long time to recover from.

Josh Naylor, by the way, went first to Arizona and then to Seattle where the fanbases immediately embraced him. Currently in Seattle, the fans are clamoring for their organization to sign him as a free agent because they can easily see the value he brings to their team. It warms my heart to see Josh be loved by these fans and by his new teams. But it breaks my heart that my own team couldn’t understand and act on his value when they had the chance -- and it breaks my heart that they thought it was better for the future of Cleveland baseball to trade Josh away instead of demonstrating to everyone they were serious about making a run for the World Series.

It also irritates the shit out of me when some Cleveland fans continue to offer glassy-eyed rationalizations for why trading Naylz and Gimé made our club better. People simple do not understand leadership. I guess that’s why it’s considered a “soft” skill. There are no baseball metrics for such elusive attributes and how they impact a team. All I know is that it’s laughable to me to see folks point at stats and claim these are reasons to dump a proven player and to give an unproven rookie his spot -- and to do so on repeat for an entire MLB lineup.

And watch that team become one of the worst offensive teams in baseball.

Stats are cool and all but the game, as our Hall of Fame radio broadcaster Tom Hamilton likes to remind us, is played on the field, not on a spreadsheet.

As it is right now, either Andrés Giménez or Josh Naylor will be competing for a World Series ring with their new teams as Toronto and Seattle are facing off now in the American League Championship Series. I want them both to have that chance and so it’s making it hard to know who to root for this ALCS. For once I want both teams to win. Can we make that a thing? Gimé and Naylz both deserve the experience. Maybe it’s enough to know that one of them will get that extra step further this year.

But it brings up some bitterness, too. Imagine if we’d kept both Gimé and Naylz this year instead of trading them. Imagine having the veteran presence and leadership there to help guide these rookies as they make their debuts. It could have been this way. And it breaks my heart to think about it.

Baseball is a fail sport. It’s incredibly difficult. There’s no guarantees that if those offseason trades hadn’t happened that the Guards would have returned to the ALCS. But making those trades all but guaranteed that we wouldn’t -- and that’s what frustrates me the most.

Fandom, it’s a delicate thing.

And I usually don’t put much effort into the business decisions because they’re so far out of my control. I typically just focus on the guys playing in the game and leave the rest to someone else. But this season changed that for me to some degree -- seeing some of my favorite players shipped off to other teams because of a return on investment that feels short-sighted or petty or cheap sends a signal to me, a season ticket holder, that my investment in the team barely matters. This organization will operate how it operates and my choices are take it or leave it. That’s a shitty signal to send to a fanbase -- and maybe one that’s all too familiar to those of us who love small or mid-market teams.

We also have seen plenty of examples of teams that do spend a ton of cash on talent and don’t make the postseason at all -- so there’s no guarantees, as I said. But the effort to improve, the signaling that momentum is being taken into consideration, that matters both to the fanbase and to the players in the clubhouse.

Case in point: during this season’s trade deadline, there was a ton of speculation that Steven Kwan might be dealt and when that didn’t happen, his teammates finally exhaled...he finally exhaled....and they made a run to the postseason when they had no business being able to do so. Pitcher Tanner Bibee told the press that not trading Kwan let them know that the front office believed they could do something now and weren’t just looking ahead to “next year.” Whether that was true or not matters less than what the team could convince themselves to believe.

With this offseason now underway, the whispers about possible Kwan trades will circulate once more. And I will be paying close attention to what this team does -- will they invest in Kwan, a player drafted by Cleveland who’s about to win his fourth straight Gold Glove, or will they dump him to cut salary that they won’t turn around an invest in anyone else? I say invest. I say prove to us that you’re serious about raising a World Series banner in Cleveland. I say Extend Steven Kwan.

All any of us can do, though, is wait.

No matter what happens, at least I’ll always be able to say I was at the ballpark when Lane Thomas mashed a grand slam of Tarik Skubal in Game 5 of the ALDS. I may never see my team win a World Series, but that grand slam makes a nice consolation prize.

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