Guardians Outright Pedro Avila
By Anthony Franco | January 29, 2025 at 10:41pm CDT

The Guardians have sent reliever Pedro Avila outright to Triple-A Columbus, according to the transaction log at MLB.com. Cleveland had designated him for assignment a week ago when they signed Paul Sewald. Avila has been outrighted once before in his career, which gives him the right to elect minor league free agency.

Avila, 28, was a bullpen workhorse this year. He took the ball 54 times and tossed 82 2/3 relief innings between the Padres and Guardians, fourth in the majors behind Ryan Yarbrough, Derek Law and Luke Weaver. While most of Avila’s work came in low-leverage relief, he managed solid results. Avila turned in a 3.81 earned run average with a decent 23.2% strikeout percentage and 45% grounder rate. The righty had a slightly higher than average 10.2% walk rate, but he was generally an effective bullpen piece for skipper Stephen Vogt. He added four scoreless innings during the postseason.

That was Avila’s second straight decent year. He provided San Diego 50 1/3 innings of 3.22 ERA ball while striking out nearly a quarter of opponents in 2023. That makes it somewhat surprising that he didn’t attract any interest on the waiver wire. Avila is out of minor league options, though, so any team that claimed him would’ve needed to keep him in the MLB bullpen or designate him themselves. Apparently no team was willing to commit him a roster spot.

As mentioned, Avila now decides whether to stick with the Guardians or test the market. That he went unclaimed on waivers suggests he’d probably be looking at a minor league deal with a non-roster Spring Training invite if he elects free agency.

he intelligently declined assignment and is a free agent. I'd be surprised if someone doesn't pick him up. A useful inexpensive flexible member of a bullpen.

MLB.com ranking of top 10 players at each position which I believe have been posted on the forum show scant recognition of Guardians

Ramirez No. 1 third baseman
Kwan No. 8 left fielder
Smith and Clase No. 2 and 4 relievers
That's hardly looks like a playoff-bound team but they made it last year.
Departed 2B Giminez is rated #9 at his position; Josh Naylor doesn't make the top 10 1B

Need to compare Guardians with KC, Minnesota, Chicago and Detroit !

Must-See Video Shows How Close Guardians Star Was To Joining 40-40 Club

January 31, 2025

By Andres Chavez

By now, the entire baseball universe is familiar with the fact Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez was one home run shy from joining a historic club last year.

The revered 40-40 club (at least 40 homers and 40 stolen bases in the same season) only has six members: Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Shohei Ohtani.

Ramirez hit 39 long balls and stole 41 bases in 2024.

He was this close to making MLB history.

If you are a Guardians fan still lamenting J-Ram’s lost chance, then the next video definitely isn’t for you.

Codify Baseball posted a compilation of multiple balls off Ramirez’s bat that looked like homers, but nearly missed.

“José Ramírez would have joined the elite 40-40 club last season if just one of these had been a home run,” they posted on X.

[ I remember posting about a few of these missed chances at the 40 homer season by Ramirez a couple of months or so after the season ended. From the videos, Ramirez would have been closer to a 50 homer season ]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1885123459958923461

Oof.

If only one of those balls had cleared the wall, we would be talking about the seventh 40-40 player in history.

You have balls bouncing off the wall, others caught at the warning track and, to make matters worse, several stolen homers by incredible leaping catches made by the fielders.

Some of these well-struck batted balls would have been home runs if they were hit in a different park.

It just wasn’t meant to be, but this video should be enough to make people realize just how close he was to completing an amazing accomplishment.

Ramirez is a truly special hitter and will try, once again, to join this particularly celebrated club in 2025.

He is slowly getting up there in age, but is still theoretically in his prime and is showing no signs of slowing down.

<