DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Cleveland Guardians 2.0

DeLauter making MLB debut at CF in a must win. Bold move.

Deperate times call for desperate measures when you have multiple players batting under .200

Also, apparently, the sixth player EVER to debut during the playoffs.

And DeLauter biffs his first chance in CF. FFS.

On to Game 3!

Go Guardians!

looks like the Guardians will be playing at 3:08 tomorrow - no matter what else happens.

isn't it 1:08?

Not if LAD closes out the series. DET/CLE would be at 3:08pm EST.

I miss the 'Like' button!

Love seeing the fans react and catchers head drop.

yeah, I also didn't think there was a chance SD, the Reds, and the Yankees would all win today.

I also don't think there is a chance in hell the Reds will win.

We'll just have to see. I'll find it on TV whatever time it is broadcast. Neither time will make much of a difference to me and probably won't impact very many fans with tickets. It's not like they are switching days like the NFL does or switching totally to a night game from a day game.

Love it!

Wahoo! On the warpath now!

It's been fun to watch these young guys breakthrough but I can hep but feel if Santana was on the team we'd have swept the Tigers. Win today and the Naylor Brothers series will be awesome.

Timber. maybe the cheap Dolans will spend more the 100 bucks for some Hitting

well, one more comeback would be needed

How this team even made the postseason is unreal. Problem is ownership is happy with this, refusal to spend any money for better players is off the table until The Dolan sell.

What a bummer. Amazing to have made the postseason with this lineup. Please get a bat this offseason (they won't).

Need Kayfus, Manzardo, DeLauter and Valera to make a big leap next year.

On to the Cavs.

great run. I think next year we will go deep into the playoffs with an influx of talent.

We have a bunch of young talent who should be around for many years to come. Our starting pitching is deep, our bullpen has been excellent this year, and we have a number of young hitters who look like they have real futures. I think that a couple of solid hitters will really propel this team.

I agree on young talent .. Front office / coaching , both in the minors and the big club , are excellent.. We are " Pitching U " ... The prob;em is and has been ownership ! All the Dolans have to is spend some $$ on a couple [ two ] legitimate bats.. I just don't think that's a lot for the fan base to ask for ...

They do spend on players. They just can't spend like a team like the Yankees can. The team knows who they are and what they are capable of. They have made the postseason 7 out of the last 10 years, IIRC. Their players are also assets. They re-signed Beiber, and traded him when he was healthy. It sucks, but that's what a smaller market team does.

We'd all love it, but who could/should they have signed as a bat this past offseason? I'll listen to keeping Naylor another year before trading. Guardians in a bidding war will likely never work out. They have to sign the Josh Bell's of the world an hope they catch lightening in a bottle.

People loathe the Dolans but they consistently deliver a winning and entertaining product that will make the city and its fans proud.

I agree, we did play bad baseball. I am not pointing fingers, but it is ironic that our best player, Jose, had two bad baserunning errors that proved costly.

The first was the rundown out. He made a bad read on the comebacker. Once he committed, he just needed to keep going. Maybe the pitcher makes a bad, rushed throw to the plate. He would have had a better chance doing that rather than getting in to a rundown.

The second error was the bad throw to first. I get that to a degree because he probably thought was was going to be out. None the less, you still need to breakdown after hitting the bag and glance over your right shoulder to see if the ball is loose. Then even worse, after taking off for second on a wide angle, he looked back twice. Every time you look back it costs you a step. Turns out he was thrown out by half a step.

Don't forget about DeLaughter and Valera running into each other in the outfield.

With the infield pop-ups, the pitcher is supposed to call out someones name.

If you cant afford to own an MLB Team ( small market ) then get out.. Always a brides maid , never the bride . just dose not get for me any more. At 77 I am running out of
time.

While I get the frustration, I’m frustrated also by the lack of World Series trophies in my lifetime (54).

However, the Indians/Guardians have made the post season 7 out of the last 10 seasons.. I don’t know how you can “blame” ownership with those results.

The Dodgers have a 13 season streak going, then the next closest is the Astros with 9. Yankees 9, Braves 8, then the Guardians with 7.

They are at the upper echelon of MLB clubs. It’s hard to argue their means of doing business.

I don't agree with this at all. The way baseball is (# of teams and # of games) a team can look competitive during the season and be completely overmatched in the playoffs. I keep remembering back to last playoff series between us and the Yankees. It was like the teams were playing two different games. Guardians had absolutely zero margin for error, while the Yankees had a stacked roster of hitters... a fielding error wasn't back-breaking because you knew they were going to get hits eventually.

Supposedly, as well as the whole Moneyball approach works in-season, the math completely changes in the playoffs. There is a large disparity between the high-payroll/major-market teams and "everyone else".

TIgers/Mariners going 5

I wonder who did this? Jose himself?

WOW , someone else agrees with me ..lol

Onward go the Jays

Cleveland #Guardians Jose Ramirez (7) has appeared in more World Series games than New York Yankees OF Aaron Judge (5) in their careers.

Both are currently 33 years old. Ramirez and the Guardians have been to the playoffs 7 times while Judge and the Yankees have 8 times in their careers.

I think all Guardians fans would love for the team to increase payroll, but it doesn't guarantee anything.

Yankees payroll each season of Judge's career:

2017 - $209,044,502
2018 - $180,098,151
2019 - $223,019,037
2020 - $111,939,081 (Covid adjusted)
2021 - $205,669,863
2022 - $252,957,200
2023 -$278,651,150
2024 - $315,601,274
2025 - $300,187,616

Here are the regular season records of both organizations in all games Ramirez and Judge have played in their careers:

Guardians 899-710 .559%
Yankees 675-530 .560%

None the less, it wouldn't hurt to spend some to get a couple more reliable bats in the line-up.

It doesn't need a blockbuster trade or great players. Just a couple of plus players.. You know, .275/ 80 rbi's/ 25-30 homers.

It's rare when you have the perfect team but when you have a bunch of .220 hitters, you need to do something.

Our best hitter is Kwan, but he is a slap hitter, a table setter, which is great if he is scoring 100 runs a season, but he isn't because people aren't clearing the table behind him.

Kwan should be scoring 100+ runs a season.

$4M? Seriously?

As a former catcher, Vogt probably loves what he brings to the team, even if he doesn't bring a bat to the plate.

I think it would be great if Dolan and Haslam traded teams. I think Jimmy would be a great baseball owner where he had no limits on what he could spend. Dolan on the other hand would be very happy to be in a structured salary situation with salary caps.

What an incredible series this has been.

Just incredible. I am kinda rooting for Toronto. (because of former Guardians, mainly)

The Blue Jays, the city of Toronto, and the country of Canada offer their very sincere thanks to Cleveland, the city and the team....

Watching Toronto beat the snot of L.A. right now is a thing of beauty.

They're toast.

We are well past "if".

Steven Vogt wins Manager of the Year again.

2025 MLB Manager of the Year awards: Brewers' Pat Murphy, Guardians' Stephen Vogt - CBS Sports
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/...-francona-thomson-schneider-vogt-wilson/

Vogt is AL winner again
Steven Vogt of the Guardians has repeated as AL Manager of the Year, as he won the balloting over his fellow finalists John Schneider of the Blue Jays and Dan Wilson of the Mariners.

Vogt piloted Cleveland to 88 wins and an AL Central title over the heavily favored Tigers. Vogt's case for the award gained steam down the stretch thanks to a miracle comeback by the Guardians. Cleveland fought back from 15 ½ games out in the AL Central, which made it the largest comeback in the divisional era (i.e., since MLB split into divisions in 1969). As well, Vogt's Guardians trailed the Tigers by 14 games as late as July 9 and by 9 ½ games as late as Sept. 10. Cleveland's 20-7 record in September played a leading role in that comeback and, thus, Vogt's winning of the award. This, of course, is to say nothing of the Guardians' low payroll and very limited commitment to winning from ownership.

Vogt has now won the hardware in each of his first two seasons as an MLB manager.

Royals Sign Lane Thomas
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/royals-to-sign-lane-thomas.html

Guardians Manager Stephen Vogt Signed Multi-Year Extension
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025...en-vogt-signed-multi-year-extension.html

Start building Jose his statue outside of Progressive Field tomorrow. What a gem.

Unless the Dodgers get hammered with injuries, they will win the World Series. Probably for the next 2 or 3 seasons as well.

This is why I basically quit baseball. All sanctity is gone.

There is no competitive balance within the constraints of the pay structure. That couldn't be any more obvious.

What you have is a bunch of billionaires who appear not to want that balance or players fighting against that balance. Possibly both. I don't know enough about the situation to say.

There are examples like the NFL who have salary caps. That may not be totally fair to owners in smaller markets but it's as close as they have been able to come.

Either owners don't want that in MLB or the players union doesn't.

I decided, just now, that I'll be taking my first trip to Cooperstown when he is inducted.

I might join you.

This is great. Love Jose.

Just a couple more months and it'll be time to get back to the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

Trial coming up in May; we're starting to get more details...


Guardians' Clase allegedly rigged pitches in 48 games, document says

David Purdum
Feb 5, 2026, 06:47 PM ET


Indicted Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase is accused of throwing suspicious pitches to benefit bettors in at least 48 games over two years, significantly more than was initially revealed by federal prosecutors, according to a court document filed Thursday.

Federal prosecutors listed nine games in which Clase allegedly threw rigged pitches in the indictment unsealed in November, but teammate and alleged co-conspirator Luis Ortiz's attorney wrote in a filing that the government is accusing Clase of manipulating his performance in dozens of games.

ESPN has reached out to attorneys for Clase and Ortiz, as well as the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case. Major League Baseball referred ESPN to its initial statement in which it said it was cooperating with federal prosecutors and declined further comment.

Ortiz's attorney, Christos N. Georgalis, asked in the filing for his client's case to be severed from Clase's, arguing that Ortiz and Clase have "markedly different levels of culpability" and his client could not receive a fair trial otherwise.

Federal prosecutors accused Ortiz of rigging pitches in two games in June 2025, while Clase allegedly conspired with bettors from 2023 to 2025, according to the indictment. In Thursday's filing, Ortiz's attorney pointed to this difference in scale and emphasized that the indictment did not contain evidence of Ortiz communicating directly with bettors.

Georgalis argued that a jury presented "with 26 months of alleged criminal conduct by Mr. Clase -- including suspect pitches during 48 games, dozens of communications with [a bettor], cash transfers and coordination of illegal wagers" could find Ortiz guilty by association.

Clase appeared in 197 regular-season games from 2023 to July 2025, when he was put on non-disciplinary leave by MLB over the gambling inquiry. If the allegations are true, Clase would have manipulated his performance in a quarter of those games.

A separate court record shows that a judge asked the government to provide Clase's attorneys with evidence regarding suspicious pitches so they can prepare for trial.

A record of the court proceeding states that Clase "has identified at least 250 pitches on which bets were placed, so the Court encouraged the government to disclose discovery to [Clase] as to any additional pitches that it alleges were included in the conspiracy."

Clase and Ortiz both pleaded not guilty to charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting events by bribery. The top charges carry a potential punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

According to prosecutors, the two accepted thousands of dollars in bribes to help two unnamed gamblers in their native Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on bets placed on the speed and outcome of their pitches.

Clase, a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year, was on the fourth season of a $20 million, five-year contract. Ortiz played three seasons for the Pittsburgh Pirates before joining the Guardians in 2025, where he appeared in 16 games. MLB also placed him on non-disciplinary leave in July.

The case is scheduled for trial on May 4, though Ortiz's attorney has asked for additional time.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...ly-rigged-pitches-48-games-document-says