During the offseason, you’d be hard pressed to find any baseball watchers or fans excited about either the National League or the American League’s Central Division games. It was obvious that all the games would be played in the coastal divisions. Honestly, it would have been a pretty safe bet to assume that once the postseason started, only the Central Division winners would make it.
With the All-Star break fast approaching, it seems we were wrong about the strength of baseball’s Central Division. Currently in the National League, the Brewers hold onto first place in the division despite offseason losses, and the Cardinals currently hold the third and final Wild Card spot as one of six teams with a winning record in the National League. While the rest of the NL Central is stuck in a sad purgatory of winning percentages in the .460 to .480 range, it’s still impressive how both the Brewers and Cardinals have defied expectations and played quality baseball so far this season.
However, the real action is happening in the American League Central, of all places. Heading into this season, it would be easy to rate the American League Central as the weakest division in baseball. The Twins were seen as the only threat in the division, but if you don’t believe me, check out our season preview of this group of teams. Now, as the mid-season break approaches, the Twins are in second place. That being said, the Twins are not second in a weak division. In fact, they are currently second in the wild card race. And that’s not all. The Royals are winning, going 49-43 and just two games out of the wild card spot.
But while the Twins and Royals have been doing well this season, the current AL Central leaders are also performing well, and the Central may end up with the best AL record at the All-Star break. Cleveland Guardians Proving they’re no joke. Indeed, the Guardians are a team that will always be taken seriously simply because Jose Ramirez is on the team, and he made that abundantly clear at the start of the season. How good was Jose Ramirez at one point? So good that the following quote eventually emerged:
The answer to that well-known question is always “No, you’re not as attractive as Barry Bonds.” It has to be said that Ramirez tried his best to be Bonds during the month of May. From May 1 to June 1, Ramirez batted .303/.379/.678/1.058/.376 isolated power/11 home runs/191 wRC+. This is still (somehow) nowhere near what Barry Bonds was capable of in a single month, but these stats show that he was clearly During the month of May, baseballs looked like beach balls. It’s also the mark of a player who continues to perform regularly: Jose Ramirez is entering his ninth season as one of the most consistently productive hitters in baseball.
But the story of the 2024 Guardians is that Jose Ramirez is not being made to do it all. He is getting a ton of help, most of it from Steven Kwan. Ramirez’s great May performance came just in time after a great late March-April month for Kwan. Kwan has been a very solid player since his debut with the Guardians in 2022, but this season seems to be the season where Kwan is doing his best to go from a “solid” player to a “star.” At the start of the season, he hit .350/.395/.483 with a wOBA of .384 and a wRC+ of 153 in his first 129 at-bats. Kwan was locked down early in the season, leading Cleveland to a division lead very early on.
Steven Kwan struggled the following month, missing most of May with a hamstring injury. But two things happened after the injury. First, the Guardians just kept going in Kwan’s absence. It helped that Jose Ramirez definitely stepped up his game after Kwan was injured and out, but it was truly a team effort. Cleveland held a 106 wRC+ as a team from May 5 to May 30, the period Kwan was on the disabled list, which was one of the top 10 performances in baseball during that stretch.
The second thing that happened was that when Kwan returned from injury, He got even better. Since returning to the lineup against the Nationals on May 31, Kwan is batting .372/.430/.566 with a .431 wOBA and a 185 wRC+. His return not only gave Cleveland’s lineup an instant boost, but it also proved that his early performances this season were no fluke. Steven Kwan is in the midst of a breakout season and is as big a factor as anyone in keeping Cleveland atop the division in 2024.
At the start of the 2021 offseason, the Guardians and Brewers An agreement was reached on trade JC Mejia was traded to Milwaukee in exchange for a player to be announced at a later date, but it wasn’t until March 2022 that the player was finally identified to complete the trade. Fast forward to 2024 and the former player to be announced is hitting .298/.404/.497 with a .387 wOBA, eight home runs and a 155 wRC+. The former PTBNL has proven to be incredibly versatile, starting at four different positions in Cleveland’s lineup (including designated hitter) and playing six positions total this season. It’s pretty incredible that he ended up on the PTBNL in a trade that sent away a pitcher who has produced a combined -0.6 fWAR over his career.
By now, I think you already know I’m talking about David Fry. It would be hard to find a bigger surprise in baseball this season than the fact that Frye has emerged as one of the impact players on a team that currently has the best winning percentage in the American League. At best, Frye was thought of as a utility player, someone who could be slotted into the lineup whenever a better player was injured or simply needed rest.
Instead, David Frye has gone from being the glue that keeps the team afloat during a marathon season to being a reserve player in the All-Star Game, and while Frye deserves credit, it’s still shocking that he went from having almost zero expectations to suddenly being a key cog on a World Series contender team.
While it’s still too early to talk about the Commissioner’s Trophy finally returning to Cleveland (even with the All-Star break just around the corner), there are plenty of reasons to be excited if you’re a Guardians fan. We haven’t even mentioned the great work the pitching staff has done, let alone the other All-Stars representing Cleveland. Josh Naylor and Emanuel Klaas will be coming to Texas next week along with Ramirez, Kwan and Frye. There’s a lot to like about the Guardians, which is nice to see, as expectations for the Guardians and the entire American League Central were very low initially.
