Photo: Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire

Part of a series of articles previewing the defensive performance of all 30 MLB teams by asking the question … are they good?

To see the full series, click here.

2024 Defensive Runs Saved Rank: 2nd

Team Strengths

Left fielder Steven Kwan is the best defender at his position by a good margin since making his debut in 2022.

Most Defensive Runs Saved – Left Field

Last 3 Seasons

First baseman Carlos Santana has remade himself as a defensive first basemen and has been among the best in the game the last two seasons (20 Runs Saved ranks 2nd). Should anything happen to him, the team’s likely DH, Kyle Manzardo, had a good track record in the minor leagues. 

Shortstop Brayan Rocchio had a very good rookie season, ranking 3rd among shortstops in Runs Saved. He was particularly good on the double play and it will be interesting to see how he works with a new second baseman on that, with Andrés Giménez traded to the Blue Jays.

Speaking of remakes, Bo Naylor made vast improvements to his pitch framing last season and jumped from -3 Runs Saved overall in 2023 to 11 Runs Saved in 2024.

Team Weaknesses

Center field could be problematic if that’s Lane Thomas’ primary position. He has -6 Runs Saved there in his career and had -11 in right field last season. Will Brennan had -6 Runs Saved in right field, so the outfield outside of Kwan looms as the biggest weakness.

Other Things To Consider

We didn’t mention José Ramírez as a strength, though we could have. He’s totaled 8, 1, 1, and 6 Runs Saved in the last four seasons playing about the same number of innings each year at third base. He’s an above-average defender.

There seems to be a clear path for Travis Bazzana to become the team’s regular second baseman pretty quickly. We have only a 27-game sample size to go on, in which he had 2 Runs Saved at High-A Lake County last season. We’ve seen 20-80 grades of 40 (Eric Longenhagen, FanGraphs) and 50 (MLB Pipeline) on his glove, so it doesn’t seem like he’ll be at Giménez’s level.

Are They A Good Defensive Team?

If the Guardians had Giménez, it’s fair to say they’d have entered 2025 as the best defensive team in the majors. Without him, they’re still pretty good. The spots where they are strong, they are quite strong.