Guardians' Dynamic Pitcher Lands Distressing Prediction

The Cleveland Guardians won the AL Central and made it all the way to the ALCS last season thanks mostly in part to their historically great bullpen, and while the entire pen was terrific all year, there were really three relief pitchers who were the bread and butter of it.

Emmanuel Clase, Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis.

Clase was baseball's most dominant closer in 2024, and Smith and Gaddis did a phenomenal job bridging the gap to Clase in the later innings.

Gaddis made 78 appearances, pitching to the tune of a 1.57 ERA while allowing just 43 hits and registering 66 strikeouts over 74.2 innings of work. He logged minuscule 0.763 WHIP and was electrifying throughout the entire campaign.

However, Fangraphs' projections do not seem to like the chances of the right-hander replicating his success in 2025.

Quincy Wheeler of Covering the Corner took an average of all of Fangraphs' projection systems to most accurately predict the production of the Guardians' players heading into the coming season, and when it came to Gaddis, the numbers were fairly concerning.

The 26-year-old averaged a 3.97 ERA across all projections, and his best mark was a 3.91 ERA. That isn't bad for a No. 3 starter, but it's not what you want from one of your top relievers.

In order for Cleveland to have another strong campaign, it will likely have to lean heavily on its bullpen again, as its starting rotation remains a major question mark.

Gaddis was largely unhittable for much of 2024, so if he suddenly becomes more mortal this year, it could pose a rather significant problem for the Guardians.

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