and won AL Rookie of the Year.<\/a><\/p>\nSandy Alomar Jr. is the franchise\u2019s most recent Rookie of the Year winner (1990), and he posted a 108 OPS+ that season, with a .290\/.326\/.418 slash line.<\/p>\n
The best compliment we can pay DeLauter so far? He doesn\u2019t seem like a rookie.<\/p>\n
Hitting is about adjusting to how pitchers attack you. When you make sound swing decisions, you can execute those adjustments more swiftly. DeLauter \u201cslumped\u201d for a few weeks, but that stretch was tolerable because he drew a lot of walks and rarely struck out. That kept DeLauter from pressing and chasing and playing right into pitchers\u2019 hands.<\/p>\n
Jhonkensy Noel, for instance, never recovered once pitchers realized he would hack away at everything out of the zone. (His 49 percent chase rate last year proves that. DeLauter\u2019s chase rate this season is 20 percent, which places him in the 95th percentile.) Resist the junk, spoil a few tough pitches on the edges of the strike zone, and you\u2019ll eventually earn pitches to your liking and start hitting again. That\u2019s what has happened with DeLauter, and it\u2019s why this start to his rookie season has been so \u2026 un-rookie-like. He doesn\u2019t just rank well among first-year players. He\u2019s among the league leaders in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and doubles.<\/p>\n
First seven games: 9-for-26, 5 HR, 1 BB, 7 K, .346\/.370\/.923<\/em>
Next 18 games: 11-for-63, 0 HR, 12 BB, 5 K, .175\/.303\/.286<\/em>
Next 10 games: 18-for-35, 1 HR, 5 BB, 3 K, .514\/.593\/.743<\/em><\/p>\n
\nNo one needed a three-run blast more than \u2026<\/h2>\n
\u2026 Bo Naylor, who clobbered one in the seventh inning in the series finale against the Kansas City Royals. Entering play Thursday, among the 345 players with at least 50 plate appearances, here\u2019s how Cleveland\u2019s catchers had fared:<\/p>\n
Austin Hedges: 26th in average, 68th in slugging<\/p>\n
Naylor: 341st in average, 336th in slugging<\/p>\n
\n
Austin Hedges’ wRC+, by year<\/p>\n
\n
\n\n\n| Year<\/span><\/th>\n | wRC+<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n\n\n| \n 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 131<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2025<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 51<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2024<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 20<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2023<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 24<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 43<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2021<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 42<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2020<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 45<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2019<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 48<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 90<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2017<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 69<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div>\nA couple of weeks ago, Naylor\u2019s beneath-the-surface metrics appeared encouraging enough to believe he\u2019d snap out of his slumber, but those inputs have waned.<\/p>\n League-average slash line in 2026: .242\/.321\/.392
<\/em>League-average slash line for catchers: .231\/.303\/.374
Hedges\u2019 slash line in 2026: .311\/.360\/.467
Naylor\u2019s slash line in 2026: .143\/.200\/.238<\/em><\/p>\nHedges has essentially taken over behind the plate when the Guardians are facing a lefty starter or when Parker Messick is pitching for Cleveland. Cooper Ingle is healthy again at Triple A, and though he\u2019s producing video game-like numbers (19-for-44 with 22 walks, good for a 1.445 OPS), the Guardians tend to err on the side of patience with young catchers until they feel they can trust them to guide a pitching staff. That said, Hedges would be a perfect mentor to any rookie catcher.<\/p>\n
\nSteven Kwan has one multihit game \u2026<\/h2>\n\u2026 in the last three weeks. Nearly one quarter of his hits (seven of 29) came in the first five games of the season. Everything\u2019s down \u2014 his bat speed, hard-hit rate, exit velocity \u2014 and he wasn\u2019t exactly the model for those metrics before this season. There\u2019s been an abundance of weak, harmless contact, and at some point, should it persist, it should spark some lineup reconstruction.<\/p>\n \n Steven Kwan’s hits breakdown<\/p>\n \n \n\n\n| <\/th>\n | 2024<\/span><\/th>\n | 2025<\/span><\/th>\n | 2026<\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n\n\n| \n 0-hit games<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 28.9%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 31.4%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 42.9%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 1-hit games<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 38.8%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 36.5%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 34.3%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 2-hit games<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 21.5%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 24.4%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 20.0%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n| \n 3+ hit games<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 10.7%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 7.7%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n | \n 2.9%<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\nBefore he earned his promotion to the big leagues, Travis Bazzana made a concerted effort \u2026<\/h2>\n\u2026 to strike a balance between patience and passivity at the plate. He focused on driving outside pitches the other way, rather than taking them and waiting for the pitcher to toss something on the inner half that he could turn on and whack to right field.<\/p>\n He\u2019s still drawing a bunch of walks in the majors, which, as with DeLauter, is a great way for any hitter, especially a rookie, to weather a cold spell.<\/p>\n It\u2019s reminiscent of when Matt Blake, Cleveland\u2019s pitching coordinator before the New York Yankees hired him to be their pitching coach, relayed to a Double-A kid named Shane Bieber that he should workshop a changeup. No, Bieber didn\u2019t need another pitch to solve Eastern League hitters, but Cleveland\u2019s pitching analysts figured it could behoove him to have that in his pocket for when he reached the big leagues.<\/p>\n Bazzana could reach base at a high clip in the minors just by standing at the plate and deciphering a pitch\u2019s spin and direction. In the majors, though, pitchers will hunt your flaws and expose them until you prove you can adapt, so you might as well start preparing an attack plan. Bazzana described it as \u201cfinding this fine line between zone aggression and still having a great eye to not give in to stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem-solving nature of Travis,\u201d said Stephen Osterer, Cleveland\u2019s vice president of player development, \u201cit\u2019s a nice little storyline part of this, where we want to see what he does against the best pitchers in the world and how they attack him and how he responds to that.<\/p>\n \u201cMost hitters have a bit of that journey of, where is the line and what is the intent going into the box? He\u2019s been a little bit more aggressive this year. \u2026 The cat-and-mouse game within a game and then over a course of games, he\u2019s really good at playing that. I think he\u2019s going to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAfter Cade Smith and Erik Sabrowski, the reliever Stephen Vogt should trust the most is \u2026<\/h2>\n\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u2026 Tim Herrin? Colin Holderman? Someone in Columbus?<\/p>\n This continues to be an area of concern for the Guardians. They haven\u2019t landed on a consistent arm to turn over a lead to Sabrowski and Smith. They desperately need Hunter Gaddis to get right. He\u2019s throwing his slider 62 percent of the time, but his chase rate \u2014 his greatest strength the last couple of years \u2014 is down drastically. To throw a slider that often, a pitcher needs to be able to either throw it for strikes or give hitters a reason to flail at it out of the zone.<\/p>\n One option down below is Franco Aleman, whose performances might as well be pleas to Cleveland\u2019s front office. Aleman has totaled 12 innings at Columbus this season, with 18 strikeouts, four walks, three hits allowed and a 0.00 ERA. Andrew Walters, another eventual candidate, hasn\u2019t pitched in two weeks because of a viral infection. He\u2019s expected to begin a new rehab assignment with Columbus in the coming days.\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A handful of thoughts about the Cleveland Guardians as we approach the 40-game mark of the season \u2026 Chase DeLauter is Cleveland\u2019s most impressive rookie hitter since \u2026 \u2026 Al Rosen? Granted, it\u2019s early-ish. If he sustains this, however, he\u2019ll have a chance to claim the best rookie season by a Cleveland hitter in at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Guardians-thoughts-Chase-DeLauters-un-rookie-like-ability-catcher-and-bullpen-trouble.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30293,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30291\/revisions\/30293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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