Guardians face offseason brain drain as rivals target Cleveland's coaches and executives

CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Wednesday’s episode of the Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast, Joe Noga and Paul Hoynes examine whether Milwaukee’s bullpen collapse in Game 4 of the World Series helps explain Stephen Vogt’s controversial handling of Tanner Bibee during the Guardians’ postseason run. The Brewers ran out of reliable pitching options in their 12-inning loss to Tampa Bay, creating the exact scenario Vogt had hoped to guard against by keeping Bibee available for emergency relief. Hoynes understands the strategy but still believes Cleveland missed opportunities to use Bibee in the ALCS. The discussion shifts to Parker Messick’s chances of winning American League Rookie of the Year after Detroit’s Kevin McGonigle claimed the Players Choice Award. Hoynes expects a close race despite McGonigle’s status as the favorite. Finally, the hosts discuss Cleveland’s potential offseason brain drain following Conner Watson’s departure for Houston, identifying several coaches and executives who could attract interest from other organizations. While losing talented staff members is a concern, Hoynes believes adding offensive talent remains the Guardians’ biggest offseason priority.Read the automated transcript of today’s podcast below. Because it’s an AI-generated transcript, it may contain errors and misspellings.Podcast TranscriptJoe Noga: Foreign. Welcome back to the Cleveland Baseball Talk Podcast. I’m Joe Noga, joined by Paul Hoynes. Hoynsie, we saw game four of the World Series. The brewers with a chance to close things out last night, but the. The Rays came back, rallied to win it in extra innings. Did. At the end of the game, it looked like Milwaukee ran out of pitching. And a big question we’re going to talk about here on this podcast today is did. Did Milwaukee’s crisis, you know, running out of arms at the end of the game kind of vindicate Stephen Vogt for the way he handled Tanner Bibee in the offseason or in the postseason in the ALCS for Cleveland? Also, look at Parker Messick and, you know, find out if he can overcome Kevin McGonagall in the AL Rookie of the Year race and how much has Cleveland’s organizational brain power, you know, being poached by other teams this off season. Uh, is this something that, uh, you know, the Guardians fans should be worried about? Uh, let’s start with Milwaukee’s bullpen. Uh, sort of worst case scenario. Was Steven Vogt right about Tanner Bibee? For two weeks, we’ve been wondering why Tanner Bibee never got a meaningful opportunity to pitch for the Guardians in October. On Tuesday night, the brewers found themselves in exactly the situation that Stephen Vogt was preparing for. Suddenly, his explanation doesn’t sound quite as crazy, if you think about it. What’d you think about the way that the Game four unfolded for the brewers in the Rays?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, you know, I thought, you know, when the, When Tampa tied it up, you know, they were. They had gone through. They’d just gone through everybody, you know, and they were kind of sitting there. The brewers were, you know, they were up three nothing. They, they, you know, so they’re playing with, you know, kind of house money, but they, you know, they really did when, as the game got extended and, you know, there’s no automatic runner, so, you know, these, the innings are going to be the going to, you know, have a chance of going really, really deep into extra innings. And, you know, I thought Milwaukee, you know, he was kind of. Murphy was kind of in a tough spot. Does he, you know, does he maybe bring in, you know, the Miz tonight’s starter to try to finish that game out, or does he stick with some bullpen guys that haven’t been used and he made the choice to stick with the bullpen guys. Eventually, in the 12th inning, the Rays scored and won a game and kept the series going.Joe Noga: Yeah. By the 12th inning, Murphy was running out of, you know, options that, you know, really were sort of like the elite options that he had earlier in the game. Aaron Ashby, through a perfect inning in the ninth. He pitched actually into the 11th. He got one out in the 11th inning. Ashby has been just pretty much the. The MVP of the. The bullpen of the. Of the brewers pitching staff this postseason. Sixteen and a third innings consecutive. I think he’s up to 18. It’s a, it’s a postseason record of consecutive scoreless innings. He broke Andrew Miller’s previous record of 16 scoreless innings, uh, set with, uh, Cleveland back in 2016. So, uh, you know, you would expended all of your options there. It’s sort of like Stephen Vogue going to Cade Smith early in the. In the eighth and ninth innings, and then the game gets pushed into extra innings and, you know, you’re. You’re in a situation where your best arms have already been used. And that’s sort of what Vote explained his, His. His reasoning for holding Tanner Bibee back in case a game went into a situation like that. You also had the, the parallels and the comparisons to, well, if you’ve got a guy like Gavin Williams sitting there who’s supposed to start Game seven, you know, why not bring him in? They could have done. The brewers were in that same situation with Jacob Mizroski. He was sitting there, the Game five starter. But if you could have extended Game four, I get it, you’re up three nothing in the series. And it’s better to play the long game, at least in. In. In Game four, in Games five or six, that. That might change things if, if, you know, you want to end things right there. Mizrowski might have been a, A better option.Paul Hoynes: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, the. Now what’s. It’s the best of three right now. Right? I mean, with. And, you know, if this game gets. If they. If Milwaukee wins tonight, you know, things get really, really interesting then. And you know, then, you know that, that the balance in the. The odds shift and you know, then Milwaukee, you know, you’re. You’re starting to look over your shoulder a little bit, so you can see why, you know, it. It’s. It’s really. You know, this is the time of year where those, the managers really, you know, get put under the microscope and every move they make is analyzed. You know, you’ve got a lot of people wondering, you know, asking them why they did this and why they did that and to, you know, but, you know, in. In. In getting back to, you know, with vote and with vote and Tanner Bibee, you know, you can see why. Yeah. You know, you always want to keep a safeguard, but I still think, you know, I still wonder why he didn’t start game four or six in the alcs. I’m, I’m still wondering about that, Joe. I mean, I know you’ve got to, you know, you’ve got to have a guy at the back end if this thing goes 15 innings and, you know, but boy, oh, boy, I, I don’t know. I, you know, that’s, you know, that that’s something, you know, fans will be talking about forever.Joe Noga: Yeah. Vote repeatedly described Bibee as a potential bulk relief option during the alcs. He wanted somebody capable of covering those multiple innings, like, you know, if a game got extended and went deep like that. But the scenario never presented itself, and, and Bibee finished the postseason. He just, he pitched one third of an inning in Game 4 of the ALDS. The irony is that, that he made 30 starts during the regular season, but Cleveland couldn’t find a way to use him when it mattered most. I guess here, you know, the big question is, if you’re Pat Murphy, if you’re Stephen Vogt, do you manage for the extra inning game that might happen, or do you use your available pitching to win a game or when it’s actually being played?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, and I think that all depends where you are in the series, Joe. You know, I think, you know, if you’re up three, nothing and you got a chance to end it, you know, maybe, maybe you do. You know, you go for that. But, you know, the manager knows his pitching staff better than anybody else. He knows, you know, who he can lean on at this time of year. But, I mean, but if you’re, you know, if it’s game six or seven, you know, I think the strategy, you know, everything changes. I mean, then, you know, you really got to go for it and you’ve got to try to win it right there.Joe Noga: Yeah. Murphy’s predicament really sort of demonstrated that Vogt wasn’t imagining this scenario, that, that it actually does, you know, happen once in a while, but it, it didn’t necessarily justify leaving Tanner Bibee on the bench for as much as he did. Milwaukee was forced into that position after having used all of its best options. So, you know, Cleveland was eliminated with its, its former opening day starter sitting on the sidelines for the most part. Hoynsy, Speaking of Cleveland pitchers who made a big impact in October, we got to talk about one who might be bringing home Some, some hardware in November, but it’s not going to be as easy as a lot of Cleveland fans might think. Parker Messick and Kevin McGonagall, uh, the rookie of the Year race in the American League. We might have gotten a little bit of a Preview earlier today. McGonagall just won the Players Choice Award for American League Rookie of the Year. Parker Messick. We don’t know who finished second in that, in that voting. It was a voting by McGonagall’s peers, the players in the Major League Baseball Players Association. Parker Messick might have the best argument of any rookie pitcher in baseball. Do you think the writers are going to see it that way?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, I think, you know, I think, you know, it’s going to be interesting. I mean, McGonagall got all the, you know, preseason press and he kind of lived up to it, you know, and had really, really a solid year for the Tigers. But, you know, Messick, you know, kind of came out of nowhere, you know, really put together a strong, strong season, you know, 12 and 9. 2.5, IRA. 186 in the third innings, 32 starts, almost 200 strikeouts, 193 punch outs, 217 batting average against. I mean, those are hard numbers to ignore. I mean, the postseason didn’t go as well as he wanted it to, you know, but you don’t vote for the postseason, although these are regular season awards. And he certainly deserves strong consideration to be Rookie of the Year.Joe Noga: Yeah, the, the 2, 5, 6 ERA, 32 starts, all that, those numbers pile up. The 6.3 WAR was second among all AL pitchers, not just AL rookies. So that’s, that’s important to note there. He wasn’t just good for a rookie. He was one of the best starting pitchers in the American League. Like you said, he was an all star. He pitched a perfect inning in the, the Midsummer Classic with a strikeout on 10 pitches. Parker Messick, quick inning was, was what we saw there back in July. So there’s a strong case for, for Messick if you want to vote him for Rookie of the year. McGonagall’s case, you know, really, it. He produced early, he sort of jumped out and he didn’t come out of nowhere. He was, like you said, one of the more celebrated prospects. Getting the award from, from his peers like that sort of indicates that he made a strong impression on the other guys that faced him during the season. The question is whether that recognition is going to, you know, give him an advantage over Messick when, when the Writers, you know, submitted their votes before the end of the regular season. Is, is, are, are we reading too much into this? Because the, the players and the, and the writers often have different, different kind of opinions on who deserves what kind of recognition.Paul Hoynes: Yeah, you know, I don’t know if the players are sitting there going over the, you know, the analytics, every stat cast stat on each, each guy, you know, you know, the writers are, I mean, I think they, they, you know, they have a little different criteria for judging a player. Obviously the players, you know, they face Messick, they faced McGonagall, you know, they played against them. So, you know, I think that gives you a different perspective, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean one side is right and one side is wrong. But I think they come at this thing from different, you know, from different angles.Joe Noga: Should, should Messick’s workload and the, the dominance that he showed over the course of, you know, 30 plus starts during the season carry more weight than the contributions of a guy who, you know, he was in the lineup every day? That’s, that goes back to the old, the age old argument that we say should, should. Where should pitchers rank in the MVP voting?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, I think, you know, if one thing works against, you know, Messick, that’s probably going to work against them. You know, you know, McGonagall was in the Tigers lineup every day. You know, he, you know, and you know, it’s, that’s just a fact of life. I mean, you know, Messick did make 32 starts, which is a, which is a lot of starts for a rookie. But you know, you, you still, you still don’t pitch, you’re still not in the lineup. You don’t influence a game four to five days a week, you know, for, you know, four to five days between starts. So you know, the, the, so the, the, the, the impact of an everyday player probably goes a little, you know, carries a little more weight in that regard.Joe Noga: If, if head to head means anything during the regular season. Kevin McGonagall, oh, for six with zero hits against Parker Messick in, in their, their rookie season. So if that means anything, I don’t know if it, if it’s, if it could be a tiebreaker question for, for a voter, maybe something like that, I guess. You know, McGonagall was the presumed winner for so long heading into the season. He was sort of on all the watch lists and Messick really came out of nowhere, earning that last spot in the, in the rotation in spring training and nobody expected him, nobody Expected to look up in at the end of May and think, wow, Parker Messick’s one of the best pitchers in the AL right now. Is, does that help him or hurt him? And should voters consider the fact that, you know, McGonagall had a successful season while being, you know, considered one of the top guys all year long. It’s tough to maintain that all year, maintain those expectations, whereas Messick didn’t have the expectations and, you know, sort of exceeded anything.Paul Hoynes: Yeah, you know, I think, I think that’s exactly right, Joe. And, you know, this is, this was such a strong rookie class in the American elite American League especially, you know, I mean, you know, you know, Messick might, you know, he might get hurt by some of his own teammates getting votes. You know, chase the Lauder, you know, it’s got to be, you know, a big, big vote getter in this, in this case as well. And, you know, and Bazzana, I’m sure, will get some recognition. You know, they had, they had some rookies had really made a good, a strong impression that played well. So, you know, he might get hurt by his own teammates and not in a budget, you know, that could cause, split some votes.Joe Noga: Well, and there’s a guy in Chicago who hit 30 home runs this year and he qualifies as a rookie, even though not maybe the traditional rookie in a sense in Minutaki Murakami. He did some damage against Cleveland and, you know, voters might consider him, you know, coming over from Japan, having played there professionally. That goes back to the old Ichiro argument, but, you know, we’ve seen a little bit less of that over the years. Yeah, there are other, other guys to consider in this, in this race, but I think it really comes, it should boil down to McGonagall vs. Messick. In the end, I can’t wait to see what the vote totals wind up being because we’ve had a lot of unanimous votes over the past couple of years with all the voters, you know, ballots being made public when the awards are announced and people are more inclined to vote with the majority and, you know, not be the guy sort of singled out who voted against, let’s say a Cy Young or a Manager of the Year or anything like that. We’ve seen so many, we’ve seen multiple MVP guys go unanimous. I, I don’t know. I think this is going to be a closer, a more split vote between Messick and McGonagall. Do you think it’s going to be a close race?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, I do. I do, Joe. I think you know, I think probably McGonagall wins this thing, you know, just as we’ve talked about. He had the preseason kind of, you know, recognition, and he played well, but I think it’s going to be close. And, you know, sometimes it’s not this, you know, this is the. The Rookie of the Year is the one award you can only win once, and sometimes that’s. It’s. It’s better not to win that. If you look at the history of the award, if you finish second, you know, that’s a pretty good place to finish. You know, Kenny Lofton finished second, Manny Ramirez finished second. So, you know, there’s. There’s some pros and cons to this award.Joe Noga: Yeah, it’s a good point. You bring up there, Hoynsie, that Cleveland’s got a tradition of guys who really deserve the Rookie of the Year award. Not winning it and then going on and having really successful careers with Cleveland. You just named two right there. I think Pat Listach from Milwaukee beat Kenny in. In what, 92 for the rookie of the Year. And who was it that.Paul Hoynes: Bob Hamlin. BobJoe Noga: Hamlin. Bob Hamlin. Who did he beat?Paul Hoynes: He beat. He beat Manny.Joe Noga: He beat Manny. Bob Hamlin beat Manny Ramirez. Are you kidding me? All right. Yeah. The. The finalists are scheduled to be announced Monday with the AL Rookie of the Year winner revealed on November 9th. We definitely expect Messick to be among the. The top three finalists, and we’ll. We’ll wait to see what the book says on November 9th. Just to note that the. The BBWAA Rookie of the Year Award, which is generally considered the Rookie of the Year Award, is different than the Player’s Choice version of that award, and that’s, you know, voted on by players. Whereas the baseball writers vote for the BBWAA Award. Glenn’s been pretty good at developing pitchers like Messick, but keeping the people who develop that talent around is starting to become its own challenge in Cleveland. Guardians are experiencing a little bit of a brain drain here. Coaches, executives, guys who are sort of on the list, all always guys in the front office in Cleveland. On the lists of several teams that looking to fill jobs, you know, guys from Cleveland go on to take higher positions with other organizations. We’ve seen it often. The latest is Connor Watson, who was with Cleveland’s hitting group and hitting development. He was an assistant director of hitting development, mostly based in Arizona. He came out of the. The driveline Arizona facility to spend the last two years with Cleveland helping their, their hitting, you know, basically fundamentals and stuff out there. In Arizona. He’s going to Houston. The, The Astros parted ways with Joe Espada, so they don’t have a manager yet, but they are retaining Victor Rodriguez, who was an assistant hitting coach here in, In Cleveland for several years, I believe, uh, five seasons with the. Under Tito, and, uh, he went to San Diego and then had, had taken over, uh, as Houston’s hitting coach last season. So Connor Watson now is going to be the director of hitting for the entire Astros organization. This is just another example of other, other clubs recognizing that the Cleveland support staff has, has a lot of talent of its own in its. In its own right.Paul Hoynes: Yeah, and, you know, they’ve made, you know, they’ve made their. Their success is due largely to, you know, drafting well, developing well and getting players to the big leagues who are ready to contribute right away. And, you know, the, the players obviously get the most credit, but there’s a lot of people behind them in, in this organization that really push them through the system and get them ready to perform at the big league level, you know, and this. They’ve done it year after year on a, On a strict budget. And that, you know, that draws attention from the 29 other organizations in, in the big leagues. Joe?Joe Noga: Yeah, the Guardians, sort of. We found out last week they, They’re. They avoided losing Stephen Vogt and Carl Willis, who are pretty much the, the two headline names, you know, on staff vote had been, you know, rumored to be a guy that, that Seattle might have been interested in, but we found out that that never materialized. And Willis, we get to this point every year and it’s, you know, is he coming back or is he not? And they sounded energized when they talked about Carl Willis coming back. Keeping the big names is nice, but the rest of the organization has, has guys who are valuable. We’ve talked about outfield coach JT McGuire, who’s, you know, Steven Vogt’s got four consecutive Gold Gloves and as a finalist for a fifth. You talk about the importance that he’s had in on the club. And, you know, he’s. He’s a guy who you could see somewhere down the line drawing interest from other clubs. Anybody else on the coaching staff or in the front office who, who might, who you think might draw interest from other clubs?Paul Hoynes: Yeah, Joe. I mean, there’s, there’s several teams, you know, looking to fill GM and managerials, you know, spots. Oakland, Houston, the Angels are three of them. You know, I would think, you know, Matt Foreman was the assistant gm, was up for the Rockies job last year. I would not be surprised to hear his name bandied about and in the coaching staff there’s I think, you know, on the pitching side, Joe Torres, you know, Brad Goldberg, you know, certainly have, you know, big time assistance to Carl Willis. You know, I would think, you know, their names would be out there as well.Joe Noga: Yeah, I, I, I think Goldberg is a guy who the, the Guardians are sort of putting in a position to, you know, if they eventually do lose Carl Willis to, to retirement at some point, you know, they’ve got Goldberg sort of waiting in the wings to take that and, and, and sort of be like a seamless transition there. I’m also thinking about, you know, front office guys. You mentioned Matt Foreman, but James Harris is another guy who, who has a lot of, has a, has a really diverse background and might be an attractive piece to a lot of different organizations as who might be calling about a front office guy. So there is a lot of talent within the organization. Obviously Connor Watson, a guy that they brought in a couple of years ago and you know, there’s connections there all over the place and you know, we’ll see what he does. As the director of hitting in Houston, might, might be time to change over some philosophies there. Antonetti said last week that the Cleveland expects its major league coaching staff to remain mostly intact. But the Guardians have a reputation throughout the league. Coaches, executives, player development guys become attractive candidates in their own right. So yeah, I think there’s a reasonable expectation that you know, some other guys could get calls about interest from other teams. But again this is all presupposing that there’s a 2027 season and that business won’t be as usual once Dec 1 rolls around Dec 2 the expected lockout. So we’ll keep an eye on that. All right, let’s wrap up today’s edition with a couple of quick rapid fire questions. Yes or no. Hoynsie World Series did Tuesday change your mind about votes handling of Tanner Bibee or there still questions for you?Paul Hoynes: Well, you know, I understand the reasoning Joe, but there’s still questions for me. I, I still think, you know, they, they could have, you know, fit him in for in game 4 6. I understand that they wanted to get more outs than than just if they had used Bobby in an opener’s role. You know you get more than four or five outs from them and that’s why they kept him in reserve. But I still think that was a missed opportunityJoe Noga: Ward season. Do you think Messick is a legitimate threat to Kevin McGonagall for Rookie of the year or is the outcome pretty much already decided?Paul Hoynes: I think it’s 100% that that he’s a legitimate threat. I think maybe McGonagall wins but I think it’s going to be close. And you know, I really think Messick opened some eyes and you know, and you know it’s a coin flip right now to me. Joe,Joe Noga: what concerns you more? Losing a key coach or executive or player development guy or failing to add offense, the kind of offensive talent Cleveland needs this offseason.MORE BY CLEVELAND BASEBALL TALK PODCASTPaul Hoynes: Yeah, adding talent always is the major main goal of any organization. The guardians have a deep bench when it comes to executives and coaches and instructors. You know, it’s the next man up syndrome there. But adding talent is the key to me.Joe Noga: All right, Hoynsie, that’s going to wrap up today’s edition of the Cleveland Baseball Talk podcast. We’ll check back in with you on Friday.Paul Hoynes: Good deal, Joe.This article was produced with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by Cleveland.com staff.