March 25: The Guardians have formally announced the signing. In a corresponding roster move, right-hander Cody Morris has been placed on the 60-day injured list.
MLB.com’s Mandy Bell tweets that Morris recently underwent an MRI, which revealed a strained teres major muscle. He’s been shut down entirely and will be reevaluated after a period of four to six weeks without throwing. Given the length of that shutdown, Morris wasn’t likely to be ready early in the 2022 season anyhow.
March 24: It’s a one-year, $3MM deal that contains an option for the 2023 season, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
March 23: The Guardians have reached a deal to bring veteran right-hander Bryan Shaw back to Cleveland, Zack Meisel of The Athletic reports (via Twitter). Shaw made a league-leading 81 appearances in 2021 for Cleveland — his second stint with the organization. Shaw is repped by CAA Baseball.
A staple in the Cleveland bullpen from 2013-17, Shaw thrice led the league in appearances during that stretch and pitched to an overall 3.11 ERA through 358 2/3 innings of relief work. He reached free agency as one of the most durable and effective names on the market in the 2017-18 offseason, but a three-year deal with the Rockies quickly went south. Shaw was clobbered for a 5.61 ERA in 126 2/3 frames with the Rox, who released him in July 2020. He latched on with the Mariners for the 2020 campaign but was rocked for a dozen runs in six frames with Seattle.
A return to Cleveland on a minor league deal this past year didn’t come with high expectations following that ugly three-year stint, but Shaw generally righted the ship. In 77 1/3 inning of bullpen work, he notched a solid 3.49 ERA, picking up 20 holds and a pair of saves along the way. Shaw’s success wasn’t without its red flags, as his 21.3% strikeout rate was down about four percentage points from its peak and his 11.4% walk rate was the highest full-season mark of his 11-year big league career. Still, Shaw limited hard contact, suppressed homers and picked up swinging strikes at his best rates since the 2017 season.
Assuming he’s on the big league roster, the 34-year-old Shaw will become the elder statesman of Guardians bullpen that is packed with power arms but light on experience. Emmanuel Clase, James Karinchak and Anthony Gose can all pump 100mph fastballs with regularity, but Gose is the only member of the relief corps with even two years of MLB service time — and most of that came earlier in his career as an outfielder, before he made the switch to the mound.
Reliable. Solid signing
Great season last year but he seems overworked
and everyone was whining about the guardians not doing anything this offseason! now look!
Seems like this organization (which I love) isn’t sure whether it’s tanking or not …. The pitching is too (potentially) good to have a lineup with this many holes
Expected. But someone loses a 40 man spot or goes on IL to start season.
Morris has a Teres Major strain- same back injury Clevinger developed a few years ago. They’d have to start his service clock to put him on the 60 but it would clear a spot.
The signing we’ve been waiting for
He’s always been good outside of his two years in Colorado, and he’s durable.
Not a bad signing for the Tribe.
They’re now known as the Legal.
Please, no deadnaming. Its 2022.
Is he taking Phife Dawg’s spot?
The Cleveland Indians corrected their misspelling mistake. They’re now the CLEVELAN-DIANS.
Please, no virtue signaling. The year is irrelevant.
This is the throw Francona a bone signing in an otherwise depressing off-season.
Petit is still out there too, having 2 guys who can give you 80 appearances a year is valuable.
Thanks for the in-depth analysis, Ken Rosenthal.
Heh. That A’s fan guy muted me as soon as it was possible.
Lol soft as Afghan silk.
i always say indians
Neat.
I still say “Trolley Dodgers.” That impresses people at parties.
look out girls, here comes that bad boy you’ve been hearing about.
Wow, cool.
I started thinking about if they will turn away fans who wear Indians gear to the games?
They have explicitly said that fans may wear Indians gear. They aren’t trying to kill the past, just change the future.
Good work Cleveland, I have alot of respect for this ballclub, they’re just so good at throwing out pitching, they’ve consistently delevoped SP’s and RP’s, I’m sure this signing will work out just fine, as a side note, I see the Rockies as doomed forever. I don’t see how they will be able to ever sign good pitching, I’m sure all the SP’s and RP’s have learned that your carrer dies in Colorado, only way anybody would sign there is if the Rockies overpayed for them, so the Rockies really just need to draft well and sign a bunch of guys with nowhere else to go.
Just a quick side note… I just dug into Shaw’s stats, he had a 4.53 FIP in 2021… he got very lucky to have a low ERA for that amount of innings, and he probably got lots of help from Cleveland’s defense which if I remember correctly… is average?
“Luck Is The Residue Of Design.”
– Branch Rickey
Cleveland’s FO and Manager know what they’re doing.
P.S. It’s not so much that statistics lie, it’s that those available to the general public do not drill down enough.
You can also be lucky w a good Manager/FO.
Shaw had one of his lowest GB rates, walk rate and a below average K rate. XWOBA outpaced his WOBA.
All ERA estimators pegged him a run worse than actual results. That can happen & he may very well clean some of that up this year. But there’s a reason this a 1/3MM deal. That’s nothing for the ML most used reliever. He had some luck go his way.
Whatever helps you sleep at night, Samuel
Maybe the Rockies should just deflate the baseballs…but only when the visiting team is batting.
I Shaw this one coming from a mile away….
*ducks*
He has put on some weight. He’s much easier to see nowadays.
*SPIDERS
*Guardians
Indians*
They are the CLEVELAN-DIANS!!!
I wish they’d went with Spiders
Yeah, Spiders would have been a lot cooler imo.
Get over it.
I don’t care if they changed their name. I just think Spiders would have been a better name.
Please give it a rest. You don’t like the name. We get it.
They’ll get over it; takes time to get used to new names. Everyone thought Facebook was weird at first and now look, everyone loves–oh, wait–nevermind, bad example.
but that’s how the name got changed in the first place, no?
No doubt that Tito loves this move.. Shaw’s durability can make managing the pitching staff’s workload a lot easier.
Just so they can say they dished out one contract
Guardian down.
81 games & a 3.49 ERA?
There is not a bullpen in MLB that couldn’t use that.
Scott Proctor might have something to say about a players “ability” to pitch so much. Is it a talent or a managerial decision that eventually leads to a crumbling arm?
Remember Aceves on the 09 Yankees? He was often overlooked on that team. He’d come in and “vulture” a win after pitching a few innings and keep the game close until the Yankees were able to put more runs on the board.
He did the same thing in his first year with the Red Sox before falling off. In his first four seasons with both teams he was 24 and 3 with an ERA under 3. over 240 innings.
nobody can hold a team long enough for Cleve-Landians to put runs on the board.
Guardians? Can’t get used to that name…I’d rather see The Cleveland Baseball Team
No thanks, sounded so dumb for the Washington NFL team.
I like the Cleveland Commanders and Washington Guardians. Seems to fit better.
I just figure that the “Cleveland Spiders” would eventually lead to an alternate hat with like a tarantula on it. I’d be all over that!
Tribe still dumpster diving.
Who?
Same payroll as 2003. Sell the team Dolan!
Good signing by the Indians
Stunning that a guy who had no market at all still gets 3 million.
This was agreed long time back. Shaw and Francona play cribbage together. Shaw laid low so Cleve-Landians could carry full 40 man roster with umpteen slap-hitting shortstops. Ask why any ‘pitching needy’ teams around MLB (Phi, Angels, Tor, etc) didn’t sign him with such “gaudy” numbers….
I just wanted them to sign 1 decent OF. I’m fine with Naylor in right Straw in CF. I don’t have any interest in Zimmer/Mercado starting.
Do you feel any better if Rosario, Kwan or Oscar Gonzales starts in left? Melky cabrara Ben gamel, Marty Cordova and Shelly Duncan aren’t available anymore.
Ya no kidding.
Rosario in the OF doesn’t do it for me, if the trade off is Chang starting at 2nd, which is what Pluto wrote concerning that move.
I’d give Gonzalez a shot in LF before Kwan, I do like Kwan as a bench player when ready.
My real hope was a 1 year deal for an Eddie Rosario type, like they did last year , and have Gonzalez and Kwan develop another year in AAA.
Steven Kwan sitting on the bench? A secondary prospect to Oscar Gonzalez?
Nope.
They wouldn’t roster Kwan and leave Oscar dangling out there if that were the order of things.
When Kwan is MLB ready, I don’t see him as their solution to their long time issue with finding starting OFs. For 2022, my preference is to sign a legitimate bat for LF, instead of Zimmer/Mercado.