There are few certainties in life. Death is one. Taxes another. And the Cleveland Guardians competing for the American League Central title? Well, that’s the third.
Since the Central was created in 1994, the Guardians have won 12 Division titles, a remarkable 38.7% winning percentage. They have finished outside of the top three AL Central teams only five times and have never finished last place, and the 2025 campaign doesn’t appear to be an exception.
As of Sunday morning, Cleveland boasted a record of 29-22 (a 92-win pace) and was tied for second in the Division with the Minnesota Twins. (Note: Cleveland lost to the Detroit Tigers 5-0 after this article was written.) What’s old is new and what’s new is old: The Cleveland Guardians are seemingly good, once again.
But how good are they really? Do they actually have a chance to win the AL Central for the third time in four years?
The short answer is, of course, yes, they have a chance. All four major league-caliber teams in the AL Central could win the Division this summer. (The White Sox could make a run at the International League’s Southeast Division if given the chance.) But the longer answer is more nuanced.
Despite their winning record, Cleveland owns a negative run differential. They are the only team for which this is the case, and it puts their Pythagorean win-loss record below .500, according to Baseball Reference. (B-R’s Pythagorean W/L formula heavily weights a team’s run differential. Over the course of a full season, teams generally will perform to their run differential. That is, teams that outscore their opponents have winning records and teams that don’t, well, don’t.) This alone suggests that the Guardians are currently punching well above their weight.
But let’s dive one step deeper to see if we can hypothesize whether Cleveland’s actual or Pythagorean record is more indicative of how their season will go.
To do this, I looked at a few key stats that may explain the Guardians’ offensive and pitching performances over the last four seasons. These stats can be seen in the tables below.
| Batting | |||||
| Stat | 2025 (92-70*) | 2024 (92-69) | 2023 (76-86) | 2022 (92-70) | |
| K% | 21.3% | 20.2% | 18.7% | 18.2% | |
| BB% | 8.7% | 7.9% | 7.7% | 7.3% | |
| OPS | .689 | .703 | .695 | .699 | |
| wOBA | .304 | .306 | .302 | .306 |
| Pitching, SP | ||||
| Stat | 2025 (92-70*) | 2024 (92-69) | 2023 (76-86) | 2022 (92-70) |
| K% | 21.3% | 22.2% | 19.8% | 21.3% |
| BB% | 10.4% | 8.4% | 8.3% | 6.5% |
| FIP | 4.40 | 4.51 | 4.34 | 3.97 |
| HR/FB | 11.5% | 13.2% | 10.6% | 11.5% |
| Pitching, RP | ||||
| Stat | 2025 (92-70*) | 2024 (92-69) | 2023 (76-86) | 2022 (92-70) |
| K% | 24.5% | 26.0% | 23.6% | 26.4% |
| BB% | 8.6% | 8.1% | 9.3% | 8.6% |
| FIP | 3.50 | 3.30 | 4.02 | 3.39 |
| HR/FB | 8.6% | 8.7% | 10.8% | 10.7% |
A few things stand out immediately. First, Cleveland’s bullpen has been absurdly good over the last four seasons. The one year they were merely slightly above average-to-good instead of elite, the Guardians finished 10 games below .500 and missed the playoffs for only the third time in nine years. (Foreshadowing?) To date, Cleveland’s pen has been largely robust despite a relatively mediocre start by Emmanuel Clase (4.50 ERA, 2.53 FIP). The Guardians currently rank eighth in fWAR (1.8) among all bullpens.
However, two stats worth lingering on a little longer are K-BB% and FIP. These stats are regularly used to indicate the quality of a team’s pitching staff as they isolate a pitcher’s ability to get outs, namely strikeouts, independent of the defense behind them. Below is a table comparing the Guardians’ relievers’ 2025 K-BB% and FIP to previous seasons (their league rank is in parentheses).
| Stat | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| K-BB% | 15.9% (6th) | 17.9% (2nd) | 14.3% (16th) | 17.8% (6th) |
| FIP | 3.50 (7th) | 3.30 (1st) | 4.02 (t9th) | 3.39 (5th) |
Again, it’s worth noting that the one year Cleveland’s bullpen was just decent, the team finished below .500. Now, it would be easy to say that the Guardians ride or die by their bullpen, and while there is some truth in that statement, it lacks important context.
The context in question is the quality of the team’s starting pitching. Refer back to the tables above and look at the 2022 and 2025 columns for all the stats above, not just those for the starting pitchers. They are all remarkably similar! But there are two glaring differences. The first is the astonishing 3.9% rise in walk percentage by the starting pitchers. Cleveland’s 10.4% walk rate in 2025 is currently third-worst in baseball, trailing only the two Los Angeles teams (Dodgers: 10.7%; Angels: 10.5%). Their increase in walks without a commensurate increase in strikeouts has led to an 11.0% K-BB%, which tied with the Athletics for fifth-worst.
Let’s pause to consider the K-BB% and FIP for the starting pitchers over the same timeframe as we did for the relievers.
| Stat | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| K-BB% | 11.0% (25th) | 13.7% (23rd) | 11.5% (t25th) | 14.8% (13th) |
| FIP | 4.40 (20th) | 4.51 (24th) | 4.34 (t14th) | 3.97 (16th) |
In 2022, Cleveland’s starters were average, and their bullpen was great. In 2025, their starters are comfortably below average, and their bullpen is great. The only season in which the Guardians made the playoffs in recent memory with a below-average starting pitching staff was when they had the unquestionably best bullpen in baseball. Herein lies another hole to poke in the Guardians’ facade; without better starting pitching, our hypothesis regarding the team’s legitimateness should begin to tilt more toward their Pythagorean record.
Now, let’s consider the other glaring difference: the offense’s 3.1% rise in strikeout rate. With greater emphasis placed on hitting the ball hard and in the air, league-wide strikeout rates have increased over the decades. As of this writing, MLB’s average offensive K% was 21.9%, placing Cleveland just slightly above average (12th overall). However, in 2022, the league average was 22.4%, and the Guardians’ 18.2% strikeout rate was the lowest in baseball by 0.7%.
This drastic change suggests that the team has shifted its focus on offense, from simply putting the ball in play to doing so with authority. This is further backed up by Baseball Savant’s new bat-tracking data. The Guardians have seen a statistically significant drop in squared up ball per swing, from .252 in 2024 to 0.237 in 2025. They have also seen a statistically significant drop in batted balls per swing, going from 0.383 to 0.360. (Will not statistically signficant yet, the Guardians have also seen their average bat speed increase from 70.7 mph to 71.6 mph, their hard swing rate increase from 0.174 to 0.234, and their whiffs per swing increase from 0.219 to 0.244.)
In short, the Guardians are swinging harder and doing so more frequently in 2025 compared to 2024, but they are also squaring the ball up less frequently while swinging and missing more. A portion of the changes in these numbers can simply be attributed to the loss of Josh Naylor in conjunction with the additions of Lane Thomas and Nolan Jones. The elder Naylor annually had one of the Guardians’ fastest swings, but rarely whiffed, boasting a 0.199 and 0.146 whiff per swing rate in 2024 and 2023, respectively. Comparatively, Jones has 0.257 and Thomas a 0.338 whiff per swing rate as of this writing.
The generally accepted trade-off for swinging harder and whiffing more is that the ball will come off the bat harder (and result in more home runs and extra base hits) when the bat does connect. But so far, the team’s average exit velocity is 88.5 mph (28th overall), and their .689 OPS is 22nd. So, while the team’s focus has shifted from putting the ball in play to swinging harder, the results have not followed, leaving the team with yet another fallow attack.
So, are the Cleveland Guardians legitimate contenders for the AL Central crown yet again? The underlying data suggests that this may not be the case. While their bullpen is once again among the best in baseball, their offense and starting pitching largely grade out well below average despite (or maybe because of) potential changes in organizational philosophy in hitting and pitching. Without in-season moves to bolster the offense and starting rotation, the four-way race for the Central may ultimately trim to two or three come September.
