Saturday brought a small flurry of transactions, as the Guardians and Diamondbacks made a trade and Paul Goldschmidt and Carlos Santana found 2025 homes. A look at those deals below:
Cleveland seemingly sells low on Josh Naylor; reunites with Carlos Santana
Trade details: The Cleveland Guardians trade 1B/DH Josh Naylor to the Arizona Diamondbacks for RHP Slade Cecconi and a Compensation Round B draft pick; the Guardians also sign Carlos Santana to a one-year, $12 million deal.
Naylor’s name has been bouncing around in trade rumors all offseason, with the expectation — or at least my expectation — that Cleveland would get a couple of prospects back for their young first baseman, who’s a year from free agency but in his peak years. Instead, Arizona picked up Naylor to address their first base deficiency, and only sent pitcher Cecconi and a draft pick back to the Guardians in return.
This is a no-brainer for Arizona, who just lost their stalwart 3-WAR first baseman, Christian Walker, in free agency. Naylor is likely to be a 2.5-3 WAR player this year — I’ll get into why I believe that in a moment — and he’s probably only going to make $11-13 million in arbitration this year, coming off a $6.5 million salary last year. The D-Backs have a strong farm system, but they don’t have anyone who is going to be able to help them at first base this year or even next. Pavin Smith is still around, and he could be a platoon first baseman or DH, but he’s clearly not an everyday player and he hasn’t even performed consistently enough against right-handed pitching to be more than a bench option right now.
The D-Backs could use a right-handed hitter for one of those two positions, preferably one with some thump; a Smith-Ryan Mountcastle platoon could be pretty productive if the Orioles are indeed looking to move on from their incumbent at first to make room for prospect Coby Mayo. Picking up Naylor for a pitcher they don’t need and a draft pick makes Arizona better right away, to the point that they may not be any worse off despite Walker’s departure.
I’m flummoxed by Cleveland giving Naylor away for so little, then turning around and spending most of the savings on a reunion with Santana, who’ll turn 39 in April and offers more downside risk than upside. Santana was still a valuable regular last year, with his production worth 2.5 bWAR/3.0 fWAR for the Twins, thanks to a strong walk rate and above-average power that mitigate his chronically low BABIPs — he hasn’t hit better than .255 on balls in play since 2019, as he’s extremely slow and hits a ton of popups.
He’s also still, improbably, an excellent defender at first, leading all MLB first basemen at 11 Runs Above Average in 2024. If Cleveland gets 2 WAR out of him, it’s a good deal for $12 million.
Carlos Santana won his first Gold Glove in 2024. (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
My issue here is that they gave up a player whose production was worth 1.5 bWAR/2.3 fWAR last year for a modest return and then signed a player who isn’t likely to be any better. (The difference in their WAR figures is almost all from defense, and I do not agree with how Baseball-Reference’s WAR calculations value fielding. FanGraphs and Statcast both have Naylor right around average on defense last year.)
Naylor had a breakout year in 2023, hitting .308/.354/.489, then a big BABIP dip last year (.326 to .246) drove a drop in his overall numbers, but he actually walked more in 2024 than he had the year before and his batted-ball data remained strong enough to expect a rebound. He might not hit for a .308 average again, but I’d bet on .280/.340/.480 even before giving him a little boost for playing 81 games in Arizona and nine more in Colorado next year. Given the underlying data, Naylor’s growth in the past two years and the relative ages of the two players, I’d rather bet on Naylor for one year than Santana.
Cleveland gets back right-hander Cecconi and Arizona’s Competitive Balance B pick, currently No. 72, a pick that had a slot bonus value of $1.09 million last year. Cecconi was extremely homer-prone in 77 major-league innings last year, allowing 16 long balls in that brief span along with 92 hits.
When you’ve got hitters fighting at the bat rack, you probably need to change something, and in Cecconi’s case, it starts with his four-seamer, which has a lot of run but comes in super flat; he allowed 10 of those homers on four-seamers and only got whiffs 16 percent of the time against the pitch. He probably throws it too much, and he might need to try a two-seamer instead, but this is who he’s been at least since high school — he throws it hard without a lot of movement and fringy command at best, and he still doesn’t have an average breaking ball.
Perhaps the Guardians see something here for their pitcher whisperers to fix; at the moment, Cecconi’s best attribute is that he’s a major-league pitcher who makes the minimum salary.
That draft pick does have value, even if it’s abstract to most people at the moment; this upcoming draft looks light up top but has depth in the college ranks. I’ve already had a few scouts tell me they think the second through fourth rounds are deeper than normal, while some players taken in the first round will be more akin to second-rounders in a typical draft year. As it stands now, Cleveland will pick at 27, 66, 70, 72, and 102, and that extra money gives them a lot of flexibility to get a higher-rated player at one of those picks.
I’m not sure if that’s enough to make me switch from Naylor to Santana given the latter’s age, and since the Guardians didn’t even save any money here, they aren’t any better positioned to go get another power hitter to replace Naylor’s bat. (I would love to see Jhonkensy Noel succeed, but he might just be too much of a free swinger to be a regular anywhere.)
The move also appears to lock Kyle Manzardo into the DH spot, unless they have some other plan that doesn’t involve keeping him on the roster. Manzardo struggled in his debut last year because hitting big-league pitching is hard, but he hit .267/.298/.548 in Triple A with just an 18.4 percent strikeout rate. He can hit good velocity and he was able to handle breaking stuff in the minors, so I fully expect him to perform better the second and third time around the league. He’s always hit, with his power upside the bigger question. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t hit for average, at the very least. He is not a good defender, however, so sliding him to DH and upgrading defensively from Naylor to Santana leaves the Guardians better off in the field.
GO DEEPER
Guardians trade Josh Naylor to D-Backs, agree to deal with Carlos Santana
Yankees add Paul Goldschmidt on one-year deal
In other first-base news, the Yankees signed Paul Goldschmidt to a one-year, $12.5 million deal, a bet that the 37-year-old future Hall of Famer might have one last good season in him before he retires.
Goldschmidt slipped to 1.3 bWAR/1.1 fWAR last year, the worst full season of his career by far, with a career-low wRC+ of 100, meaning his offensive output was league average. His 2023 wRC+ was the third-worst of his career, which is not a good sign for a position player in the back half of his 30s. He’s lost a significant amount of bat speed, so he isn’t connecting with good fastballs nearly as much as he used to, and he’s putting more balls on the ground.
There is still strength there for hard contact, so I can see why a team might roll the dice on a bounce-back year; I just don’t think the Yankees should be putting all of their first-base eggs in a 37-year-old basket.
Goldschmidt did crush lefties last year, hitting .295/.366/.473 against them in 166 PA, and if the Yankees use him judiciously, maybe sitting him against good righties while Cody Bellinger and Jasson Domínguez get the occasional day off against tough lefties, they could make this work.
(Top photo of Josh Naylor: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
