#Chris Antonetti

Yesterday, I looked into how the predictions at FanGraphs, both crowdsourced and those produced by me, matched the contracts awarded to free agents this offseason. Today, I'd like to dive into a few cases where I made mistakes in individual player predictions, as well as a few I think I did well on. In each case, I'll try to come up with some…

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Guardians still need a catcher. Manager Terry Francona said patience is required and that executives Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff will deliver a backstop. That is a good thing because as Casey Stengel said a long time ago, "If you don't have a catcher, you're going to have a lot of passed balls." The winter meetings…

CLEVELAND - Think about how much has changed in a year. Last January, baseball stood still, and we were left to talk ourselves into Bradley Zimmer, ponder José Ramírez trades and evaluate commissioner Rob Manfred's negotiating tactics. It was bleak. But the lockout ended, Ramírez signed a long-term deal, Zimmer lasted one day of the regular season…

The 2021 season will be the last one that the Indians play under the name that they've carried since 1915. It might also end their eight-year streak of winning seasons under manager Terry Francona and their run as a serious postseason contender in the American League. Over the last five years, the Indians have made the postseason four times,…

MINNEAPOLIS -- Ballparks hold memories not just for the home team but the opposition as well. When Carlos Santana played for the Indians, he loved to hit at Target Field. He's hit 17 of his 260 career homers there, all but one coming in a Cleveland uniform, to make it his second favorite visinting home-run ballpark. In Terry Francona's first year…

The Cleveland Indians have truly done an amazing job of competing when all of the odds are stacked against them. Chris Antonetti and company can't spend like the Yankees, so they need to be ahead of the curve in player development. So far, it's worked. The Indians have competed for a postseason berth in six of the eight years Terry Francona's worn…

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti is the Major League Baseball Executive of the Year according to The Sporting News, which released its postseason awards Thursday. Antonetti was the overwhelming choice in a survey of 29 baseball executives, garnering more than twice as many votes as anyone else. Other top…

LAS VEGAS - When the Phillies clawed back against the Padres to win Game 5 of the National League Championship Series and clinch a trip to the World Series, they sent a message to the rest of the majors. ''I think it shows you [that] if you get in and you play well, anything can happen,'' Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski…

LAS VEGAS - Perhaps the biggest question facing the Blue Jays this off-season is whether they'll trade from their enviable catching depth to address other needs. Thanks to Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Gabriel Moreno, Blue Jays catchers generated an MLB-best 7.3 WAR in 2022. They combined to lead MLB in batting average (.273) and on-base…

The American League Division Series between the Cleveland Guardians and the New York Yankees has been characterized as David vs. Goliath. The betting lines give the Guardians very little chance of winning the series. But sports commentator Terry Pluto said that the young team has defied the odds all season. "Well, statistics or analytics would have…

Adam Frazier hit a tiebreaking RBI double in the ninth inning, and the visiting Seattle Mariners erased a seven-run deficit and topped the Toronto Blue Jays 10-9 on Saturday for a sweep of their American League wild-card series. It was the biggest road comeback win in playoff history and baseball's largest comeback victory to clinch a postseason…

Have the Cleveland Guardians blazed a new trail in organizational systematization, or are they just incredibly lucky? How did they get from there to here, and where do they go from here? Is Terry Francona a baseball shaman? As postseason party crashers go, it's hard to beat the Cleveland Guardians, about whom the questions outnumber the answers.…

ARLINGTON -- There's been so much focus on how young the Guardians' roster is this season. So along with a typical champagne celebration, what's more fitting than a pizza party for a young club that just clinched the American League Central? Oscar Gonzalez and Cal Quantrill were bringing in boxes of pizza as other guys were getting doused in…

Cleveland Guardians players celebrate winning the American League Central in the locker room after defeating the Texas Rangers in a baseball game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson) ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - A sturdy pair of goggles was mandatory attire Sunday in Cleveland's clubhouse, where impromptu showers of…

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Guardians were at Fenway Park coming out of the All-Star break for a four-game series. It was raining and right-hander James Karinchak kept flipping the ball in the air with his right hand and talking to himself. When he wasn't doing that, he was going to the rosin bag to get a better grip on the ball. Boston fans were on him…