Cleveland Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti appeared on Thursday’s episode of Afternoon Drive on The Fan to address the state of the organization, following Cleveland’s win of the first overall pick in next year’s MLB Draft.
Two days removed from excitedly embracing John McDonald at the draft lottery in Nashville, Antonetti talked to Nick Wilson about choosing from the wide landscape of amateur baseball players.
“With where we typically have been picking in the draft, we don’t spend a whole lot of time focusing on the very top of the board. This year’s entirely different. The entire landscape of high school and college baseball is available to us, and it’s up to us to figure out the right guy. Not only the number one pick, but the total pool space that we have to allocate across all of our picks.
“It’s a great opportunity for us as a franchise to add a great deal of talent to the organization, and one [that] we’re excited to start digging into.”
After entering Tuesday with the ninth-best odds (2%) among all MLB teams to land the top selection, Cleveland will pick first for the first time in franchise history. Antonetti, however, affirmed the front office’s focus on finding the right fit, and not the quickest.
“Our focus is less on the timing of the player getting to the major leagues as it is identifying the right player for us, and bringing the right person to the organization.”
Antonetti also stated that landing the first pick would not be affected by any further offseason plans: “I know for a fact it won’t limit our ability in the draft…Whether or not it would impact other areas, we have to see. It's important for us to operate in a thoughtful way, and we have to be responsible with our finances.”
During this offseason, talks of the Guardians attempting to add offensive talent have been countered by potential moves involving pitchers Shane Bieber and Emmanuel Clase, along with the designation of former starter Cal Quantrill last month. With the Guardians coming off an Opening Day payroll total of $89 million last season (25th among 30 MLB teams), Wilson asked Antonetti where the pay total is expected for next season.
"I'm not sure exactly what it will be. Generally, our expenses are in line with where our revenues are. We are one of the smaller markets in baseball, and our revenues are somewhere in the bottom ten of the industry. On the player payroll side, that's the range in which we will be in most years. There might be some years where it's a little higher, some years where it's a little lower, but on average, that's probably where it will be until the economic system in baseball changes."
What will cause more uncertainty, according to Antonetti, is the Guardians' television rights issue with Bally Sports/Diamond Sports Group. Along with four other major league clubs, Cleveland rejected an application for an extension of Bally's bankruptcy proceedings back in October. The Guardians, who $55 million last season from the company, could see its current contract - which runs through 2027 - terminated during this offseason.
"We really just have no visibility on what that will look like for us, so that adds additional risk and uncertainty for us as we try to plan the way in which we operate moving forward," said Antonetti.
As of now, the Guardians will keep staunch in searching for helpful talent, even if considerable moves need to be made. When asked which Cleveland players had been targeted by other teams this offseason, Antonetti laughed off the question, but did state other teams' interest "is a good sign for us, that we have, not only we have a healthy and young major league team, but a healthy farm system."