I’m not sure how many will remember this, but there is an iconic scene from Malcolm in the Middle where Hal notices the light bulb is out, so he goes to get a new one. On the way to getting a new one he encounters in order: a broken shelf, a stuck drawer, being out of WD-40, and finally a sputtering motor on the car. Each stop along the path requires a fix and heightens his frustration, so when Lois comes home and asks if he could replace the light bulb, he boils over and yells “that’s what I’m doing!!” as he rolls out from under the car. It’s truly a masterpiece and something I’ve watched myself struggle with on the daily.
While I love the move and the player and the fixes he brings, I can’t help but consider this scene with the officially official news that Josh Bell has signed his two-year, $33 million deal with the Cleveland Guardians. Absolutely he is a fix from the Owen Miller doldrums; no more listless cleanup hitter plate appearances for the miscast utility infielder. Bell’s bat fits right in with Cleveland’s brand of contactability and low K rates while offering up big-swing-tater-mashing-power that was missing from the lineup when Franmil Reyes started diving out for sliders down and away. Bell had the 11th-best BB% in the majors last year1 and his 15.8% K% was 29th lowest,2 and it’s so rare to find an outside fit to the culture as well as this. But there are issues with Bell’s arrival at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
Firstly, what does this do to Josh Naylor? The presumed starter at first last season, the eldest Naylor was working his way back from the gruesome injury that took his 2021 campaign away along with most of his mobility. He missed some time with leg issues, and every double to the gap was an adventure as we waited with bated breath as the lumbering slugger trucked into the second baseman. So while Bell to first base makes Josh Naylor the everyday DH, keeping his lower leg extremities fresh on the bench, that removes the roving DH the team used late last season to give players half days off and still doesn’t address Naylor’s platoon splits. The former Pirate/Nat/Padre Bell is a switch hitter so he will play nearly every day, but Naylor struggled against left-handed pitching last year: a wRC+ of 139 versus RHP is great, but it’s buoyed by a 53 against same-sided pitchers. Let’s call this the “light bulb”.
One fix for that would be to have likely everyday right fielder Oscar Gonzalez tandem with Naylor at DH. Sponge Oscar Square Gonzalez barely had platoon splits at all, per wRC+, and a 107 against LHP is just what the doctor ordered. It’s early in his major league service time, but anyone who has watched Gonzalez in right can attest that a move to DH might be in the best interest of the Guards and OG alike, anyway. But then if Bell is at first and OG is at DH, who is playing right field? Now we’ve moved to “the broken shelf”.
Every team carries at least a fourth outfielder if not a fifth, so if OG is sitting, that allows for someone else to get some reps. Is that someone one of the Will’s, Benson or Brennan? Possibly, though both bat left-handed, and only Brennan, he of the 11 total postseason plate appearances with only two hits, looked like something could be there in the future. There’s always the possibility that George Valera forces his way onto the roster out of spring training, but that feels 1) unlikely and 2) not a fix! Gabriel Arias doesn’t have a spot on the field and the organization was toying with the idea of him in the outfield at the end of the year, and he’s already gotten playoff starts at 1B, so maybe they want him to grab an outfielder glove and expand his repertoire to include “everywhere but pitcher”? We’ve moved onto “out of WD-40 and car noises”.
I know I am probably blowing up the proportions of the Bell deal. Before he signed, the question the front office was trying to answer was “where do we get power from?” The question now is much more simple while being much more niche: “where do we find another right-handed bat to play right field against only left-handers?” And this roster is far from being complete too: the trade of Sean Murphy to Atlanta and the signing of Christian Vazquez in Minnesota takes away two viable options for the catcher position for Cleveland. Do they attempt to acquire one of the three catchers from Toronto? Try to squeeze Jonah Heim from Texas? Do they push their prospect load onto Pittsburgh for Bryan Reynolds (a switch hitter!) to add offense that way and bring back Austin Hedges or sign Mike Zunino? There are plenty of different avenues to go, and the Josh Bell signing does fix a lot of problems without maybe adding one or two more.