News and Notes for Friday, January 30th, 2026
Yesterday was a celebration of all things Jose Ramirez as the Guardians held a press conference to announce that Jose will be with the team through his age 40 season in 2026.
Paul Dolan actually talks in this clip to the public and the media. Now, he still did his best to deflect every possible question to his front office folks in this conference, but it’s nice for Guardians fans to know he didn’t lose his voice since his last joint press conference in 2022.
Again, currently, the only place I can find the following clips is on Twitter, so my apologies for those who avoid the site. Here are President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti and General Manager Mike Chernoff AGAIN repeating the now familiar refrains that the team didn’t add hitters because 1. they don’t want to block young players, 2. the players they looked to add didn’t want to split playing time. Shoutout to Mason Horodyski from WEWS on Twitter who is an absolute beast of getting and sharing these clips. If you’re on Twitter, follow him @MasonHorodyski:
I want to be clear about three things:
1. I have accepted that, due to the dearth of available ugprades, it makes sense NOW for the Guardians to go into the season as is (unless a trade for a significant upgrade becomes available in which case they should DEFINITELY pursue it).
2. The Guardians really don’t have a centerfielder. Chase DeLauter should not physically be asked to play centerfield as the main option. So, they have a spot there where at the very least they could have offered someone full-time reps. They didn’t because Paul Dolan (and David Blitzer, most likely) want to have the least money possible committed during the likely lockout in 2027. That’s the real reason for the offseason inactivity in fixing the 28th worst offense in MLB.
3. The platoon options Antonetti is describing are all going to teams where they will split time and fight for jobs. If they were reluctant to attempt that here, it is simply because the Guardians did not offer enough money for them to put their qualms at fighting for a job aside. That’s the bottom line.
OK, with that off my chest, I’ll also mention that Kiley McDaniel of ESPN ranks the Guardians’ farm system the 2nd best in all of Major League baseball. Looks like we are about to see how much that can help the major league team in 2026.
Category: General Sports
