The youngest team in MLB isn’t half bad

We knew going into the season that the Guardians wouldn’t be great this year. Frankly, you don’t exactly need to be a Nostradamus-type when you see that the Guardians have been in (what feels like a perpetual) salary dump the last few years.

And when you consider that the Guardians are ranked 28th in MLB salaries out of 30 teams – the two franchises below them are the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates – it's kinda depressing, especially when you realize that the franchise parted with many Dolan dollars (at least from their perspective) to keep Jose Ramirez. But before you start popping prescription sedatives like M&M’s, ask yourself one question:

“Self, what’s the big difference between the Royals, Pirates, and Guardians?”

Well, self, the Royals are awful. And the Pirates – though slightly better than Kansas City – are not exactly on the verge of printing up World Series tickets yet, either. The Guardians clearly have a more promising upside than either the Royals or Pirates.

But do you know what the real kicker is … what gets me really pumped about the future of these guys?

The age of the roster. The current Guardians team has an average age just a bit over 26 years, which just so happens to be the youngest roster in ALL the major leagues.

It goes to show that – as much as I criticize ownership for its consistently aggravating habit of not adding talent to the roster when the opportunity presents itself (and I am, of course, referring to player contracts in-house along with free agents from other teams) – it is very clear that ownership has always recognized and (more importantly) retained some of the sharpest scouts and talent evaluators in the game.

Of course, some argue that this – at the end of the day – only makes it more frustrating to see some teams that may have had (or will have in the future) legitimate shots for a title and the Dolans will be content with that level of “success.”

My response is always along the lines of, “Then think about where the franchise would be if we didn’t have those guys on our side – the franchise would be perpetually awful and we’d hear the same rumors that surrounded the franchise in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, like where the team was likely to move to, and so on…"

The point of all of this is not to paint an unrealistically rosy picture of the Cleveland baseball franchise; we can all agree that at times it’s borderline torture to visualize where we might be if the Dolans added a few players here or there to help a team that’s ready to take the “next step” – but they don’t.

On the other hand, where would the Guardians be if the Haslams were calling the shots?

Probably New Orleans.