Guardians notebook: Josh Naylor and the suddenly mighty, home run happy Cleveland lineup (2024)

CLEVELAND — Cleveland Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor is on pace for 44 home runs this season. As of Thursday afternoon, his 12 homers trailed only the Houston Astros’ Kyle Tucker on the major-league leaderboard.

No Cleveland hitter has reached the 40-homer mark since Travis Hafner in 2006. If Naylor maintains this pace — and, yes, it’s early and this is all premature and, well, just humor me for a minute — he’d join only three other sluggers in franchise history with 44 or more homers in a season.

Other Cleveland hitters with 40-plus homers in a season:

• Al Rosen (43), in his MVP campaign of 1953, the most recent MVP season by a Cleveland player.

• Rocky Colavito (42), who led the league in homers in 1959, which somehow convinced Cleveland GM Frank “Trader” Lane to deal him to Detroit.

• Hafner (42), in 2006, when an MLB single-season record six of those were grand slams.

• Hal Trosky (42) in 1936, Colavito (41) in 1958 and Jim Thome (40) in 1997.

As for Naylor, it’s not like this power surge is some sort of fluke, so it’s fair to wonder where he might fall at season’s end. He’s built like a grizzly, he arrives at the plate wound up like a bull hunting a matador and he swings as though he’s a lumberjack trying to chop a giant sequoia with one hack.

Even with those traits, though, his career high in homers is 20. He might eclipse that mark by the end of June.

A key factor in Naylor’s modest home run totals prior to 2024? His durability. He has never appeared in more than 122 games in a big-league season. The Guardians need him to stay healthy. They need his imposing bat in the middle of their lineup on a nightly basis.

Last season, Naylor finally proved he could handle left-handed pitching. He solidified his standing as an everyday first baseman, recording a .308/.354/.489 slash line. This season, he’s marrying the two skills that make him such a dangerous hitter: an elite contact ability and that tantalizing power.

Entering Thursday, Naylor ranked 17th in the majors in strikeout rate (13.6 percent). Only one other hitter in the top 65 in strikeout rate had a double-digit home run total (Tucker, who ranked 39th).

Naylor has exhibited more selectiveness at the plate, even if patience isn’t his favorite hitting virtue. He has boosted his walk rate to 10.7 percent from 6.7 percent last year. He has bettered his chase rate to 33 percent from 39.5 percent a year ago. That’s a vital improvement; he’s adept at making contact, but it’s tough to square up a pitch out of the zone. He’s forcing pitchers to toss him more strikes, and he’s pummeling them. He said he’s not interested in offering anything other than his “A swing.” He’s not trying to direct a softly struck bloop the opposite way.

Josh Naylor clears the wall for his 11th homer of the year! 💪 pic.twitter.com/z5E1qasEbh

— MLB (@MLB) May 12, 2024

Unsurprisingly, his metrics suggest he has been one of the league’s most prolific hitters, with his expected stats all ranking in at least the 91st percentile.

So what has clicked? What has allowed Naylor to tap into all of this potential and develop into such a force?

Naylor traces it to one year ago, when he limped into May with a .600 OPS, despite metrics that indicated he was regularly smacking the ball around the diamond.

“It was horrific,” Naylor said.

Hitting coach Chris Valaika insisted that Naylor stick with his approach and that he would ultimately be rewarded for it. Naylor eventually bought in. It helped to see some hits fall and his numbers rise. Over the last 20 weeks of the 2023 season, he posted a .347/.391/.552 slash line.

“You could hit a ball 199 mph,” Naylor said, “and it could be right at a guy and your average goes down, but you hit the ball super hard. I don’t chase results. I just chase having a good approach, having a quality at-bat. … I think I learned it last year going through that month where I just wasn’t very good at baseball.”

Throughout 162 games, every hitter will enjoy surges and endure funks (though Naylor said he doesn’t “believe in slumps”). Naylor noticed pitchers tossing him a bevy of off-speed stuff low and away late last month, which coincided with a weeklong rut. Err, let’s say “a weeklong stretch of alternative results,” since he doesn’t believe in slumps. He recognized the pitchers’ approach to him and tried to resist those pitches.

Now, he has five home runs in his last 11 games.

“It’s a chess match,” Naylor said. “I think that’s why baseball’s so beautiful.”

Final thoughts

1. Through Wednesday, José Ramírez led the American League with 37 RBIs, even more noteworthy given his sluggish start to the season. That total certainly stems, in part, from Steven Kwan constantly reaching base (before he strained his hamstring).

Ramírez is on pace for 136 RBIs, and since we’re in the spirit of projecting full-season stats, that total would rank tied for ninth in team history. It’d be the most by any Cleveland hitter since Juan Gonzalez racked up 140 RBIs in 2001.

Spread it on!

José Ramirez gets his 4th RBI of the night. #ForTheLand pic.twitter.com/g1nOGcji00

— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) May 14, 2024

Manny Ramirez owns the single-season franchise record with 165 in 1999. Through 44 games that season, Manny already had 57 RBIs. He was a hitting machine throughout his Cleveland tenure, and especially that season, but he also benefitted from a loaded lineup.

For instance, the top four in Cleveland’s order for their 44th game in 1999, and their slash lines at the time:

Kenny Lofton: .357/.469/.554
Omar Vizquel: .333/.386/.429
Roberto Alomar: .335/.431/.535
Manny Ramirez: .333/.411/.600

No wonder that team scored 1,009 runs, the most by any club since 1950.

2. The Guardians have hit 46 home runs through 44 games, which ranked tied for 11th in the majors as of Thursday afternoon. Last season, they hit 26 homers through 44 games on their way to the smallest total in the league. José Ramírez and Naylor have combined for 21 homers, tied for the second-most by a duo in the league.

Shohei Ohtani/Teóscar Hernández, 23 (Los Angeles Dodgers)
Gunnar Henderson/Adley Rutschman, 21 (Baltimore Orioles)
José Ramírez/Josh Naylor, 21 (Guardians)

3. A ratio no hitter wants: three times as many strikeouts as hits. Ramón Laureano’s friends and family members, shield your eyes. He has 31 strikeouts and 10 hits in 80 plate appearances. It’s hard to imagine Johnathan Rodriguez, while presumably a downgrade defensively, couldn’t exceed that production at the plate. (Laureano’s arm ranks among the best in baseball.)

Bo Naylor (42 strikeouts, 19 hits) and Estevan Florial (37 strikeouts, 17 hits) are members of the twice-as-many-strikeouts-as-hits club. Kwan, on the other hand, had more than four times as many hits as strikeouts before he landed on the injured list (47 hits, 11 strikeouts).

4. Emmanuel Clase issued his second walk of the season Tuesday night. He has more walks than earned runs allowed (one). This is the Clase we remember from 2022, with efficient ninth innings that have Guardians fans at ease, not chomping their fingernails.

Clase’s chase rate in 2023: 30.8 percent (74th percentile)
Clase’s chase rate in 2024: 40.5 percent (99th percentile)

5. The Guardians are 13-8 against teams with winning records. Only the Orioles (14) have more wins against such opponents. After this weekend series with the Minnesota Twins, though, the only opponent with a winning record the Guardians will face for the next month is the Kansas City Royals in early June.

Their upcoming schedule: vs. Minnesota Twins, vs. New York Mets, at Los Angeles Angels, at Colorado Rockies, vs. Washington Nationals, vs. Royals, at Miami Marlins, at Cincinnati Reds, at Toronto Blue Jays. This should be an opportunity for the Guardians to stack some wins, though baseball is inherently impossible to forecast.

(Photo: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)

Zack Meisel is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Cleveland Guardians and Major League Baseball. Zack was named the 2021 Ohio Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association and won first place for best sports coverage from the Society of Professional Journalists. He has been on the beat since 2011 and is the author of four books, including "Cleveland Rocked," the tale of the 1995 team. Follow Zack on Twitter @ZackMeisel