Cleveland Guardians Winter Ball Weekly 1/13-20/25
GUARDIANS ORGANIZATION PLAYERS
Gabriel Arias (RF-SS, Magallanes): combined 3-for-16, 1 R, 1 RBI, 1 BB, 3 K - Arias, who returned to shortstop for his last two games of the Venezuelan campaign after a lengthy stint in right field, struggled in the final week of the Round Robin and was not picked up for a second refuerzo stint after the Navegantes failed to advance to the Serie Final. His absence from the championship series doesn’t mean that he won’t make a return for the Caribbean Series as those rosters are largely assembled from scratch despite officially being the champions of the various Caribbean circuits.
Dayan Frias (SS, Monteria): combined 8-for-30, 5 R, 2 2B, 1 RBI, 3 BB, 2 K, 1 SF, 1 SB, 2 E in Serie Final (includes Game 1 which was covered in last week’s column) - Much like the Vaqueros as a whole, Frias started the Serie Final strong (seven of his eight hits in the series came in Games 1 and 3) but fizzled down the wire. The Caimanes de Barranquilla, who defeated Monteria for the Colombian crown, will advance to the inaugural edition of the Serie de Ls Americas starting Friday in Nicaragua. Whether there will be significant enough roster upheaval (a la the Serie del Caribe) for Dayan to see action in this tournament remains to be seen as there’s no precedent to base assumptions regarding roster construction on.
With this being possibly the final 2024-25 edition of Winter Ball Weekly, I just want to say that I hope you enjoyed this new way of looking at the offseason endeavors of Guardians prospects. Hopefully, there’ll be more of them playing next winter. Guardians pitchers and catchers report in 23 days (with the Cubs getting the 2025 campaign on the road four days earlier), so Spring Training editions of the Prospect Report will be here before you know it.