Rosternomics
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Guardians CLE

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President of baseball ops: Chris Antonetti (since 2016) · GM: Mike Chernoff (since 2016)

2021 roster — every player, value & surplus

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+11.3
WAB — wins above budget
+6.8
TAB — roster Talent above budget
80–82 (0.494)
record
+46M
surplus $M (value/$)
28.5
roster fWAR
$45.4M
payroll
PlayerAgeServiceGfWARSalary $MSurplus $M
José Ramírez 28 FA-elig 152 6.4 9.4 +11.5
Amed Rosario 25 arb 141 2.8 2.4 +6.7
Shane Bieber 26 pre-arb 16 2.5 0.7 +7.4
Emmanuel Clase 23 pre-arb 71 2.2 0.6 +6.4
Myles Straw↔ HOU 26 pre-arb 60 2.1 0.1 +6.5
Cal Quantrill 26 pre-arb 40 1.9 0.6 +5.6
Franmil Reyes 25 pre-arb 115 1.7 0.6 +5.0
César Hernández↔ CHW 31 FA-elig 96 1.5 3.2 +1.5
Bradley Zimmer 28 pre-arb 99 1.4 0.4 +4.2
Triston McKenzie 23 pre-arb 25 1.1 0.4 +3.2
Zach Plesac 26 pre-arb 25 1.0 0.6 +2.7
Aaron Civale 26 pre-arb 21 0.8 0.6 +1.9
Yu Chang 25 – 89 0.8 – –
Andrés Giménez 22 pre-arb 68 0.7 0.3 +1.9
Óscar Mercado 26 pre-arb 72 0.6 0.3 +1.8
Nick Sandlin 24 – 34 0.6 0.5 +1.5
Phil Maton↔ HOU 28 arb 38 0.5 0.6 +1.2
Sam Hentges 24 – 30 0.4 0.5 +0.8
Josh Naylor 24 pre-arb 69 0.4 0.6 +0.6
Ernie Clement 25 – 40 0.4 0.3 +0.9
Eli Morgan 25 – 18 0.3 0.3 +0.8
Bobby Bradley 25 pre-arb 74 0.3 0.4 +0.7
Jordan Luplow↔ TBR 27 – 36 0.3 0.2 +0.9
Austin Hedges 28 FA-elig 88 0.3 3.3 -2.4
Blake Parker 36 FA-elig 47 0.2 0.6 +0.2
Eddie Rosario↔ ATL 29 FA-elig 78 0.2 5.6 -4.9
James Karinchak 25 pre-arb 60 0.2 0.5 +0.1
Anthony Gose 30 pre-arb 6 0.2 0.0 +0.5
Roberto Pérez 32 FA-elig 44 0.1 5.5 -5.2
Oliver Pérez 39 FA-elig 5 0.1 0.1 +0.2
Francisco Pérez 23 – 4 0.1 0.0 +0.2
René Rivera↔ WSN 37 – 21 0.1 0.3 -0.1
Ryan Lavarnway 33 FA-elig 9 0.1 0.1 +0.1
Daniel Johnson 25 pre-arb 30 -0.0 0.2 -0.2
Kyle Nelson 24 pre-arb 10 -0.0 0.1 -0.2
DJ Johnson↔ TBR 31 – 1 -0.0 0.1 -0.2
Wilson Ramos↔ DET 33 FA-elig 9 -0.0 0.4 -0.5
Bryan Shaw 33 FA-elig 81 -0.1 1.0 -1.3
Ben Gamel↔ PIT 29 arb 11 -0.2 0.0 -0.5
Harold Ramírez 26 pre-arb 99 -0.2 0.5 -1.0
Alex Young↔ ARI 27 pre-arb 10 -0.2 0.1 -0.6
Justin Garza 27 – 21 -0.2 0.3 -1.0
Jake Bauers↔ SEA 25 – 43 -0.3 0.1 -1.0
Nick Wittgren 30 arb 60 -0.3 2.0 -3.1
Logan Allen 24 pre-arb 14 -0.5 0.2 -1.8
Trevor Stephan 25 – 43 -0.5 0.6 -2.2
J.C. Mejía 24 – 17 -0.6 – –
Owen Miller 24 – 60 -0.7 0.3 -2.5

48 players appeared (WAR is complete); salary & surplus are on record for 46 of them (96%). Players without a salary show "–" — no single historical salary source is fully complete (especially 2020–2022).

WAR = FanGraphs (fWAR). Green = produced more value than paid (bargain); red = paid more than produced. Service: pre-arb (<3 yr) / arb (3–6) / FA-eligible (6+). Click headers to sort.

History: front-office performance & develop-vs-buy (1985–2024)

Trade ledger (realized WAR, all-time)

Best acquisitions
PlayerYearWAR for CLE
Kenny Lofton199142.5
Corey Kluber201034.6
Grady Sizemore200230.3
Carlos Carrasco200925.5
Travis Hafner200222.3
Carlos Santana200821.6
Michael Brantley200820.0
Shin-Soo Choo200619.2
Ones that got away
PlayerYear tradedWAR elsewhere
Jeff Kent199630.9
Brandon Phillips200630.1
Brian Giles199825.4
Von Hayes198222.3
Yandy Díaz201819.5
Rick Sutcliffe198417.2
Jeromy Burnitz199617.1
Sean Casey199815.9
Rosternomics — quantifying front-office skill, attribution-clean. Follow @rosternomics on X. Decision-makers on record back to 1933; resource-controlled metrics (WAR & payroll) cover 1985–2026.
Data: FanGraphs (WAR), Baseball-Reference & the Chadwick Bureau register (rosters, IDs), the Lahman Database, Baseball America prospect rankings (via The Baseball Cube), and public payroll records. Transaction and trade data was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Executive birth/death data via Wikidata (CC0); bios are original. Emoji graphics by OpenMoji (CC BY-SA 4.0).
All figures are franchise-level outcomes credited to the decision-maker in the acquisition year — not solely attributable to one executive.