Guardians' Front Office Opens Up About Failed Trades

The Cleveland Guardians have been on the winning side of a number of trades over the last five years. The haul they got for Mike Clevinger was a win, Corey Kluber into Emmanuel Clase, and the Aaron Civale for Kyle Manzardo is looking like a positive as well.

However, there have also been a number of trades that they probably wish they could've had back. Cleveland's front office has sent away the likes of Yandy Diaz, Nolan Jones, Will Benson, and Junior Caminero.

Chris Antonetti didn't shy away about how poor some of these moves were. “That’s a bad trade,” he said when specifically talking about the Caminero deal.

Cleveland's President of Baseball Operations then went into more detail about how they look back at these moves and try to learn from them:

"I think one of the things we always continue to do is learn organizationally from both our successes and things that may not have played out the way we had hoped. The list is a lot longer than that on opportunities to learn. I think they’re all individual circumstances. Decisions were made whether they were on managing the roster, some were about how do we create playing time. So, each of those decisions, there’s an opportunity to learn."

Diaz has gone on to win two batting titles since moving on from the Cleveland organization. Benson found his swing after getting consistent playing time and was part of the start-up Reds who narrowly missed the playoffs. Jones continues to mash home runs in the Rocky Mountains and will likely be a National League Rookie of the Year contender this season.

That's a hard pill to swallow knowing they were all in Cleveland's lineup at one point.

The reason that these trades hurt so much is that each of these players has provided a significant amount of offense to their new teams. The Guardians on the other hand have had an underwhelming offense that lacks power.

Ironically, each of the players they traded away has the skillset Cleveland seeks to add this offseason.