One Critical Reason to be Hopeful About Guardians' Floundering Hitter

The Cleveland Guardians certainly put a whole lot of faith into Jhonkensy Noel this season, as they opted not to pursue another outfielder in free agency due to Noel's presence in right field.

Yes, the Guardians did swing a trade for Nolan Jones shortly before the 2025 campaign began, but that was more so Cleveland could platoon Noel and Jones.

Noel displayed some prodigious power last season, smashing 13 home runs over 198 plate appearances. He also cracked a huge two-run blast during the Guardians' Game 3 win over the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

However, the 23-year-old had a huge problem with plate discipline, striking out 63 times during the regular season and then fanning an extra eight times across 24 trips to the dish in the playoffs.

As a result, many were wondering if Noel would be ever be able to develop into anything more than a boom-or-bust slugger, and the fact that he is hitting just .160 thus far this year hasn't helped his case.

That being said, Noel has actually showed a reason to be hopeful about his future: he has cut down on his strikeouts rather significantly.

In 10 games this year, the Dominican native has only struck out four times, and Brendan Walsh of Covering the Corner has noted that Noel's chase rate is down 16 percent.

It's as small sample size, obviously, but it's definitely encouraging, especially considering how poor Noel looked at the plate during spring training. Walsh also noted that Noel's exit velocity and hard hit rate are both impressive, indicating that the youngster may be the victim of some bad luck thus far.

Of course, we need to actually see results from Noel before we can start championing him, and through parts of two seasons, he is slashing just .211/.279/.446. That isn't great, and he has yet to hit a long ball in 2025.

But there is no question that Noel has demonstrated some positive signs in the early stages of the season, and the fact that he has immensely trimmed his punchouts is the most consequential one.

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